ghouls

by Eron12 with Heroforge

-Magnati, independent necromancer

"Ghouls are the most powerful of the so called 'common undead'. It requires a master necromancer to make them, but they only take about ten minutes of casting and a modest input of reagents.
Ghouls are stronger and faster than even enhanced zombies. They are not geniuses but they are not morons either. Ghouls will attempt stealth and simple ambushes of their volition.

Ghouls can detect and circumvent obvious traps that would catch many zombies. Ghouls can correctly identify which opponents are strongest and they will will apply team tactics against opponents that they cannot beat individually. Ghouls will make a strategic retreat if they are clearly outmatched.
Ghouls, unlike other undead, can heal wounds on their own with rest, though not very fast.
Ghouls carry ghoul fever and can potentially infect people and create new ghouls. Ghouls not in the control of the necromancer that created the infecting ghoul. Some necromancers view ghoul fever as an advantage and some view this as an unwanted risk factor.
A more important drawback is that ghouls need to periodically eat flesh, preferably mortal flesh. Ghouls will start showing minor mental and physical weaknesses after a week with no feeding and will be nigh uncontrollable after a month without feeding. zombies and skeletons do not require food at all and can stand ready for a century or more.
But the real drawback of ghouls is that they mostly obey their creator's orders compared to skeletons and zombies who completely obey their creators.
Given that most necromancers are used to complete obedience, even slight deviance from orders is intolerable. This is why even many necromancers capable of creating ghouls often decide not to bother with them.
Ghouls will not turn on their masters and attack them or anything cliched like that. Any necromancer who survives long enough to gain the ability to create ghouls knows how to put in magical safeguards against rogue undead attacking them.
But ghouls can still slip the leash in other ways. The very same increased intelligence that lets ghouls solve problems on their own means they can become bored or distracted. Ghouls make lousy guards for this reason.
Ghouls are also lousy for retrievals. Ghouls are great if you want to kill everyone in an area, but they don't like to take prisoners. 'Kill the guards and bring me the young prince alive!' is a type of order a ghoul might mess up on.
They also don't work well fighting side-by-side with living soldiers. They won't attack their master but they might attack their master's allies.
As a necromancer you can mitigate this by traveling with the ghouls and assigning them specific targets ('kill this one not that one'), but most necromancer don't want to be on the front lines like this. Also, well-fed ghouls are better able to follow specifically worded orders than hungry ghouls.

by Eron12 with Hero Forge

-Daana, Defender of the Hearth, Paladin

"Be especially careful of 'random ghoul attacks'. It is possible for ghouls to attack randomly and these attacks need to stopped forthwith, random ghouls attacks are usually anything but random. Typically, a necromancer is making a loud seemingly random attack in one area to draw attention from his true subtler goal elsewhere."

Causes

Most ghouls are created by necromancers deliberately setting out to make a ghoul. Ghouls can be created by any theurgist with Necromancy ●●●●● or an arcane necromancer with the spell Create Greater Undead.
To be turned into a ghoul, a corpse needs to be relatively fresh and mostly intact.
Ghouls occasionally arise when a person dies directly of ghoul fever rather than dying from complications caused by ghoul fever.

Symptoms

Even apart from the fact that they are moving, ghouls do not look like ordinary dead bodies.
Ghouls usually reek of rotting flesh, but they aren't themselves rotting. Their skin is usually pale and clammy.
Ghouls tend to have sharper teeth than their base species. Their facial features take a predatory vaguely canine look. Ghouls tend to have sinister red eyes.

Treatment

There are ways to cure a living person ghoul fever and return them to normal, but ghouls are already dead. For a full on ghoul, curing a ghoul is the same thing as killing them.

Ghoul Stats
Typical Ghoul Strength 6, Dexterity 3, Stamina 5, Charisma 1, Manipulation 2, Appearance 0, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 2 Abilities: Alertness 2, Athletics 3, Brawl 4, Dodge 3, Investigation 1, Stealth 2, Survival 1 (+1 tracking) OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, -1, -3, Destroyed 5 dice soak
Ghouls do not suffer penalties for attacking armed opponents and they can parry melee attacks with their bare hands at no penalty.
Ghouls carry ghoul fever.
Ghouls inflict lethal damage with their punches and kicks.
Their bites inflict Strength +2 damage, but they need to intiate a grapple to do it.

Type

Magical

Parent

ghoul fever

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare