Carnal Appetites Of The Death God - Thoughts on the Ecology Of 'The Ghoul' & Nature of Mordiggian

"Mordiggian is the god of Zul-Bha-Sair," said the innkeeper with unctuous solemnity. "He has been the god from years that are lost to man's memory in shadow deeper than the subterranes of his black temple. There is no other god in Zul-Bha-Sair. And all who die within the walls of the city are sacred to Mordiggian. Even the kings and the optimates, at death, are delivered into the hands of his muffled priests. It is the law and the custom. A little while, and the priests will come for your bride."

The Charnel God

Clark Ashton Smith



Scattered across the face of Zothique pyramid ruins dedicated to Mordiggian lay half forgotten in the buried mad sands. The treasures of a million worlds are sacrificed for eternity to the death god. Mummified priests sup with tribes of ghouls in the sacred halls of death & entropy. Pity the poor necromancer who breaks into these crypts & incurs the wraith of the Great Ghoul. 

Millions of years in the far future of Zothique there is only one god of death left under the bloated red sun. It has many titles  "The Great Ghoul", "The Charnel God", and "The Worm that Doth Corrupt"are only  a few of this god's many titles. Mordiggian is the 'worm that doth corrupt'. One of the last alien god things that came after the Ragnarok  end of Earth's gods to suck & feed  through the bones of Earth's last gods. It is the patron father of ghouls & death saint of  the inhabitants of Zul-Bha-Sair".  In that city his purple clad silver masked mysterious priests gather all of the dead across the face of Zothique for him to feed upon. They can not nor will not they be denied their sacred duty to feed their carnal god. 

 The tribes of ghouls trace their origins back beyond  the first Ice Age of Earth  Mordiggian itself dwelt within the Dreamlands. For thousands of years the ghouls dwelt there but then the 'End of the Gods' & the Ragnarok itself signaled for the stars to be right.
The very nature of ghouls are closely tied with humanity's genetics. Every race, colour, & creed on Earth have the potential to become our own monsters. Cannibalism, violence, & entropy are a part of the key.  The final part is  Mordiggian itself. The god is closely tied to the trans cosmic cycles of Earth's ages of resurrection & destruction.



Ghoul tribes came back to Earth & took over vast swaths of the human population in the ancient past & the far future.  "The Cult of Mordiggian is ancient, dating back (according to the Ghouls) to the "Beginning of Days" when the Ghouls were said to have learned the secrets of Black Magic and were thus cast out of Midian, "Ghoul Heaven". These tribes & cults have wormed their way among humanity for as long as there have been humans.
"These figures were seldom completely human, but often approached humanity in varying degree. Most of the bodies, while roughly bipedal, had a forward slumping, and a vaguely canine cast. The texture of the majority was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness.... Occasionally the things were shown leaping through open windows at night, or squatting on the chests of sleepers, worrying at their throats. One canvas showed a ring of them baying about a hanged witch on Gallows Hill, whose dead face held a close kinship to theirs....

"...It was a colossal and nameless blasphemy with glaring red eyes, and it held in bony claws a thing that had been a man, gnawing at the head as a child nibbles at a stick of candy. Its position was a kind of crouch, and as one looked one felt that at any moment it might drop its present prey and seek a juicier morsel. But damn it all, it wasn't even the fiendish subject that made it such an immortal fountain-head of all panic- not that, nor the dog face with its pointed ears, bloodshot eyes, flat nose, and drooling lips. It wasn't the scaly claws nor the mould-caked body nor the half-hooved feet- none of these, though any one of them might well have driven an excitable man to madness...."
— HPL, "Pickman's Model"


Accounts of ghouls go back beyond the days of Mnar,Ib, Sarnath, Illarnek, Thraa, Kadatheron.

