Dread Ghoul

For I had known ever since it had first been upon mine lips:

O hunger, o hunger.

There are few members of the so-described Living Dead more canny and cruel than the dread ghoul, a creature unique to the demiplane above that of ghasts and even ghoul lords. They alone may suppress their ghoulish mien to transform into a form seemingly “alive”—for a time. Though this may grant the dread ghoul untold ability to infiltrate into humanoid societies, no dark gift is without consequence beyond the Misty Border and these beasts bear no exception. When transformed, their hunger simmers under the surface; latent, watching and never satisfied. Should the dread ghoul ever fail to fulfill their appetites—and with ever-shifting palates, this may as well be inevitable—the monster formerly lurking bursts from them though shedding a second skin, no less mad and ravenous than the starving carrion feeders they would have once decried as “lesser” kin, stopping not until there is naught left but them and hunger.

Description

When transformed, the dread ghoul is a vision of who they were in life—they espouse no obvious signs of undeath other than a lack of aging. They undulate, produce breath steam and their blood is likewise “warm”, though becomes cool and black mere moments after it leaves their bodies. Any scar or impairment they had prior to death are also present, though the supernatural strength and dexterity which follows into transformation compensates unless the dread ghoul feigns continued disability.

As the ghoul, their complexion becomes pale, gaunt and severe, with enormous, keratinous claws extending from every fingertip. These beasts are built lean, even emaciated; most identifiable are the white, hateful state of their eyes, burning like bright coals in the dark. Their teeth are inhumanly sharp, designed to rip through flesh though each its own butcher’s blade. Their tongues are likewise long, lashed things, latching on to suck away ichor and marrow.

There is a distinct repugnant odor which collects around these monsters when not transformed, no doubt consequence of their savagery, and never does this come clean. Even when transformed, though they cease to emit any peculiar odor to others, the dread ghoul, worrying after them anyway, often wears heavy perfumes or colognes in an effort to mask this for themselves and always ever only to middling effect.

Creation

The mechanism by way a dread ghoul occurs is consistent and simple—they are the end result whenever a soul sufficiently strong or interesting to the Mists succumbs to ghoul fever, the same terrible disease which creates the common ghoul and ghast. How an individual may contract ghoul fever changes—most often, it is an affliction given to victims that survive a ghoul attack and are bitten, yet may also spontaneously manifest an individual who begins feasting routinely from the dead in a dishonorable way, typical of cannibals or, more tragically, desperate survival.

Nevertheless once contracted ghoul fever is terminal until the sufferer dies or is cured. The primary symptom of this disease other than bloodshot eyes and the fever itself is the wasting hunger precipitated from it—a sufferer is doomed to feel ever starving for red meat until they perish from this imagined “starvation”, no matter their actual intake of food and physically full bellies.

Ghoul fever is a supernatural disease and cannot be cured other than with restoration for this reason; even upon receipt of restoration, the sufferer must succeed at a DC 17 Will save as they smother the dark urges bubbling up from within themselves or else their symptoms will only be staved away than the disease cured. Further restoration attempts will not roll to cure for 48 hours IRT.

Strong willed suffers may survive with ghoul fever for weeks, even a few months, but none ever defeat this pox without intervention. Assuming their body is not destroyed, they will rise as a dread ghoul 3 days later IRT. The dual natures of such creatures work to ensure they rise transformed and apparently alive—stories of spontaneous, miraculous “resurrections” are not uncommon in the Realms of Terror, often framed that way by the nascent dread ghoul themselves, but the Craving is never long behind.

Feeding

A dread ghoul is unlike the common ghoul and ghast in they cannot sustain themselves solely on carrion. Their simplest hunger persists in needing 20lbs of red meat be it dead, alive or rotting per day to placate this unsophisticated need. Diligent dread ghouls are able to fulfill this requirement while transformed, though there is always an element of foreign excitement around food that makes keeping appearances difficult, as they oft lack the patience to wait until such food is prepared in a manner tenable to politeness as opposed to raw and still bleeding.

More troublesome is their need for complex, sentient flesh—a dread ghoul must again eat 20lbs of this meat once a week or the ghoul will be forced out and sent into a hungry frenzy until satiated. Unlike vampires, their quarries need not be alive to honor the Craving, but many dread ghouls find their palates ever-shifting such that rationing victims to last them long is not effective—evidence, perhaps, that the dread ghoul requires thrill in the immediate harvest to pass muster.

