Ghoul

Ghouls were once human, and that much can still be guessed, but the transformation has mangled them. The tongue has grown long and leathery, ideal for scraping marrow from split bones. The teeth are long and pointed, and the nails have thickened into hard, sharp claws.

Undeath wrecked their minds yet left them a fearsome cunning that makes them efficient hunters. Ghouls tear with filthy claws and bite with their fangs, and packs attack without any fear. A ghoul's touch forces humans and demihumans such as halflings, gnomes, dwarves, and half-elves to save vs. paralyzation or stiffen helplessly for 2+1d6 rounds or until a priest ends the effect. Elves are immune.

Any human or demihuman other than an elf killed by ghouls becomes one, unless a bless is cast on the remains, whether or not resurrection follows. A victim the pack devours obviously cannot rise either.

Every attack form works on ghouls except sleep and charm. Priests of any level can turn them, and protection from evil, used as a magic circle, keeps them away completely.

Ghouls and ghasts gather wherever corpses are plentiful, most often around graveyards.

These creatures relish everything foul and revolting, which is why the words ghoulish and ghastly came to mean what they do.

The lacedon is a ghoul adapted to water. Fewer corpses are available at sea, so lacedons are rarer than their land kin, but they swarm around fresh wrecks in rivers, lakes, and oceans and are sometimes found with marine ghosts, especially ghost ships.

A ghast cannot be told apart from a ghoul by sight and normally runs with a ghoul pack. Its presence becomes obvious once the fight starts: it gives off a stench of rotting meat in a 10-foot radius, and anyone inside must save vs. poison or be wracked with nausea, attacking at -2.

Its paralysis is even stronger than a ghoul's and affects elves as well. It lasts 4+1d6 rounds or until ended by a priest's remove paralysis. Like ghouls, ghasts are undead and ignore sleep and charm. Any weapon hurts them, but cold iron deals double damage. Clerics can turn them from 2nd level. Protection from evil does not hold them back unless cold iron is part of it, such as a ring of iron or a circle of powdered iron.