To be fair gameplay wise that's a better idea than having them slowly shamble after you. What threat would they be if you could unload an entire gatling lasers ammunition before they even get close to you?
@@misteranthropy7082 yeah that's addressed in the lore right their nerves die or some shit? Still, if I put on a jumper that's slightly too rough it drives me nuts hahaha, think of fallout clothing in like dusty ass desert sun, I hope they don't feel it
"There are hordes of slouched, green humanoid creatures in tattered clothes, shambling about aimlessly." Jesus, Necropolis sounds like San Francisco....You don't have to get personal...
20:05 -- "allow ghouls to heal" I might be reading too deep into this, considering the context, but if ghouls don't age, implying their cells no longer die off over time among other things, then it can be interpreted that the effects of radiation which stops new cells from generating is also in play (or they'd be massive cancerous masses of undying flesh). This might explain some of the wounds we see in ghouls during this era. Ghouls can't heal. They don't die from these injuries for whatever reason, but neither can they heal. Being doomed to wander around with holes in their bodies.
It’s not that Their cells don’t die, it’s that instead of splitting and splitting until they can’t split anymore they stop dividing and instead of dividing they just kind of get old and start to look like deteriorating old skin. Kind of old people cells that never go anywhere.
Necropolis is my most favorite place in fallout lore only cause I live in modern day Bakersfield, and I can confirm we are ghoulified from the air pollution and triple digit temperatures. Only difference is that Necropolis gets water at some point 😢
Hey Radking, idk if you’ve covered anything related to the architecture of Fallout, but I’d really enjoy seeing a video about the Art Deco/brutalist statue/busts that decorate the later Fallouts!
@@andrewbabiak5233 perhaps he has, but I’ve never seen one pop up on his channel during a search. Either way, I’d enjoy seeing it done with the King’s flair.
I replayed F1 couple of months ago. There are several packs of shambling, non-talking ghouls on streets of Necropolis, that attack Vault Dweller on sight. Feral ghouls are OG concept, even if they aren't called as such.
I have no idea if this was on purpose, but when most people reel back from pain, surprise, or shock they tend to use their dominant hand to do so. With the majority of people being right handed, they would have likely recoil from the stimulus of the blasts of the great war with their right side. being the side most affected by the heat could have caused them to be more... melty on that side, or it could be quicker cell degradation on that side due to more violent radiation exposure. It would be really cool if they did that on purpose, but the melted right eye may have just been a motif the original artists used during the concept phase and it just stuck to the franchise.
It is important to understand that Harold isn't a ghoul in the same sense that Set is a ghoul. Harold is more similar to an FEV centaur but has the appearance of a ghoul.
@@robeyhairston3298 you're indeed correct! I gotta go back and watch that movie now. I wonder if that's the kind lf "zombie" they were going for with the original ghouls.
In FNV, some NCR troopers are turned into ghouls by a dirty bomb detonated by Caesar's Legion in Camp Searchlight. May be some of the very few post-war ghouls
My headcannon for the rads vs fev debate amonst the interplay devs is Radiation only is a death sentence like in real life. Our player character, who is exposed to little to no fev in every game just dies from too many rads Fev with little to no radiation is stable and allows for supermutants with varying degrees of intelligence probably tied to the Radiation levels before exposure to fev Ghouls are made from humans who's biology has been changed significantly enough from fev exposure to allow them to survive a lethal dose of Radiation. The more rads after fev exposure, the more likely you were to go feral. Hence the small population of normal ghouls Harold and the other ghoul looking mutants are actually "mutant ghouls". They're hybrids. They're people who were on their way to becoming supermutants or something similar, but then a small amount of Radiation after the fev transformation started, stunted that process and kept them in this suspended in-between state. The tree thing can be pseudoscience explained by how Radiation affects plant life in surprising ways. Harold was a prime normie when exposed to the fev then as he explored the wasteland after his joker incident, the trace amounts of radiation in the wasteland almost ghoulified him just not completely, leaving him in an advanced state of mutation allowing life to grow from his nutrient rich "material". The tree seed could've come from the vault they came from, but we would never know because harold doesn't remember anything Sorry for the blurb, just my thoughts
Fallout 3 throws a wrench into this by outright explaining how this all happened. Like the Master, Harold was around a few other organisms upon exposure to FEV, and shortly merged with them. He doesn't turn green from necrosis-it's chlorophyll. Eventually, the tree part of him starts to take over, leading to a torturous state of being that gets him a literal cult following.
@@TitanAnon I agree with everything you said but regarding Harold, I think what the other person was saying is when Harold fell into the fev, he merged with another organism (likely some tree which is why he has one growing out of him). The radiation he receives afterwards is probably what helped the tree grow up to when we see him in Oasis.
Ghouls have to be one of my favorite "races" in the Fallout universe. I do hope we eventually get a chance to play as one again, ideally in a better game than Brotherhood lol
@@B1g_B0sssss From what I heard it was planned for NV along with supermutants but they could not get the armors to morph correctly. I am sure if they had more time they could've done it
@@s7robin105 It would've been amazing to play as a ghoul, one of my favorite parts about Skyrim was how much raw racisim you got playing as a khajit or dark elf lmao, imagine getting called a zombie or mutie every settlement you visit
@@franciscol3510but the racism in Skyrim was only surface level. You can still do everything normally, you aren't banned from Windhelm. If it was in New Vegas, you wouldn't be able to interact with certain factions like the Brotherhood when playing as a Ghoul. Which would've been super cool.
Nah ghoul lore at some point specifically says the first thing to die is a ghouls nerves so they dont feel much of the rotting (random dialogue from hancock when fighting ghouls)
Its considered most painful death ever because Hisashi Ouchi is real world case of when someone was being actively kept alive when he should have been dead long before. Fallout ghouls obviously don't have or need modern medicine for their sustenance. They are not actively dying from radiation. They cross that barrier the moment they turn into ghouls. Anyone who doesn't will experience the same fate as Hisashi Ouchi but instead of 83 days they die in 4. They would not become the ghouls you see in the games
@dreadfulman5191 "actively being kept alive when he should have been dead long before" I fucking hate this view and how much it is espoused in relation to Ouchi. HE wanted to live. HIS family wanted him to live. YOU do not get to decide and rewrite what that poor man's fate was. We don't have this same energy around terminally ill patients who refuse A.S. Why? What? Isn't it HORRIFIC they are being KEPT alive long past when they should have? What's that they want to LIVE? I guess that is irrelevant. Because to you Hisashi Ouchi isn't a person. He's a story you like to tell.
