GHOULS! Help me scare the crap out of my players.

[Belphanior]

Make it so the players know they are not at the top of the food chain here.

Some ghouls might have made a trail of coins and cheap gemstones into the gaping maw of the burst door of a tomb. I have no doubt the players will be smart enough to see this ambush coming a mile away, but the purpose is not to get a combat started. It's to make them realize the ghouls treat them like game animals that have to be lured and trapped, and they display some level of understanding what it is adventurers desire.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

oh mechnaic changes are good, don't bore folk with ordinary ghouls

wall crawling ghouls

leaping ghouls

invisa-chameleo-Predator-camouflage ghouls

20' long tongue that can yank PCs into the air

acid dripping onto PCs neck from a ghoul's slavering mouth as the ghoul is 20' up on the ceiling

covered in mud totally as they don't need air and break out to ambush PCs

a sexton (churchyard steward and cleaner) in his cubbyhole near start asks if the PCs are hungry, he starts eating something out of a bag...eyeballs...but not jellied ones...fresh ones...

have the area partially submerged, 2' - 3' deep water, ghouls hide udnerneath, under ledges os PCs can't see...ankle biters!!

Muhaha!

 

[Olli]

If you have access to the swarmshifter template from "liber Mortis", if you give it to a especially nasty ghoul (tombwarden?), it will scare your players (apply some corpseeating vermin!!).

Oh, and "Isolate and scare" will also work wonder. Split the party up (and if you can, the players, too). Crypt things will work well for this.

And I second the "expendable NPC" idea. Great for creepy Atmosphere.

Olli

 

[Hand of Evil]

Have the ghouls block the exits...hey, this air is getting bad.

 

[MichaelK]

It's all in the paralyzing touch. For example:

The players walk into a room and see the armoured and helmed back of someone standing still who ignores them completely. They walk around to the front and through his open-faced helm they see that all the flesh has been devoured from his face down to the bone, blood dripping down into the armour. His face was the only place that was exposed with his heavy armour.

Then they realize that he's still alive...

That'd scare me.

 

[gamerprinter]

from a Dragon Magazine halloween edition.

I don't remember which Dragon magazine issue it was, but it was definitely a Halloween issue (I always only purchased the Halloween edition of Dragon magazine, when I did buy them.)

There was an article about "Shadow Ghouls", apparently first created by a powerful Lich (Cult of the White Bat, if I remember right), where Shadow Ghouls retained their previous intelligence, class, feats and skills they had while living.

Once bitten by a ghoul, a Shadow Ghoul could play "mentor", and help guide the recently ghoul bitten in the transition to undead status. After the period of mentorship, which lasts until completely converted to Ghoul status, then the afflicted person makes a saving throw to see whether they've lost their mind and become a standard ghoul.

If they make their save (?) then though they have ghoul form, they retain their previous intelligence and become a member of the Shadow Ghoul army. Not only do shadow ghouls retain their class, they can continue to rise in levels with experience - as if they were still alive.

Shadow Ghouls only help those afflicted that seem usable candidates for the Shadow Ghoul Army - mostly being spellcasters or having some unique talent usable by them. All others are allowed normal transition without "mentorship" to normal ghoul status.

The Army of Shadow Ghouls, work to invade worlds, take captives, create enslaved living females to produce children as both a food source and possible add-on to the Shadow Ghoul army. Of course too many Shadow Ghouls would prove unsustainable, so the "mentored" conversion is only applied to the most advantageous new members.

I've always thought this kind of ghoul was extra "scary and thought provoking" for a D&D scenario.

GP

 

[MichaelK]

There was an article about "Shadow Ghouls", apparently first created by a powerful Lich (Cult of the White Bat, if I remember right), where Shadow Ghouls retained their previous intelligence, class, feats and skills they had while living.

You could use the mechanics for Gravetouched Ghouls, page 103 Libris Mortis, to do much the same if you don't have access to that particular dragon magazine.

 

[grodog]

If you dig around Wolfgang Baur's public articles about his "Empire of the Ghouls" Open Design adventure, you'll find lots of ghoulish inspiration. His "Kingdom of the Ghouls" in Dungeon #70 is well-worth picking up as well, and a 3.x ghoul (Wolfgang version) appears in "A Gathering of Winds" (in Dungeon #129, the revisitation to "Whispering Cairn" in the Age of Worms AP).

For general, setting-the-horror-mood inspiration, pick up Ken Hite's "Dubious Shards" and "Nightmares of Mine".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Love the "fishing with children" and the "ghoul-plugged portal" ideas, BTW!

1) Lift a page from Tucker's Kobolds, and run the ghouls as cunning and crafty as their stats would suggest. Traps, tactics...whatever works.

2) Severed limbs make great improvised clubs. Or missile weapons. Severed heads- especially if they are still capable of biting- can also make fine "grenades."

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I had fun when I gave Spider Climb to a bunch of ghouls - scuttling along the ceiling like cockroaches.

Ghouls laughing as they chase PCs, jumping tombstones like they were playing leapfrog.

Corpses posed as though going though their everyday lives. Little mummified girls around a small table as though playing tea party, a stuffed rabit occupying one of the chairs.

Holy symbols inverted or desecrated.

A drying room, for preserving 'meat'.

The Auld Grump