Ghoul (Basic Lore)

Ghoul (CR 5)
Chaotic Evil - Medium - Undead
Ghouls are emaciated and pale humanoids, their skin stretched taut over their skeletal frames. Their eyes appear larger than normal, and their hair is wispy and thin. Unlike magically reanimated undead such as skeletons and zombies, ghouls are not able to reintegrate themselves after being slain. However, ghouls do not age, and will live forever if they manage to avoid being hacked to bits by some overzealous barbarian with a great axe. Curiously, ghouls can completely regenerate all injuries after a full night's rest, even regrowing lost limbs. This odd power of regeneration requires sleep, however, and gives them no advantage in combat. Ghouls are spawned from the corpses of living humanoids slain by other ghouls, which raises the question of where the first ghoul came from, and if it is still around. The ghoul race's requirement of living humanoid victims to "reproduce" doesn't appear to have hampered their growth as a species. The most defining characteristic of ghouls is their hunger. They are constantly and unendingly hungry for meat of any kind. Ghouls will also eat vegetables, plants, rocks, or anything else that they can fit into their mouths, but vastly prefer meat, whether fresh or not-so-fresh, over anything else. Sadly, no amount of eating will ever satiate them, and they can quite literally eat forever, always yearning for more. In fact, watching a ghoul eat, you can actually see their frustration at not being able to eat faster. Another interesting fact about ghouls is they are very intelligent. They live in communities, cooperate with one another, and will even, at times, interact (relatively) peacefully with other races (although their aching hunger often makes this very uncomfortable for them). Vampires and Liches in particular find ghouls useful neighbors. Ghouls who live more than a decade or two tend to pick up several languages, and retain any languages they knew when they were alive. Many ghouls also share a secret sign language, which is unique to each ghoul community, but allows the ghouls to communicate while preparing to ambush prey. Ghouls also use the sign language as a way to hide their own intellect from the living races, preferring that they be forever underestimated by the day-dwellers.