Masterwork Monsters: Rise of the Ghouls

[arwink]

Ghouls get a harsh deal in d20 Fantasy. While mindless undead such as skeletons and zombies can still be credible threats to mid-level parties and vampires, liches and other sentient undead are figures of enormous power, the ghoul languishes at the bottom of the undead food chain. While they are a serious danger to low-level adventurers, their threat rapidly diminishes once the mid-levels are reached.

Rise of the Ghouls gives you new feats, abilities and ghoulish variants, all designed to give these overlooked and under-appreciated undead a chance to shine. With a ghoul template to give more diversity to the ghoulish ranks, a host of ghoulish feats, the power of ancient hunger magic and the exotic abilities of 5 new ghoulish variants, Rise of the Ghouls has all the tools you need to help your high-level player characters remember why ghouls where so frightening back when they were just starting out.

 

[Ace]

Disclaimer: I received a review copy

As a DM, Ghouls are one of my favorite monsters to throw at players. Hideous, smart, scary and undead, all great traits in a monster. At least if you are the DM anyway
Unfortunately they are pretty much only useable at relatively low level. Masterwork Monsters: Rise of the Ghouls expands the options for this monster to every level and gives even more types for DM's to play with.

At $1.80 US it is an outrageously good deal.

Appearance:
Masterwork Monsters: Rise of the Ghouls is a 21 page PDF sparsely illustrated with non ink eating B&W illustrations. It comes in a 241k zip file that can be download in a snap by any connection. Layout is good and PDF takes advantage of the book marking feature very well.

Content:
This a very rules intensive book. There enough descriptive text to put the contents to use. However if you are looking for stories or world stuff you won't find it here.

The book is made up of Templates (including variants) Feats and Spells

Templates include a Ghoul, (including a nasty Ghoulish Choker as sample monster) Lacedon, Ghast, and after the spell section a Bloated Ghoul (with a nice hideous illustration) Ghoul Zombie (kind of a Romero Zombie) Ghoul Hound (Ghouled Dogs) an unexpected plant template called Grave Weed and a High Ghoul Template.
These templates offer a wide variety of ghouls for almost any campaign and most importantly scalability -- Now you can scare high level parties with a Lacedon Troll or a Ghouled Fire Giant or even a Ghoul Warg or 20. CWG does here what the Monster Manual should have done. Very cool
My only grump in the template list is the High Ghoul. I don't care much for the assumption of Ghouls as mindless. Personally would rather have allowed the Ghoul template to keep any class level. Still I can see the rules compliance reasons why the author chose to have a separate ghoul and high template. I just found it a tad clumsy.

The book also contains a selection of feats for ghouls, Breath of Death, Eater of the Dead, Feats Magic, Feasting Ritual, Feeding Frenzy, Gnaw, Maw of the Dead, Prolonged Paralysis, and Soul Eater.

All of these shuddersome feats will enhance most Ghouls. I do have a few minor quibbles. I think the Maw of the Dead feat (which makes the Ghoul Fever special attack immediate rather than having a one day incubation) is a bit strong
But otherwise I like these feats. Also nifty some of the dead eating feats could be adapted for Maho Kiho in D20 Rokugan ala the feasting on flesh Kiho. Its a nice bit of extra versatility. Also I would have liked to see a resist turning feat but you can’t have everything.

Next section is Ghoul magic. It includes a ghoul domain and several spells the slightly redundant Create Ghoul, Elf Skin, Feast of Knowledge, Feats of Magic, Feast of Might, Ghoulish Gorging, Plague (an immediate cause disease effect, slightly under powered in my opinion) and Ravening Curse.
As expected the spells are necromantic but happily they are not restricted to ghouls and could be used by sufficiently depraved living wizards and clerics.
The Elfskin(a paralytic protection effect) spell I can even see being used by a good mage at least if he had eschew components anyway.

