Dekades8 on Devinatart

I feel a little silly including ghouls in my series of Undead revisions, since my model for this project, Arnold K's Monstrome, contains an extensive entry and my vision for this monster overlaps significantly with his. Nevertheless, ghouls are one of my all-time favorite classic D&D monsters and I want to crystalize my ideas in text (for my own use if for no other purpose).

Ghouls are an excellent utility monster that I find myself reaching for again and again while stocking my dungeons. With their multiple attacks and paralyzing touch, they are an absolute nightmare for players and remain a real challenge even for parties well above their level. 

Paralysis Death Spiral

I play in an OSE Arden Vul campaign and we recently encountered a mixed pack of ghouls and ghasts. Being a mid-level party and filled with hubris, we foolishly believed we could tank our way through. In one round, we were utterly thrashed, our best fighters paralyzed and several characters killed. We fled with half our number still living and a burning desire for vengeance. We came back, better prepared, and they kicked our asses again. This seems typical.

Ghoul's combat prowess borders on the unfair. A lot of people, both players and DMs don't like the brutality of Ghouls. Arnold removed their paralysis effect replacing it with a fear mechanic, saying "I don’t like how paralysis can disable half the party in a single turn, creating an instant death spiral (especially when surprise is involved), so I think this is a good change."  I disagree.

Ghoul's overwhelming abilities creates a fear and hatred of them that emotionally impacts the players in a way that few other monsters do. Having just experienced this, the frustration of rapidly losing characters that we'd spent months advancing, is fresh in my mind. When (on the third attempt) we finally beat them with an elaborate barbed-wire, tower-defense style ambush the sense of victory was incredible. 

A ridiculously overpowered, perhaps even un-fun, enemy from time to time adds something special to the game. It's exciting to have something to really fear.

Hot Springs Island

Weaknesses

For all their lethality, ghouls are not that tough themselves. They typically don't have armor and with just two hit-dice, they fall pretty quickly once attacked. On average, they have single digit hit points. 

According to the 1e Monster Manual: "These creatures are subject to all attack forms except sleep and charm spells. They can be turned by clerics. The magic circle of protection from evil keeps these monsters completely at bay." 

In a different game I play in (in Stonehell) we encountered a ghoul infested area with a 7th level cleric and a paladin in the party. They melted like snow. 

Ghouls

Armor Class: 10 - unarmored with a couple points of Dex bonus. 

Hit Dice: 2d8 (HP9)

Attacks: 

• 2x claw, +0 to hit, d3 damage and save vs. paralysis
• 1x bite, +0 to hit, d6 damage

Paralysis: Characters must save vs. paralysis only once per round, even if they are hit by numerous ghoul claws. On a failed save, creatures are fully paralyzed for one turn. 

Move: Usually, speed of un-encumbered human. When starving, they are much faster and climb as well as a monkey.

Saves: 15+

Morale: Depends on how hungry they are. See Tactics below. 

Number Appearing: 1d6 usually (or sometimes huge packs of 20+)

Common Knowledge

Ghouls are insatiable eaters of human flesh. Sometimes they attack with mindless, feral ferocity, other times they are crafty ambushers. Even a scratch from a ghoul's claws will cause your body to lock into premature rigor-mortis and they will consume you, fully conscious as you scream through gritted teeth.

Tactics

The signature ghoul tactic is to drag away the first person paralyzed, trying to disengage with their prize. This creates a terrible choice for players -- let that person go, to be eaten alive while the rest of the group survives, or, continue the fight with the ghouls and risk the dreaded paralysis-death-spiral. 

eemeling

Well Fed: Their tactics will vary. They might set clever traps. They'll target the light. They might extort parties, granting passage in exchange for a retainer or two. They might even hire on as a henchman in exchange for a steady diet of corpses. They have the restraint to seek easy prey and avoid obviously strong opponents. Morale 7.

marklaszlo666

Starved: They will race toward any living creature, heedless of danger and begin feeding the moment a target is immobilized, ignoring any attacks against them. In some ways, this makes them easier to fight, but if someone falls prey to paralysis they will be dispatched at the ghouls next action, making rescue difficult. This is the kind of ghoul found locked in crypts. Morale 12.

Biology

Ghouls used to be human but in their undeath their bodies have warped into an exaggerated form. Enlarged mouths, jaws filled with the bone-crunching teeth of hyenas. Over-long arms, wickedly extended claws. 

It's unclear what exactly creates ghouls. Some seem to be an evolved form of zombie, perhaps the ones that eat enough flesh to stave off decay and develop a more cunning predator mind. In other cases, they seem to generate spontaneously from long dead corpses -- their cunning souls clawing their way into this reality from the abyss between worlds where the undead originate. The theory advanced by some, that ghouls are spread by infecting living people with their bites, seems unlikely given that ghouls rapidly and completely consume any person that comes into their grasp. 

