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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7924431" data-attributes="member: 4937">Absolutely. It is possible to make ghouls into a basically benign race of beings that are no more evil than say scavenger beetles. They might even be useful, in some of the same ways scavenger beetles are useful - cleaning up filth which otherwise might become disease reservoirs. Perhaps ghouls only have a taste for carrion. Perhaps ghouls are more reclusive than they are aggressive. Perhaps ghouls aren't homogenizing at all. You might be uncomfortable to think Bob the Ghoul was eating grandma, but they didn't mean any harm by it (and most of the time, by the time it is rancid, Grandma doesn't need her body anymore anyway). In this conception, ghouls aren't inherently evil, they are just a bit disgusting (in what is likely a wholly subjective way). It would be perfectly possible for you to live in peace and harmony with the ghouls in your catacombs. It would be quite interesting to suggest that this race of ghouls was no more morally problematic than humanity. Indeed, you could even have the ghouls tend to be less vicious and aggressive in many ways than humans. Maybe ghouls never enjoy hurting anyone.All of that is fine, but it requires drastically changing ghouls from what is normally meant by the word. Occasionally subverting expectations like that is fine, but I do personally get a little bothered when people start taking words and re-purposing them to mean whatever the like. With a word like &quot;ghoul&quot; for an imagined monster, there isn't really a lot of harm done. But I'd probably be even happier calling the Voblargs or some made up term, and then suggesting that &quot;ghoul&quot; was in fact a racial slur used against them, and that they were not in fact &quot;ghouls&quot; at all.Humans are really bad at dealing with multiple words that have the same sound and spelling, and when you redefine things that's what you are actually doing.&nbsp; Those two tags &quot;ghoul&quot; point to incredibly different ideas, and the more that happens the harder it becomes to communicate or think clearly.&nbsp;&nbsp; So I would like people to think about that before just going with their clever plan.&nbsp; But again, &quot;ghoul&quot; is hardly a loaded term in the real world, so generally OK with that in this case.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7924431, member: 4937"] Absolutely. It is possible to make ghouls into a basically benign race of beings that are no more evil than say scavenger beetles. They might even be useful, in some of the same ways scavenger beetles are useful - cleaning up filth which otherwise might become disease reservoirs. Perhaps ghouls only have a taste for carrion. Perhaps ghouls are more reclusive than they are aggressive. Perhaps ghouls aren't homogenizing at all. You might be uncomfortable to think Bob the Ghoul was eating grandma, but they didn't mean any harm by it (and most of the time, by the time it is rancid, Grandma doesn't need her body anymore anyway). In this conception, ghouls aren't inherently evil, they are just a bit disgusting (in what is likely a wholly subjective way). It would be perfectly possible for you to live in peace and harmony with the ghouls in your catacombs. It would be quite interesting to suggest that this race of ghouls was no more morally problematic than humanity. Indeed, you could even have the ghouls tend to be less vicious and aggressive in many ways than humans. Maybe ghouls never enjoy hurting anyone. All of that is fine, but it requires drastically changing ghouls from what is normally meant by the word. Occasionally subverting expectations like that is fine, but I do personally get a little bothered when people start taking words and re-purposing them to mean whatever the like. With a word like "ghoul" for an imagined monster, there isn't really a lot of harm done. But I'd probably be even happier calling the Voblargs or some made up term, and then suggesting that "ghoul" was in fact a racial slur used against them, and that they were not in fact "ghouls" at all. Humans are really bad at dealing with multiple words that have the same sound and spelling, and when you redefine things that's what you are actually doing. Those two tags "ghoul" point to incredibly different ideas, and the more that happens the harder it becomes to communicate or think clearly. So I would like people to think about that before just going with their clever plan. But again, "ghoul" is hardly a loaded term in the real world, so generally OK with that in this case. [/QUOTE]

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