COMMUNITY - FORUMS - NEW PLAYER QUESTIONS
Ghouls

Will ghouls be a thing? Can one have a ghoul as a vampire? And can one become a ghoul? If so, pros cons?


9/29/2018 8:35:33 PM #1

Given how the game is aiming to be low-fantasy, i don’t think it’s likely to see a whole lot of ghouls etc. But who knows, maybe there is a way.


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Order of IX

9/29/2018 8:37:48 PM #2

I don't know if Ghouls will exist as creatures throughout the world, depending on the definition of "Ghoul". Even if they were implemented you couldn't turn into or choose to be one, I guess, as there are predefined races that can't be changed after character-creation.

9/29/2018 8:42:40 PM #3

Ghouls would be awesome, but not as a "playable race". I think SBS did mention that bad things happen when one does not properly inter their dead. The dead rising to consume flesh, become monsters... I can see how that would fit into what CoE is trying to do, low fantasy ramparts against wild magical ideas from the fanbase or not.


9/29/2018 10:16:47 PM #4

People easily mistake it, but CoE isn't suppose to be low fantasy. It's Heroic Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, or Mid-Fantasy. But it's not low-fantasy.

Ghouls kind of wouldn't fit in, it's sort of too fantasy and not realistic enough. Aside from that in a couple areas you could think of like vampires as ghouls in a way hmm.. I'm not sure, I don't think that Ghouls would make much sense in Elyria


9/29/2018 10:19:14 PM #5

Who wants to help me see what happens when you leave a towns worth of dead bodies in an open pit? Grizzly, I know, but it could make for some interesting story content.


9/29/2018 10:28:15 PM #6

Lichs have all but been confirmed to be in game at some point, and low or mid fantasy, as a genre, doesn't preclude rising dead. But vampires are possible, and ghouls if they're like vamps?

Why not ghouls? How exactly wouldn't it fit or make sense? The level of fantasy has nothing to do with it, you'll find revenants in all levels of fantasy. It's been a primal fear of cultures all over the world, back probably before recorded history. And it's just an awesome, creepy adversary.

Unless it's outdated and SBS has said otherwise, low fantasy is part of the game on a character level, high on the world story arch level. I just don't see what that has to do with this at all.


9/29/2018 10:58:51 PM #7

Ghouls are undead, it wouldn't make sense in the nature of Coe. In my opinion it breaks the immersion of the mmo that CoE is trying to be. They couldn't ead human flesh, as cannabalism is not in game. They wouldn't need to eat soul life like vampires because they aren't living. Undead doesn't fit well with the game in the aspect of people dying and their souls going to the records.

It wouldn't be a playable thing by any means. I believe that was something said a while ago when asked. But having them around and about breaks the realism aspect more than having lichens and vampires around.

Idk. Just not something that I would ever want In CoE. It would just be offset/out of place in my opinion. Liches and Vampires are suppose to look like players, minor feature changes but nothing as big as a ghoul.


9/29/2018 11:19:58 PM #8

Yes... ghouls are undead. That's what revenant means. What is immersion breaking varies person to person, and an opinion doesn't speak for what Soulbound intends to do with the game.

PCs can't eat human flesh, but monsters may be able to. That wouldn't be cannibalism as the monster isn't a human. But who can say what could happen. Ghouls could "feed off bad energy" or something along the same lines that vamps and lichs are suppose to be in CoE. Monsters can exist without souls and we already know (from various comments from SBS) that souls don't automatically go to the records, but can be walking, captured, lost, etc, before getting there.

The degree of realism-breaking things is so arbitrary that I won't comment, except to say that deities, hybrid creatures, talents, libraries filled with souls, and so forth... none of that is "realistic" and the game isn't really made to be "realistic".

It's fair that it's not something you'd ever want in CoE. I appreciate and respect that. I have issue with people speaking with authority on what will or will not be, based on personal opinions and assumptions, without sources to back it up, and sharing this with people who have questions and theories who may not know better and trust you based on your "authority".

