For your considferation: Ghouls

[KevinJ]

Ghoul
ST Var DX Var IQ Var MA Var Prot var
Attacks:......adjDX....Dmg...Effect
Bite..............10........1-3....HTH; Infect: 4/ST save
Claw.............10........1-2....HTH
Knife............10........1-2
Club.............10........1-3
Sling............10........1-2
Thrown Rock.10........1-4

Desc: These are individuals who have been infected with an alien parasite. They appear to be rotting corpses that shamble around in the darkness and underground looking for more hosts for the parasite.
Ghouls carry weapons and wear armor that they were wearing when they transformed, they will not pick up weapons or don armor out of the blue, though a weapon using ghoul will pick up a weapon if disarmed.

The Ghoul has the stats of the original victim with the following modifications. ST+2, DX-2, IQ-4, MA-2. They are nearly immune to thrusting/stabbing/piercing attacks, but cutting and crushing attacks do full damage.

Anyone bitten by a ghoul must make a 4/ST save or be infected by the parasite. If they fail the save, other ghouls immediately stop attacking that individual. The individual gets one more 4/ST save after 1 hour, success means that their body rejected the parasite and it dies (the character is now immune to future infection and Ghouls ignore the character as above). Failure means they transform into a Ghoul. It takes about 8 hours for the full transformation to take place.

Cleansing will kill the parasite, stopping the infection or freeing the individual, though the individual may die afterwards from damage taken in an attack or while infected.

Feel free to critique.
I treat the nearly immune to 1 hit per die + magic bonuses.

[Skarg]

Interesting. They might want another name or an adjective to distinguish them from existing ITL ghouls.

[JLV]

Sounds like a Zombie from World War Z or something, more than a Ghoul. If the name hasn't already been taken by some other creature, you could call them "Ghasts" as a tribute to HP Lovecraft's horrors... ;-)

[warhorse11h]

I like them as well. Like Skarg, I think they might warrant a different name, but, Banshee is currently used as the name of two different creatures, so there is precedent within the game.

[FireHorse]

For whatever it's worth, the word "Zombie" has more than one connotation, too. The murderous, flesh and brain-eating variety is a product of modern horror movies; the original Zombie was just a corpse reanimated with Voodoo, used as a servant and guardian.

My own mental definition of the word "Ghoul" is more like the one in ITL: living things of some sort — possibly just twisted and degenerate humans who feast on the dead, or possibly even a separate race of their own, but either way, not Undead (though often associated with the Undead, because they hang out in the same graveyards).

But then again, the "Ghouls" from Fritz Leiber's Nehwon stories were a race of perfectly ordinary humans… who just happened to have invisible flesh, organs and blood, so they looked like walking skeletons.

And in the so-called Real World™ (wherever that mythical place may be), a "Ghoul" is usually just somebody who tells morbid jokes about things like Cannibalism.

So I think it's okay to have more than one kind of Ghoul. ;)

[Sinanju]

I've always been fond of the ghouls from Ringworld. I liked how they owned the night, and how all the other species had learned not to bury their dead lest the ghouls become more predatory rather than simply scavenging. At one point I was working up a "new world" fantasy campaign, and I intended to have that set up on the newly discovered continent.

[KevinJ]

I created these before there were ghouls in TFT. I wanted something much like the modern Zombie movie an TV show zombie. The monster can have any name, this is just a concept for a scary, bitey, chasey, monster.

[malchidael]

Thoughts out of the blue (I should be working, but it's lunchtime, and that got me thinking about Ghouls for some reason...)

It's a bit of a complication, but I would allow a Physiker or Master Physiker make the 2nd save (4/IQ for regular or 3/IQ for Master) instead of the victim - allowing medical treatment to help.

I'd also have the victim lose ST per hour and change over when they die, then build ST back up to their Ghoul-Max over time. So, the parasite basically does a "revival" on the victim, just with the parasite in control after that.

This allows a wealthy victim to suck down healing potions until they get to a Physiker or a Wizard with the Cleansing spell.

Add in some Ghoul-modified internal organ being valued for Alchemists (Ghoul Pituitary gland, perhaps), and I can see a city where the poor are plagued by Ghouls, and the elite allow it (and even promote it) so the organs can be harvested. Especially if the city is divided into a well-protected "wealthy" section and a larger section for the lesser mortals.

And there could be Ghoul Infection Parties so the nobility and their favorite slaves/craftsmen/concubines can become immune.

Except the banished alchemist has found a way to remove immunity, and needs a group of adventurers to sneak into the city and pour his concoction into the reservoir....

[FireHorse]

Originally Posted by malchidael

Thoughts out of the blue (I should be working, but it's lunchtime, and that got me thinking about Ghouls for some reason...)

Uhhh… exactly what is that in your lunchbox? {edging away} Do we need to be concerned?

[malchidael]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

Uhhh… exactly what is that in your lunchbox? {edging away} Do we need to be concerned?

Dunno what's in it... The label says "Soylent Green".