An alliance of cultists, ghouls, and vampires. A scheme of the dark gods against humanity. New maps, dark realms, monstrous societies!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
$100k Stretch Goals UNLOCKED!
almost 5 years ago
– Tue, May 21, 2019 at 10:38:42 PM
THANK YOU for your support and for helping us reach $100k! With your support, we can now add a new high-tier, lich-themed encounter to Underworld Lairs, add a mushroom-based player race to the Underworld Player’s Guide, AND host a stream of Christopher Lockey running players through the first chapter of Empire of the Ghouls. Chris had the following to say about the stream:
When the Kobold-in-Chief asks you if you want to run the Empire of the Ghouls adventure you wrote for a live internet audience, you say "YES". Thanks to your support, the Kickstarter has successfully hit $100K! And thanks to the mad genius of Wolfgang Baur, I'm on the hook to take you all on a guided tour of Black Chambers of the Undercity: my 1st-level horror/mystery scenario for the Empire of the Ghouls campaign setting.
We still have plenty of details to sort out (like who is playing and when), but the team is already gearing up to bring you a fresh look at the uncharted realms below the Free City of Zobeck. Something is wicked in the Crossroads of Midgard, and it's up to our intrepid adventurers to do something about it. Who are these fledgling heroes? And what mysterious threats do they face? Only time will tell. But I can promise you: gruesome baddies, moldy crypts, sexy cultists, eldritch horror... all this and more awaits you in the Black Chambers of the Undercity.
"But, Lockey," you're saying, "how can I possibly watch the live stream if I want to actually play Black Chambers with my game group?" Well, in the spirit of keeping this streamed session as spoiler free as possible, we'll be focusing on the earliest parts of the adventure. We might even stray into a little side quest action -- after all, the catacombs and Cartways below Zobeck are as sprawling as they are sinister. And evil lurks around every dark corner... So, from all of us on the Empire of the Ghouls team -- thanks for making this nightmarish RPG dream of ours a reality. We can't wait to share it.
From Carcosa with Love,
Chris Lockey
You can follow Christopher Lockey on Twitter @ChrisLockey
Design Diary: Catacombs of the Ghul King
almost 5 years ago
– Tue, May 21, 2019 at 03:37:06 AM
For today's Design Diary, we look at the design process behind Chapter 4: Catacombs of the Ghul King. In the fourth chapter of Empire of the Ghouls, the players must find a way into the Underworld to put a final stop to the ghouls. They head to the deserts of the Southlands where rumors abound of a group who holds the secret to sneaking into the Underworld undetected. Kelly Pawlik tells us about her journey in writing Catacombs of the Ghul King.
When I was contacted by Wolfgang to contribute a chapter to Kobold Press’ upcoming Empire of the Ghouls adventure, I was floored. Sure I’d written a couple Warlock articles and had just wrapped up my turnover for the Warlock Guide to the Shadow Realm, but this was something very different and a little intimidating. Seeing that the adventure was set largely in the Shadow Realm and Southlands, two of my favorite Midgard regions, I was excited to say yes, especially once Wolfgang agreed to adjust the deadline to accommodate my “real life” obligations.
The first thing I did while brainstorming ideas was decide what kind of tone I wanted the adventure to have. The chapter I worked on includes a visit to the Shadow Realm, and it was important to me that this portion be unsettling and a bit surreal. In my mind, any encounter with shadow fey should leave players off balance a little. The not-so-fair folk should come across as inscrutable and sly but not random or overtly hostile. For media inspiration, I used two Jim Henson movies, Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, and Neil Gaiman’s novel Neverwhere. After leaving the Shadow Realm and entering the Southlands, I wanted a more pulp, swashbuckling feel and looked to movies such as Aladdin, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Mummy for inspiration.
One of my biggest challenges arose early on: getting the adventurers from Krakovar in the north to the Southlands. A large portion of this would be done via travel through the Shadow Realm, but I still had to move the characters over 500 miles to really get the adventure started. How was I going to do this? I could use a travel montage, but my gaming group grumbles every time I try to move them along this way. I could just start the new adventure by saying that a couple weeks had passed and voila, they were handily in the location they needed to be. But this was similar to a montage and, though not expressly stated in the outline, I felt this adventure was a race against the clock—even a handwaved period of time worked against the players. In the end, I opted for a method that is distinctly magical in nature that I hope players and their Gamemasters enjoy.
Writing Catacomb of the Ghul King was a lot of fun, and I hope that comes through to the GMs who read it and the players they run it for!
Week 2 Recap and Art Preview
almost 5 years ago
– Tue, May 21, 2019 at 03:36:56 AM
It's the end of the second week of the Empire of the Ghouls Kickstarter, and you've unlocked 6 more stretch goals! Thank you very much!
Drow Race Expanded - We expand on the drow as a player race in the Underworld Player's Guide.
Underdark NPCs - Three new NPCs appear out of the Underworld!
