A character of any race could potentially be a ghoul. Consider it an add-on. But mainly, consider it a weakness. Unless you've got some really special case that takes great advantage of one of the few perks ghouls get, chances are you're only doing your character harm by turning it into a Ghoul. But it's fun!

Ghouls and Ghoulery

The most infamous necromancers of Erde have not managed to bring back a Ghoul with both mind and consciousness intact. The details on what can be done by one experienced in the art of raising the dead are recorded here:

A Ghoul is a resurrected being, replete with the original consciousness, and the original body, one of which is essentially on magical life support. There are two types of Ghouls: The Festering kind, and the Psionic kind. To raise any Ghoul, the process is the same. Obtain the body and perform the ritual. The outcome is not so certain. When pulling back a life, the consciousness and the living body will arrive at different times.

If the body arrives first, and the consciousness behind it, the Ghoul will be Psionic, because as soon as the body arrives, the pull will be cut off, and the consciousness will be left partly in transit. The Ghoul will then have to work to maintain consciousness and not fall into a catatonic state by stealing the thoughts, dreams, and emotions of other life forms.

If the consciousness arrives first, the opposite occurs. The pull is cut off immediately, and the bodily life is left in partial transit. The Ghoul then has to work to maintain the flesh and organs surrounding its bones by feeding on the flesh of freshly killed carnivores. Such Ghouls are referred to as Festering Ghouls.

Though other methods of resurrection have surpassed Ghoulery in effectiveness, never in the history of the delicate art of Ghouling have the bodily life and the consciousness arrived at the exact same millionth of a nanosecond that would be necessary to create a pure recreation without the need to feed one way or the other.

The amount of body left to pull in after the consciousness arrives and the Ghouling has been cut off will determine how much and how often a Festering Ghoul has to feed, just as the amount of consciousness to pull in after the body arrives will determine how much and how often a Psionic Ghoul will have to feed. An expert Ghouler will be able to make the difference so minute that the Ghoul will only need to feed once every week or two in order to keep everything in top condition. If the difference is as sloppy as, say, sixty percent, which would pretty much have to be on purpose, then the Ghoul would be a monstrous entity, needing to feed every few minutes to stay alive. This difference is called a Pull Ratio. An expert Ghouler will get a good Pull Ratio out of his handiwork.

In darker days, inglorious and dishonourable kingdoms under siege would have necromancers standing by catapults with a pile of corpses beside them. As men placed the corpses on the catapults, the necromancers would Ghoul them forth into rabid Festering Ghouls and fire them off into the approaching enemy. This inhuman strategy often backfired when the Ghoul came forth and escaped within the castle before the rope cutting that would launch it over the wall could not be performed in time. A more devious strategy was to train badly fashioned Psionic Ghouls and plant them in neighbouring nations in order to destroy the morale and the courage of the enemy forces.

Every Ghoul has a Core. A Ghoul's Core is its lifeblood, as well as the source of its physical or mental/emotional decomposition. It will be located in the direct centre of the body, the size of the body's fist. It is a physical organ resembling a tightly balled, one-chambered, beating heart. If the Core is destroyed, the Ghoul will die. The Core has one thick, tough vein connected to it that leads to the throat of the Ghoul. All other digestive organs are rendered useless by this bypassing, and are there only because they were part of the original body.

However, things like heart and lungs, brain, etc, are necessary as they would be with a regular being. A Ghoul still needs to have a working cardiovascular system, and can suffer the same ill effects as anybody if they are damaged in the vital organs, brain, etc. The key difference is that a Festering Ghoul can feed to regenerate any such damage very quickly. Even if the body is completely still, the food can be put in the mouth, and the Core will pull it in and regenerate the body.

When a Festering Ghoul does not feed, its body will begin to decay, starting from the extremities furthest away from this core, and working inward. As the bones are cleared of everything living, they might collapse. Eventually, the core will have nothing to feed on but itself, and when that is gone, the Ghoul is dead, and cannot be raised again. The time this takes to happen is affected by the Pull Ratio, and to some degree, by the strength and resilience of the body in question.

A Psionic Ghoul, when it does not feed, will first suffer varying stages of apathy, then depression, and then it will slowly begin to sleep more and more, until eventually, it becomes completely catatonic. After catatonia, the consciousness will eventually give up and leave completely, and the body will fall dead. The time this takes depends not only on the Pull Ratio, but on the strength and stubbornness of the consciousness.

A Festering Ghoul feeds simply by eating the flesh of a recently killed carnivore. This means killed within the past ten minutes.

A Psionic Ghoul is much more subtle. It feeds by developing an emotional, spiritual, or mental relationship with the victim. Then, all the love, conversation, hatred, philosophy, jealousy, belief, trust, etc. that is shared between the Ghoul and the victim is taken from the victim and into the Ghoul, thereby strengthening the Ghoul's consciousness and weakening that of the victim. Psionic Ghouls are quite devious and difficult to detect. Besides feeling suddenly apathetic when talking to them or giving them any form of caring or engaged emotional attention, most people won't notice anything out of the ordinary about them, and perhaps just think of them as very boring, or very draining people. It is only when the feeding goes beyond apathy and into despair that some might attribute it to the Ghoul and realise there is something seriously wrong going on. When the despair gets extreme, it can permanently scar the victim, and leave deep-seated psychic problems in them.

Good things about being a Ghoul:

• You don't need to sleep, or eat in the conventional sense.
• You don't age.