Ghoul (starting race)
Ghouls are a starting race in SlashTHEM, and also appear as a defunct starting race in SpliceHack.
SlashTHEM
The ghoul is a sub-species of zombie. They are always chaotic and can be barbarians, convicts, ice mages, necromancers or wizards; they start with intrinsic cold resistance, sleep resistance, poison resistance, sickness resistance and unbreathing. Ghouls are also undead and mindless, and they can only eat old corpses (no fruits, rations or other types of food). In melee combat they have a chance of paralyzing an enemy.
Strategy
Despite their load of starting intrinsics and special melee attacks, ghouls are hard to play. They start with some fresh corpses in their inventory which will eventually go bad (unless they're lichen), allowing them to be eaten, and if the player's role would start out with food rations, they will get converted to corpses too (sometimes boosting starting strength or constitution to allow the player to carry all of them without being burdened), but they will only give so much nutrition, after which the player needs to find more corpses. Then the player needs to prevent pets from eating the fresh corpses; one way of doing that would be picking them up, but some filling monsters like centaurs and dragons weigh a ton.
Another way to prevent nutrition problems is to pray if weak or fainting. However, the player's god may choose to smite them instead, especially if the player's alignment is lawful.
Ghouls can also be encountered as random monsters, and if tamed, may grow up to become haunters or gengars.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, player ghouls had a chance of paralyzing monsters that they attacked when unarmed, but were only able to consume corpses that are rotting. As undead, ghouls were affected by turn undead. All zombies and ghouls were generated peaceful to them.
Abilities
| Str | Dex | Con | Int | Wis | Cha |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | 16 | 18 | 20 | 18 | 20 |
Hunger
Ghouls became more powerful as they get hungrier. These effects were cumulative.
| Hunger | Abilities |
|---|---|
| Satiated | As normal |
| Hungry | +4 strength, +4 dexterity |
| Weak | Melee attacks deal double damage. |
| Fainting | +2 strength, +2 dexterity, +2 wisdom, +2 intelligence. |
Just like convicts, ghouls could last twice as long while hungry. Additionally, ghouls did not suffer abuse penalties to their abilities due to hunger.
Intrinsics
- Level 1: drain resistance
- Level 1: poison resistance
Techniques
- Level 10: Revivification
