The Creeping Terror
- Intent: Create A Bio-Engineered / Alchemized 'Zombie'
- Image Credit: XX
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Project Blackwing I Here Where Virus Would Be Found
- Name: The Creeping Ghouls
- Designation: Semi-Sentient
- Origins: Dathomir I The Hollow
- Average Lifespan: Eight - Sixteen months
- Estimated Population: Inter-Planetary
- Description: In a simple word: Zombie. The Creeping Ghouls are essentially rotting bags of flesh, a 'living' walking nightmare created to install fear in the hearts of all that suffer the unluckiness to see them in person.
- Breathes: Type I, Type II, Type III, Type IV
- Average Height of Adults: Various (Depends on infected Species)
- Average Length of Adults: N/A
- Skin color: Grey-greenish color typically. Can have a darker hue or blackened flesh (extended rot of tissue)
- Hair color: Various (Depends on infected Species)
- Distinctions: The most notable distinction is the appearance of the Creeping Ghouls. Each Ghoul can vary in appearance due to whatever species they were prior to being infected; regardless of gender. Each Ghoul is distinguished by the rotting appearance of their flesh, the pigmentation of their skin, and the foul stench of death that radiates off them.
- Races: N/A
- Force Sensitivity: Force Dead
- Infectious Bite: The Creeping Ghouls feast on the flesh of living sentients after killing their prey but possess highly enhanced glands that produces extremely infectious saliva. From one simple bite, the infection from the virus that lives through their bodies will pass onto the bitten individual, and the individual will undergo a death process, effectively transforming them into a Creeping Ghoul within minutes. If an individual is killed through a Creeping Ghoul(s) feasting process, and the heart and brain remain unmolested; they can return back to the land of the living as a Creeping Ghoul; regardless of the state of the half-eaten body.
- Intelligence: Each Creeping Ghoul retains their natural state of intelligence they possessed prior to the transformation process. Simply put, they retain their I.Q. Creeping Ghouls can manipulate tools or objects, but not blasters, in advance to capturing their prey. Outside of tool manipulation, they can solve complex problems, almost forming strategical tactics.
- Enhanced Rate of Speed: Creeping Ghouls are extremely fast, enabling them to chase down their prey (food) with relative ease.
- Razor Sharp Teeth: The teeth are sharp enough not only to rip through flesh, and crush bone, but can tear through most known metal materials, which leads to their ability to masticate through most armored suits.
- Elongated Razor Claws: Upon transformation, the flesh on the fingers literally rots away, exposing the bones; and in turn, these bones hardened and sharpen, and grow to an estimated fifteen centimeters, or six inches in length. The finger-like boned claws are sharp enough to tear through most materials, metal or otherwise, in the known galaxy; and literally plow through exposed flesh unchallenged.
- Force Dead: Creeping Ghouls are Force Dead, meaning they cannot be sensed through the Force; however, they cannot be directly affected by Force abilities like mental domination or healings or enhancing attributes.
- Lifespan: Creeping Ghouls have a short lifespan, eight-sixteen months, that is a result of both the virus and the alchemized process. The cause for this is the highly rate of decomposition of the skin, tissues, and other bodily organs.
- Never Sated: Thier need to feed is a weakness to them. It can be stated that they harbor a fast metabolism, but that is not the case. It is more of craving to consume living flesh that leads them to constantly feed. As such, they will not stop, literally unaware of putting themselves in a straight line of danger, trying to reach a source of food.
- Kinetic, Ion, Energy, and Physical Based Attacks: Because the Creeping Ghouls' flesh, tissues, and their organs are constantly deteriorating; it doesn't take much to destroy them, turning them to a pile of decayed flesh.
- Light Side Abilities: Because these Ghouls are a by-product of Sith Alchemy, and that of the Dark Side, they are highly acceptable to Light Side based offensive attacks.
