Ghoul (Lankhmar)
| Climate/Terrain: | Any |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Rare |
| Organization: | Tribe |
| Activity Cycle: | Any |
| Diet: | Carnivore |
| Intelligence: | Average to high (8-14) |
| Treasure: | M (A) |
| Alignment: | Neutral evil |
| No. Appearing: | 1-100 |
| Armor Class: | 10 |
| Movement: | 12 |
| Hit Dice: | 3 |
| THAC0: | 17 |
| No. of Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage/Attack: | 1-6 or by weapon |
| Special Attacks: | Nil |
| Special Defenses: | -2 to hit, invisible in dark |
| Magic Resistance: | Nil |
| Size: | M (5-6' tall) |
| Morale: | Elite (13-14) |
| XP Value: | 175 |
Nehwon ghouls are considerably different from their AD&D® game namesakes and from the animalistic species of the Kleshite jungles. They are almost totally transparent, save for their pinkish skeletons. Their unsavory diets make them unpopular with other Nehwonese races, but they rationalize cannibalism as an ad of kindness by which muddy-fleshed humans are transformed into superior, crystal flesh.
Combat: Ghouls never wear clothing nor any armor beyond the most minimal weapons-harness. They occasionally use shields, raising their AC to 9. AC may be further enhanced by high dexterity scores. Ghoulish fighters may use any weapon, but seem to have a preference for two-handed axes.
The transparent nature of ghoul flesh makes it harder to locate their vital spots. All attacks against ghouls are at -2 to hit. Ghouls are totally invisible (-4 to hit) in darkness 80% of the time. Their transparency is a natural condition - magical means such as truesight or detect invisible have no effect.
Ghouls ride transparent-fleshed horses which are identical to normal horses with a similar -2 (-4 in darkness) penalty to hit.
Habitat/Society: Nehwon ghouls live in a great city on the shores of the Sea of Monsters, emerging periodically to make war upon human cities. They have very little fear of death - in Fafhrd's opinion, this was because they were so close to skeletons that actually dying was only a short step away.
Ghouls consider themselves paragons of civilization and enlightenment. Other races need to be civilized by being eaten. Humans are referred to as “mud-men” since ghouls consider normal flesh muddy and impure.
Ghouls can occasionally overcome their cannibalistic natures to join human adventuring bands. They can be overbearing at times as they consider themselves more civilized than lesser, “barbaric”, races. Ghoulish women have been known to take humans as lovers, but this is rare.
Ecology: Ghouls consume only the flesh of animals, but consider humans and other intelligent races to be a delicacy (consuming another ghoul is considered, at best, rather poor behavior).
The ghoul statistics above represent the average ghoul warrior. Ghouls have the same statistics as humans and may play normal character classes.