In yesterday’s thoughts, I proposed a side quest given by Sister Garaele using the ghouls from the Wilderness Encounters table in Lost Mine of Phandelver Chapter 3: The Spider’s Web.

With her religious training, Garaele knows the telltale signs of a ghoul pack, as well as what makes this particular undead creature dangerous. So, in sending the party out to the hills north of Gnomengarde to finish the task that she could not (now that her focus has turned to the plight of the Dendrar family), I’d like to think that Garaele would arm the party with some knowledge and lore regarding the threat they will face at the barrow.

For any character who does not share her elvish heritage, she would certainly warn them about the paralysis that can occur from an injury suffered by the ghoul’s claw attack.

“Heavy, long, and sharp as jagged knives, a wound from a ghoul’s claws can incapacitate even the heartiest warrior. Once immobilized , one can do naught but watch in horror as this abomination of the gods delights in tearing open the belly of its prey and feasts upon the bounty of glistening entrails as the light slowly goes out of its victim’s eyes.”

It should be noted that, if the players at your table tend to be overly cautious, I think it’s best to explain to them that a successful Constitution saving throw nullifies the effect of the paralysis. You don’t want to spook your table into inaction and, well, paralysis when it comes to playing their characters.

Additionally, should a martial character find themselves subjected to the paralyzed condition, you can amp up the tension and give the character additional attempts to make their Constitution saving throw by having the ghoul daintily prepare its meal by partially doffing the character’s armor to get at the soft, sweet meat.

Example: First round, the ghoul slices through straps that fastens the breast plate. Second round, the ghoul pushes the chain mail and garments up the torso to expose a bare belly. And so on. Odds are good that they’ll make a successful saving throw by that third round, or an ally will come to their rescue. But in the interim, the tension could end up being palpable.

For anyone who is of elvish heritage, perhaps she’d share the lore behind why Elvenkind are immune to this effect.

Doresain, the first of their kind, was an elf worshiper of Orcus. Turning against his own people, he feasted on humanoid flesh to honor the Demon Prince of Undeath. As a reward for his service, Orcus transformed Doresain into the first ghoul. Doresain served Orcus faithfully in the Abyss, creating ghouls from the demon lord’s other servants until an incursion by Yeenoghu, the demonic Gnoll Lord, robbed Doresain of his abyssal domain. When Orcus would not intervene on his behalf, Doresain turned to the elf gods for salvation, and they took pity on him and helped him escape certain destruction. Since then, elves have been immune to the ghouls’ paralytic touch.

Monster Manual, pg. 148

Last September, I published a Halloween themed adventure titled “The Festival of Faces,” which takes characters through a mini-adventure set at an autumn festival in Phandalin. In one of the encounters, Sister Garaele tells hearth tales to the town’s children gathered around her in a scene reminiscent of Bilbo Baggins entertaining children with stories of his adventures at his birthday party in The Fellowship of the Ring.

One of the hearth tales Garaele shares involves ghouls:

“They were humans once, these miners. That was before an early winter storm caught them unprepared and snowbound in a valley hidden amongst the western peaks of the Sword Mountains. After they had eaten their ponies and their boot leather, they turned to murder and cannibalism to fill their bellies. Not much later, the cold came for them. But instead of finding everlasting peace in death, they found eternal hunger in undeath, for the Gods abhor a cannibal. Some say they’ve seen these ghouls in the hinterlands of Phandalin, gnawing the bones of the dead. When they cannot find graves to plunder, they’ve been known to hunt the living. There’s a reason we bury our dead far from town, children.”

The Festival of Faces, DMsGuild.com

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