I'm running a campaign with six players at the moment where they work to uncover the secrets of the city they reside in, which is all about ghoulism and an old count who used to rule the lands, but eventually corrupted them and became something akin to a Strigoi Vampire from Warhammer Fantasy - a more ghoulified, animalistic type of vampire that needs fresh meat more than they need blood.

So I'm going to throw a ton of Ghouls at my players - but I just don't like their stats for two main reasons: One, it has very little action economy, with only a single action that isn't all that high-damage, and two, the Paralysis effect is a "gotcha" ability that essentially keeps my players from participating if hit. The two general outcomes for a Ghoul seems to be that they either paralyze a player, who then takes a free Crit to the face, or they die without accomplishing much.

So I want to create an alternative Ghoul template for my campaign, and I would love to hear if you have suggestions!

Here's some lore for the Ghoulism we've had in the campaign so far:

• It's a curse that stems from the Shadowfell - the players don't know this yet. The "Elf and the Abyss" part of the lore is not present in these ghouls.
• When cursed, you became ravenously hungry for carrion or fresh meat. One of my players are currently afflicted and has tried to take a bite out of another player because of it.
• It's vampiric in nature and can potentially be carried over to others when the curse has matured enough.
• Over time it make the afflicted grow leaner, taller and more wiry, but also more muscular. You retain some intelligence. With the right rites, you can retain most of your personality without succumbing fully to the madness.
• There exist a critter called a Dredge, formed from the succumbed soul of a ghoulified mortal that automatically find themselves around the artefacts that bring ghoulism into the world (mostly a series of cursed mirrors).
• Deep lore: Ghoulism as a curse was created by an impossible ancient, "Elder God"-like Nightshade in the Shadowfell who wants to merge the Shadowfell with the Material Plane. Not sure if relevant though.

Any ideas? For once I'm a little stumped. The Ghoul can be either CR 1 or 1/2, but not higher so I can use them as horde creatures.

First thing that comes to mind is to possibly use a reflavored husk zombie as a base then altering it to fit your needs. Though they are cr 1 as is, so they might not need many changes

What about giving them something like the Rampage ability:

Rampage. When a ghoul reduces a creature to 0 hit points with an attack on their turn, the ghoul can take a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.

Or replace teh paralyze effect and give them some random abiliities (reflavourred form other creatures);

Berserk Hunger: The Ghoul can use a bonus action to enter a rage as per barbarian.

Devour: the ghoul can use an action to eat an dead creature. If they do roll damage for a bite attack, the Ghoul heals that amount.

Pounce on the prey: A Ghoul can us a bonus action to leap upto 15ft towards a creture. Ghouls using this ability also take no falling damage as long as they fall no further than 20ft.

Vengeful Strike: If reduced to zero HP the Ghoul can use its reaction to make a claw attack against the creature that killed it.

Thank you both for your suggestions! I used both a bit to concoct a new version of the Ghoul for my games - much more of a "glass cannon" with the capability to do a ton of damage very quickly.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/979500-deepwood-ghoul

What do you think?

 two thumbs up, just a possible typo.....you describe them as rapid (as in fast) did you mean rabid (as in uncontrollably wild and deadly)?

Besides the typo that rob found I would switch the languages known to "(languages it knew in life)" and not sure how big of deal it'd be but I'd probably reduce passive perception to 9 since it has a negative in wisdom too... though... what do I know I rarely homebrew monsters.

You're right, they should know the languages they knew in life and have lower perception; I just forgot to write it in.

Also I got a chance to test them yesterday; they performed admirably, even if they low-rolled a bit. They're not too difficult to wound but will almost certainly deal a hit or two before going down.

Good to hear man, most of the time people here don't hear about how the homebrews turn out in play testing.