Ghouls can't die from starvation. Instead, they become progressively more deranged by hunger until they are withered and emaciated, frantic and unthinking.  

The more people they eat, the smarter they are. 

A well-fed ghoul (one that is eating at least one person per week) is as smart as you are but wholly focused on finding more flesh to eat. These are easily recognized by their grotesquely distended belly.

Starved ghouls (which haven't eaten in years) will be mindless and frantic. These will always be locked away, because if there's any possibility of finding food, a ghoul will discover it. 

Most ghouls encountered will be somewhere on the spectrum between these two. Their intelligence is likely to be better than a dog's but with pure focus on predation and a knack for clever tool use. 

Psychology

Ghouls are defined by their ever-present, excruciating hunger. They don't want to fight. They aren't mad. They just want to eat you. They prioritize: 

1. Living people - they prefer meat with a pulse
2. Dead people - once dead they don't care how decayed
3. Animals - mostly just mammals. No reptiles, birds or bugs

The basic ranking of these is consistent but the relative value might vary. One ghoul will trade your paralyzed friend for all of your party's mules, but another will turn their nose up at a wagon-load of corpses in preference for a single bite of your arm.

Toshihiko Ikeda

They won't eat anything undead (even if it's re-dead). The only exception is other ghouls.

When they are sufficiently satiated to think, ghouls are amoral and pragmatic. Their tolerance for risk is highly variable.

Culture

To the extent that ghouls have culture, it's as a hunting pack. They only associate with others, if they believe teamwork will be more effective in securing food than going at it alone.

You could probably keep a ghoul as a servant if you fed it reliably. They don't tend to be proud and they'll willing give up their freedom for fresh flesh. Be forewarned: it's a delicate balance feeding a ghoul. Too little and you'll look tasty. Too much and they'll get clever enough to start scheming.

Ozy

Ghouls sometimes pray to Yeenoghu and she answers their petitions. A ghoul saying grace is grisly. 

Encounter Design

Ambushes are where ghouls really shine: 

• They hide in the rafters, ready with nooses and grappling hooks.
• They wait under the mud in a swamp.
• They burst from the plastered walls.
• They wait at the end of a long tunnel swim or a difficult climb.
• Let's say you wanted to leave a nasty surprise for tomb-robbers. Round up some ghouls (easier said than done) and stuff them in locked sarcophagi. They'll stay in there forever, getting crazier and hungrier until someone pops the lid.

A few other options:

• The Ghoul Gate: If you wish to pass unmolested, you must pay the toll. Just leave one person per week in the adjoining alcove. They should be healthy but bound or sedated. 
• A bridge crosses a room packed with desiccated ghouls like fish in a tin. They're inactive now, but if one single drop of blood touches them... 
• They're in a pit trap. They have a map and sack of gold (and enough cover that you can't just kill them with arrows)
• Digging up the town's graveyard night after night. It's an impressive network of tunnels.
• Are they a faction in your dungeon?

Really there's a million options. Ghoul encounters are fun to make (just try not to make them TOO mean). 

Tracks, Signs and Epiphenomena

Like their clawed hands, ghoul feet are over-sized and their strong-gripping toes are no longer suited for human shoes. Even an amateur tracker can easily recognize their bloody, bare footprints (often paired with a bloody drag mark).

Ghouls consume bodies in their totality, crunching up the bones to savor every gluey drop of marrow. They don't shit (thank the gods) but eventually they messily regurgitate all the bits they can't digest (less great) and these foul smelling-puddles will be an indicator of their presence (though easily mistaken for those left by gnolls).

Adolf Vogel, Der Orchideengarten, 1919, issue 9

If there are ghouls loose, there will be MANY people going missing. 

Cemeteries will be wholly depopulated.

Bloodstains everywhere. Ghouls are messy eaters.

Treasure & Byproducts

Ghouls don't care about wealth so they don't gather it intentionally, but the possessions of their victims tend to accumulate amongst the gnawed bones in their warrens. Expect gold teeth, rings, lockets and funerary jewelry. If your game uses a "Search the Body" table, break it out.

The main thing folks want off a ghoul are those wicked claws. The paralyzing effect lasts for a day or two after the ghoul is dead and lashing a ghoul hand onto a stick makes a gross and effective weapon.

Eating a ghoul will turn you into a ghoul for sure.

Discussion

Ghouls have become a pretty straightforward metaphor for addiction and single-minded obsession. They don't call it "all-consuming" by accident.

Despite my ode to hard, un-fun monsters at the beginning of this post, I have turned the adversarial math down a couple notches. Only having to save once per round makes a big difference.

• Delta provided a summary of Ghouls in the various TSR editions of the game. 
• Dwiz did a round-up of some popular literary inspirations.

All in all, my take hews pretty close to the consensus.