Since the kin of the Dark Medieval world tend to be tightly knit folk, Cainites often take entire families as ghouls, and there are tales of families living on the outskirts of mortal society with a strange way about them. True lords of the night such as the Tzimisce even breed their ghouls to create lineages to serve them over the years. Other Cainites create ghoul "families" from communities, such as the isolated brethern of a monastery, the high-ranking members of a guild or a troupe of wandering entertainers.
For some, ghouls are an intermediate step towards the Embrace. Some princes do not require their subjects to seek permission before creating ghouls, as they must when creating childer, allowing Cainites to maintain someone they consider worthy of the Embrace until they can obtain permission.
Ghoul abilities
• They may store up to 10 blood points of vitae, and can spend one blood point per turn. Elder ghouls can store an additional blood point per century of age.
• Ghouls don't age as long as they have Cainite blood in them. Once a ghoul has passed his natural life span, he must always have vitae in his body, or he will swiftly age and die.
• Ghouls can use their vitae to heal themselves and increase their Physical Attributes like vampires do.
• Ghouls can regenerate lost or crippled limbs by spending a Willpower point, an appropriate number of blood points (one for a finger or eye, two for a foot or forearm, three for an entire limb).
While they have Cainite blood in them, ghouls can soak lethal damage, but they still soak bashing damage like other mortals.
• Ghouls automatically gain one dot of Potence within minutes of first drinking blood, and they can also learn Celerity and Fortitude. Ghouls can sometimes learn other Disciplines, if they consume the blood of a vampire that has that Discipline.
• The vitae a ghoul consumes carries the curse of the Beast with it. Ghouls can frenzy likes vampires, although the curse is not as strong in them.
Ghouls who consume five or more blood points gain their domitor's clan weakness, which lasts until they have less than five blood points in them.
Ghouls that go without feeding for a month are overcome with hunger for vitae.
• Ghouls are subject to the Blood Oath, but they cannot put others under it. Most ghouls are oathbound to their original domitor, but this oath can and does erode as with any other thrall. The Cainite tendency to treat ghouls as chattel--which erodes the power of the oath--is usually more than offset by regular feedings of vitae.
Bestial Ghouls
Any beast can be fed vampiric vitae, giving it all the abilities of a ghoul and making it loyal and obedient to its Cainite master, as long as it is regularly fed. The most common animal ghouls are "hellhounds" dogs or wolves battened on Cainite blood, and horses. Other animal ghouls are known, from Nosferatu rats to Setite serpents, and beasts fleshcrafted by the Tzimisce such that their original species is no longer clear.
Human-sized animals can contain up to 10 blood points of vitae. Smaller animals can proportionally smaller amounts of blood. As a general rule, a dog can hold up to six blood points, a cat can hold four, and a rat can contain two.
| Domitor's Generation | Max Disc Level |
| 12th-11th | 1 |
| 10th-9th | 1 |
| 8th | 1 |
| 7th | 2 |
| 6th | 3 |
| 5th | 4 |
| 4th | 5 |
Tzimisce Specials
Guardians (LS1)
These loathesome creatures are known by a variety of names (the term "szlachta," an ironic useage of the Polish Slavonic dialect's word for "aristocrat" is common). In any event, guardians are ghouls shaped by Vicissitude into horrendous monsters. The process likewise affects guardian ghoul's minds; most are mad and murderous creatures fit only to kill.
Physical: Str 4, Dex, 3 Stam 4
Social: Char 1, Manip 3, App 0
Mental: Perc 3, Intell 2, Wits 2
Attack: Bonecrafted weapon
Discipline: Potence 1
Willpower: 4
Notes: Armour plating makes them harder to damage
Hellhounds
This refers to any of several sort of Vicissitude-altered canines. Tzimisce most commonly use wolfhounds, though Mastiffs and Great Danes are also used as "raw material".
Physical: Str 4, Dex 3, Stam 4
Social: Not likely
Mental: Perc 3, Intel 1, Wits 3
Disciplines: Potence 1
Willpower: 4
Notes: Armor plating makes them harder to damage.