Share theories, guess and keep guessing, and always understand that the studio can and will change things.


9/29/2018 11:21:58 PM #9

Ghouls or some variant in CoE that's consistent with the beliefs of various tribal cultures would be cool. And I would wager that something of the creepy sort is already planned for. But I'm a fan of the horror genre and love spooky graveyard scenes, so ...


9/29/2018 11:25:05 PM #10

Posted By Sylvae at 5:19 PM - Sat Sep 29 2018

Yes... ghouls are undead. That's what revenant means. What is immersion breaking varies person to person, and an opinion doesn't speak for what Soulbound intends to do with the game.

PCs can't eat human flesh, but monsters may be able to. That wouldn't be cannibalism as the monster isn't a human. But who can say what could happen. Ghouls could "feed off bad energy" or something along the same lines that vamps and lichs are suppose to be in CoE. Monsters can exist without souls and we already know (from various comments from SBS) that souls don't automatically go to the records, but can be walking, captured, lost, etc, before getting there.

The degree of realism-breaking things is so arbitrary that I won't comment, except to say that deities, hybrid creatures, talents, libraries filled with souls, and so forth... none of that is "realistic" and the game isn't really made to be "realistic".

It's fair that it's not something you'd ever want in CoE. I appreciate and respect that. I have issue with people speaking with authority on what will or will not be, based on personal opinions and assumptions, without sources to back it up, and sharing this with people who have questions and theories who may not know better and trust you based on your "authority".

Share theories, guess and keep guessing, and always understand that the studio can and will change things.

No one is speaking on authority of anything in this thread. These are all opinions, or did I miss something somewhere?


9/30/2018 1:30:24 AM #11

I think ghouls would make a lot of sense within coe as there are other variants of undead already planned or within many coe discussions that the devs have had [IE the lich].

Also the argument for low fantasy or any other form of fantasy seems to be more of a semantic argument than any other. Many terms have multiple definitions and can be interpreted in multiple manners.

But on that same note: just because the playerbase is in a more "low fantasy" situation and arent walking around with the ability to throw fireballs all the time doesnt mean the elyrian world does not have higher fantasy elements within it.

But to answer the OP: we simply do not know if Ghouls will be a thing or not within CoE.


9/30/2018 11:12:43 AM #12

I think there are and will be lots of hidden stuff that we don't completely know what they do and how they will affect your character, and/or others. For an example, we know there will be Liches, people who stored their soul in a Phylactery. The thing we don't know is that the uses of that Phylactery and by that I mean several things that we will learn when they launch the game. Several of them that I think are:

  • Will you be able to store someone else's soul in the Phylactery without their permission?

  • What if you store an animal's soul in there?

  • Will we be able to mess with Phylacteries itself, with other artefacts and endless other ways, to change their effect?

So my answer to the OP is: It might be already possible to become a ghoul-ish creature. Not only with the artefacts but it might also be possible with the skill tree if you mess with it too much like arranging it with your descendants while also combining them with the stuff you discover in the game like races that won't be playable unless you discover them. I'd keep my hopes and thrill at the minimum tho, since only the devs can 100% correctly answer this question.


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9/30/2018 1:26:54 PM #13

Posted By Firiqian at 01:19 AM - Sun Sep 30 2018

Who wants to help me see what happens when you leave a towns worth of dead bodies in an open pit? Grizzly, I know, but it could make for some interesting story content.

What server are you going to play?


9/30/2018 1:34:30 PM #14

I meant ghoul as in a vampires ghoul, like a servant. Or else how would a vampire survive in the world at all aside from hunting eating and running like hell to the next settlement? One if a vampire settled down and laid low? They would need to use ghouls to survive and interact in any way aside from killing.


10/1/2018 2:22:41 AM #15

@Nostro, you are making assumptions about CoE vampires based on only one notion of vampire that has been published. There are many other possibilities.