I highly recommend this book. It fills a needed niche and offers a lot of play value for $1.80

 

[Pinotage]

Masterwork Monsters: Rise of the Ghouls is a pdf product from Clockwork Golem Workshop, one of several in the Masterwork Monsters series. This pdf features a whole host of options for expanding ghouls, including a number of new templates, ghoulish magic and ghoulish feats. It's a 21 page pdf written by Adam Windsor, of which 20 pages are devoted to the content of describing the numerous options for creating different and flavorful ghouls. This pdf normally retails for $2.00.

Initial Impressions:

The Masterwork Monsters series is devoted to expanding on the options available for a number of different creatures. This particular one features the ghoul, one of the few undead creatures that mostly remains a threat only to lower level parties. This pdf attempts to address this by providing a number of different options to increase the power level of ghouls, so that the flesh craving undead can become a fearsome opponent to rival the vampire and lich. The pdf is well-written, with the layout in two columns and a few small pieces of art scattered throughout the pdf, courtesy of Jupiterimages. There were one or two minor writing errors, as well as several errors in the application of the ghoulish template to the sample creature provided (e.g. the ghoul's increased Dexterity is not considered in its AC), but these do not seriously detract from otherwise solid content.

The Details:

The pdf is divided into four sections - the ghoul template, ghoulish feats, ghoulish magic and ghoulish variants. The majority of the pdf is based on mechanics rather than flavor, although the descriptions provide ample visual imagery.

The first section provides a ghoul template, as well as modifications required to create a lacedon or aquatic ghoul, and the more formidable ghast by applying an additional ghast template to the ghoul template. The ghoul template can be applied to most creatures, and a sample creature, a ghoulish choker, is provided. Ghouls created using this template offer the usual benefits in a template, such a variety in creature and challenge rating. The template is solid, giving DMs the chance to create a ghoul from almost any creature, though still not one that retains all the abilities of the base creature. That right is reserved for the high ghoul template.

The second section takes a look at a number of ghoulish feats. These range from the more obvious ones such as Prolonged Paralysis or Ghastly Touch that enhance the ghoul's current abilities, to new feats focusing on the ghoul's desire to feast on flesh. Some of these appear to be variants of other abilities, such as Foot Rake giving a ghoul the ability to rake, or Gnaw which is a version of Improved Grab as a feat. There are some useful feats here that can expand on any ghoul despite the more familiar or expected ones. Breath of Death, for example, allows a ghoul to blast foes with a cloud of ghoul fever, while Feeding Frenzy gives a ghoul combat bonuses after making a successful bite attack.

The next section details magic, starting out with a ghoul domain and following that with a number of new spells. If you want to be protected against a ghoul's paralysis, then elfskin will do, or if you want to create a ghoul then Create Ghoul will do the trick. For those enemy ghouls, particularly spellcasting high ghouls, there are Feast of Knowledge, Feast of Magic and Feast of Might that grant certain abilities after feeding on a creature's brain. Most of the spells presented have the Evil descriptor and are mainly necromantic spells. I felt some of the spell levels were a little off, such a plague, which inflicts disease in a 30 ft. radius being a 9th level spell and taking 1 minute to cast. It would probably have been better suited to something like 7th-level or even lower.

The last section deals with a number of ghoulish variants in the form of five new templates. These include the bloated ghoul (a ghoul unable to consume the flesh it eats), a ghoul zombie (a zombie ghoul), a ghoulhound (an animal ghoul), graveweed (a plant ghoul) and the high ghoul (a ghoul that keeps all the abilities of the base creature, much like the lich or vampire). There are all done well and mechanically solid, although perhaps somewhat uninspiring. The bloated ghoul and the high ghoul offer something new, but the other three templates are just ghouls applied to different kinds of creatures. Having said that, it still offers a way to create interesting ghouls from, now, almost all creature types, thereby allowing the DM to create memorable ghoulish encounters.

Conclusions:

Masterwork Monsters: Rise of the Ghouls provides the DM with a number of templates, spells and feats to enhance or expand the standard ghoul into something more fearsome. It succeeds at providing a good number of options, although not always the most inspiring, some based on other well-known concepts converted into another form. It's a well-written pdf, and at a good price, so there's bound to be something useful to any DM in here interested in ghouls. Based on utility, solid mechanics, but some lack of really exciting material, I'd grade it with three and a half stars, rounding down to three stars.