Ghost Eater Ghorhoth of the Steppe
It was a beautiful day in the Galapagos dimension, with the suns shining brightly through the crystal blue water and every manner of sea creature happily mutating their way through life, when the silence was shattered by a huge blast, then another, then another. A boat full of evil poachers was casting explosion curses in the reef cities to stun all the sea creatures and collect the valuable ones to sell to wealthy cats and morally compromised pharmacists. What the poachers didn’t realize was that the blasts woke the mighty Cthulhu, Ghorhoth, up from his ten thousand year slumber and boy was he IRRITABLE.
As soon as Ghorhoth saw what the poachers were doing he beat them to a bloody pulp, destroyed their ship, and returned the stunned sea creatures back to their homes. He brought the poachers ashore to face justice, but the clever poachers insisted they were only talking to the sea creatures, and it was actually Ghorhoth who attacked the reef, beat them up, and wrecked their boat for no reason. Because Ghorhoth’s face is so gross the villagers believed the poachers and chased Ghorhoth back to the sea before sending a raven blast across the land, canceling him for his purported animal cruelty and vandalism.
When Billy heard about an octopus faced animal abuser at large, he ported to the Galapagos Dimension and tracked Ghorhoth to his underwater cave to kick his ass. Ghorhoth told him what had really happened that day at the reefs and it seemed to Billy that he was being honest. Then a school of young neighborhood fish swam up and told Billy that Ghorhoth was telling the truth, that he took care of them, and that if Billy wanted Ghorhoth he would have to go through them first. It was then that Billy knew Ghorhoth loves animals and animals love him so the two of them set out together to find the poachers. When they tracked them down they were milking male unicorns in the mountains, and Billy and Ghorhoth had so much fun whaling on them that Ghorhoth asked to be Billy’s permanent sidekick and Billy agreed. They ported back to the castle and have been best buds ever since.
Because Ghorhoth has been asleep for 10,000 years, everything in the world is new and exciting to him compared to the disgusting/depressing alternatives that existed last time he was awake, which he LOVES talking about even though it always prompts the crew to make old man jokes about him. Sometimes it seems like he asks stupid questions, but when Billy has to spell things out for him, it often helps illustrate the problem from a different perspective and leads to breaks in the case.
Ghorhoth is so loyal to Billy he defends him even if he’s not under attack. Nobody is too tough or too harmless for Ghorhoth to get up in their face if he thinks they’re being insufficiently respectful to his best pal. At the same time he’s also super competitive with Billy and gets butt hurt when he loses at any game or sport or bar bet they engage in.
Like his octopus cousins, Ghorhoth’s face arms (he will correct you if you call them tentacles) have complex networks of neurons running through them as well as hundreds of highly sensitive suckers which, if placed on someone’s pulse points, can tell if they’re lying or not. The process looks and sounds like a very disgusting kiss and leaves a slimy mess behind. He can also stretch his face arms up to three times the length of his body. Beyond just lie detection, Ghorhoth’s face arms act as psychic antennae, delivering dreams from other times and places which almost always turn out to be at least partly true, and all of them are set to songs like Dream Weaver by Gary Wright, Dream Police by Cheap Trick, Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This by the Eurythmics, Dream On by Aerosmith, etc.
Ghorhoth is single and after a 10,000 year slumber he is very ready to mingle, but he’s also super naive and tries too hard when he thinks he’s found a prospective mate, which is awkward and hilarious. He somehow manages to be respectful and disrespectful at the same time, which some lady some day may be able to cope with, but she would have to be very patient and completely nose deaf.
While Billy is stoic, Ghorhoth is unruly. And while Billy is driven by facts, Ghorhoth goes with his gut. Billy can be serious sometimes but Ghorhoth keeps things light. Billy has a cool minimalist style while Ghorhoth is gaudy and has no real aesthetic to speak of. While Billy loves old tough guy macho man movies, Ghorhoth loves campy 1950s-1990s horror and sci-fi B-Movies where the monsters and aliens are portrayed as bad guys, like It Came From Beneath the Sea, The Call of Cthulu, Night of the Living Dead, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, or The Brain Eaters. He really relates to the stereotyping and persecution so he listens to the movies at top volume in the hope it drowns out his sobs, which it doesn’t.