After listening to your old videos from years ago, you've come a long way in your narration skill. Maxed out your Charisma! Well done. Very enjoyable videos
28:52 The crazies actually sound like they might be a reference to one of the Return of the Living Dead movies. I’m not sure which, but in one of them, a zombie uses a radio in an Ambulance (or cop car) and says “Send… more… paramedics.” They eat brains to temporarily stop extreme pain, they lust for brains, saying “Braaaiiiinnnnssss!” I think the crazies might be a reference to that movie franchise.
i don't know if anyone has pointed this out, but as someone living in the midwest i thought it was worth noting-- in the event of a military attack against the us, the midwest WOULD likely be heavily targeted because there are a LOT of nuclear weapons stored in the midwest specifically. maybe it's why ghouls in the midwest seem to be falling apart more?
Kansas City in the real world has things related to nuclear weapons so it actually makes sense. And yea the Dakotas, Nebraska, Montana and Colorado are where the US house our nukes
Is like winning a raffle, most of them ghouls are feral, ive only played fallout games since 3, but im pretty sure every conscious ghoul has a very specific condition as how they got to be "ghoulified"
Man I wish Bethesda would remake Tactics to be canonical or just having the next Fallout game in KS/MO region. Would've love to know what Midwestern ghouls were actually like
I also want to see the Midwest US in Fallout. Great thing about it is, any Midwest state that's included can be used as an accurate representation of every other Midwest state, as we're all the same.
I wish we saw Talius again. He is a literal peer of the Vault Dweller and immortal like Herald and most mutants. He is likely still kickin’ at the Boneyard. Maybe we’ll see him in the Fallout tv show?
I've been having a bit of a tough time lately and these lore videos always help make the night better! Thank you for the content and awesome community you've helped build!🤘🤘🤘
It was a wealthy family that survived the blast. Most of the family went feral and got locked in the basement by the one not feral ghoul. He tried to teach them manners again but it failed and after acentury he got mad and killed his feral aunt. The rest of the ghouls killed him.
I don't think ghouls can run OFTEN is the thing. In Fallout Tactics, ghouls have ability score ranges, with a maximum Agility score of 6. I think their Perception, Intelligence, and Luck scores are all pretty high, (going as high as 13 or so), but their Strength, Agility, and Endurance scores are somewhat hampered. There are also plenty of interesting ghoul-specific traits and perks, as well as a few that are barred to ghouls. All of that might be interesting if ghouls become a playable race in a future Fallout game.
I believe that ghouls can maintain a metabolic function similar to that of humans. However I think that ghouls do not need to eat to survive but instead enter a sort of hibernation state (hence why we see them lying on the ground) and only exit this state if disturbed. But being in this state for so long prevents them from being as active
The "Send more Adventurers" line is a Easter Egg/Homage to both Return of the Living Dead 1 & 2. In the referenced nearly identical, though still amazing scenes... At one point in both films after killing an entire wave of emergency personnel, one of the zombies humorously goes into the emergency vehicle and radios back to dispatch to "Send More Cops!" and "Send More Paramedics!", respectively. Leading to more and more waves of free brains Delivered straight to the waiting mouths of the Zombies! In Part 2 they even try the trick on the "Main Characters", when a Zombie replies to the boy, and the doc on the radio and states "Come to the Hospital!", but hilariously the zombie is outsmarted when the Old Doctor character (played perfectly by Phil Bruns) asks the Zombie "Who is the President of the United States?" the Zombie confidently answers with the 30 years out of date "Harry Truman" and let's Doc know the person on the Radio must have died long long ago! (Even if not the boy who confusedly asks "Who is Harry Truman?) All of it is equally both Ridiculous, and Fantastic!
So I got a new theory. A ghoul is not created as a result of of radiation. The initial vehicle for ghoulification was the direct hit of the Wes Tek via a nuclear bomb caused FEV to become dispersed into the atmosphere.
Sometimes I'll click on a vid of yours, and really wonder how you could possibly talk about a single subject for so long. Then a whole hour goes by and I'm wanting the next vid. Love your work my guy! Been a sub for quite a while and I've loved to see the growth
According to the creator of fallout and the guy responsible for the whole game of fallout 1, ghouls are not a result of FEV. They're simply the result of radiation. Harold thinks that the FEV did this to him, but it was the high doses of radiation present in the military base. His explanation is that, since billions of people got irradiated after the war, some unlikely consequences of radiation became more common, like the mutations present in ghouls. Basically, most who suffered the effects of radiation died. Some became ghouls, but without the longer lifespan. The "old" ghouls we see are a statistical anomaly. They're the survivors, the "lucky few" who suffered a mutation that allowed them to live longer. But not all ghouls had that "luck". He also explained the "ferals". They're the result of such a long lifespan. Their brains are not working well anymore. Losing memory, and eventually turning into basically "wild beasts". The glowing ones are the result of high exposure to A LOT of radiation. Their glow is just radiation.
I suspect there is some kind of relationship between which hand a Ghoul writes with that will also correlate with which eyeball in their head they are most likely to lose later in life. Something-something Human Chirality, something-something Necrosis of Flesh...
On Typhon and ghouls not being able to run: As far as he knew, the Vault Dweller was asking questions to try to kill them more effectively. What better way to protect your people than to lie about your condition?
I appreciate the reminder to watch this that you included in your recent part 2. I was watching it and I realised I had somehow totally missed this first part. Cheers
Ive seen a lot of ghouls. They call them Appalachia miners and they were the first to get hopelessly addicted to opioids while their children play in their dirt yard with no clothes and open sewage.
harold actually tells us in game that he’s a product of FEV exposure, albeit to a lesser degree than other super mutants. he had handled a contaminated object from mariposa and was struck by a crane that knocked him out (and knocked Richard Grey into a vat of FEV). he woke up later, already in the throes of mutation
Hey thank you for the super thanks! The first games definitely raised some questions when Harold began mutating similar to ghouls, but only after visiting Mariposa.
