Early Access
Ghouls are humanoid creatures that dine on human flesh. Many are little more than feral beasts who can speak, but a rare few ghoul populations are more refined. These wear clothes, have language and sophisticated customs, live in grand subterranean cities of their own design, and fight with milk-white blades of bone. These civilized ghouls claim by ancient custom that they hold dominion over the remains of all humans, even if they only sometimes assert that privilege.
Ghouls spend almost as much time beneath the ground as corpses do, but ghouls are very much alive. Their bodies are hairless and so porcelain-smooth that their faces are sometimes mistaken for masks, albeit gore-smeared masks. Ghouls come to the surface at night to gather humanoid remains or steal those recently interred from their graves, though many prefer to eat from still-living victims. They eat the dead in order to absorb residual memories left in the corpses.
Civilized ghouls are rare and live in subterranean cities. The primary purpose of each city is to maintain a massive central library filled with winding scrolls printed on vellum pressed from the skin of the dead.
Motive: Hunger (for dead flesh), knowledge (in certain rare cases)
Environment: Anywhere aboveground at night, usually in groups of three or more, or in subterranean lairs
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound
Movement: Short
Modifications: Two areas of knowledge (such as history, philosophy, or religion) as level 5
Combat: Ghoul saliva contains a paralytic agent. Ghoul bites (and weapons used by ghouls) inflict damage and paralyze the foe on a failed Might defense roll. A paralyzed target can attempt a new Might defense roll each round to regain mobility; even after a success, the creature’s tasks are hindered until they use a ten-minute or longer recovery.
Ghouls can see in the dark. They’re blind in full daylight, but civilized ghouls who travel to the surface carry lenses that cover their eyes, allowing them to see without penalty in full sunlight.
Interaction: Common ghouls can’t be negotiated with, though the rare civilized ghoul is an excellent linguist. These latter are willing to make deals with surface dwellers in exchange for the body of someone who was knowledgeable or who kept valuable secrets in life.
Use: If a PC needs a piece of information not otherwise obtainable, a trip down into a ghoul city might be worthwhile, for the creatures are rumored to keep lightless libraries below the earth that store knowledge once known by humans.
Loot: If the PCs defeat a group of civilized ghouls, they might find a manifest cypher and a few sets of black goggles that allow the wearer to look directly at the sun and see it as a pale circle.
Some packs of ghouls (particularly in the fantasy genre) are undead; they are immune to attacks that only affect living creatures.
GM Intrusion: The ghoul spits in the character’s eye, directly introducing the paralytic into the victim’s bloodstream; the Might defense roll to resist the poison is hindered.