Dawnspire teaches that ghouls are corpse-eating undead driven by an unnatural hunger for living and dead flesh. They retain enough intelligence to hunt, stalk, cooperate, and exploit weakness, but their appetites dominate what remains of their mortal reason. Lathandric doctrine treats them as a direct corruption of the proper passage from life into death, something to be destroyed rather than cured.

A ghoul’s claws are particularly dangerous. Their touch can paralyze a living victim, allowing the creature to close in and feed. Modern Dawnspire field instruction therefore emphasizes spacing, protecting anyone struck down or immobilized, and preventing several ghouls from surrounding a fallen companion. Their bites carry both physical and necrotic harm.

Ghouls commonly haunt graveyards, ruins, battlefields, sewers, crypts, and other places where corpses are plentiful. They see in darkness, do not tire as living creatures do, and are unaffected by poison. Unlike mindless walking corpses, a ghoul can understand Common and possesses enough cunning to wait in darkness or choose vulnerable prey.

Dawnspire Maxim: “If one falls, guard the fallen first. A ghoul is hungriest when it believes the fight is already won.”