Since characters often deploy their long rest mechanic at the end of an adventuring day, it’s not uncommon for a nighttime random encounter to occur as the party sleeps – especially when camping outdoors. It’s why there’s almost always a discussion around which characters are standing watch as the rest of the party dozes.

And so, for sentries who keep this vigil into the night, the frequent expectation is that something from the nighttime encounter table will come rushing out of the bushes at them during their watch.

How about flipping that dynamic? Rather than bringing the nighttime random encounter to the sleeping party, instead, bring the sentries standing guard to the random encounter.

Ghouls are described in the 2014 Monster Manual as having an “insatiable hunger for humanoid flesh.” To me, that says they are eternally hangry. So, if there’s a pack of ghouls that come across a single roadside grave, there’s bound to be an argument amongst a pack about who gets the choicest bits of the unearthed corpse or, perhaps, who gets to eat at all.

Ghouls don’t need to eat. They’re undead. But they’re compelled to eat, regardless. There’s no such thing as a sated ghoul. So, if they travel in packs, I’d like to think there are some loud, violent arguments that occur when it’s time to tuck into a corpse.

Perhaps it’s such an argument that draws the party to the ghouls, rather than the ghouls happening upon or hunting down the party.

At the changing of the guard, any character with a passive Wisdom score of 12 or higher hears distant, angry shouts echoing from somewhere in the distance. The bickering is constant and easy to follow. As the sentries approach, perhaps this is what they see.

Moonlight spills over the Triboar Trail, silvering the grass and glinting off five pairs of pale, unblinking eyes. The silhouettes of several humanoids crouch around a half-dug grave, their gaunt forms outlined against the churned earth. They rake at the soil as they snarl and shove at each other, bickering in guttural, complaining voices over the unseen prize below. One seizes another by the neck, throttling; another clutches a ragged scrap of burial shroud to its chest like a treasure. A stench of decay hangs heavily in the air like a noxious cloud.

If you need a visual for what this might look like, think of a pack of predator animals snarling and snapping at each other, punctuated with occasional violence.

Another example would be to portray the argument much like the trolls that the Thorin’s company encounters in the wild during the events of The Hobbit – only the ghouls are arguing over a corpse, rather than mutton.

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