@36:16 you describe the founding of Gravestone twice. I notice this happens a lot with creators. I wonder if it it because that is where you an others stopped recording for the day and when recording started again later on, you/they forget exactly where you left off? So yea, just thought you should know you repeated yourself.
I have a theory regarding the FEV and radiation situation with how a ghoul is made. Bare in mind, I've only religiously played Fallout 4 and NV with having completed FO3 once, not having played 1 or 2 at all, so bare with me. Logically, radiation exposure alone simply couldn't be the case. Out of the few thousand victims of extreme radiation exposure in real life, not a single person exhibited "ghoul like behavior", not even accounting for the most famous nuclear disasters (Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima), so pure radiation logically cannot be the case However, like it was mentioned in the previous games, FEV could be involved in the creation process, and I think that theory has a lot of merit and could explain certain situations of ghoulification. There are plenty of cases in Fallout where high levels of radiation exposure simply results in death of the victim, rather than turning them into ghouls. However, there are cases where you have people getting caught in the face of a literal nuclear warhead and instead of dying they instead turn into ghouls (Note setting off the bomb in Megaton how people are instantly ghoulified) My theory is that perhaps it wasn't just the US government that had knowledge of FEV. If we play by the idea that it requires some level of exposure to FEV to create a ghoul, then it would make sense that other parties would have access to some sort of FEV derivative, like the scientists that ghoulified Eddie Winters in the "immortality experiment", instead of the radiation just killing him. I propose that the Chinese also had some sort of access to knowledge of FEV, though maybe not to the same levels as the US. We all know China has an infamous habit of stealing ideas from the US and trying to replicate or even improve on them. Perhaps the Chinese in their testing with the limited knowledge of FEV saw that applying radiation to a subject with FEV caused their skin to quickly wither, and eventually with enough exposure cause the subject to go insane (feral). Perhaps they saw this as a potential bioweapon that they could infuse with their nuclear warheads to create a secondary effect on the people that didn't die in the blast but were severely affected by the radiation. The only times we really see ghouls created is in the wake of a nuclear blast or in a controlled environment like the case with Eddie Winters, so I feel there is some merit to the idea that Chinese nuclear bombs were not "normal nukes" but rather nukes with a secondary biological effect to infect the surviving victims of the blast, causing them to go feral Perhaps their reasoning for even putting this "FEV derivative" in their nukes was to create a psychological effect to decrease moral of the American populace. If I went to go do damage control on a nuked city and saw all its American citizens shambling out like zombies hellbent on beating you to death, I would be pretty demoralized and further lose hope in the future of America. There is also a chance the Chinese saw these FEV effects very close to the point of the war springing off, and haphazardly decided to arm all their nukes with it as a "biological bonus effect" in an attempt to deal extra damage to the American populace Now in the case of Camp Searchlight, the "dirty bomb" the Legion used could've contained radioactive materials left over from a Chinese bomb, thus leading to many of the NCR troopers turning into ghouls If I missed another example then please do tell, I am interested in hearing if anyone has any input on this case specifically
Lol, Set. Ah, that Ghoul. Normally I have no problem with Ghouls. I love them as a faction, and find them fascinating. But I made an exception for 'Set'. He called himself SET. That pissed me off, since I believe in the Egyptian Gods the Netjeru. No sane man of good heart calls themselves Apep/Apophis or Set/Seti/Seth/Sut/Sutekh/Setesh/Seth/Typhon even if it is Fiction. One is a night serpent of monstrous evil and seeks to devour the universe symbolized by eating Re/Ra the Sun God. The other is a cryptid-headed human with a knack for murderous, fratercide, power-struggle, deicidal backstabbing, raping (contendings of Heru/Horus and Set) deity of unlawful evil, unfair war, infertility, and sheer chaos. And it seems to have been the right idea, problem is I should have given them a better location to move to. And yes, he did on purpose, name himself thar mythological name. A far worse deity than the antagonist Lucifer in modern religions. I can EASILY abide a guy with that name. But Set? Naw. In that case I'm the Pharaoh burning that bastard at Inebu-Hej.
What armor mod are you using? I'd like to do the build you posted about a year ago for a crusader of Atom but the robes over the armor looks so much better than marine armor clipping through the robes
The head cannon I've made for the missing right eyes for random gouls is that they got scope punch (when a weapon has enough recoil to push the back of the scope into the eye of the shooter)
How can you say "there are no glowing ones" in Fallout: Tactics? You can even take glowing ones companion. 41:14 those green ones are glowing ones for example. You seen them at night time?
Thanks for doing this video. I've only played Fallout 3 and later. For whatever reasons, ghouls seem to have been drastically revamped for Fallout 3 and beyond to where much of ghoul lore from previous Fallout games has been ignored.
Something about the bloodman concept art you noted could also have either the original marked men used now in lonesome road and ghouls being used instead I think this because California became a complete desert and desert winds could be cutting enough in post apocalyptia to flay people but not outright kill them But maybe this became a weak idea and instead became ghouls from the vault and the concept of bloodmen became marked men
I've been binging your channel for about 3 days. Man, now I'm inspired to- A. Restart New Vegas again B. Play Fallout 1 C. Play Fallout 2 (since sadly I've never played either, and I'm older than both of those games, haha)
you should play the classic games you can get them both on steam i actually have them on a disc trilogy that along with those 2 games are also bundled with fallout tactics and i eventually had to stop using my disc trilogy varient because it doesn't install properly on modern computer hardware but i got the collector's set mini-nuke collection that has all of the games corrected to work with modern systems it was kinda sad because i kept my fallout 3 game of the year disc in very good shape and now it no longer works due to software issues ie it doesn't want to actually install despite it installing correctly on windows xp/vista and windows 7 and 8 i have to use the stupid steam edition despite having the actual disc with the game on it that should still freaking work because i can still use it on other windows xp computers so my disc still works but anyway play them and if you get lost go read the vault wikia
Regarding "canon solution": I miss games, which took over "canon solutions" from the older parts of the series. Might and Magic I+II were a good example, where you were able to use the old I savefile to start with a better party _AND_ some world changes are imported to the new game. And for FOI+II _AND_ III+IV it would have been a great option. For instance: return of Dr Zimmer from the Capital Wasteland with the synth, alone, thinking it is dead or getting the info he was killed in FOIV which would be more interesting (obviously not the same charakter in both games but making the world more consistent and showing that decisions matter. Or even i the old game regarding Necropolis destroyed or not. And since usually the same engine and therefore the same database is used, it would be easy to setup
Mother Curie the Third mentions that ghouls don’t need to eat. So from what I know a ghoul being able to survive without food as a concept has existed ever since Broken Steel for Fallout 3
@@shadow-squid4872 it is important, they went from "humans" with very bad mutations, that still needed basic resource to survive like everyone else (therefore the player may feel bad for not helping them after just stealing their water chip) to a kid in a FRIDGE that survived God knows how long without anything to support him, it is a horrible retcon
The FEV virus has some striking similarities with the “Descolada” virus of Orson Scott Cards “Enderverse” novels. This includes promoting animal/plant hybridisation. Ehi, maybe the supermutants are green because they incorporate plant spores and are photosynthetic.
