Ghouls and Alghouls

As for the genesis of ghouls, there are hypotheses aplenty. Some scholars claim these monstrosities arose from scoundrels who indulged in a taste for human flesh and for this misdeed drew the wrath of the heavens down upon themselves. The gods punished them by taking away their souls, their minds and their human forms.

My experiments have shown, however, that ghoul anatomy displays far too little in common with that of humans for this thesis to seem at all probable. Any and all similarity in appearance between ghouls and men, such as their somewhat kindred shapes and the measures of their physiognomies, are pure matters of incidental circumstance. It thus follows that ghouls, like their vile cousins the alghouls, are post-Conjunction creatures – that is to say, such beings as came to our universe in an abrupt cataclysm disrupting the normal laws of nature.