Ghul-Kin

Stripped of disguise, a ghul-kin is a gaunt horror 8 to 10 feet tall, all spindly limbs, clawed hands and a jaw crowded with yellowed fangs. Its skin is bone pale and pitted, its hair a matted thicket, its ears pointed, and its eyes glint like an animal's. The flesh feels cold and rubbery, and a sour stink clings to it.

Few people ever see that shape. These shapechangers favor alluring or dignified guises, a beauty, a sage, a pious elder, and they can copy a real person they have laid eyes on at least once. The copy is never perfect: an ear is shaped wrong, the eyes are the wrong shade. Having heard the original speak, the ghul-kin can also fake the voice quite convincingly. Heavy perfumes, exotic scents such as frangipani and frankincense, and fine tailoring help hide both the reek and the body beneath.

Claws and jaws are the ordinary weapons, but either type may give them up for a special attack described below. At will a ghul-kin can turn invisible or polymorph self. Being undead, they ignore poison, paralyzation, cold-based magic, and sleep, charm and hold effects. Holy water burns them for 2d6 points of damage. Daylight does not destroy them, though bright sun imposes -1 on attacks and saves. Soultakers are turned as spectres and witherers as vampires. Any jann a ghul-kin kills rises as a new ghul-kin.

Genie-binding wizards cannot capture or bind them. Every ghul-kin may become a sorcerer, genie-binder or priest, and all can wield magic items meant for wizards or priests. They hoard items that could hurt them, hiding them carefully, and never stop hunting for devices that command genies.

Soultakers are immune to any weapon not made of wood and can advance to 7th level as a wizard or priest, if a god accepts them. Instead of normal attacks a soultaker may try a kiss, rolling to hit at -3. A victim it kisses must save vs. spell at -2 or be possessed by a sliver of its essence. The victim's mind stays awake but trapped and mute, while the soultaker speaks and acts through the body, at any distance on the same plane, steering the victim to harm friends in sly ways. Whatever spells a caster victim held memorized when taken are the soultaker's to cast, but it cannot make the victim study or pray for new ones. It may hold one victim per two points of its Intelligence, rounded down.

Possession leaves clues. Detect alignment reads neutral evil, strangers treat the victim with the suspicion of an evil eye, and behavior may turn vicious or even violent toward companions. A genie-binder of 3rd level or more senses genie work, a true-seeing wise woman of 9th level or more recognizes possession, and detect evil reveals an evil influence. Protection from evil (or its 10-foot radius version) blocks control while it lasts, anti-magic shell ends it when cast with the victim inside its area, remove curse breaks it, and dispel evil on the victim breaks it and deals 3d8 damage to the soultaker. Neither the ghul nor its puppet will willingly approach a priest or mosque, and the soultaker will make the victim fight, or call it home to the lair, rather than lose it.

Witherers are struck only by +2 or better weapons and may reach 9th level as mages or priests, with the same divine proviso. Their three normal attacks can be traded for a withering touch: 1d10 damage that the witherer adds to its own hit points for up to an hour (damage it takes comes off these first), plus the loss of 1 Strength and one year of age. A victim reduced to 0 Strength, or aged past a natural lifespan, dies, and the corpse needs remove curse before it can be raised or resurrected. Strength returns at 1 point per turn if not fully drained, hit points heal normally or magically, but only youth-restoring magic undoes the aging.

Ghul-kin settle wherever suits them, often in cities where they trade and socialize without anyone suspecting. They live in small families, frequently lead packs of lone great ghuls, and sneer at common ghouls as crude. They love silk, art, tiled and painted rooms, wine and heavily spiced stews, though they need no food beyond the human dead they prefer to devour. Unlike their cousins, they take no joy in graveyards.

Witherers, averaging 10 feet, are the planners: smarter, domineering, fond of grand rituals that sacrifice both treasure and thinking beings. They use soultakers as lieutenants, great ghuls as pawns, and humans and demihumans as half-enslaved soldiers or food. Beaten, a witherer withdraws and may scheme for decades before returning, yet a sudden exposure rattles it into blunders that can undo it. Females are the ruthless majority; the rarer males may pose as hermits or reclusive genie-binders and can be coaxed into helping for a rich reward, an interesting problem, a grand role to play, or a halfway believable claim of kinship.

Soultakers are a bit smaller, rarely reaching 10 feet, and equally likely to be male or female. Forced to bow to witherers, they vent their resentment on their victims, savoring the fear and despair of the slaves they ride.

Ghul-kin crave power over a cowed populace, a ready supply of bodies, and enough secrets to command other genies. They obey genies only under compulsion and avoid them unless sure of the upper hand. Being undead, they can spend years refining a scheme or a role, and many are superb actors. Boredom eventually wins, the mask comes off, and a massacre of everyone who learned the truth usually follows. Secret societies and cults are a favorite amusement. Still, polite and respectful mortals get a warmer reception, and a few ghul-kin aid those who flatter them, offer genie-binding devices, or once showed them kindness while they were in disguise.