Ghorhoth enjoys cartoons of all types for all ages but he doesn’t know they’re cartoons, he thinks they’re regular shows from a cartoon dimension. He’s also addicted to gaming, spending too much of his downtime playing RPG Games, Card Games, and Video Games. His face arms are more sensitive and dexterous than a human’s fingers so he’s exceptionally good with video game controllers and close up magic, which is his go to after he fucks up, like “sorry about your dog, wait what’s that behind your ear?” He’s only been awake for 15 years this time so even though he’s technically millions of years old he acts more like a teenager in this strange new world.
Ghorhoth isn’t big on time travel so when Billy goes off through time he stays back at the castle and gets loopy on stuff from Zelda’s potion closet with the Impling or looks for souls with Alatar, and if he’s really desperate he’ll talk to the Goon but that guy’s kind of pretentious. What he really loves doing is relaxing in the giant salt water bathtub he has in his room, letting his face arms exfoliate each other and playing with his three headed eel Cerberus.
Ghorhoth always oversleeps and gets really cranky when he’s woken up. He could fall asleep in a war zone if it was nap time, but if one of those bombs managed to wake him up, both sides would lose. Because of Cthulhus’ close connection to the stars, Ghorhoth’s Horoscope is always right and he will make up his mind about people based on their astrological signs, which is why he’s constantly asking new people when their birthdays are.
Every time he wakes from a long slumber, Ghorhoth discovers a new generation of cult members who worship him like a god, each group stupider than the last. The current cult calls itself The Ghoths and they all dye their dreadlocks green and put them in front-ponytails so they resemble Ghorhoth’s face arms. Any time Ghorhoth does anything moderately cool or godlike they try to sacrifice animals in his honor, but he’s a huge animal lover so he always manages to stop them before any daggers plunge where they shouldn’t. No matter how many times he tells them to stop they always wind up trying to slaughter something for some dumb reason. It’s a huge waste of time and pain in the ass. If one of the Ghoths actually sees Ghorhoth in person they immediately drop to their knees and start rapping The Ghorhoth Anthem (pt. II) and do all the hand gestures, which never ceases to humiliate him. There have been times when he was so desperate to crack a case that he’s tried to enlist his worshippers to help but without exception they always make everything worse. Billy constantly makes fun of Ghorhoth’s cult following and calls him Supreme Leader sometimes just to annoy him.
Before Billy met Ghorhoth he had lamented into the Void that he needed a sidekick, and when Ghorhoth arrived Billy offered thanks.. The Void told him he wasn’t granting Billy’s wish for a sidekick, he was granting Ghorhoth’s wish for a purpose: after a 10,000 year slumber he was having a bit of an existential crisis and needed some direction.
Ghorhoth is the only creature in 1000 universes who can drink as much as Billy and stay standing. He’s a boisterous drunk who loves a good story and a good scrap. When he’s drunk he has a lot of questions about how the modern world works and when he’s really drunk he gets emotional about what he left behind 10,000 years earlier.
As a creature of the ocean, Ghorhoth’s waterborne magic is strongest, and when he really focuses he can manipulate water, steam, and ice like that idiot from the wonder twins. In addition to his telepathic face, Ghorhoth has the body of a dragon which gives him extraordinary strength and resilience, as well as a natural immunity from hexes and the ability to quickly regrow severed limbs. His dragon wings aren’t quite big or strong enough to let him fly but they kind of help him jump farther, like a chicken hopping away from a farmer.
One downside of being a waterborne creature is that when he’s on land Ghorhoth has to stay super hydrated all the time, so he drinks water nonstop and therefore has to pee every five minutes. He fly-runs to the bathroom during every commercial break when they’re shooting the show, and while he’s never had to go in the middle of combat, he ALWAYS has to go immediately after combat. And then he drinks more water. It’s like a ritual with him every single time. And it’s not just about hydrating the inside, he uses buckets of this special cocoa butter moisturizer that he “can only get at home,” so he stocks up every time he goes back to the Galapagos Dimension. It’s in everyone’s best interest to keep him supple because when his skin gets too dry he leaves huge flakes of it everywhere he goes. Everyone finds it nauseating but they know it’s really embarrassing to him so they’re very sensitive about not making jokes about it to his face.
Written by Rob Anderson with Tim Smith
Entered by: 0x279c…43cd
