Snow White Hills Blood Bowl Chronicles

It seems likely that these creatures were once Human, just as the storytellers say. Contemporary accounts from Sylvania indicate that even prior to the coming of Vlad von Carstein, and his introduction of the curse of Vampirism to Sylvania, the first Ghouls were already abroad. Even before the days when the nobility of the land were predominantly Vampires, the local Lords still abused and neglected their peasants. Many ordinary folk preferred to eat Human flesh rather than starve. Almost certainly they were wrong to do so, but they were desperate. They and their descendants paid their price for their folly, their lineage cursed forever, their forms degenerate and their eating habits as abhorrent as ever. Some of them took service with the von Carsteins when Vlad took Sylvania as his own; others follow Vampires and their retinues unbidden, anticipating good eating when the Undead are abroad. Still others skulk in the shadows, retaining a complete independence from the Vampires who rule Sylvania. It is perhaps those independents that have been at the vanguard of the Ghoul migration out from Sylvania and into the rest of the Old World. However it occurred, the Empire is now plagued by these most unpleasant creatures.: — Heinrich Malz, High Priest of Verena, Nuln.