I think the concept are constantly missing. An eye might be a meta homage to The idea/concept of holding up your thumb and closing one eye to see if you can block out the mushroom cloud or which was bigger or whatever that was.
The feral ghouls in game nowadays are Olympic level gymnasts and track stars.
That hit like Mike Tyson and Connor McGregor combined.
Of course, all Bethesda attack stats are probably non-canon, because of the nature of the gameplay.
@@eMorphizedthis is my take an all video games
left 4 dead infected and world war Z athletic
To be fair gameplay wise that's a better idea than having them slowly shamble after you. What threat would they be if you could unload an entire gatling lasers ammunition before they even get close to you?
When i think about ghouls, what always comes to mind for me is how uncomfortable all clothing must be against their skin
I'd bet that they're skin, or lack thereof would lose sensitivity fairly quickly
@@misteranthropy7082 yeah that's addressed in the lore right their nerves die or some shit? Still, if I put on a jumper that's slightly too rough it drives me nuts hahaha, think of fallout clothing in like dusty ass desert sun, I hope they don't feel it
@@misteranthropy7082How can they be skin? There is more than skin to a ghoul!
"There are hordes of slouched, green humanoid creatures in tattered clothes, shambling about aimlessly." Jesus, Necropolis sounds like San Francisco....You don't have to get personal...
Or Kensington Ave, based on pics and videos I’ve seen
Lol your pfp looks like the average Republican
Probably closer to Swindon to be honest.
Or somewhere in the UK after a pub visit
@@Dank-gb6jni used to drive about 45 minutes to go to kensington every day. it truly is another world.
The crazed Ghouls are a direct reference to the zombies in Return of the Living Dead. One says "send more paramedics" and one says "brains"
Strange all my say is "CHOCOLATEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
@@xxXXRAPXXxxdid you say chocolate?
That film is so bad it's good.
@@outrider8569 Yes Sir! With or without nuts!
@@valentinblue1952 all the nuts :)
20:05 -- "allow ghouls to heal" I might be reading too deep into this, considering the context, but if ghouls don't age, implying their cells no longer die off over time among other things, then it can be interpreted that the effects of radiation which stops new cells from generating is also in play (or they'd be massive cancerous masses of undying flesh). This might explain some of the wounds we see in ghouls during this era.
Ghouls can't heal. They don't die from these injuries for whatever reason, but neither can they heal. Being doomed to wander around with holes in their bodies.
Raul says so himself, something along the lines of “Hey boss can you point that thing someplace else? I got enough holes in me already.”
It’s not that Their cells don’t die, it’s that instead of splitting and splitting until they can’t split anymore they stop dividing and instead of dividing they just kind of get old and start to look like deteriorating old skin. Kind of old people cells that never go anywhere.
🤢
Ghouls have a healing factor powered by radiation
I suspect that they can heal normally but radiation boost the process
Necropolis is my most favorite place in fallout lore only cause I live in modern day Bakersfield, and I can confirm we are ghoulified from the air pollution and triple digit temperatures. Only difference is that Necropolis gets water at some point 😢
@@Agent_Frank_Horrigan as a Bakersfieldian I agree
Hey Radking, idk if you’ve covered anything related to the architecture of Fallout, but I’d really enjoy seeing a video about the Art Deco/brutalist statue/busts that decorate the later Fallouts!
Yeah I would love to know the history of busting so we can learn more
I think he has, or someone has
@@andrewbabiak5233 perhaps he has, but I’ve never seen one pop up on his channel during a search. Either way, I’d enjoy seeing it done with the King’s flair.
If we're thinking of the same ones, Daddy Skyrim (theEpicNate) mentioned them in one of his long lore videos
Its on the list actually :)
I replayed F1 couple of months ago. There are several packs of shambling, non-talking ghouls on streets of Necropolis, that attack Vault Dweller on sight. Feral ghouls are OG concept, even if they aren't called as such.
I have no idea if this was on purpose, but when most people reel back from pain, surprise, or shock they tend to use their dominant hand to do so. With the majority of people being right handed, they would have likely recoil from the stimulus of the blasts of the great war with their right side. being the side most affected by the heat could have caused them to be more... melty on that side, or it could be quicker cell degradation on that side due to more violent radiation exposure. It would be really cool if they did that on purpose, but the melted right eye may have just been a motif the original artists used during the concept phase and it just stuck to the franchise.
i like to think the artists just didnt want to draw the second eye
It is important to understand that Harold isn't a ghoul in the same sense that Set is a ghoul. Harold is more similar to an FEV centaur but has the appearance of a ghoul.
“Honey wake up! It’s another sermon!”
Praise be to the glow!
"earned caps running" means he worked as a smuggler or in transport.
"send more adventurers...." great callback to the movie return of the living dead's line "send more cops"
Send more paramedics, actually.
@@Jolis_Parsec inititally send more paramedics then send more cops. here's the scene: ua-cam.com/video/y-lmSoS39_c/v-deo.html
@@andrewcullen2119damn I know what movie I’m watching next
all 4 of those quotes are from return of the living dead. one of the best horror comedies
@@robeyhairston3298 you're indeed correct! I gotta go back and watch that movie now. I wonder if that's the kind lf "zombie" they were going for with the original ghouls.
