Ghouls

The average traveler could see a ghoul hunched over on all fours from a short distance and they'd quite easily believe this creature before them was just a person like themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth, as ghouls, like most abominations spawned forth into this world ages ago by dark forces, are a grotesque parody of men and other beings. No two look the same but they all have three things in common: an emaciated frame, gangrenous flesh and oozing pus filled sores, to merely look at one can be too much for the faint of heart. Ghouls decompose with age and if they don't become abghouls, they'll end up as a pile of goop after about a month.   They have long limbs, arms and legs ending in five digits. They have overgrown, dirty nails and crooked teeth both of which can easily spread infection if scratched or bitten. Their bites can be especially nasty and often fatal if left untreated. Their skin is usually a sickly looking pale white often covered in discoloured blotches and blemishes. Their eyes are large milky white orbs often covered in ulcers which ooze out puss, leading to their poor vision. Autopsies reveal a remarkably similar internal anatomy to man and the alvar races.

It takes the typical ghoul about two weeks before they become an abghoul, then they live for a further three or four days before their bellies burst. If for whatever reason a ghoul does not become an abghoul, their bodies will have decayed to the point of being a pile of gross sludge.

Ghouls devour corpses until they become bloated abghouls. When they can eat no longer, their bellies will burst like a bloody cyst, killing their host but bringing more wretched ghouls forth. The typical abghoul will carry three 'proto-ghouls', which are born with their senses fully developed and are able to defend themselves and even kill at this juvenile stage.

Ghouls are 'born' fully mature and are driven solely by the desire to consume the corpses of men and other races. When a ghoul has devoured enough dead flesh, they reach the next and final stage of their pathetic lives, that of the abghoul. The last stage of their life will typically last six to ten days. The 'proto-ghouls' grow rapidly, achieving maturity after several hours. Indeed, the victories attained by the ghoulish hordes in past crusades can be almost entirely attributed to their alarming growth and 'reproduction' rates.

Ghouls prefer to make their homes in graveyards or mausoleums, generally any location where there is an abundance of death. They have frequently been spotted hauling off casualties, some still living, from recent battles or skirmishes. In fact, there are several accounts by soldiers throughout the years of ghouls stalking armies marching on campaigns. Any sort of conflict will usually attract ghouls from many miles around, serving as morbid reminders that death is ever present. Indeed, more than one stoic warrior has been reduced to madness witnessing a pack of ghouls drag his still screaming comrade off towards a miserable end.

Ghouls feast on corpses, the more decomposed and decayed, the better. For this reason, they are attracted to graveyards and generally anywhere there is a lot of death. Because of their desecration of these hallowed grounds and the dead, they are rightfully seen as abominations. In especially affected areas, religious orders will have militias for the sole purpose of cleansing out dens of ghouls and priests have to exercise graveyards or mausoleums on a regular basis. In the past, ghoulish infestations were seen as a lack of devotion to the gods and more than one holy war has been waged as a result, ironically ending in more dead to end up as food for ghouls.

Ghouls eat dead flesh to gain enough mass to become an abghoul, 'birthing' more ghouls in the process. If a ghoul does not reach this stage, it is because they either died of starvation or have been killed.

Ghouls organize themselves into packs, which can be made up of a few hundred individuals. When there is abundance of food, their packs can swell into the thousands but they always splinter into smaller groups. Ghouls are very selfish with their food and only group together out of convenience. There is no hierarchy and any real structure, but ghouls will fight rival packs over the 'right' to claim a graveyard or a cemetery etc. Most people are quite content to let them slaughter each other, occasionally a militia will be sent in afterwards to exterminate survivors.

Global, though never more than a few miles from a cemetery or war ravaged lands.

Ghouls are almost entirely ruled by animal instinct but they have a certain cunning. They're smart enough to understand that soldiers marching in full gear usually means war, war means death and death means food. A battlefield littered with corpses is an excellent feast for a pack of ghouls.

Ghouls have poor eye sight but have an excellent sense of smell, able to detect a corpse from several miles away. They often feel around on the ground when in an unfamiliar environment, grasping with their spindly fingers. Their hearing is below average, though their ability to pick up scents from great distances more than makes up for this drawback.