Ghoul Dietary Requirements

[Virgil]

It's established that they have a craving for humanoid flesh. What isn't established is how much they need to 'comfortably' subsist. How long can a ghoul go with just a single corpse before they need to refill their larder?

[dragonhunterq]

not a lot of specific info

Realistically though as undead they don't need any food to survive/subsist. Their craving is entirely a function of their nature, not something they require. Even with plenty of food they are never sated (kind of like me and Haribo Tangfastics!I know I don't need another one, but the bag is right there...) they will still crave humanoid flesh. The smarter one will manage their cravings though so as not to draw too much attention.

[Entryhazard]

In some splats about undeads it's stated that the likes of ghouls and vampire actually can go indefinitely without consuming the living, but the longer the harder they can resist the psychological hunger.

[Wszebor Uriev]

Requirements? none.

Compulsion? yes.

They don't eat because they need the nutrients. To them its more akin to a drug addiction. So, work from that premise.

[Weirdo]

There's a more involved system for dealing with undead hunger in Blood of the Night (also found here). While it's focused on vampires, you can use it for ghouls, too.

Using this system a typical ghoul needs a pound of flesh every 2 days to stave off cravings.

[Righteous Mite]

Well, as mentioned above I don't think they need any food at all to survive. Seems all that necromantic energy is keeping them stuffed.

Although I think it is a perfectly fine houserule to give a ghoul some intelligence/wisdom penalty for, say, each year without food.

[Thanael]

Kobold Press' High Ghouls the Darakhul have this:

Hunger for Flesh:

Hunger for Flesh: : You must consume a meal of raw meat each day or suffer the effects of starvation. You use your Charisma when making checks regarding starvation and always suffer lethal damage from its effects. If you suffer damage from starvation, you become “fatigued” until the damage is healed. (Undead are not typically susceptible to fatigue; hunger, however, will make a darakhul feel effects identical to fatigue.) Damage from starvation cannot be healed by magic or anything else but spending 1 hour consuming an amount of raw meat equal to a Small creature. Separate from the starvation hazard, if you’re a darakhul spellcaster, you only recover your spells after enjoying a leisurely, 1-hour-long meal of raw meat. If you need to heal starvation damage and recover spells, you must eat two Small creatures over a 2-hour period. While you will gladly devour any meat any time you can, you can regain spells only once every 24 hours.

[Virgil]

I understand that it's a psychological craving rather than a physiological requisite. But they show discretion & patience when keeping it buried to 'ripen' before eating, and when choosing the flesh of one race other another. So it's not so limiting that they can't be picky. That the core writeup and other books indicates that they eat fresh only when hungry enough indicates gradations to their hunger. On a practical level, this is functionally the same as regular need for food, only instead of starving to death they become more focused on eating.

One could argue that ghouls' hunger, with a managed diet, isn't any more pronounced than a human's. The supposed severity can seem worse given the social taboo that the ghoul was undoubtedly raised in. Social isolation and lack of support networks makes access unreliable, so long periods of time without eating would be common, easily on par with starvation scenarios for mortals. That they won't die nor suffer actual physical debilitation means these famine periods can go longer and possibly deeper than what a human is physically able to experience.

Weirdo's reference to Blood of Night is what I was looking for. Thanks :)