Ghoul Hound of Leng

The Ghoul Hound of Leng (AKA "Dragvals", "Dark Seekers", "Flesh Rippers", "Grave Beast") is from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Hound (fiction)", adapted for gaming by Scott David Aniolowski.

Description

The amulet was the oddly conventionalised figure of a crouching winged hound, or sphinx with a semi-canine face, and was exquisitely carved in antique Oriental fashion from a small piece of green jade. The expression on its features was repellent in the extreme, savouring at once of death, bestiality, and malevolence.
— H.P. Lovecraft, "The Hound (fiction)"

A beast which takes the form of a shadowy, grotesque, crouching, bat-winged sphinx with a face half-canine, half-human; the beast is bound to an object or location, such as an amulet or grave, to serve as a guardian or watcher. The Ghoul Hound is reputed in the Necronomicon to be the "soul symbol" of the corpse-eating cult of the Plateau of Leng in Central Asia, which is also the origin of either the beast itself, or at least the magic to conjure and bind it. The Ghoul Hound appears to have been created in the image of the Ghouls, perhaps created in some way from Ghoul stock.

In Lovecraft's "The Hound", the Ghoul Hound never quite appears "on screen", being seen in silhouette in the distance or in shadows cast on the wall by the story's unreliable narrator, and heard in the form of sinister pawing sounds at windows and doors, and it's eerie hound-like baying in the distance; the Ghoul Hound appeared immediately after an amulet bearing its likeness was retrieved from an ancient, unmarked grave, apparently of the remains of a Witch/Vampire/Werewolf, pursing the grave-robbers over the course of days, tearing them to shreds, and returning the amulet to the grave from which it was taken, with the remains occupying the grave blood-stained, suggesting that the buried corpse is none other than the Ghoul Hound itself, not dead but dreaming in its grave until disturbed.

Associated Mythos Elements

• tome: The Necronomicon (describes the Ghoul Hound and its nature and function, and possibly also how to summon and bind it)
• location: Plateau of Leng
• artifact: Soul-Symbol
• deity: Mordiggian
• race: Ghouls
• race: Men from Leng
• race: Vampires, Witches, Werewolves
• cult: Corpse-Eating Cult of Leng

References

• fiction: H.P. Lovecraft, "The Hound (fiction)"
• sourcebook: Malleus Monstrorum