Homebrew Ghoul Species Details

Though Mythos ghouls blur the line between life and death, they are indeed living organisms. While many of their habits, appetites, and preferences are identical to those possessed by undead ghouls, no one who gets to know a Mythos ghoul will again make the mistake of assuming they’re a flesh-eating undead creature. From their distinctive appearances to their behavior, the contrast grows increasingly stark. A ghoul is humanoid in shape yet monstrous in appearance. The ghoul’s visage is almost canine, with a pronounced snout filled with sharp teeth akin to the fangs of a hyena. This snout isn’t large enough to significantly distort or hamper the ghoul’s ability to speak or express itself, although ghouls do tend to have a guttural, raspy tone to their voices. A ghoul’s ears are large and pointed, and its hair is generally short and mangy with thick bristly patches on the back, shoulders, and forearms. A ghoul’s mouth slavers and its long tongue frequently lolls when not in active use. A ghoul’s bestial features extend to the rest of its body. Its stance is somewhat hunched, with broad shoulders, hands that appear human but fingers that end in talon-like nails, and legs and hooves reminiscent of those of a hairless goat. Ghouls are immune to non-magical disease, and thus, contrary to expectations, they rarely carry infections or spread maladies. Despite this, they tend to have slovenly personal hygiene and bear a musty stink on the best of days. More often, the cloying stench of decay accompanies them, an odious perfume carried on their breath and under their nails. Almost never falling ill encourages such filthy habits, but this nonchalance toward propriety and presentation stems in part from the amusement many ghouls derive from making humanoids feel uncomfortable and nauseated. One of the most notable aspects of ghoul physiology is that when ghouls feed, they experience and absorb the memories held within the flesh of their repast. Scholars Mythos Player Character Races 15 have yet to discern a scientific explanation for this ability, relegating such powers to the realm of the supernatural. While they delight in this ability to digest memories, ghouls themselves have neither an explanation nor a desire to learn more about how or why it functions, and many adhere to the strange superstition that knowing the reason for this would disrupt the mechanism itself. That it works at all is enough for ghouls, who ironically enjoy indulging in the procedure to divine all manner of secrets and forgotten tidbits of lore.

Ghoul Traits

Dark Vision

Dark Vision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Grave Nose

You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell to notice or recognize corpses, decaying things, meat, and undead creatures.

Psychic Feast

When you feed upon the flesh of a dead humanoid or monstrosity, you absorb some of the lingering traces of memory and knowledge that the creature possessed in life. Strangely, the older the corpse, the more potent the memories become. Feeding on a corpse less than 24 hours dead provides no benefit but nourishment. If you spend 1 minute feeding on an older corpse that has some amount of flesh (even dried flesh, such as a mummy might have), you gain insight into a skill or tool that the creature was proficient with. Specify a skill or tool you believe the creature possessed; if you’re correct, you gain that insight. If the creature lacked that proficiency, you get an insight of the GM’s choice instead. You add half your proficiency bonus to ability checks using a skill or tool if you have an insight into it and were not already proficient in that skill or with that tool. If you have an insight and are proficient in a skill or with that tool, you add one and onehalf times your proficiency bonus instead of your normal proficiency bonus on checks using that skill or tool. You can normally gain only one insight from any given corpse. At the GM’s discretion, a particularly ancient corpse might grant a larger bonus or two insights. You can maintain up to three total insights. If you use this trait when you already have the maximum number of insights, choose one to forget in order to replace it with the insight from the new corpse.

Raised By Humans

As a ghoul raised by humans, you found ways to develop your natural talents, whatever they are.

Two of your ability scores of your choice from the following list each increase by 1: Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, or Charisma.