In FNV, some NCR troopers are turned into ghouls by a dirty bomb detonated by Caesar's Legion in Camp Searchlight. May be some of the very few post-war ghouls
I imagine there are plenty of post war ghouls, but most of them just don't say anything about when they ghoulified.
@@mappingshaman5280I swear i've seen implication That some of them lie about their age and say that they're older
Harold is a postwar ghoul. So is Hancock from Fallout 4.
Vault 34 as well
Vault 34 as well
My headcannon for the rads vs fev debate amonst the interplay devs is
Radiation only is a death sentence like in real life. Our player character, who is exposed to little to no fev in every game just dies from too many rads
Fev with little to no radiation is stable and allows for supermutants with varying degrees of intelligence probably tied to the Radiation levels before exposure to fev
Ghouls are made from humans who's biology has been changed significantly enough from fev exposure to allow them to survive a lethal dose of Radiation. The more rads after fev exposure, the more likely you were to go feral. Hence the small population of normal ghouls
Harold and the other ghoul looking mutants are actually "mutant ghouls". They're hybrids. They're people who were on their way to becoming supermutants or something similar, but then a small amount of Radiation after the fev transformation started, stunted that process and kept them in this suspended in-between state. The tree thing can be pseudoscience explained by how Radiation affects plant life in surprising ways. Harold was a prime normie when exposed to the fev then as he explored the wasteland after his joker incident, the trace amounts of radiation in the wasteland almost ghoulified him just not completely, leaving him in an advanced state of mutation allowing life to grow from his nutrient rich "material". The tree seed could've come from the vault they came from, but we would never know because harold doesn't remember anything
Sorry for the blurb, just my thoughts
Fallout 3 throws a wrench into this by outright explaining how this all happened. Like the Master, Harold was around a few other organisms upon exposure to FEV, and shortly merged with them. He doesn't turn green from necrosis-it's chlorophyll. Eventually, the tree part of him starts to take over, leading to a torturous state of being that gets him a literal cult following.
@@eMorphized I agree, but I dont really see how that discredits what Ive said? Maybe its just a matter a semantics but id like to hear your thoughts
@@TitanAnon I agree with everything you said but regarding Harold, I think what the other person was saying is when Harold fell into the fev, he merged with another organism (likely some tree which is why he has one growing out of him). The radiation he receives afterwards is probably what helped the tree grow up to when we see him in Oasis.
A headcannon sounds heavy. Does your neck hurt?
Ghouls have to be one of my favorite "races" in the Fallout universe. I do hope we eventually get a chance to play as one again, ideally in a better game than Brotherhood lol
I think in a cancelled version of fallout by interplay, u could play as one.
@@B1g_B0sssss From what I heard it was planned for NV along with supermutants but they could not get the armors to morph correctly. I am sure if they had more time they could've done it
@@s7robin105 It would've been amazing to play as a ghoul, one of my favorite parts about Skyrim was how much raw racisim you got playing as a khajit or dark elf lmao, imagine getting called a zombie or mutie every settlement you visit
@@franciscol3510but the racism in Skyrim was only surface level. You can still do everything normally, you aren't banned from Windhelm. If it was in New Vegas, you wouldn't be able to interact with certain factions like the Brotherhood when playing as a Ghoul. Which would've been super cool.
@@GeraltofRivia22 More than outright not interacting, I think the added difficulty of trying to gain their trust would be much much more interesting
I think at 19:56 the point the doctor is making is that radiation inhibits cell division and protein synthesis, so healing from wounds is much harder.
Hell yeah another deep lore dive into the best RPG series
im afraid todd howard doesn't know what an rpg is
@@basically_boring Todd Howard nor Bethesda did not conceive of Fallout in any way
@@basically_boring Bethesda Bad.
Now give me internet points
Just realized that Harold can probably sense through his tree the same way the Master absorbed consciousnesses of things he assimilated
The lore and reality of the Ghouls is way, *way* more terrifying and tragic if you watch a video from Wendigoon called "The most painful death ever."
Nah ghoul lore at some point specifically says the first thing to die is a ghouls nerves so they dont feel much of the rotting (random dialogue from hancock when fighting ghouls)
Its considered most painful death ever because Hisashi Ouchi is real world case of when someone was being actively kept alive when he should have been dead long before. Fallout ghouls obviously don't have or need modern medicine for their sustenance. They are not actively dying from radiation. They cross that barrier the moment they turn into ghouls. Anyone who doesn't will experience the same fate as Hisashi Ouchi but instead of 83 days they die in 4. They would not become the ghouls you see in the games
@dreadfulman5191 "actively being kept alive when he should have been dead long before" I fucking hate this view and how much it is espoused in relation to Ouchi. HE wanted to live. HIS family wanted him to live. YOU do not get to decide and rewrite what that poor man's fate was. We don't have this same energy around terminally ill patients who refuse A.S. Why? What? Isn't it HORRIFIC they are being KEPT alive long past when they should have? What's that they want to LIVE? I guess that is irrelevant. Because to you Hisashi Ouchi isn't a person. He's a story you like to tell.
@@dreadfulman5191 bros name cannot be "ouchi"
@aphroditelita do you have a reason for that you’d like to share? I think wendigoon makes really entertaining video essays
After listening to your old videos from years ago, you've come a long way in your narration skill. Maxed out your Charisma! Well done. Very enjoyable videos
28:52 The crazies actually sound like they might be a reference to one of the Return of the Living Dead movies.
I’m not sure which, but in one of them, a zombie uses a radio in an Ambulance (or cop car) and says “Send… more… paramedics.” They eat brains to temporarily stop extreme pain, they lust for brains, saying “Braaaiiiinnnnssss!”
I think the crazies might be a reference to that movie franchise.
i don't know if anyone has pointed this out, but as someone living in the midwest i thought it was worth noting-- in the event of a military attack against the us, the midwest WOULD likely be heavily targeted because there are a LOT of nuclear weapons stored in the midwest specifically. maybe it's why ghouls in the midwest seem to be falling apart more?
Kansas City in the real world has things related to nuclear weapons so it actually makes sense. And yea the Dakotas, Nebraska, Montana and Colorado are where the US house our nukes
yep! from north dakota myself and always heard about the nukes in the state growing up :]
Tbh if I ever became a ghoul in the fallout series and began experiencing signs of early onset feralization, I’d also take my own life.
I'd try to do the most out of my life tho, like writting down everything I know about the old world, for instance
@@franciscol3510 not worth it, when you have to slowly die by having your brain turn into melted cheese.
Is like winning a raffle, most of them ghouls are feral, ive only played fallout games since 3, but im pretty sure every conscious ghoul has a very specific condition as how they got to be "ghoulified"
@@derecker1 most ghouls are feral, yes, but a quick death is preferable to becoming a rotter, which is a much worse way to die.
Oh thank Atom, a new sermon. I was beginning to loose faith.
Never lose faith!
16:00 A little bit of extra lore the bloodmen actually are what inspired the design of the Marked men in the Divide in Fallout New Vegas
26:10
"running" (drug snuggleing or something)
"winning races"
that doesn't mean he was running in those races could have been racing in a car
Man I wish Bethesda would remake Tactics to be canonical or just having the next Fallout game in KS/MO region. Would've love to know what Midwestern ghouls were actually like
I saw a video that said in game lore had fuzzy deathclaws in the Midwest which i really wanna see.
I feel like the ghouls in the Midwest would greet you and give you some jerky before ripping you apart like jerky.
@@thicccravioli1639 I like the sound of that already
I also want to see the Midwest US in Fallout. Great thing about it is, any Midwest state that's included can be used as an accurate representation of every other Midwest state, as we're all the same.
I sued Preston gravy for harassment he offered me a settlement
🤣
That needs your help!!!!
Gravy lmao
😂
I wish we saw Talius again. He is a literal peer of the Vault Dweller and immortal like Herald and most mutants. He is likely still kickin’ at the Boneyard. Maybe we’ll see him in the Fallout tv show?
I've been having a bit of a tough time lately and these lore videos always help make the night better! Thank you for the content and awesome community you've helped build!🤘🤘🤘
Great video! Can’t wait to see the rest.
Side note, Harold isn’t an “old soul” furthest thing from it, he’s actually old, very old.
I always wondered what exactly happed at the croup manor in fallout 4 especially if ferals and regain their mental function
It was a wealthy family that survived the blast. Most of the family went feral and got locked in the basement by the one not feral ghoul. He tried to teach them manners again but it failed and after acentury he got mad and killed his feral aunt. The rest of the ghouls killed him.
@@kyleellis1825 Thank you that really helped clear that plot hole for me!
No worries. Took me a while to find the answer myself, so I figured I could pay it forward.@@BillBean-zh6dn
I don't think ghouls can run OFTEN is the thing. In Fallout Tactics, ghouls have ability score ranges, with a maximum Agility score of 6. I think their Perception, Intelligence, and Luck scores are all pretty high, (going as high as 13 or so), but their Strength, Agility, and Endurance scores are somewhat hampered. There are also plenty of interesting ghoul-specific traits and perks, as well as a few that are barred to ghouls. All of that might be interesting if ghouls become a playable race in a future Fallout game.
I believe that ghouls can maintain a metabolic function similar to that of humans. However I think that ghouls do not need to eat to survive but instead enter a sort of hibernation state (hence why we see them lying on the ground) and only exit this state if disturbed. But being in this state for so long prevents them from being as active
I think the missing I gag is a reference to a big Dungeons & Dragons enemy called Vecna. The most powerful undead
The Van Buren ghoul lore would've been very very interesting if it was released
The "Send more Adventurers" line is a Easter Egg/Homage to both Return of the Living Dead 1 & 2.
In the referenced nearly identical, though still amazing scenes...
At one point in both films after killing an entire wave of emergency personnel, one of the zombies humorously goes into the emergency vehicle and radios back to dispatch to "Send More Cops!" and "Send More Paramedics!", respectively. Leading to more and more waves of free brains Delivered straight to the waiting mouths of the Zombies!
In Part 2 they even try the trick on the "Main Characters", when a Zombie replies to the boy, and the doc on the radio and states "Come to the Hospital!", but hilariously the zombie is outsmarted when the Old Doctor character (played perfectly by Phil Bruns) asks the Zombie "Who is the President of the United States?" the Zombie confidently answers with the 30 years out of date "Harry Truman" and let's Doc know the person on the Radio must have died long long ago! (Even if not the boy who confusedly asks "Who is Harry Truman?)
All of it is equally both Ridiculous, and Fantastic!
Noticed that too, pretty awesome movie
So I got a new theory. A ghoul is not created as a result of of radiation. The initial vehicle for ghoulification was the direct hit of the Wes Tek via a nuclear bomb caused FEV to become dispersed into the atmosphere.
That's not a new theory at all.
Sometimes I'll click on a vid of yours, and really wonder how you could possibly talk about a single subject for so long. Then a whole hour goes by and I'm wanting the next vid.
Love your work my guy! Been a sub for quite a while and I've loved to see the growth
And now we need a whole new video since the Fallout show added a whole bunch to how ghouls are created and go feral.
Really appreciate the insight and questions you bring to the available lore rather than just regurgitating the information
Broke: Harold is a Ghoul or Mutant
Woke: Harold is a Ghoulified Mutant
Awesome video man! Very much enjoying this deep dive into ghouls
Harold is a super ghoul, just a ghoul that is infected with fev, honestly we need more like that
Drinking game: take a shot everytime word 'ghoul' is said
From my experiments with ghouls in fallout, 76 ghouls can not be infected with the scorched plague, which is very interesting because the wendigo can
According to the creator of fallout and the guy responsible for the whole game of fallout 1, ghouls are not a result of FEV. They're simply the result of radiation. Harold thinks that the FEV did this to him, but it was the high doses of radiation present in the military base.
His explanation is that, since billions of people got irradiated after the war, some unlikely consequences of radiation became more common, like the mutations present in ghouls. Basically, most who suffered the effects of radiation died. Some became ghouls, but without the longer lifespan. The "old" ghouls we see are a statistical anomaly. They're the survivors, the "lucky few" who suffered a mutation that allowed them to live longer. But not all ghouls had that "luck".