Wanderers in Darkness - Speaking of randomly appearing out of the darkness, this stretch goal expands our random encounter tables to include a wide range of creatures from all kinds of terrain types in the Underworld.
Vampire Map and Encounter - A new vampire-themed encounter is added to Underworld Lairs.
Cult of the Red Goddess - A detailed entry about the Red Goddess Marena and her cult is added to the Empire of the Ghouls.
More Art! - We can commission more great art for our NPCs, monsters, magic items, and more - like this ghoulish piece by Egil Thompson!
This ship is The Phantom. Sporting a bone hull, flying sails of flayed skin, and carrying some of the Ghoul Imperium’s greatest warriors, The Phantom is the warship of the Ghoul Emperor, Nicoforus the Pale. The Underworld houses dry caverns, mushroom forests, sweltering beetle caverns, misty abysses full of cloakers, and plenty of dangerous waters, such as the Sulphur Sea where The Phantom is usually found. This warship plays an important role in the Empire of the Ghouls adventure.
What is a Darakhul?
almost 5 years ago
– Fri, May 17, 2019 at 07:09:33 AM
Since some of you may be new to Midgard and may not be familiar with its unique ghouls, we sat down with Chief Kobold Wolfgang Baur for an explanation of the differences between more traditional ghouls and Midgard’s darakhul.
Ghouls vs. Darakhul: What’s the Difference?
The Ghoul Imperium is ruled by the darakhul, an intelligent and even more malevolent ghoul subspecies described in the Tome of Beasts and the Creature Codex. Traditional ghouls come from Arabian myth and legend, where the ghul and ghulah are creatures that haunt graveyards and consume human flesh. That creature came into English usage with the feverish, peculiar, and lavish Orientalist novel Vathek, and the concept of the ghoul has been part of English legends ever since.
The novel influenced Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and other authors of the macabre. Lovecraft’s ghouls are somewhat different, though he and Clark both knew Vathek and expanded on its themes. In particular, it’s worth pointing out that Lovecraft’s ghouls are social, operating in groups and helpful to the protagonist in the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.
What’s a Typical Ghoul?
In fantasy RPGs, ghouls are based on Vathek, the cemetery-haunting creature of low intelligence. They might serve a necromancer or a lich or vampire, but they are more like undead wolves than anything. That is, they work in small groups to find prey or locate carrion, and, while they might have lairs, they certainly don’t have a nation-state or even a large settlement.
What Makes a Ghoul a Darakhul?
The darakhul have a society which takes them away from the animalistic, somewhat mindless carrion eaters of ghouls in prior D&D lore. It pushes them more in the direction of social monsters like the living humanoids found throughout fantasy worlds.
Ghoul fever turns the living into ghouls, and some ghoul fever leaves its victims rather mindless flesheaters. But not all of them! Those who retain more of their mind and memory are the darakhul, and their empire is a dark reflection of human, drow, dwarven, and similar humanoid societies. They have a social order and hierarchy, laws and rulers, a well-established pantheon of dark gods including their patron god Vardesain, a code of conduct, trade and commerce (of a peculiar sort, but even so).
Give a ghoul greater intelligence, an ability to work with others, cloths, weapons, and the drive to rule the world—and now you have a darakhul. Much like an ordinary ghoul in base physical appearance and appetites, but completely different in mentality, goals, and tactics. Fear the steady rhythm of their legions’ footsteps, for they rush with speed and determination through the underworld, always seeking new flesh for the feast and new caverns to conquer.
Thank you all for your support and congratulations on unlocking more stretch goals! You are all amazing!
-The Kobolds
Empire of the Ghouls Cover KS Update
almost 5 years ago
– Fri, May 17, 2019 at 07:09:24 AM
When it was time to assign the cover to our Empire of the Ghouls project, we knew we wanted to work with Craig Spearing again. He'd done such an amazing job with the undead on the Creature Codex cover, working with him again was a no-brainer.
Kobold Press asked Craig to talk a little about how he approached the cover ...
Working on the 'Empire of the Ghouls' cover was fun from beginning to end. Marc and Wolfgang at Kobold had a clear idea of the setting, and they gave me a lot of freedom to explore. I wanted it to be a character study ("I know those guys... those are bad guys"), set in a triangle composition seen through looming cave formations.
My initial plan was to show thousands of ghouls behind the lead group, reinforcing "Empire" in the title. But, I try to keep gaming mechanics in mind when doing gaming illustrations. A group of adventurers might have a chance of surviving the number depicted in the final version. Though, the implication is there are a lot more ghouls in the stygian depths of the caves.
I tend to have simple running backstories in my head while drawing. The minion on the left had his eye torn out by the Ghoul King, replaced with an enchanted optical device ("Now you can see our enemies better, little one"). Cruel, but effective. The undead hyena on the right was a bit arbitrary. I had a few nascent thoughts about how the Ghoul King acquired such a familiar, but they were just an excuse to paint a drooling undead hyena.
You can check out more of Craig's work at his website:
