𝔄𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔞𝔠𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔰𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔭𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔢𝔰, 𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔯 𝔬𝔣 𝔪𝔶𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔡 𝔮𝔲𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰; ℑ 𝔟𝔢𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔢 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔶 𝔴𝔦𝔰𝔡𝔬𝔪!
I come bearing not just one, but TWO whole questions! I've been pondering this for a long while, but I decided I might as well run it by you, just to be absolutely sure.
Y'see, I've been writing criminal backgrounds for some canary OCs, and while a grand majority are not that wild, one of them is definitely out there, to say the least. As I'm trying to keep things as accurate to canon as possible, I wanted to stop by and make sure what I've written makes sense, and whether or not it'd be feasible within the world of Dungeon Meshi. I might be confident in my knowlegde on the story, given I have read all available official Dungeon Meshi content as far as I'm aware, but it wouldn't be the first time I get logical tunnel vision and overlook an important detail.
Alright, so, ghosts! We all love the restless buggers, don't we? Hah, their haunting is the whole reason it's common practice in most of the world (if I'm remembering this correctly; could be spouting total nonsense for all I know) to ensure there isn't anything binding the soul to the body that'd cause a bad case of the haunties! However, the residents of the Northern Continent — at least the ones we get to see in the story — display a particular adversity to magic to the point where they viciously bullied a young girl for the horrible crime of laying a poor soul to rest, and they seemed pretty cool (ironic pun not intended; but in restrospect, absolutely intended) with orphanizing another. Safe to say, there is room for shenanigans here!
I've been wondering for a while now whether it is possible for ghosts in the overworld to repossess their own bodies shortly after they bite the dust. I know they have a preference for living fleshbags, but if they only recently perished — and given they're not chained to their body until it is too broken to hold on to their soul ala man-made dungeon — the body oughta be at least warm enough for a ghost to pick it, aye? It's... well, it's not alive, but it seems like a viable option to me. No use being picky.
"Okay Agion — you highly intelligent, handsome and exceedingly humble rogue; what're you getting at?"
Well, I'm glad you asked!
1. What information do we have on binding a soul to a body?
2. When done in a town that does not practice proppa anti-haunting procedures and enough people die in quick succession (with a little help if necessary), could you start a zombie outbreak by kind of nudging the ghosts a little to just reanimate their own bodies instead of looking for a hapless victim to possess?
Sure, the ghosts alone are spooky enough, and there's plenty of things I could do with ancient magic, but the idea of a small zombie plague stuck with me, and I wanted to make sure it is feasible before doing anything with it. I'd be very, very grateful if you could help me out!
Oh, and as always: thank you sincerely for running this blog. It's saved my bacon countless times, and I simply cannot thank you enough for maintaining such a handy resource for everyone to use!
Sorry I took a bit to answer this week has been tough! Thanks for the kind words! I'll do my best to lay out what I remember from canon but I wouldn't worry so much about following the canon closely, it's not really that clear when it comes to ghosts and souls tbh.
Tansu talks about the souls being shackled to the body as something exclusive from the dungeon, I guess in this sense the person is not dead since the soul hasn't left? Which is different from the ghost where there's no way to resurrect them?
But in the backstory Falin says the ring is binding the soul so maybe the soul is bound to the ring and not the body? I think that's what would make more sense since they say a few times resurrections aren't possible in the surface it would be strange if just a magical ring could keep a soul shackled to the body
Here's what the AB speaks about ghosts (and ghouls)
And here's the monster tidbits
The description says they have "lost their bodies" and bodies and soul in Dungeon Meshi seem very linked together so I'm not sure if they could re-possess their own bodies after that link is undone? As in if the connection to a soul is no longer there could it still be viable? There might be a reason why they take living people.... it shows them removing the soul of the body as if they're taking it's place but we see that people who are possessed can still be resurrected so that's not really accurate right?
I wonder! It's not really explained! I said all that speculation but there's still the fact Marcille does a magic to stop Kabru and his party from becoming zombies/ghouls, I assumed she did it to avoid ghosts from going inside them but at this point they think they're dead, so there is a concern about dead people becoming zombies, either other ghosts might enter their recently dead body or maybe their own spirits might get cursed?
Tbh I think just this is enough canon backing for that situation, it could be that it's a concern even with them being dead is because their souls are still attached to their bodies in the dungeon but idk, like I said I don't think the canon itself it's very clear... If you want to be conservative maybe rather than repossessing their own bodies it could be that the dead are possessing the people that are still dying? Anyway, this is all speculation, I'm in favor of having fun and making up alternative explanations!
