“ | I'm a century older than you. | ” |
Ghouls are ponies, zebras or other creatures that have been disfigured by exposure to intense balefire radiation. During the transformation process, they lose most of their coat and mane, giving them the appearance of a decaying corpse. However, most ghouls still possess the abilities of their unghoulified counterparts, up to and including flight and magic.
Ghouls do not require food and do not age, rendering them immortal. In addition, ghouls are not only immune to radiation, but are actually healed and empowered by it.
Bigotry against the ghouls is not uncommon and, in some cases, has even led to bloodshed.
Variants of ghouls[]
Feral Ghouls[]
Feral ghouls are ghouls whose minds have deteriorated due to continued radiation exposure. While ghouls do not age, most eventually turn feral, leaving behind nothing more than a highly aggressive zombie.
It is ghouls' tendency to turn feral that earns them animosity from other inhabitants of the Equestrian Wasteland.
Glowing Ghouls[]
Glowing ghouls are created when a ghoul absorbs excessive quantities of radiation. When Ditzy Doo rescued Littlepip from Maripony, which was heavily irradiated by the balefire bomb that had been detonated underneath it, she temporarily became a glowing ghoul.
Canterlot Ghouls[]
Canterlot's Pink Cloud can mutate ponies in a way similar to ghoulification. Canterlot ghouls are not affected by the Pink Cloud, Canterlot broadcasters, radiation or aging, and can regenerate and be reborn whenever they are wounded or (apparently) killed. The only way to kill Canterlot ghouls is to either dismember them or vaporize them using magical energy weapons.
Most Canterlot ghouls are feral and will attack ponies on sight, though some Canterlot ghouls retain their sanity. Stable City is a settlement in the Ministry of Wartime Technology's Canterlot hub populated entirely by Canterlot ghouls. Star Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle's mother, lives just outside of Stable City.
Variants of Ghouls in Side Stories[]
Other Variants of Ghouls have appeared in side stories. These normally include Feral Ghoul subspecies unique to certain areas.
Flaming Ghouls (Project Horizons)[]
Flaming Ghouls are found exclusively within the higher floors of Hightower Prison. They are highly aggressive, feral ghouls that will attack anything they see as a threat, including non-feral ghouls and ponies alike. They generate intensely radioactive flames of balefire that are extremely hot, so much so, that the flames disintegrate regular bullets. They can spew forth great breaths of radioactive flame like dragons. They are weak to Smooze which can douse their radioactive flames and dissolve their bodies.
Endless Ghoul (Guise of Chaos)[]
A Feral Ghoul that tried to kill Ashred and Ripple. The monstrous ghoul was exceptionally large and tough, possibly a test subject for a pre-war experiment. The ghoul took repeated blows from Ashred's heavy revolver and Ripple's shotgun, Broken. The ghoul was eventually left as a mass of meat, barely recognizable as a Pony. The ghoul continued to try and kill, even when it had no limbs or head.
An intelligent version of this ghoul, called The End, was created via the same method as his feral counterpart. He can regenerate from any injury and survive normally lethal injuries, such as being shot in the face with a shotgun or having his head blown off by a grenade.
Another of these ghouls was encountered in the Maremack facility. The third Endless ghoul was heavily armored yet surprisingly quick for its large size and heavy armor. The heavy armor protected this ghoul from Ripple and his companions conventional weapons, forcing them to lure the ghoul so it would attack the Steel Rangers assaulting Maremack.
Feral Ghoul Reaver (Broken Steel)[]
A Feral Ghoul Reaver is an especially tough variant/species of Ghoul encountered by Appletart and her friends. The first one they encountered was all but immune to the severe damage they tried to inflict with regular calibre weapons, like laser pistols and shotguns. It took two explosive calibre rounds from the Anti-Machine Rifle, This Machine to kill the Reaver. A second Reaver was encountered but killed with a headshot by This Machine, likely because it was attacked by surprise.
Wailers (Tartarus Contingency)[]
- Content in this section is linked to content from Wailer (Tartarus Contingency). Please edit that page to modify this section.
Wailer are ghoulified Crystal Ponies. They retain most of their emotional connection with one another that allowed them to power the aurora emitted from the Crystal Tower. However, due to the corruption, they mutated and irreversibly changed, turning them into yet another abomination of the wasteland. They retain many memories of their lives, and have exceptional communal abilities; that means they can share their emotions and memories, most of the time inadvertently or by force. It also means they share a hive-mind; if one Wailer experiences something they personally deem significant, all the others do as well. This includes the detection of trespassers, recalled events of the last day, or the death of another Wailer.
