Leng ghoul

From PathfinderWiki
Leng ghoul
Wilkins, a Leng ghoul.
(Creature)

Type
Undead
(extraplanar)
CR
10
Environment
Any (Leng)
Alignment
Source: Bestiary 5, pg(s). 120

Leng ghouls are the ghouls of the nightmare Plateau of Leng, more powerful, intelligent, and erudite than their cousins dwelling in the Material Plane.1

Appearance

Sempet Sevenfingers, a Leng ghoul, showing his species' canine head and hoofed legs.

Unlike common ghouls, Leng ghouls have a canine snout and hoofed feet.2

Ecology

Leng ghouls delight in feasting on dead flesh and consider themselves gourmets of decay. They also covet knowledge and lore, and their libraries rival the greatest ones of wizards, although their subject matter tends to be limited to necromancy and forbidden rites. Leng ghouls are uncharacteristically charitable toward strangers, whom they may aid in exchange for food or knowledge.1

Leng ghouls gain access to the Material Plane when ghoul warrens burrow deep enough and cross over to Leng. They maintain complex societies and warrens when they colonise the Material Plane, deep below the graveyards they choose to haunt.1

Society

Most Leng ghouls venerate the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones, most often Nyarlathotep and Mordiggian. According to the demon lord Kabriri, patron of ghouls, the Leng ghouls came to be when he spread ghoul fever among the almost-humans of Leng and later turned their backs against him, but the Leng ghouls cite ancient tablets and carvings that suggest their race is far older than Kabriri himself is. They view Kabriri as a curiosity at best and a false patron at worst, and see his followers as children imitating their lifestyle.34

A rare few Leng ghouls hold their monstrous nature in check, do not murder for food, and only feed on the flesh of those who died naturally or willingly offered themselves up, although they risk succumbing to the temptation to feed on fresh kills. One such community is found in the Rue d'Auseil, part of the Paris nexus in Carcosa, under the leadership of Erich Zann, whom the ghouls hold in high esteem. They can maintain a relatively urbane culture when not driven to violence.156

Leng ghasts

Leng ghasts are stronger, more feral and violent cousins of Leng ghouls; both consider themselves separate races and are at war with each other. Gugs hate both the ghouls and ghasts of Leng, and slaughter and prey on Leng ghasts, who in turn try to overwhelm gugs with numbers. Even though Leng ghouls are weaker, gugs are irrationally afraid of and nearly always flee from them.2

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Jason Bulmahn, et al. Bestiary 5, 120. Paizo Inc., 2015
  2. 2.0 2.1 Greg A. Vaughan. Leng: The Terror Beyond Dreams” in Into the Nightmare Rift, 66. Paizo Inc., 2012
  3. Paizo Inc., et al. “Chapter 1: Fiendish Divinities” in Book of the Damned, 63. Paizo Inc., 2017
  4. James Jacobs. “The Elder Mythos” in In Search of Sanity, 69. Paizo Inc., 2016
  5. Jim Groves. “Black Stars Beckon” in Black Stars Beckon, 43. Paizo Inc., 2017
  6. Jim Groves. “Black Stars Beckon” in Black Stars Beckon, 46. Paizo Inc., 2017