Thirsty Ghoul

Art by an Anonymous contributor

Thirsty Ghoul
HD: 3 to 5
AC: +3
To-Hit: +3
Attacks: Two Claws (1d6+1), Proboscis (1d4)
Powers: Dark Liquor, Lair

The Thirsty Ghoul is an undead creature. It is very solitary, and unlike most ghouls, has a great deal of intelligence. It is very fond of conversation; mostly with itself. The easiest way to avoid this monster is to listen for chuckles and witty observations coming from rank passages.

Like all ghouls, this creature has an unnatural hunger for dead flesh. But this one has no hunger- only thirst. It ferments the body parts of its victims and cadavers it finds, spitting their blood, marrow, and other fluids into canoptic jars in little corners of the dungeon; marked with little scratches to catalog their vintage. All of them will have a favorite vintage; perhaps the spinal fluid of a dwarf, or the lymph of a young human- it drinks these brews luxuriously with a long black proboscis- capable of punching through skin and muscle to drink blood beneath- though it much prefers room temperature. There is no quicker way to spur the wrath of a thirsty ghoul then busting up one of their "wine cellars".

If you are using a ruleset with "heroic actions" or "lair actions" for higher creatures, then this ghoul probably gets one of those.

In addition; this ghoul's attack do not paralyze. Instead, they inflict Drunkenness. All damage this ghoul deals adds up points of Drunkenness to the character wounded. Easy method; if the number of points equal your Constitution- you start flailing around and acting really drunk, getting disadvantage on anything requiring grace or thought. More granular? Bust out your favorite drunkenness or carousing table. The ghoul prefers to inflict its victims into a state of bumbling confusion, before gently removing their organs and tucking them away under some stone recess in the dungeon so one day, many decades later, they can finally savor its delicious taste; aged as fine as any wine.

Undead Simplification + Ideas

I'm kind of annoyed by monster manuals. Certain things are cool, like making up new monsters and the like, but some things are annoying. It comes with the territory of course; but the fact there needs to be slightly different rules and write ups for virtually identical creatures, or basically inventing new creatures based on commonly used words to refer to many at once, is just a sort of normal tabletop thing. It's not even necessarily bad, it just agitates me a bit.

No where more is this obvious, at least to me, then undead. Like I get the difference between zombies, skeletons, ghosts, and vampires. Things like that. But then you ghouls, wights, mummies, wraiths, ghasts, phantoms, all kinds of silly shit. In D&D, I'm pretty sure all of these are write ups for different creatures that fall under the class of undead being. Once again, I understand why this is done; it's to create more varied monsters to encounter, and undead being an important type of monster its important to keep all of these as unique entities of varying power levels for use in games.

But what about simplicity for the sake of simplicity? Here's some equally pointless reductionism.

Ghouls are the most basic type of undead, and usually result from a corpse being disturbed or buried improperly. They are unliving corpses, animated by sheer malevolence. They tend to be very hungry, living out things they did in life stupidly. Skeletons and zombies are incomplete or weak Ghouls; draining more blood and life force will make them more whole. Maybe really powerful ones explain vampires or liches or something; they just ate their fill and have regained mortal cleverness.

Wraiths are ghostly entities, more like spirits. They may be dead who were cremated, or a dead person missing body parts; returning their body parts to their corpse and resting place may be enough to put them down. They aren't totally physical, and as such can only be hurt by magic weapons or spells. They are usually made of grave dust and always appear as that generic hooded figure floating around.

Ghosts are a separate thing. They aren't undead and typically can't manifest enough to hurt anyone. They're just the spirit of someone who died and hasn't like “passed on” yet.

Death = Sleep

When people die, their corpse shouldn't be disturbed. The best “rest” a dead person gets is when their body is entombed around family members, with treasures of their life, in a sanctified tomb, and so on. The less of these qualities that they have, the more “unrest” they get. Highway bandits killing a person and leaving their corpse for the birds is very likely to create a very unhappy corpse, and that corpse is likely to get up and start haunting people. Sometimes this creates a revenant, an undead obsessed with killing those who killed it.

More commonly though, undead are created when people disturb their tombs, or they weren't buried in the first place. Raising zombies and skeleton minions through necromancy is more just about disturbed and defiling tombs, and then binding the spirits into your service once they wake up; hence the whole “zombies secretly hate the necromancer and will kill them the moment their chains are broken” sort of trope we see a lot in fantasy media.

It should also be noted that more powerful beings leave more powerful corpses, hence they're more likely to get up if not placated. Of course, the corpse could be the actual person just sleeping in the ground, or a different “soul” if you subscribe to that theory. This is why ancient Kings and Heroes are always buried with tons of treasure and around traps and stuff; otherwise you'll have a powerful spirit on your hand.

Corpsefire Man

There are many things that eat the dead. And there are many dead bodies that are left behind after a great battle. But less people know about those who seek to burn the dead, to inhale their smoke and taste the ashes of their burning flesh. Just as you can become blind to the reeking stench of your own home, some become so accustomed to burning flesh that that smell is too forgotten. But what of those who begin to enjoy the smell, feel it is comfortable, that happy memories are binded up with it? What about those who eventually smell it as fresh air?

Only those who have fought in many battles, or scavenged from many battlefields. Those are the people who smell the corpses burning. And eventually, some start to like it. But what do you do when peace is at hand and there are no more burning corpses? You must start making them.

Corpsefire Man (2 to 4 HD, AC 14 from scavenged armor, 1d4+2 torch OR 1d6 scavenged sword, fire powers, fire sense, partially undead)

Numbers- One if solo stalking the countryside, 1d4 after a huge cremation or funeral pyre

Morale- 8 to 10

The corpsefire men are like ghouls. Once living people who have become dead, or partially dead, in their cannibalistic sacrilege of the dead. The difference is that corpsefire men do not eat the corpse, they simply become so accustomed to, and begin to crave, the smell of burning bodies that this hunger consumes them more then the hunger to eat. Eventually, a corpsefire man stops eating entirely and his nose will be totally burnt off, leaving nothing but a gaping burnt black hole where his nose once was. Before this point, running smelling salts by a high level Sage or being hit with a powerful cure curse spell can help prevent or stop the decay of the Corpsefire Man. This ghoulish look is the final transformation of the corpsefire man into a monster.

Corpsefire men tend to wear armor and use swords scavenged from the fallen warriors at old battlefields, or occasionally stolen from funeral pyres while the owners were not looking. If a corpse is burning, they can smell it from up to their HD in hexes or that many miles away, and will seek to get closer to the scent. Corpsefire men kill people and set fire to the bodies, even people who are merely comatose, and so a horrible burning death awaits those who are captured by the corpsefire men. They also sometimes carry torches instead. When using any fire based weapon, spell, attack, or special move the corpsefire men get +2 to hit and damage- this represents their innate power with fire. However, they have no defense over fire and will just as easily burn as anyone else if tossed in.

The corpsefire men can be burned by fire but have no fear of it, and may walk through flames to pull someone inside as long as they are not totally consumed by the fire in the process. Corpsefire men do fear the wrath of the Gods at what kind of creature they become; they can be turned, but the result can never be a “destroyed”, due to their bodies still technically being alive. The older the corpsefire man gets, the more undead they become, so eventually one could become so gaunt and inhuman they may just be able to be destroyed by holy wrath- but by that point they have probably been consumed by their own flames of mad hunger.