"In the Arabic folklore, the ghūl is said to dwell in cemeteries and other uninhabited places. A male ghoul is referred to as ghūl while the female is called ghulah.^[5] A source identified the Arabic ghoul as a female creature who is sometimes called Mother Ghoul (umm ghūla) or a relational term such as Aunt Ghoul.^[6] She is portrayed in many tales luring hapless characters, who are usually men, into her home where she can eat them.^[6]

Some state that a ghoul is a desert-dwelling, shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary people into the desert wastes or abandoned places to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, drinks blood, steals coins, and eats the dead,^[7] then taking the form of the person most recently eaten. One of the narratives identified a ghoul named Ghul-I-Beaban, a particularly monstrous character believed to be inhabiting the wilderness of Afghanistan and Iran"

The dire corner of insanity & occult horror has been deep occult  connection between vampires, ghouls, & Elves. When the ghouls were first created by  Mordiggian the Elves of Earth during the Ages of Magick tolerated their tribes. They provided a useful service by disposing of the corpses of humans & monsters. But then the Ghouls learnt the secrets of Black Magic & shape shifting. Their numbers increased dangerously in the eyes of the tribes of the Sun & Moon. 
War broke out between the nations of Elves & the tribes of the Moon. The campaign to exterminate or pare back the number of ghouls. What we think of certain monstrous ghoul abilities such as their 'paralyzing touch' is actually the entropic energies of their god Mordiggian.
What we think of as the classic Dungeons & Dragons ghoul is actually an adaption of a type of disposable shock troop & occult bio weapon left behind thousands of years ago. This plague was picked up & twisted by the demon god Orcus. Both the nations  of Elves & their various gods dwell in Earth's Dreamlands along with their ancient brothers of war the ghouls. But its Mordiggian who continues its promises of the legacy of the ghoul race as a whole. 

Ghoul from the Monster Manual AD&D first edition
Artwork used without permission copyright
 Wizards of the Coast.

The hundreds or thousands of species & sub species of ghouls are actually the adaptation of the god Mordiggian for its children.  The survival & quasi immortality of the carnal eaters of the dead is both its spiritual promise & salvation. No matter the circumstances the ghoul race will survive. Make no mistake that Mordiggian is a alien god of Chaos & its very nature is that of the demonic outsider. The last of Earth's god's deaths provides the entropic & occult energies that Mordiggian needs for its children.
 

Faramarz kills the shah of demons (ghuls), from the Shah Nameh, 10th century Persian epic of the Kings Asian Collection 

"The Great Ghoul" is literally father & umm ghūla for its children. Its cult has been with us for thousands of years & will be in the millions of years that follow. Its witches walk among us now & its priests tend our grave yards even to this day. Ghul-I-Beaban is his unholy pope who tends the silver masked leaders of the cult who wait beyond the threshold of Earth. It leads his bishops & priests in their unholy rites in praise of his master for Earth's far future 'Salvation' in the Dreamlands. There is a deep connection between Mordiggian & 
But the fate of mankind has happened many times across the planes & this is only one more reflection; 

"The Vanir god Njörðr is mentioned in relation to Ragnarök in stanza 39 of the poem Vafþrúðnismál. In the poem, Odin, disguised as Gagnráðr, faces off with the wise jötunn Vafþrúðnir in a battle of wits. Vafþrúðnismál references Njörðr's status as a hostage during the earlier Æsir–Vanir War, and that he will "come back home among the wise Vanir" at "the doom of men."^[25]

In stanza 44, Odin poses the question to Vafþrúðnir as to who of mankind will survive the "famous" Fimbulwinter ("Mighty Winter"^[26]). Vafþrúðnir responds in stanza 45 that those survivors will be Líf and Lífþrasir,^[27] and that they will hide in the forest of Hoddmímis holt, that they will consume the morning dew, and will produce generations of offspring. In stanza 46, Odin asks what sun will come into the sky after Fenrir has consumed the sun that exists. Vafþrúðnir responds that Sól will bear a daughter before Fenrir assails her, and that after Ragnarök this daughter will continue her mother's path.^[28]

In stanza 51, Vafþrúðnir states that, after Surtr's flames have been sated, Odin's sons Víðarr and Váli will live in the temples of the gods, and that Thor's sons Móði and Magni will possess the hammer Mjolnir. In stanza 52, the disguised Odin asks the jötunn about Odin's own fate. Vafþrúðnir responds that "the wolf" will consume Odin, and that Víðarr will avenge him by sundering its cold jaws in battle. Odin ends the duel with one final question: what did Odin say to his son before preparing his funeral pyre? With this, Vafþrúðnir realizes that he is dealing with none other than Odin, whom he refers to as "the wisest of beings," adding that Odin alone could know this.^[29] Odin's message has been interpreted as a promise of resurrection to Baldr after Ragnarök"

In the end it will be Mordiggian & the his ghouls who will feed on the flesh of Baldr & his godly ilk at the end when the sun rises over Zothique.

References: The 

Cultes des Goules
De Vermis Mysteriis