Ghoul

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A ghoul, Z, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. Ghouls are undead monsters that have two claw attacks, including one that can paralyze you briefly. They are also one of the few monsters to have sickness resistance, and the only one to be humanoid in shape.

Ghouls are considered inediate like the rest of the zombie monster class, but are also the only monster in the group with a special case that allows them to eat food: tame ghouls can consume old corpses and eggs.[1]

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.

Hostile ghouls will also eat any old corpses they come across.

Generation

In addition to random generation, a ghoul will be summoned if you engrave on a headstone.

Ghouls always generate as hostile and will not leave a corpse upon death.

Strategy

Ghouls can be somewhat dangerous to an early character if multiple other monsters are nearby. However, the duration of their paralysis attack is quite low, and ghouls are are often too slow to be a major threat. Free action prevents paralysis entirely, while higher MC can reduce the frequency of paralysis.

As a polyform, ghouls are one of the few ways a player can obtain sickness resistance, though they are too small to wear body armor and have a pitiful carrying capacity - in practice, it is more feasible to simply have a cure for sickness, such as a blessed unicorn horn or a potion of full healing, for illness-inflicting threats such as Pestilence or Demogorgon. However, the ghoul polyform does have use for illiterate conduct players that are throne farming and do not mind breaking polyselfless conduct - if using a cursed unicorn horn as their source of confusion, they can polymorph into a ghoul and put on an amulet of unchanging.

History

Ghouls first appear in NetHack-- 3.1.3, and make their vanilla debut in NetHack 3.3.0.

There was a bug which allowed the player to generate unlimited ghouls by engraving on the same headstone over and over again;[2][3] this bug was fixed in NetHack 3.4.0.

Origin

A ghoul, which comes from the Arabic غول (ghūl, from َghāla, "to seize"), is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid, the concept of which originated in pre-Islamic Arabian religion. The ghul (or ghulah if female) is said to dwell in cemeteries and other uninhabited places; some ghouls prey on young children, drink blood, steal coins, eat the dead, and are capable of taking the form of the person most recently eaten. One particular reoccurring figure is known as Mother Ghoul (ʾUmm Ghulah) or a relational term such as Aunt Ghoul; she is portrayed in many tales luring hapless characters, who are usually men, into her home where she can eat them. Another monstrous ghoul named Ghul-e Biyaban was believed to be inhabit the wilderness of Afghanistan and Iran.

The concept of the ghoul was introduced to Western cultures via the 1700s Galland French translation of One Thousand and One Nights, and the term saw its first use in English literature in 1786, in the Orientalist novel Vathek by William Beckford. Perhaps the most famous ghouls are the undead monsters of the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, which are described as ghouls - their subsequent association (and conflation) with zombies is attributed to an article in Cahiers du Cinéma by director George A. Romero.

Ghouls appear in Dungeons and Dragons, where they are chaotic evil creatures which feed on the corpses of humans and other creatures. Ghouls are said to arise from the death of a person who savored human flesh, and the transformation into a ghoul destroys the former human's mind - however, ghouls still retain a terrible cunning that is employed to effectively hunt prey. Ghouls attack using gnarled nails and fangs, and their touch could paralyze humans and human-like beings with the notable exception of elves - humans killed by ghoul attacks become ghouls themselves unless blessed (or blessed and then resurrected). Ghouls are immune to sleep and charm spells, but can be turned by clerics and repelled completely by a magic circle of protection from evil. Other varieties of ghoul exist, such as the supernaturally foul-smelling ghast that can paralyze even elves, and the marine-bound lacedon.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, ghouls have been made slightly more dangerous - their claw attack paralyzes for 1d6 turns and does 1d4 damage, and their base level is increased to 5. Ghouls in SLASH'EM also leave corpses upon death, though these corpses will generate as old and thus unsafe to consume. Stronger ghoul monsters such as the ghoul mages and ghoul queens are introduced, but ghouls cannot grow up into them.

Necromancers start the game with a tame ghoul, and can use the raise zombies technique to create more ghouls from humanoid corpses that do not have a corresponding zombie type.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, players killed by gnoll ghouls will raise as ghouls if a bones file is left.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack and SpliceHack-Rewrite, ghouls can grow up into ghasts. SpliceHack's pre-1.0.0 versions also had the ghoul as a playable race.

SlashTHEM

Main article: Ghoul (starting race)

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, hostile ghouls will eat any old corpses they come across. Ghouls are also available as a playable race.

Encyclopedia entry

The forces of the gloom know each other, and are strangely
balanced by each other. Teeth and claws fear what they cannot
grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious appetites, hunger
in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and jaws which
have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out
uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a
shroud, erect in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem
to them to live with a dead and terrible life. These
brutalities, which are only matter, entertain a confused fear
of having to deal with the immense obscurity condensed into an
unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops the wild
beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates
and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the
ferocious fear the sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter
a ghoul.

[ Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo ]

References