Nehwonese Ghouls in Ravenloft

[Carrion Crow]

After a long hiatus, I have returned to the Cafe and having read the section of QTR #28 on Umbra People, i.e. non-human races in Ravenloft, a thought occurred to me. As the Mist can transport PC's/NPC's from any existing D&D World, it could conceivably transport a Nehwonese Ghoul.

As per the 2E stats (my only source) the only real difference between humans and Nehwonese ghouls is their transparent flesh, which grants them a -2 defensive bonus, rising to -4 in darkness.

However, their cannibalistic nature and attitude towards non-ghouls, coupled with their appearance, would cause the inhabitants to view them as monsters. Based on my recollection of the books and the MC entry, Nehwonese Ghouls do not wear clothing, to enhance their natural camouflage, which would cause a few issues in the colder Domains (I'm assuming that the part of Nehwon they come from has a more tropical climate).

In order to survive and blend in, they would have to become accustomed to wearing clothes and possible some kind of body paint, to conceal their nature, but this would then negate their defensive bonus.

So, whilst you could take this as a PC option, it doesn't really give you anything extra. However, used as an NPC, where the PC's uncover the Ghoul's nature be accident or design, would I think call for a Horror check (if those are still a thing in 5E). Given that they are a relatively obscure race, I don't think many players would be expecting one to surface in Ravenloft and would no doubt jump to ALL the wrong kinds of conclusions...

[tomokaicho]

Just make the Nehwonese Ghoul have a degree of resistance to cold. Environmental factors were not as big a part of the game in 2E as they were in later editions.

[SkiBird]

You know, this got me thinking ...

With all of the other literary pastiches and expy characters in the Ravenloft setting ... has The Invisible Man ever been done?

[Carrion Crow]

If I recall, there was a tale in Tales of Ravneloft... The Glass Man(?), but I don't recall a specific adaptation of the original Wells tale. I always considered this more horror than SF, as Griffin did become more manic as he failed to find a cure. The version in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the original comic, rather than the movie) was a complete bastard, raping girls in a convent school, believing that he wouldn't get caught and the most recent movie made the invisible man an abusive husband, with a invisible body-suit, hunting his estranged wife and setting her up for various crimes.

As Infravision detects body heat (in 2E) and the Invisibility spell is quite common, I would suspect that this may be why The Invisible Man has not been adapted for Ravenloft as yet.

Regarding my Nehwonese Ghoul idea, would they be better as PC's or NPC's? I'm leaning towards the latter, as whilst the race does add some interesting roleplaying opportunities, i.e. the advantage of semi-invisibility versus having to run around naked with no armour, etc. and the whole eating humans, I think they would be better as a NPC.

If we imagine that a Nehwonese Ghoul finds themselves transported to Ravenloft, their appearance alone would immediately make people assume they were a creature of the night, likely some new form of undead. This would scare the general populace and bring "monster hunters" after them, and that's without them having starting chowing down on anyone. If they survived, they would learn to adapt as noted above, so clothing and some form of body paint or make-up. If this was water-soluble, any kind of spillage or being caught in a rain shower would wash off the paint, revealing the skeleton beneath and causing a more extreme reaction than their first appearance, as everyone may have assumed that they were "human." Obviously Detect or Turn Undead would not work on them, as they are living beings, so this would throw a serious curve ball to anyone assuming they were dealing with a new form of undead.

And whilst the mind-set of the Nehwonese Ghoul does lean towards them being a superior race, as they consider normal humans as merely food, this does not necessarily make them evil.

Also, being essentially human, they would be subject to similar problems, so could conceivably become a vampire or a werebeast. I would assume that their naturally invisible flesh would remain intact if this happened, so you could have a partially invisible werewolf running around. Imagine watching as your adventuring companion, drenched from constant rain, has their "flesh" wash off, revealing the skeleton beneath, then the light of the full moon falls upon them and they begin their transformation, their skeletal form wrenching and twisting until they become something completely... other. That would definitely call for a Horror check.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I think Nehwonese ghouls could work as both PC and NPC.
Eating 'mudmen' seems to be a philosophy or an article of faith, it is not an absolute nutritional requirement. They can and do eat more standard foods. They can choose not to eat people.
Nehwonese ghouls have an acceptance of death that other humanoids lack, but how would they respond to undeath?
Imagine a party hurrying to stop a mob of cannibal zombies from overrunning a village, only to see what appears to be a skeleton already fighting them off - and screaming with fury at the 'abominations'.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

As for the ghouls being tropical... maybe. The invisible people of Nehwon - who I always thought might be related to the ghouls - live in cold mountains, but they do live in warrens inside of them, and might have migrated there over time. Also, they keep slaves whose ancestry lies in the tropical south.

While the ghouls don't typically wear clothes in battle, they do wear weapon belts and are no strangers to applying touches of body paint to charm a potential mate. Either could be enchanted for cold resistance or other effects.

[Carrion Crow]

Ooooh, I like that idea regarding Nehwonese Ghouls considering actual undead to be abominations and your description is quite evocative of how that could play out.

Now, as I'm still mired in the past, i.e. only have 2E rules (because I'm old), I would assume that alignment for Nehwonese Ghouls would run the same gamut as 'normal' humans, so you could have good and evil Ghouls. Given my limited recollection of the source material, I believe that we only saw evidence of martial Ghouls, but given their natural abilities, I would lean to allowing them to take both Warrior and Rogue classes in Ravenloft, but limit it to the non-spellcasting classes, so essentially (in 2E terms), they could be Fighters, Avengers or Thieves. To represent their hardiness to the cold, rather than specifically give them a 'magical' resistance, perhaps giving a racial Con bonus, offset by a Cha penalty due to their unnatural appearance. This, combined with their natural partial invisibility, doesn't overbalance them as a PC race, as this is offset by their limited choice of classes. Does that sound reasonable?