Ghoul

A ghoul is a ghost that retains control over and continues to inhabit its physical body. Some people assume that ghouls are phantoms that reside in their own bodies, but this isn't actually the case; aside from the fact that it takes time for phantoms to develop a residence while ghouls start out as ghouls from the beginning, there have been cases when phantoms have possessed their own bodies, and they didn't get the particular suite of abilities and characteristics that pertain to ghouls. Ghouls are the rarest of the six major types of ghost; ghouls seem to compose only about one percent of the total ghost population.

Alone among the major types of ghosts, ghouls are not represented among known eidolons—though it is not entirely out of the question that there may be some ghoul eidolons that have not become commonly known.

Arising

Unique among ghosts, ghouls do not necessarily attain their ghostly stature immediately after death, but may arise significantly after that, sometimes many years later. In extreme cases, a few mummies have been known to arise millennia after they died. It is unclear why this seems to be true only of ghouls. A few spectrologists have suggested that ghouls may not be true ghosts at all, that they are not really inhabited by the spirits of the deceased, but are only bodies that through some paranormal effect have been induced to act in imitation of the people they once were.

This is a minority view, however; most do accept ghouls as true ghosts, but still wonder what happens to their spirits in the interim. Three main theories have been proposed. One is that the spirits of ghouls remain trapped in their bodies from the moment of their death, and that the arisal is not the reunion of the spirit with the body, but rather the spirit finally discovering how to move the body. Another theory is that the spirits of ghouls are actually pulled back from the afterlife, whatever that may be. Finally, some believe that the spirit does indeed spend the intervening time in some other place or plane, but not necessarily the afterlife.

What all these theories have in common is that they suppose that when the ghouls do rise as ghouls—when they learn mobility, or come from the afterlife or the other site of their sojourn—they forget all that had happened since their deaths. If it did return from the afterlife, the ghoul doesn't remember it; if it came from some other plane, it has no recollection of the place; if it was trapped in its bodies, it forgets its period of immobility—fortunately for its own sanity, since otherwise such a long period as a motionless corpse should almost surely have driven it mad. (Then again, madness does seem somewhat more common among ghosts, proportionately, than among other types of ghosts... perhaps not all ghouls forget after all?)

It's still not entirely certain what makes a decedent come back as a ghoul, rather than as some other kind of ghost. The theory that seems to have the best evidence behind it is that a ghouls arise in response to the desire of living mortals. This doesn't mean that people wish for the dead to arise as ghouls... but if some among the living wish strongly enough that a deceased individual would return, that may cause the individual in question to return as a ghoul... even if, of course, that may be far from what the individuals who wished for his return had in mind.

Appearance

Since it has a physical flesh-and-blood body, albeit dead and decaying flesh and putrid and congealing blood, a ghoul is fully visible to mortals, though if it isn't moving it is indistinguisable from an inert corpse. The forms of most ghouls show various states of decomposition, the more so if the ghoul did not rise until some time after its original death. The particulars of the process vary; some ghouls look to have been dead for mere days, bearing a corpselike pallor and perhaps a few spots of mold but mostly intact, while others may have little more left to them than skeletons. Nor is it necessarily the case that all parts of the ghoul seem to have decayed at the same rate; ghouls have been seen with most of their bodies horribly rotted and dripping with decay, but with pristine eyes; or with their faces hideous masks of putrefaction, but their bodies below the neck all but unblemished.

A few ghouls manage to keep their bodies fresh and free from obvious decay. This seems to be more due to some effort of will that not all ghouls are able to master than from anything inherent in the way the ghoul died or any other external factor, though it does seem to be the case that ghouls that were dead for a relatively short time before their return (and whose bodies therefore never rotted much in the first place) have an easier time of it. Such ghouls may be very hard to distinguish from living humans, though to an acute observer their eyes may seem somehow unusually dull and empty.

Powers

Having solid forms, ghouls, unlike most ghosts, can readily affect the physical world without need of special powers or exertion. Not only that, but ghouls have an augmented strength belying their often rotted forms; a typical ghoul is nearly twice as strong as it was in life. However, with this increased strength does not come an increased durability; ghouls are resistant to cutting and piercing attacks, but are readily damaged by hard blunt blows, and can have their limbs knocked off with relative ease. The ghoul's teeth and nails are an exception; these do become considerably tougher, and a ghoul has little trouble biting through bone or clawing through flesh if it wants to. This often comes in handy during a ghoul's rising, when it may have to break out of a coffin and/or dig its way out of a grave.

