Hideous Creatures - Ghouls

Oct 6, 2026

Hideous Creatures: Ghouls is a Trail of Cthulhu supplement that presents Lovecraftian ghouls from multiple angles to support tabletop campaign use. It reframes ghouls as uncanny, variable entities rather than familiar stock monsters, emphasizing contradiction and unsettling recognition of the familiar as weird. The introduction explains the purpose of the series, outlines how to adapt content in play, and introduces ghoul imagery and core traits. It covers appearance, sensory capabilities, behavior, diet, language, and related transformations, alongside investigations, clues, and scenario seed material.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryComic

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Hideous Creatures: Introduction

Lovecraft’s hideous creatures and the series approach

In-campaign adaptation guidance

Ghouls: appearance and sensory traits

Ghouls: behavior, diet, language, and associations

Ghoul imagery variants

Investigations, clues, and scenario seeds

Bibliography

TRAIL OF CTHULHU Hideous Creatures Ghouls Publisher: Cathriona Tobin Author: Kenneth Hite Layout: Cathriona Tobin Artwork: Stefano Azzalin | | |
Hideous Creatures: Ghouls is part of the Ken Writes about Stuff subscription series, featuring new and original Hite goodness every month for twelve months. A subscription costs $24.95 and as well as giving you a generous 30% discount on the individual article price of $2.95, we’ll be offering an exclusive extra later in the year to all subscribers.
Any time you order, you’ll get all the issues of the current KWAS to date. | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © 2013 Pelgrane Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Trail of Cthulhu is published by arrangement with Chaosium, Inc. Trail of Cthulhu is a trademark of Pelgrane Press Ltd. TRAIL OF CTHULHU Hideous Creatures: Introduction Lovecraft created his various“shadowy congeners”because the stories of vampires, werewolves, and even ghosts had become too familiar and too formulaic to evoke true horror. Almost a century after he wrote, his own monstrous races have likewise begun to seem like comfortable story furniture rather than unnerving signals that the world is horrible and wrong. Our goal with this series is to present a comprehensive look at Lovecraft’s hideous creatures, from as many angles as we can . Our goal is contradiction, surprise, and most especially the uncanny: the recognition of something familiar as something weird. As in the “Gods andTitans” section of the Trail of Cthulhu core book, this series deliberately contradicts itself, blurring boundaries and erasing certainties in the name of the uncanny. In your campaign, these variant truths might be misunderstandings, legends, heresies, or deliberate lies spread by the creatures to lull their foes into a false sense of familiarity. Change anything and everything in these pages, most especially the ability scores. If you need a terrifying assassin, a brief but survivable fright, or a sanity-shattering horror, just add or subtract points at will. | | Hideous Creatures: Introduction Ghouls
Appearance
Motivation
Ghoul Stats
Human-Ghoul Changelings Becoming a Ghoul
Possible Ghoul Abilities
Variations
Mythic Echoes
Gallu (Babylonia)
Ghul (Arabia) | 3 4
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9 | Lubin (France)
Pishacha (India)
Psoglav (Serbia) Investigations
Clues Scenario Seeds
Pour Another Ghoul One
HaveYour Quake And Eat It Too Bibliography | 9
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12 | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | TRAIL OF CTHULHU | | | --- | --- | --- | | | | | |
Ghouls

| | | “IT WAS A COLOSSAL AND NAMELESS BLASPHEMY WITH GLARING RED EYES, AND IT HELD IN BONY CLAWS A THING THAT HAD BEEN A MAN, GNAWING AT THE HEAD AS A CHILD NIBBLES AT A STICK OF CANDY. ITS POSITION WAS A KIND OF CROUCH … NOT THAT, NOR THE DOG FACE WITH ITS POINTED EARS, BLOODSHOT EYES, FLAT NOSE, AND DROOLING LIPS. IT WASN’T THE SCALY CLAWS NOR THE MOULD-CAKED BODY NOR THE HALF-HOOVED FEET -- NONE OF THESE, THOUGH ANY ONE OF THEM MIGHT WELL HAVE DRIVEN AN EXCITABLE MAN TO MADNESS.” – – “PICKMAN'S MODEL” Rubbery, loathsome humanoids with semi-hooved feet, pointed ears, and claws, ghouls dwell in graveyard warrens, subway tunnels, and the like beneath many human cities. Their greenish or grayish skin is matted with grave earth or flecked with leprous lesions and leathery dead spots. They smell horrible, like open graves and rot and wet dogs. They move in a low, hunched posture, almost semi-bipedal; they climb, leap, and lope at prodigious speed. Their eyes are red or yellow, and glow in pitch blackness or when hungrily attentive on something or someone. Ghouls can see into both infrared and ultraviolet; in utter darkness, they can find a foe by smell or sound. Ghouls are usually described as doglike or canine

FAQs

What is the core goal of the Hideous Creatures series for Trail of Cthulhu campaigns?

The series aims to present Lovecraft’s hideous creatures from many angles while emphasizing contradiction, surprise, and especially the uncanny—turning something familiar into something weird. Variant truths may appear as misunderstandings, legends, heresies, or deliberate lies spread by the creatures.

What are ghouls like in appearance and sensory ability?

Ghouls are described as rubbery, loathsome humanoids with semi-hooved feet, pointed ears, claws, hunched movement, and eyes that can glow in darkness. They can see in infrared and ultraviolet, and in utter darkness they can locate foes by smell or sound.

How do ghouls feed and how do they relate to humans?

Ghouls eat dead flesh, often human corpses, typically sticking to the anonymous dead or digging up from below. They speak a gibbering-meeping language but may recall or learn human tongues, and they may associate with human witches, dreamers, necrophiles, and serial killers as intermediaries or occasional allies.

Oct 6, 2026

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