Could a ghost possess a zombie created from its own body? Could this ghost-zombie hybrid, hypothetically, continue their career in law?
Dying is no excuse to stop working, after all.
I’d watch it.
But lawyers have no soul
Devils are LE, and work with lawyers frequently enough that they manage to buy their souls rather frequently. They had souls, they just have probably sold their soul. The lawyer one should be terrified of isn’t the LE lawyer, it’s the CG lawyer
It’s called a Lich, isn’t it?
I knew lawyers had to be into some dark magic
In at least two campaigns I’ve been in, the wizards college’s law department was always on fire and smelled of burning sulfur. Apparently they just like it that way?
Both times we ended up down there to summon an Arch devil so they could properly word a Wish for us.
Depends entirely on the limitations of the ghost’s possession ability, but if the ghost can possess a living person and control them, then an animated corpse should work as well. The problem with continuing the career is that the body would continue to decay until the ghost wouldn’t be able to move it any more.
The problem with continuing the career is that the body would continue to decay until the ghost wouldn’t be able to move it any more.
Just like a living body 🙁
Indeed, but much faster.
Szeth-son-son-Vallano, truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to become a magical flying ghost cop possessing his own corpse
I like Pratchett’s zombies. Where the force of will of the soul of the person is so strong that they refuse to dis-inhabit their body. But since the subconscious did so many things on autopilot, they now are forced to do every function of their body deliberately. That’s why they move so stiffly and strangely.
You know what? Go read Reaper Man. It’s great. And Windle Poons was never so alive until after he died
Gnu Sir Terry Pratchett ❤️
Any recommendations for a Pratchett audiobook? I’ve got like 6 audible credits I need to use.
What is your interests? Sir Terry was a consummate satirist, able to reach the heart without being too serious. Here’s what I’d recommend off the top of my head:
Pure entertainment: Moving Pictures - an alchemist invents Film, and suddenly everyone is moving to Holy Wood. But as Moving Pictures blur the line between fantasy and reality, something Else wants to see reality as well
It Makes You Think: Small Gods - What is faith? What happens when people replace belief in their god with the institution that surrounds the god? What if the god in question is a bastard? What is worse, the god, or the holy wars that will be made by the next “prophet”? Religion and philosophy clash with the sound of lightening hitting a copper roof
You’ll think, but with wordplay: The Truth - Dwarves have learned how to turn lead into gold. The hard way. The printing press has come to Anhk Morpork, and with it, the Press. A commentary on truth, journalism, and politics, with a healthy dose of classism and privilege
For the Feels: Feet of Clay - (this one drops you in the middle of the Watch series, but you won’t be in the weeds for long. If you don’t want mild spoilers from earlier in the series, save this for later) A priest and a baker are murdered, and the Tyrant of the city has been poisoned. It’s up to Sam Vimes to find out what’s at the bottom of this mystery. And he could probably do so if it weren’t for all of the damned clues. And what do the Golems, those silent machines who toil in the worst places, have to do with any of this? When the servant class isn’t considered living, who cares what happens to them?
More Feels: Reaper Man - Death has been fired. But he has been given a retirement gift: The Time of his Life. There’s not much of it, because when the next Death is chosen the Reaper Man’s time will have run out. A reflection on mortality, time, and the obligation of the Reaper to respect the Harvest. And who will care for the harvest, if not for the Reaper Man?
Do you want to spend one credit or several?
Just one atm
Most libraries will have copies of Pratchett. I can’t promise they’ll have audiobooks, but mine does on Libby and there are options that will let out of state (or country?) people sign up for memberships.
Monstrous Regiment is I think a pretty good entry point. It’s relatively new but it stands alone quite nicely and doesn’t need much background knowledge.
If you’d prefer something more early in his writing then Small Gods is a good one. It outlines a lot of how the world works, but again isn’t deeply connected.
Wyrd Sisters, Guards! Guards!, and Mort are also good entry points and are the start of the Witches, City Watch, and Death subseries respectively.
I want an anime of this. haha.
