Once, he was just an ordinary guy, a shaman who helped his people. His name was Shaman Zubin of the Riviera. He was dedicated to helping others, curing their ailments and lifting curses. If your cow stopped giving milk or your chickens ceased laying eggs, you knew exactly whom to turn to.

But one day, everything changed. He was given what seemed like an ordinary task: to perform the funeral rites for a young man who had died several weeks earlier under strange circumstances in the swamps. His body had been gnawed to the bone, as if something had hungrily torn at his flesh, trying to consume every last piece. The entire village whispered that some unknown creature roamed those swamps, and people had long since avoided the area. Only a few brave souls dared to venture there, and not many returned. The deceased's family had offered a large sum of money for the task, and Zubin, who was in dire financial straits (for lifting curses did not pay as well as conducting funerals), accepted the job without hesitation.

He took his staff, donned his green cap, and set out on his journey. It was nearly midnight, for in this village, it was customary to perform the funeral rites at night to ensure the soul departed peacefully. He arrived at the cemetery, where the grave and coffin were supposed to be waiting for him. But as he approached, he saw that the coffin was open, and the body was missing. All that remained were scraps of flesh, a few body parts, and bloodstained fabric. A little further from the grave, he noticed a severed human eye staring at him. Everything Zubin saw screamed at him to run. He immediately sensed that something was terribly wrong. His hair stood on end, and he realized that the wild creature from the swamps might have ventured closer to the village.

He looked toward the fence and saw something horrifying. A figure stood there—human-like but with hooves instead of feet. In its hands, it held the head of the young man he was supposed to bury, greedily gnawing at his face, stripping away the skin and devouring the nose. Zubin was terrified, for the creature before him resembled the monster his mother had described in ancient tales.

"It's a ghoul," he thought to himself. "I need to get out of here," echoed in his mind.

He quietly backed away from the grave, tiptoeing towards the cemetery's exit, trying not to make a sound or look back. He was only about 20 steps away from the gate when he heard a twig snap under his foot. At that moment, his heart began to pound like never before. He bolted toward the exit with all his might but suddenly tripped over a piece of a gravestone and fell.

Darkness... When he opened his eyes, he didn't immediately understand what was happening. An enormous, terrifying figure loomed over him, its face covered in blood. It was rummaging through Zubin's insides, pulling out his intestines and greedily stuffing them into its mouth. Zubin watched in horror, unable to utter a word, as he saw his flesh being stripped from his bones, as his blood drained away, and as he became paralyzed with fear. His once-green cap lay to his right, now soaked in so much blood that it appeared crimson.

Darkness again... He awoke to find that his body no longer had any flesh, only gnawed bones. He felt nothing; all emotions had completely left him. No more fear. No more pain. Nothing.

Only emptiness and an overwhelming hunger remained... He rose and set off toward the village.

No news was ever heard from that village again. Only passing merchants claimed to have seen a white figure with two red glowing eyes near the swamp at night.

And so, a new ghoul was born—a ghoul named Grim Ghoul Zubin of the Thorn.

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