He also explained the "ferals". They're the result of such a long lifespan. Their brains are not working well anymore. Losing memory, and eventually turning into basically "wild beasts".
The glowing ones are the result of high exposure to A LOT of radiation. Their glow is just radiation.
I suspect there is some kind of relationship between which hand a Ghoul writes with that will also correlate with which eyeball in their head they are most likely to lose later in life.
Something-something Human Chirality, something-something Necrosis of Flesh...
Interesting. That thought never even crossed my mind.
“this ain’t your grandpa’s Brotherhood” I mean, it’s in tactics so technically it WOULD be my grandpa’s brotherhood
On Typhon and ghouls not being able to run: As far as he knew, the Vault Dweller was asking questions to try to kill them more effectively. What better way to protect your people than to lie about your condition?
I appreciate the reminder to watch this that you included in your recent part 2. I was watching it and I realised I had somehow totally missed this first part. Cheers
Ive seen a lot of ghouls. They call them Appalachia miners and they were the first to get hopelessly addicted to opioids while their children play in their dirt yard with no clothes and open sewage.
Chadking, A video outlining which vaults you’d choose to be in from best to worst would be entertaining!
Thanks for the fun videos!
This is a fun idea!
Bloodman kinda look like the marked men from the “lonesome road” dlc. Maybe there’s some influence from the bloodman.
Harold slowly continues to mutate proving he isn't a ghol
Amazing Video! love these lore videos. Helps me with getting through voice over and editing!
Love seeing you in here mate
@@Rad_King anytime! your content slaps!
this comment got you a sub. always looking for a good channel to watch ~shed
Should be fun to see Raul and Hancock talked about.
When you get so high you wake up as zombie dressed in john hancock's clothes
harold actually tells us in game that he’s a product of FEV exposure, albeit to a lesser degree than other super mutants. he had handled a contaminated object from mariposa and was struck by a crane that knocked him out (and knocked Richard Grey into a vat of FEV). he woke up later, already in the throes of mutation
I love Fallout, even when they fall short of what’s expected there’s always something redeeming to find.
I love preserved items 😂
Phillip the glowing one: Bada boom, bada boom baby!
It's nice seeing your sense of detail with the older games, keep up the rad effort
Some people think ghouls are a natural mutation due to radiation so that means it's an evolution is that why FEV could cause some ghoulish changes
Hey thank you for the super thanks! The first games definitely raised some questions when Harold began mutating similar to ghouls, but only after visiting Mariposa.
What Fallout is that music beginning @03:20 from? I guessed Fallout 3, but wasn't able to find it yet. This drives me crazy... 😶
Where’s part 2 just found this vid it’s 3 months old so thought for sure part 2 would be up
Necropolis is Bakersfield, CA, and if anyone has been to Oildale, this checks out.
@36:16 you describe the founding of Gravestone twice. I notice this happens a lot with creators. I wonder if it it because that is where you an others stopped recording for the day and when recording started again later on, you/they forget exactly where you left off? So yea, just thought you should know you repeated yourself.
Well versed and good research done.
I have a theory regarding the FEV and radiation situation with how a ghoul is made. Bare in mind, I've only religiously played Fallout 4 and NV with having completed FO3 once, not having played 1 or 2 at all, so bare with me.
Logically, radiation exposure alone simply couldn't be the case. Out of the few thousand victims of extreme radiation exposure in real life, not a single person exhibited "ghoul like behavior", not even accounting for the most famous nuclear disasters (Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima), so pure radiation logically cannot be the case
However, like it was mentioned in the previous games, FEV could be involved in the creation process, and I think that theory has a lot of merit and could explain certain situations of ghoulification. There are plenty of cases in Fallout where high levels of radiation exposure simply results in death of the victim, rather than turning them into ghouls. However, there are cases where you have people getting caught in the face of a literal nuclear warhead and instead of dying they instead turn into ghouls (Note setting off the bomb in Megaton how people are instantly ghoulified)
My theory is that perhaps it wasn't just the US government that had knowledge of FEV. If we play by the idea that it requires some level of exposure to FEV to create a ghoul, then it would make sense that other parties would have access to some sort of FEV derivative, like the scientists that ghoulified Eddie Winters in the "immortality experiment", instead of the radiation just killing him. I propose that the Chinese also had some sort of access to knowledge of FEV, though maybe not to the same levels as the US. We all know China has an infamous habit of stealing ideas from the US and trying to replicate or even improve on them.
Perhaps the Chinese in their testing with the limited knowledge of FEV saw that applying radiation to a subject with FEV caused their skin to quickly wither, and eventually with enough exposure cause the subject to go insane (feral). Perhaps they saw this as a potential bioweapon that they could infuse with their nuclear warheads to create a secondary effect on the people that didn't die in the blast but were severely affected by the radiation. The only times we really see ghouls created is in the wake of a nuclear blast or in a controlled environment like the case with Eddie Winters, so I feel there is some merit to the idea that Chinese nuclear bombs were not "normal nukes" but rather nukes with a secondary biological effect to infect the surviving victims of the blast, causing them to go feral
Perhaps their reasoning for even putting this "FEV derivative" in their nukes was to create a psychological effect to decrease moral of the American populace. If I went to go do damage control on a nuked city and saw all its American citizens shambling out like zombies hellbent on beating you to death, I would be pretty demoralized and further lose hope in the future of America. There is also a chance the Chinese saw these FEV effects very close to the point of the war springing off, and haphazardly decided to arm all their nukes with it as a "biological bonus effect" in an attempt to deal extra damage to the American populace
Now in the case of Camp Searchlight, the "dirty bomb" the Legion used could've contained radioactive materials left over from a Chinese bomb, thus leading to many of the NCR troopers turning into ghouls
If I missed another example then please do tell, I am interested in hearing if anyone has any input on this case specifically
Lol, Set.
Ah, that Ghoul.
Normally I have no problem with Ghouls. I love them as a faction, and find them fascinating.
But I made an exception for 'Set'.
He called himself SET.