Wintertrot Ghouls (Rangers of Wintertrot)[]
A unique variant of Ghouls found within Wintertrot. The ghouls emit a notably blue gas from their mouths that has freezing properties. The gas when breathed out, can be used to freeze enemy targets, their blood can also encase objects in ice relatively quickly, making melee combat against them, ill-advised.
Glowing Wintertrot Ghoul[]
This variant of the species is similar to regular glowing ghouls. They glow a bright luminescent blue and emit large amounts of radiation. The air around them is also very cold, which can be a good way to indicate how far away they are, when trying to sneak past these ghouls.
Demonicorns (Fallen Angels)[]
A Demonicorn is a rare variant of the normal ghouls found all over the wasteland. These former unicorns have preserved control about most their magic abilities, making them dangerous foes when faced on one's own. But since most of them have lost their minds in the process of ghoulification too, they pose a threat to both their prey and their allied ghouls in battle when enraged.
Like all ghouls their physical and magical abilities grow stronger whenever exposed to magical radiation and to not be attacked by a demonicorn from ambush one should always be sure a "dead" Demonicorn is really dead. A common method is to cut of an fallen Demonicorn's head or horn.
Burning Pony Ghouls (Wasteland Jewel)[]
Burning Pony Ghouls are a variant of the normal ghouls found only in the Southern Wasteland in and around Neigh Orleans. They are a result of being exposed to the Firerain phenomenon, but not dying, and share the same basic qualities of a regular Ghoul. The one thing that sets them apart is that they appear to be constantly on fire because of the magical radiation that permeates their body from the Firerain.
Burning Pony Ghouls where named after, though not necessarily based on, Joshua Graham (aka the Burning Man) from Fallout: New Vegas.
Cortexaphan Ghouls (Audio Files)[]
Outwardly no different than any other ghoul and can be any type of unique ghoul. This just means that prior to ghoulification they took the Green-Med Pharmaceuticals drug Cortexaphan and thus developed the hormone Cortexamine. The hormone activates when the pony is near death and provided the right circumstances for ghoulification of any kind. Additionally, post ghoulification, they gain a specialized power based on either a drug or other stimulant they were exposed to prior to becoming a ghoul.
There are currently only 3 known Cortexaphan Ghouls. 13 unrevealed. Though 21 ponies (20 patients and Vial) were given the drug before the apocalypse.
Screwloose who is a Regular Cortexaphan Ghoul, with a adaptive power. She can temporarily acquire a unique power from other ponies (usually ghouls) for one time use.
Vial who is a Canterlot Cortexaphan Ghoul, with the power of technokineseis (control over technology). Additionally his consciousness is transferred into any pony who his experimental cybernetics are implanted into.
Static Spark who is a Regular Cortexaphan Ghoul, with a myriad of extrasensory abilities derived from exposure to an early form of Moondust. Including, but not limited to astral projections, mind reading, and minor illusionary constructs. Her powers are segmented in a split personality who manifests as a glowing ghoul, unicorn named Aglow. Aglow was Static's imaginary friend pre-ghoulification.
Cortexaphan is a reference to the drug from Finge, however it has no further connection to that show.
Alternate Names[]
In some instances or areas, ghouls can be known by other names.
- Cadaver (Ditzy Doo Chronicles, term used by Gnarl Grimfeathers.)
- Children of the Bombs (A term used by Doctor Freshwater.)
- Children of the Megaspells (Ditzy Doo Chronicles, term used by Bright Light to describe herself and other ghouls.)
- Fosaken (Ditzy Doo Chronicles, term used by Dusty.)
- Gnasher (Guise of Chaos, called this for the gnashing of teeth.)
- Revenant (Ditzy Doo Chronicles, term used by ponies during the first days after the apocalypse to describe ghouls.)
- Rots (Murky Number Seven, term used by Brimstone Blitz to describe feral and sentient ghouls.)
- Shamblers (New Beginnings, term used by Conductor.)
- Resurrectors (Unscrewed Audio Files, used by Screwloose to refer specifically to Canterlot Ghouls)
- Different/Changed (Unscrewed Audio Files, interchangeable terms used by Screwloose to refer to herself in her ghoulified state)
- Zombie (A derogatory term for ghouls, both feral and otherwise.)
Behind the Scenes[]
Ghouls in Fallout: Equestria are virtually identical to the ghouls of the Fallout Universe. Canterlot ghouls happen to bear striking resemblance to the Ghost People, who are nigh impervious ghouls wearing hazmat suits, created by exposure to the pink cloud.