Should the dread ghoul be denied in excess of their hungry frenzy and its immediate fallout, they will enter stasis until food of any kind presents itself, whereupon they will immediately “awaken” and attack until it is eaten or the dread ghoul destroyed. Ironically, a dread ghoul can never actually starve.

Habitat/Society

Due to their dual natures, a dread ghoul is attracted to any environment familiar to them when they were alive, and this is unlike the common ghoul or ghast who range outside their territories around graveyards and other sites of mass death only in search of food. In this way dread ghouls are found wherever society is found, as their more sophisticated appetites urge proximity to quarry.

Dread ghouls, though frequently responsible for how others may become one outside of their own appetites, are not social and do not espouse clannish behavior like the next most humanoid undead, the vampire. Many find the primitive and savage “lifestyle” of the common ghoul and ghast as affronting to their transformed sensibilities, despite that they themselves become far more destructive monsters when allowed to behave as they really are.

A dread ghoul may preternaturally identify another of their “kin” even if both are transformed. Should their palates diverge enough to be complementary, they may even endure each other’s presence. However, as creatures thrust along by selfish compulsion, hunger and other hedonisms, these partnerships are scarce to last. After all, it is more than possible for a dread ghoul to cannibalize another—and they may even find they like the taste.

A dread ghoul is sterile even when transformed; there is little doubt that this is but a small mercy in the Realms of Terror.

Likewise, the dread ghoul is unlikely to aspire to create more of themselves since there is no way of knowing whether a bitten victim will rise as a subjugated common ghoul or ghast and not potential, independent competition in another dread ghoul. This is fortunate for societies infiltrated by these deleterious creatures, as a single dread ghoul is not likely to give rise to an infestation unless cornered and starving…

… but they are always starving, aren’t they?

Pathos/Combat

Though adept ghouls cajole and manipulate the living into believing their transformed selves are still like them—some even espouse personalities so separate from the monster within as to be two people—the truth is far less:

They are slaves to the Craving.

The Craving is their god before all gods; the Craving is the altar upon which only hunger may worship; the Craving is what gives definition to their facsimile of life, will be there at their side when they reveal—not become—the beast that had always been. And what is the Craving, really?

It is bottomless.

Dread ghouls are ambush predators, keen to advantage the alone and unwary. They are dexterous, not strong for an undead, and unless forced to let go of any lingering pretense such to be feral, destructive engines of hunger doing away with any question about who they are and what they want, they are masters of sudden, overwhelming force.

These creatures like to vacillate between pride for the immortality their existence affords them and turgid, ugly jealousy for the well and and truly alive, usually when excited by the Craving and helpless but to answer it. When a dread ghoul is “in control”, they are coy and glib—when confronted, they are but instinct and vitriol.

Though difficult, dread ghouls usually preserve enough presence of mind to flee when faced with insurmountable odds. This creates beasts who are frustratingly elusive and difficult to rout until salient weaknesses are brought to bear so to force the ghoul out when transformed.

Weaknesses

The dread ghoul has few common weaknesses or allergens, even less when transformed. They retain discomfort around fire and aversion to platinum in both forms; great, mortal distress may also provoke the ghoul to reveal itself so to prevent their destruction.

They are more affected by salient weaknesses—a dread ghoul who is a Bard may take such great offense at another’s performance of character that they will devour them believing that only this will maintain their “perfect” voice, for example. In the presence of salient weaknesses, it is only a matter of time before any fake pleasantries dissolve away into the Mists.

Dread ghouls denied their feedings become increasingly frantic, propelled only towards the swiftest resolution to the Craving even at the expense of former sense. They cannot transform until satiated.

They are destroyed through annihilation, as their undeath will restore them however slowly unless utter and total, typically with fire. A dread ghoul who lacks a head or otherwise cannot feed will enter stasis until the first ability and opportunity presents itself. Regeneration from a torso takes weeks; if they are only missing a head, then days.

Dread Ghouls in The Domains of Dread

Dread ghoul is an applied template with no associated MT cost, nor special considerations in the application process. It may be applied to existing player characters who have been bitten and died of ghoul fever, or as the result of spontaneous manifest in dishonorable cannibals.

Template Adjustments

Attributes
STR +2
DEX +6
CON ∅ (10)
INT +2
WIS +2
PRS +4