Agarat

An agarat looks like a ghoul: still humanoid, but starved and warped into a thing of the dark, with long sharp teeth, claw-like nails and a long rasping tongue suited to stripping meat and marrow from bone. It carries a carrion stink like a ghast's, though weaker. What sets it apart is its voice, a hideous, life-draining scream that is its deadliest weapon.

Unlike a ghoul, an agarat cannot paralyze with a touch, but once per turn it can scream. Everyone within 20 feet must save vs. spell (Wisdom adjustments apply) or lose one level, as from other draining undead like vampires and spectres. The loss is temporary, lasting 1d4 turns before survivors regain it. Screams stack, and anyone temporarily drained of all levels falls unconscious and cannot be roused for 2d6 turns.

It is immune to sleep, charm and hold, can be struck only by magic or cold iron weapons, and priests turn it as they would a spectre. Agarats often command ghoul packs, letting the ghouls claw at living flesh while they stay back and scream. Their presence shields the ghouls from turning unless the roll would drive off the agarats too; in that case the ghouls flee first.

Agarats haunt places of death, such as graveyards, tombs, charnel houses and the hidden burial pits of massacres, feeding on rotting bodies and using crude tactics to catch prey or find carrion. In ruins and wilderness they are 60% likely to run with ghouls, usually about twice as many ghouls as agarats, and 20% likely to have 1d4 ghasts along.

Each pack has one leader, the oldest or one strong enough to bully the rest. If it dies or flees, the others soon follow, though attendant ghouls may stay and fight, delaying pursuers.

Some serve a lich or vampire that pays them in a steady supply of corpses. Their origin is unknown. They are very rare now, but old chronicles report many more in the wake of war, plague and famine, when graveyards overflowed with their food.

Rarer and far deadlier, the greater agarat has 8+6 Hit Dice, Armor Class 0 and immunity to weapons below +2. Its scream drains two levels, it paralyzes like a ghast, and every attack deals 1d6. Those failing a save vs. poison against its stench suffer -2 to hit. It is smarter (Intelligence 11 to 14), and rumor speaks of one somewhere with the highest possible Intelligence that casts spells like a 5th-level wizard. It is turned as a special creature. A group of 8 agarats has a 10% chance of a greater agarat leader, in which case 2d12 ghouls and possibly (50%) 2d4 ghasts come with it.