- The Force: Regardless of the infected was able to command the Force when living, in death they cannot. Any remnants of the Force, upon transformation, is ripped away; and those that were gifted with the Force beforehand, deteriorate twice as fast as the virus will attack the midichlorians relentlessly.
- Hive-Minded: Creeping Ghouls will pack together, regardless of what stage of deterioration; and though there is no alpha to lead the 'pack', there is a belief that a Ghoul with a higher intelligence can manipulate other Ghouls; which can lead the 'pack' to follow the alpha regardless, for ill or will.
- Diet: Carnivore
- Communication: Body Language, Guttural Moans and Grunts.
- Technology level: N/A
- Religion/Beliefs: N/A
- General behavior:
- Pack Hunters: Creeping Ghouls tend to pack together, not for survival purposes but for the sole purpose of obtaining food sources. The Ghouls tend to seek out settlements where food is in large abundance.
- Aggressive: Creeping Ghouls are extremely aggressive, which is a product for their need to continuously feed. They are, for a lack of a better description, driven by their need to eat; and will attack anything or anyone they perceive to be food.
- Partial Nocturnal: The Ghouls are not traditionally nocturnal by definition, for they are active during the day as well, but they tend to be more highly active at night than during the day.
During the Sith's conquest of Seswenna, the Sith Lord Darth Moskivn led a small military unit into the underground research facilities, known as the Vaults. Within the labs of this Vault, there were several projects from the old days of the Galactic Empire, and other less known projects to the Imperials, being conducted by agents of Emperor Palpatine, a.k.a. Darth Sidious. It was here, inside one of the Bio-engineering labs, that the Sith Witch stumbled upon the Blackwing Project, and subsequently the Blackwing Virus, or the Sickness. Capturing the files, reports, and several vials of the virus for herself, she returned home to Dathomir, and it was here she went to work to produce a product that would haunt and wrought horror upon the galaxy.
Deep in her lab, The Hollow, she began to study the reports of the Blackwing virus, learning the cause and effects from those that had worked on the project in secrecy. Quickly she deduced the virus itself could be manipulated through Sith Alchemy, but to what purpose; she did not know. What she did know was that she was in possession of several vials of the Blackwing Virus, and that only one small, simple droplet of the virus could turn an individual into a raving and raging monster. So, she had one half of what she needed to conduct her horrifying experiments, she only lacked test subjects.
After procuring more than enough of able 'volunteers' through connections with seedy bounty hunters and criminal organizations, Darth Moskvin was finally set to begin the experiments. Her first attempts where to infect the individual, and whilst the individual was contained in one of the glass tubes in the testing area of The Hollow, she weaved her magic, utilizing her understanding of alchemy; only to discover that once the individual became infected, the alchemy processed was fruitless. Darth Moskvin then decided to alchemize a single droplet of the virus first, injecting the newly alchemized virus into a test subject, and found the initial results satisfactory; she just needed to perfect the virus.
After hard, laboring work she finally produced her version of the Blackwing Virus, and after a few tests she created the Adam and Eve of her zombies, who would later go on give birth to the Creeping Ghouls. She spent several more weeks learning about the monstrosities she created, discovering their strengths and weaknesses the best she could, though she would never fully learn every intricate detail about her pets. With Adam and Eve fully infected, she split the duo up; taking each one to a different planet; and subsequently releasing them upon a distant settlement from major activities like a city.
Adam and Eve infected the settlements, giving her more zombies to capture and relocate to different sectors of the galaxy; where they, like the original copies of Creeping Ghouls, would spread their wings and create more of the abominations. Soon, several planets in the Outer Rim, Mid Rim, and Unknown Space were now infected by the presence and threat of the Creeping Ghouls.
Upon returning to Dathomir, after concluding her experiment and catch and release program, she buried her research data deep in the M'un'rior Bog far away from any thieving scientist or Sith Alchemist. The last infected test subjects back at The Hollow were destroyed in the acid pits or crematories.