On the Isle of Ealdun, ghouls are legendary, and greatly feared. Products of foul magics, they exist only to feed on the living–and do their master’s bidding.
Undead Products of Necromancy
Ghouls are created by necromancers by summoning spirits, forcing them to inhabit dead bodies and do their bidding. The bodies can have flesh on them, or be bare skeletons. The magical process is extremely painful to the soul, and the only way to lessen that pain for the ghoul to feed on living or recently dead flesh.
As the ghoul consumes the flesh and drinks the blood of its victims, it gains flesh of its own to clothe its own skeleton, or heal what it has. Eventually the ghoul gains the appearance of a pallid, sickly looking human. Even then, the pain and hinger the ghoul experiences being bound to the dead body never goes away.
As the summoned soul wakens in the necromancer’s chosen body–the one the soul had in life or some other–it has all the intelligence and understanding it had in life. It also has an unbearable hatred of its summoner and all living creatures.
Almost every religion on the Isle believes in reincarnation, and the return of the soul to the Mortal Lands. It is that very belief that makes everyone believe that ghouls and the evil magics that create them are total and utter abominations against all that is holy. By summoning the spirit of a dead person and forcing them to inhabit a corpse, the necromancer has interrupted the natural, holy process of that soul’s journey to be judged and return to the living.
That belief–and the very rare magics that allow necromancers to create ghouls–make ghouls extremely rare on the Isle. Cultural and popular myths speak of these abominations, and the atrocities they commit to feed their hunger. Threats of ghouls are used to threaten children and adults alike to behave, and stay away from dark magics.
Unbound Ghasts
Nonetheless, some dark sorcerers press ahead anyway and create ghouls as servants and soldiers. They are intelligent, fearsome in combat and utterly loyal to their master as long as he can maintain control over them.
And that is another reason to fear ghouls. Ghouls are always trying to break free of the control of their master, and if they do, they will immediately attack him and try to consume his flesh and drink his blood. They will do this no matter the cost, and not stop until it is done.
Once that is done, these unbound ghouls will seek to feed on any living creature they can find, and especially humans. On Ealdun, ghouls that have broken their bonds and have no master are called ghasts, and are greatly feared.
Ghasts are smart, crafty, deadly–and have no check on their depravity. Either singly or in groups, they will use all of their intelligence to find and eat their victims. This includes ambushes, traps and even massed combat.
They can be found inhabiting ruins, underground sewers or other hiding areas, where they can hide and stealthily attack. Because of the way they are created, they are mostly found in Southmoor and in the Northern Morrigan Mountains. This is especially true along the Long Moors along the northern coast of the Isle.
Gaming With Ghouls
Using ghouls in an Ealdun campaign can be very interesting. The key is to play up the fear and revulsion that they bring. Too often undead creatures are seen as cannon fodder to PCs, with simple combat encounters.
The reality is that characters would have an immense revulsion and fear of any corporal undead, and especially ghouls–whether they are skeletons, zombie-like with some flesh, or fully fleshed human-like in appearance. Any encounter with a ghoul should force a fear check, no matter how many times they had been encountered before.
For the ghouls themselves, they will obey their masters wishes to the best of their abilities. if this means they get to eat someone, so much the better. The drive to feed is so strong, that in combat, there is a 3 in 6 chance that a ghoul will stop combat to feed on a victim, whether it is living or dead.
I hope this helps explain the way I have ghouls set up in my Ealdun campaign, beyond the simple game mechanics. It gives a reason for combining skeletons, zombies, ghouls and ghasts together into one creature, and some of the motivations they have in the game world.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
Marko ∞
I LOVE this concept — it would serve to explain so much in fantasy, as well as providing a perfect mechanism in game terms to emulate the fear and revulsion that actually seeing something like this in real life would create. Brilliant!
Plus, it converts ghouls from a “run-of-the-mill combat encounter” into something both horrific and memorable — which frankly is something that any GM should be striving for in every encounter! This makes that both easy and logically consistent.
To be perfectly honest, when I first read your thoughts on this, I was a tad skeptical, but the more I think about it and the better I understand it, the more I like it. To the point that I think I’ll be stealing this idea for ghouls in general in all my games, not just anything I run in Ealdun!
Oh, and bonus points for putting the Ghast in “ghastly” finally! 🙂