It’d be great; the main plot will be the ghost possessing his zombie body, so now he’s the only intelligent, reasonable zombie in a zombie apocalypse world. Obviously the living are going to be skeptical, and there’ll be issues with him occasionally losing control of the body…this has the makings of a great anime
Then eventually the original zombie body is too decayed and he’s pissed he has to start switching bodies, probably because it takes so long to get used to each and get control
“The Unwanted Undead Adventurer” is a pretty close approximation of this.
I’m putting this in my next D&D campaign
For by death is wrought greater change than hath been shown. Whereas in general the spirit that removed cometh back upon occasion, and is sometimes seen of those in flesh (appearing in the form of the body it bore) yet it hath happened that the veritable body without the spirit hath walked. And it is attested of those encountering who have lived to speak thereon that a lich so raised up hath no natural affection, nor remembrance thereof, but only hate. Also, it is known that some spirits which in life were benign become by death evil altogether.
- Hali, the Philosopher, from “Can Such Things Be?” By Ambrose Bierce in “The Death of Halpin Frayser”
For there be divers sorts of death—some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly occurreth only in solitude (such is God’s will) and, none seeing the end, we say that man is lost, or gone on a long journey—which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in the sight of many, as abundant testimony showeth. In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigor for many years. Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where the body did decay.woops, wrong Hali QouteI’m going to say yes, they can.
I’m going to say yes. In order to become a zombie a body must be dead, and generally the soul becomes a ghost after death. Zombies aren’t related to the person they were, they’re just a corpse that’s been animated.
Unless they’re the original Romero zombie, which are corpses animated by souls from an overflowing Hell, which might imply they went back to their original body.
I don’t believe there is objective official lore on the cosmology of Romero. (Romero seems distinctly uninterested in that sort of approach to storytelling). I know it says so on the poster of Dawn Of The Dead, but that seems more like poetic ominous tone setting rather than a literal lore dump. Everything inside the movie is speculation by characters who don’t have answers.
I don’t think the above issue really matters too much, though. I’d say that if we accept that souls exist in the Romero zombie universe, then the fact that zombies can retain memories and habits from their lives shows the soul is retained.
I’d say, as a baseline, any setting where zombies can retain some of their personality/memories means that if a soul exists, it is in the body and shouldn’t be able to become a ghost.
I can accept a setting where zombies only exist as reanimated husks being puppeted in some way as also having ghosts of those people.
How about a setting where emotions are part of the soul but the body can keep memories?
So a zombie like that could recite stuff and respond, but would otherwise be instinct/reflex driven since there’s nothing in it that makes it want stuff, it just looks for food. It wouldn’t react to anything you say unless you convince it that it has to listen to get fed
Sure anyone could make any setting. If the creator explicitly make that split, then that’s how it is. I just don’t think most settings intentionally make such a split.
I love this idea.
Just make sure at least one member of the party is in a compromised position when they bite it. Example: not wearing any pants.
Orel! Think of the decency issue!
mc chris has an album about this
There’s a Wattpad Novel, “Running with Scissor”, where the mc’s body and soul are separated by some sort of spell and he has to recover his body before midnight or the spell becomes permanent. It’s pretty good absurdist humour reminescent of The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy.
Yes. Depending on the fiction, if the ghost isn’t a soul but instead a psychic/spiritual remnant, both can happen and the soul can have gone to the afterlife too. You can do a lot with fiction.
Story pitch: Soul gets to leave hell for one night to convince someone to put down their zombie corpse so their ghost will demanifest and they can finally go to a better afterlife.
Can’t remember the author or title.
Young American woman goes to London and gets invited to a wild party a a huge mansion. The first level is music, celebs, drugs, and sex. Slowly she realizes two things; she used to live in this mansion, and that her hostess is a vampire. She’s the reincarnation of the soul that used to inhabit the vampire’s body.
Duuuuuuuuuude. I want this movie.
A good short story keeps you amused for about a half hour.
A great one lingers in your mind forever.
Ok, I’d read that. Let me know if you ever remember the title!
Don’t hold your breath. My brain is like Swiss cheese and there are more mice everyday
I saw a short horror film about this exact scenario a few months ago.
I just spent some time on the festival site trying to find it but I don’t remember what it was called. The festival organizer is a friend, I’ll send him a message.
Did the friend respond?
“ooooveerrruuuulllleeeed”
/eats brains