Ghouls also have a heightened sense of smell, able to detect much fainter odors than a living human can. They don't generally have a high power of discernment between smells, and might not be able to easily tell the difference between two people by scent as a dog can, but they can track or locate people by smell from considerable distances. This is true even if, as is often the case, the ghoul's nose is missing.

A ghoul can pass through mirrors between the Mortal World and the Spirit World like any other ghost, but its physical form gives it limitations that most other ghosts lack (with the exception of phantoms in possession of a solid object). In particular, the mirror must be large enough for the ghoul to physically enter; a ghoul can enter the Spirit World through a typical bathroom mirror or full-length dressing mirror, but would be unable to cram itself through a hand mirror or a car's rear-view mirror. While it may be more difficult for ghouls to reach the Mortal World, however, they have fewer restrictions in travel in the Mortal World; unlike most ghosts, ghouls can travel outside of haunted areas without entering the Gap. (In fact, ghouls have no easy way of entering the Gap even if they want to, without the use of rare special abilities or unusual circumstances.)

Weaknesses

The same tangibility that allows a ghost to affect ordinary matter also leaves it open to be damaged by it. Physical blows will damage a ghoul's body just as they would a mortal or an ordinary corpse; while a ghoul may not have vital organs that are especially vulnerable, and stabbing a ghoul through its heart, for instance, will damage it no more than through the shoulder, too much damage still will add up and take its toll on its form, and a ghoul whose body has been too thoroughly decimated will be forced out of it, either to what awaits the dead after the interlife or, in some rare cases, to become a phantom. A ghoul can sustain much more damage than a mortal human, but there is still a limit to how much it can take.

While ghouls can heal their injuries, they can do so only by consuming meat. Even an uninjured ghoul has to eat a certain amount of meat regularly to maintain its form. Any kind of meat will do; while some malevolent ghouls enjoy killing humans and eating their flesh, or ripping meat straight off a living creature they have in their clutches, others subsist perfectly well on scraps scavenged from butchers' waste, or other meat they don't have to kill themselves. Some kinds of meat, however, do give the ghoul more nourishment than others. In terms of the healing and sustenance it provides a ghoul, a heart is worth about 2.5 kilograms of other tissue, and a brain about twice that. On the other hand, these same organs are those the ghoul itself has the most difficulty healing; a blow to the heart or, especially, the brain will incapacitate or even kill a ghoul more effectively than a comparable blow elsewhere.

In ghostly society

Ghouls are more likely than other ghosts to simply remain in the Mortal World, rather than finding a home in the Spirit World. The relative difficulty of finding mirrors large enough to accommodate their passage is no doubt a major factor in this, as is the fact that they can roam the Mortal World relatively unrestricted. Still, some ghouls (who manage to arrange access to large mirrors) do find a place in the Spirit World like other ghosts, and take their place in the ghost community.

Some ghouls manage to pose as living humans, and live out false lives among the living, not letting their neighbors and coworkers know they're dead. In fact, some spectrologists theorize that there are many more ghouls than is commonly realized, but a large proportion of the ghoul population escapes detection by going among the living. (More chillingly, another theory is that the reason there are so few ghouls, relative to other ghosts, is because most ghouls arise interred in their coffins and are unable to escape their burial sites; if this is true, then there may be a great number of ghouls who have been trapped in their coffins for years, slowly decaying...)

Nonhuman ghouls

Like all ghosts, ghouls are usually human, but need not necessarily be. Dog and cat ghouls have been seen relatively frequently, and avian and rodent ghouls have been noted as well, as well as those of certain scavengers such as raccoons and opossums. These nonhuman ghouls almost always appear like rotting corpses, the ability to retain a fresh and undecayed appearance evidently requiring a conscious intent of which alogous creatures are incapable. There have, however, been a few rare reports of nonhuman ghouls that resisted the decomposition that usually besets them; these instances so far remain unexplained.