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New world building idea

Awhile back my son told me a story of how he uses his sword to cut ghosts to pieces and then eats them. Now I have an idea. Presupposing this is a thing, what if ghosts in my world aren't the literal spirits of the dead but creatures that consume the life energy of people dying and thereby take on certain traits of that person. However, some people are exterminators if these extra dimensional pests by using swords and eating the ghosts and getting magic thereby. What would a world like that look like? How idiotic is this idea?
 
Who you gonna call?

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But seriously, I think it's a good idea. It's basically energy transference, with different stages. Are the ghosts incorporeal or more like a gooey blob; how do swords hurt them and how are they eaten?
 
Who you gonna call?

gozer03.jpg


ab297f371bbd43931063a65a0317a53a.jpg

But seriously, I think it's a good idea. It's basically energy transference, with different stages. Are the ghosts incorporeal or more like a gooey blob; how do swords hurt them and how are they eaten?

You'll have to ask my two year old. ;)

In all seriousness I'm presently leaning towards making them quasi corporeal. So to steal life energy they have to become corporeal and must stay that way for a certain time. The other option is to have magic swords that make them corporeal but that creates a chicken and egg dilemma.
 
If you like cooking, you can come up with different ways to prepare them, various stews, kebobs, cakes, boiling or frying, with other ingredients to draw out the magical essences better. That alone could be a very interesting spin on the process.
 
If you like cooking, you can come up with different ways to prepare them, various stews, kebobs, cakes, boiling or frying, with other ingredients to draw out the magical essences better. That alone could be a very interesting spin on the process.

You dear sir are brilliant. I can make ghost gumbo, a banquet of banshees, a corporeal kelpie confectionary!
 

RedAngel

Minstrel
Well most times soul reavers, reapers, shamans, holy types all vanquish spirits or send them into the next world or whatever the case may be. But typically ghosts are known to be able to siphon energy from people and use it in various ways from polterghist like activity to crossing over into our world as an apparition. They are also known to weaken or sicken a person once they attach themselves to a person.

I could see these spirits in your world siphoning energy and becoming someones doppleganger at which time they are either evil, neutral, peaceful, or helpful. Where not all of them need to be vanquished except when they turn bad from taking the energy from evil people which would taint them. The energy and traits they take could be necessary for them to continue their unfinished business until they become tainted and then start doing evil until they become like a demon in power and a danger to the living. At which time they would need to be destroyed.

I think that the eating of spirits should be a last resort. Probably based on if the spirit is aligned with them or their maigic is wearing off. At which time of the consuming they also take on the traits the ghosts have siphoned from everyone and anything they have taken from others. Causing the magic user to seek out ghosts which are not so evil to balance their mind lest they turn evil and need to consume evil spirits to keep going. Though I can see that at some point there would be no more ghosts especially if spirits were food for magic and also a nusisanace that required vanquishing at some point. Which could also be an interesting twist with periods where magic did not exist in areas because the ghosts are all gone.

Which would also lead to interesting cases where people need to kill other people in order to create more ghosts. Or battles where civilizations are unaware of magic or do not believe in ghosts. Or places who guard ancient graveyards of potential jackpots of magic power. Or genicide for power grabs.

Or that if a ghost syphons energy from someone they would then be able to see them better the more energy was taken from them which could make them aware that there are ghosts or spirits around them. Which could then allow them to learn to fight them based on magical and physical means before they learn how to consume them.
 
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I could see a story using this idea in which some teenaged street thief breaks into a house to steal valuables, sees a loaf of bread sitting on the table and, because he's starving, eats it. Whoops! Didn't know it was baked ghost. Now he's experiencing weird magical abilities and also having flashbacks to a life not his own—if, that is, eating a ghost means transference of some memories that the once-living human, siphoned by the ghost, had. Of course, the ghost hunter comes home unexpectedly, and there's a lot of anger. Turns out, those memories belong to another ghost hunter who'd died in the hunt and been siphoned by that ghost. The two, ghost hunter and teen thief, are forced to work together to solve some problem, probably arguing and bickering with one another the whole way.

_________

Incidentally, you could maybe solve the corporeal/incorporeal problem by creating a special time when ghosts become corporeal and can be killed. A la, the full moon type of trope, although you could create almost anything for a fantasy world. Say the world has three moons, and in the hour or three when all are in the sky simultaneously, the ghosts take a more solid form. You could create some other type of condition.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
It has plenty of interesting twists it could take. One could include it into a sort of "cannabalism" system, where eating the ghost of the deceased empowers the family while also keeping the beloved "alive" in an unusual sort of way. It would be a cool variant of ritual cannabalism.
 
Two year olds have the best ideas.

There are any number of really cool takes of this, as others have presented. Maybe the main character is a chef that specializes in preparing food made out of ghosts. It's a unique skill set, I'd imagine.

But if the ghosts take on traits of dead people, that's like you're indirectly eating dead people. Which has a lot of implications of its own...
 
My two year old has now informed me that ghost hunters eyes must turn blond to fight ghosts. In middle grade/young adult books how cliche is eye color changing? I seem to remember a discussion that effect but I want to confirm that so I can figure out how to avoid its staleness.
 
My two year old has now informed me that ghost hunters eyes must turn blond to fight ghosts. In middle grade/young adult books how cliche is eye color changing? I seem to remember a discussion that effect but I want to confirm that so I can figure out how to avoid its staleness.

Blond? Blond eyes?

Have never heard that word applied to eyes.

Anyway, I think it's gotten uncommon in recent years due to being overused to cheesy effect and has slipped into becoming a Discredited Trope (if thats the right term.) Now it's not so common anymore and could potentially be revived.
 
Blond? Blond eyes?

Have never heard that word applied to eyes.

Anyway, I think it's gotten uncommon in recent years due to being overused to cheesy effect and has slipped into becoming a Discredited Trope (if thats the right term.) Now it's not so common anymore and could potentially be revived.

I wouldn't specifically refer to them as blond, but yes my boy says his eyes turn blond when he fights ghosts.
 

SMAndy85

Minstrel
It depends how over the top you think it is when Goku's hair turns golden, and his eyes turn green when he goes Super Saiyan.

Does it require a bit of power to be able to see a ghost that hasn't truly manifested? When you use magical energy associated with ghosts, could it show as your eyes becoming ghostly, which to outsiders makes it appear that they turn pale yellow/blond?
 
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