A concept of a fully undead desert ghoul that I wanted to jot down. Perhaps something to be added upon later. Based on existing literature, blogs, and media on ghouls + my own little spice.
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(The desert wind, she howls)
"Have the dunes shifted again, my friend?"
"Did you lose your path in the storm?" "Do you now you wander in unmarked sands?"
Be wary, my lost one - for it seems you have now entered a forsaken battleground of old, where gemstone tombs and unmarked graves lay hidden in the sands.
The sand in the air had not yet settled from the storm. It flurries through the air in a dim haze. You squint to see the sun had nestled in the distant horizon, between faraway dunes that cradle their yolk. You pause to reorient yourself, resting on a square stone jutting from the earth. Then you notice it. Just ahead and all around you - the wind had parted the sands, bringing to the surface a mass of unmarked stones arranged in a near perfect grid. Gravestones.
By some trick of the eye, you catch a roving form in the dimness. A hooded figure. They sway and lurk close to the ground, moving between the stones. Searching and sifting through dry bones. Through the howling winds their voice breaks through - a gurgling, a whispering, a mewling. Tattered robes hang off a thin-flesh grey form. It moves closer, seeking any morsel of flesh, a drop of blood.
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Ghouls are not some simple graveyard spawn, but they can be. There are many ways to end up as a ghoul - there are a spectrum of ghouls, really.
The one I describe above is probably at the far end of the spectrum, a depraved full-scale graveyard dweller who recalls very little from their past life but feelings of rage, sorrow, and desire - and an unquenchable hunger for flesh. At this end of the spectrum, they are almost zombie-like. What differentiates zombies from ghouls is, of course, their way of becoming. More on this differentiation later.
But desert graveyards are a peculiar thing for ghouls, they seek them out but come to find they are hidden deep in shifting dunes, or the bodies have migrated or dissolved with the sand. It takes a very desperate ghoul to wander off into the empty quarters of the dessert to find a fix. They are usually the type to also get lost and swallowed by the dunes, coming up for air when they smell fresh meat and hear the thumps of moving bodies above. These ghouls have lost all sense of societal mind and could no longer survive living in society.
Some of these ghouls find luck in scavenging mummified graves and tombs (desert mausoleums), or prey on the lost and wandering traveler who doesn't know well enough not to enter desert graveyards unprepared.
Not to be compared to the ghouls who are masters of their desire and obsession, the ones who blend into society - perhaps as the aristocrat or the street rat - the ones who keep their flesh eating tendencies secret. Also not to be compared with the ghoul lords, who have embraced the power of the flesh and grow fat from eating a variety of corpses and flesh.
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Roving through these parts can lead to dangerous encounters indeed. A graveyard spawn, the undead ghoul is no mundane fiend, nor a spicy stand-in for your skeletal encounters. With some old school sensibilities, the ghoul can be added into a game in many ways:
Encountering the Ghoul. The ghoul can be found in these places:
- Old Battlegrounds in the Desert: Where the remnants of ancient warriors lie hidden beneath the ever-shifting sands, an eerie magnet for the presence of malevolent ghouls, drawn to the echoes of past conflicts.
- Decrepit Crypts, Tombs and Mausoleums: Tombs and burial homes carved into the rugged sides of stone mountains. These resting places house many families and buried remains. Those wealthy and determined enough not be violated in their eternal sleep will find themselves in steel and ironclad coffins and sarcophagi.
- City Graveyards: City guards and graveyard workers find themselves busy on many nights fending off a rogue ghoul who has wandered into the city and made their way to the graveyard to pick off remains.
- Abandoned Underground Tunnel Systems: Used in times of violent storms or war, these intricate networks of underground tunnels now serve as eerie haunts for undead ghouls. Lost travelers or intrepid explorers may stumble upon these dark passages, only to encounter the ravenous hunger of lurking ghouls.
- Ghoul nests in Caves and Underground: Foul nests of undead ghouls accumulate in hidden nooks of the terrain, in caves outside cities, or within emptied rooms of a tomb. Accumulating a nest of bones and poor souls.
Photograph of the Egyptian landscape monuments and archaeological sites. Taken in 1858. Title of Work: Égypte et Nubie. British Library
- Little Feast: a bite from a ghoul not only causes physical damage (d4) but the taste of flesh on their tongue enhances their other senses, abilities, speed, and articulation. Taking 1 permanent point away from strength, dexterity, or wisdom away from the victim. This point can only be returned if the player eats/takes a bite of the ghoul's flesh who caused this. Temporarily leading the player on a path to becoming a ghoul, where an obsession and hunger for flesh, blood, and the power it holds takes over.
- Life Blood: A bit that sucks the blood and vitae from their victims, stealing their life blood (d4) and taking it for themselves.
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