Thinking about ghouls

[Dugi]

I would like to know more about ghouls. I know the basic stuff the game tells, like that they are twisted bodies of lowlifes, that humans can become ghouls after anthropophagy, that necromancers create them in a certain dreadful process, I know that they higher level ghouls can eat enemies, becoming stronger etc. There I still things I would like to know.

Are they living creatures or full undead? Because they aren't much vulnerable to arcane and they eat things. Also, they spread infection, and dead flesh usually stops spreading infections in a few weeks (as poisons from decomposition kill also the bacteria). Could it be so that they are living, but their bodies are infused with dark power, making from it a parody to life?

How dexterous are they? They are described as hulking and malformed, but I'd imagine them as more agile than Walking Corpses, who are puppets made of rotting flesh. They didn't actually die, so their former movement abilities might be mostly preserved, although the deformed body hinders their movements (that might be the cause of their low damage).

What do you think?

P.S. I know I should tell why I am interested in this, but I want to keep it untold at the moment.

[ChaosRider]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaoH7TUChH8 - they are immune on petrification!!!

[Dugi]

I am asking about the wesnothian ghouls, I know what D&D ghouls are like and they are different from those in wesnoth, although they are related to poison and necrophagy as well (they also look totally different).

[revansurik]

Well, I understand that you're asking for ideas on the true nature of ghouls, so there goes my idea, which I'm using in the new campaign I'm making...
In my view, the ghouls were originally normal humans who died, but whose souls remained in their rotting bodies. This happened, obviously, due to the intervention of a necromancer, who bound the soul to the dead body with some sort of spell - and then used another spell to control the ghoul. This would not only set them apart from common walking corpses, but this could explain their resistance to arcane magic: the souls that remain inside them protects them from arcane energy (walking corpses and skeletons are filled with dark magic, which can easily be dispelled by arcane magic. Thus, ghouls would be like 'living beings' with a dead body; other than the inconveniences of having such a body they behave pretty much like actually living beings, such as searching for food. Because they have a soul - and presumably their minds - they'd also be smarter than most undead.

Furthermore, ghouls could have a conscience of their own, which may be under a necromancer's control; but the ghouls could also have been psychologically warpedue to the state they find themselves in - I don't know about you, but if I consciouslly saw my body slowly turning into a masterpiece of horror I'd not be the same anymore

[Sapient]

Undead, yes. This means they are not truly living yet not truly dead. All undead were once living. My understanding of the ghoul is that it never experienced death as an intermediate stage, but went straight from life to undeath, which does allow them some strength that a WC which was dead (no matter how briefly) cannot posess.

[Dugi]

Okay, so they are turned to undead without actually dying and being dead for some time, making them retain some abilities from their life. Arcane resistance remains because they would have been still alive even if necromancy wasn't used. Their intelligence might be partially preserved, although the corrupting enchantment and watching his own body warping like this might twist their mind quite heavily (kinda like Sméagol being warped by his precious), and they stop thinking of themselves like of human beings, but rather like of monsters (if a necromancer is behind this, he controls the transformation and uses its madness to control it).
This question might be considered answered, thank you guys.

What about the other question regarding their dexterity? I guess that their should be more dexterous than walking corpses, because their minds are still controlling their bodies, and the way their body changed might make movement harder for them than when they were alive.

[Sapient]

Their intelligence might be partially preserved, although the corrupting enchantment and watching his own body warping like this might twist their mind quite heavily (kinda like Sméagol being warped by his precious), and they stop thinking of themselves like of human beings, but rather like of monsters (if a necromancer is behind this, he controls the transformation and uses its madness to control it).

Not just twisted, but selectively erased: "a beast that knows nothing of its days as a human being."
However their former life could not have been completely erased, since their desires and tendencies that do serve the necromancer's ends are retained and magnified.

What about the other question regarding their dexterity? I guess that their should be more dexterous than walking corpses, because their minds are still controlling their bodies, and the way their body changed might make movement harder for them than when they were alive.

Well, the relative dexterity of a unit is pretty easy to surmise from its statistics. Using a human such as a Mage as a base, compare the movement (same as ghoul unless quick), terrain defense and move costs (same for all common terrains), and blade+pierce resistance (lower than ghoul), and highest possible number of strikes (same).

Based on these four factors you could say that a ghoul is slightly less dextrous than a normal human because of its bulkiness that grants it blade and pierce resistance, and a quick human could easily outrun a ghoul in any terrain (other than frozen/swamp), but otherwise they are pretty close.

[Dugi]

Regarding the in-game stats, walking corpses are more dextrous than dwarves or trolls (outside their terrains), and ghouls are more dextrous than Orcish Grunts. Comparisons like this doesn't make much sense, although their result agrees with my thoughts. But your agreement with the idea that ghouls are relatively agile means that it is probably a generally accepted idea. Thanks.

[Sapient]

Yes my crude method does break down a bit with dwarves and drakes because the statistics for them are also modeling their small/large size. You may have to multiply by a size factor to extend the model to them.


With orcish grunts, by my four point relative dexterity analysis, the only one they fall behind on is maximum strikes and they are ahead on the other three points. However, I think it's more useful to compare both to a human Mage then simplify the results rather than comparing them directly to each other, because the model is not so precise.

Another quirk of the orcish grunt's statistics is how he is wearing armor but has 0 pierce+blade resistance. So accounting for that anomaly, he should really be scoring worse than mage in two areas there (max strikes and resistance), but slightly better from a terrain perspective (yes, hills are a common terrain), thus giving him a net result of: slightly less dextrous than a mage... which was the same outcome as ghouls.

[AI]

This thread may be of interest: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 01#p451801 (linked to my own post)

[Dugi]

Thanks for the link, it linked also some other topic with related content, nice. I read there that it is a general opinion that ghouls wendigo-like creatures created from the living, and that they aren't actually dead, as I thought before.