That pissed me off, since I believe in the Egyptian Gods the Netjeru. No sane man of good heart calls themselves
Apep/Apophis or Set/Seti/Seth/Sut/Sutekh/Setesh/Seth/Typhon even if it is Fiction. One is a night serpent of monstrous evil and seeks to devour the universe symbolized by eating Re/Ra the Sun God. The other is a cryptid-headed human with a knack for murderous, fratercide, power-struggle, deicidal backstabbing, raping (contendings of Heru/Horus and Set) deity of unlawful evil, unfair war, infertility, and sheer chaos.
And it seems to have been the right idea, problem is I should have given them a better location to move to.
And yes, he did on purpose, name himself thar mythological name. A far worse deity than the antagonist Lucifer in modern religions.
I can EASILY abide a guy with that name.
But Set?
Naw. In that case I'm the Pharaoh burning that bastard at Inebu-Hej.
This is so informative!!! Fantastic reporting; I love this kind of content!🌻🌼🐝
46:17 oh, so we're just supposed to ignore the fact you left a stimpak and radaway, but you went back for the metro ticket
Shout out to my fellow smoothskins, where you at?
You got too high on Psycho and ate them.
@@superiorrule34 no that was me, sorry…
Wut?? Im no smoothskin, smoothskin!
I am smoothbrain.
Present!🙋♂️
You missed a possible forth option for the ghoul's not running it could just be difficult for them to
I love your content. Wish I was good at gaming, cause this is the ones I'd play. I can't wait till the second season of the show
*you're suffering from the effects of fallout content withdrawal -2 CHARISMA* well time to pop some radking videos on.
What armor mod are you using? I'd like to do the build you posted about a year ago for a crusader of Atom but the robes over the armor looks so much better than marine armor clipping through the robes
The head cannon I've made for the missing right eyes for random gouls is that they got scope punch (when a weapon has enough recoil to push the back of the scope into the eye of the shooter)
How can you say "there are no glowing ones" in Fallout: Tactics? You can even take glowing ones companion. 41:14 those green ones are glowing ones for example. You seen them at night time?
2:20 Darkwater reminds me so much of Enterprise era Scott Bakula, its so funny to me
Thanks for doing this video. I've only played Fallout 3 and later. For whatever reasons, ghouls seem to have been drastically revamped for Fallout 3 and beyond to where much of ghoul lore from previous Fallout games has been ignored.
Something about the bloodman concept art you noted could also have either the original marked men used now in lonesome road and ghouls being used instead
I think this because California became a complete desert and desert winds could be cutting enough in post apocalyptia to flay people but not outright kill them
But maybe this became a weak idea and instead became ghouls from the vault and the concept of bloodmen became marked men
I've been binging your channel for about 3 days. Man, now I'm inspired to-
A. Restart New Vegas again
B. Play Fallout 1
C. Play Fallout 2 (since sadly I've never played either, and I'm older than both of those games, haha)
Awesome! I am always curious to hear what people think of the originals after their first play-throughs.
you should play the classic games you can get them both on steam
i actually have them on a disc trilogy that along with those 2 games are also bundled with fallout tactics
and i eventually had to stop using my disc trilogy varient because it doesn't install properly on modern computer hardware
but i got the collector's set mini-nuke collection that has all of the games corrected to work with modern systems
it was kinda sad because i kept my fallout 3 game of the year disc in very good shape and now it no longer works due to software issues
ie it doesn't want to actually install
despite it installing correctly on windows xp/vista and windows 7 and 8
i have to use the stupid steam edition despite having the actual disc with the game on it that should still freaking work
because i can still use it on other windows xp computers
so my disc still works
but anyway play them and if you get lost go read the vault wikia
It’s a good day when you can wake up to a rad king video
Is that number station snippet in your opening Swedish Rapsody?
Wow, great video. I cant wait for part2
Regarding "canon solution":
I miss games, which took over "canon solutions" from the older parts of the series.
Might and Magic I+II were a good example, where you were able to use the old I savefile to start with a better party _AND_ some world changes are imported to the new game.
And for FOI+II _AND_ III+IV it would have been a great option.
For instance: return of Dr Zimmer from the Capital Wasteland with the synth, alone, thinking it is dead or getting the info he was killed in FOIV which would be more interesting (obviously not the same charakter in both games but making the world more consistent and showing that decisions matter. Or even i the old game regarding Necropolis destroyed or not.
And since usually the same engine and therefore the same database is used, it would be easy to setup
Great vid as always, keep up the good work. Can't wait for your thoughts on "KId in a fridge".
Mother Curie the Third mentions that ghouls don’t need to eat. So from what I know a ghoul being able to survive without food as a concept has existed ever since Broken Steel for Fallout 3
Oh you know that is coming soon 😂
@@shadow-squid4872 except in fallout 1 they needed water to survive, very bad retcon from Bethesda (as always)
@@marcowashere1615 I don’t think whether or not ghouls need to drink water is very important to Fallout lore, not really a “very bad” retcon
@@shadow-squid4872 it is important, they went from "humans" with very bad mutations, that still needed basic resource to survive like everyone else (therefore the player may feel bad for not helping them after just stealing their water chip) to a kid in a FRIDGE that survived God knows how long without anything to support him, it is a horrible retcon
I have to ask what is that headgear do you wear in your videos? Is it a modded version of the inquisitors hood? What is it?
I always enjoy watching your content and look forward to the next😊
Mmm, brains.....
42:49 what happened to this crazy dates you narrated xD?
The FEV virus has some striking similarities with the “Descolada” virus of Orson Scott Cards “Enderverse” novels. This includes promoting animal/plant hybridisation.
Ehi, maybe the supermutants are green because they incorporate plant spores and are photosynthetic.
You really caught me with the "Moooooaaaan". Funny stuff
28:40 is a reference to return of the living dead, probably not meant to be canon
Can’t wait for part 2
I think the concept are constantly missing. An eye might be a meta homage to The idea/concept of holding up your thumb and closing one eye to see if you can block out the mushroom cloud or which was bigger or whatever that was.
is there a part 2 yet???
awesome vid man
"Zombies. Fuck you, we're ghouls"
*angry guitar riff*
Oh, I completely forget about Talius
When it comes to Fallout Tactics, I love my man Dillon, he is my sniper and very good one.