How Long Can Ghouls Live Without Water

[Ziggy Stardust]

I haven't been on this forum in about three years, but I was recently playing Fallout 2 (which I never actually managed to complete) and something left me perturbed. I was ransacking the graves of Golgotha, and as I shamelessly pilfered from the fallen souls of New Reno, I accidentally rescued a ghoul. He said he was buried alive, left entombed without water for several months.

Can ghouls just live without water? The plots to both Fallout 1 and Fallout 3 (esp Broken Steel content) fall apart if this is the case. So maybe they can just live longer without water... or maybe it's just Coffin Willie. Does anyone have any theories or is there a bit of lore I'm missing out on?

[I know there's that Boy in a Fridge quest in Fallout 4 but that game's a piece of shit (imo)]

 

[Mr Fish]

It's up to you what lore you want to find canon or not.
Me? I ignore his existence as it breaks Necropolis lore.
Ghouls were established in Fallout 1 and they need water to survive.
Any game that states otherwise is breaking canon in my eyes.

 

[Traeger91]

It's up to you what lore you want to find canon or not.
Me? I ignore his existence as it breaks Necropolis lore.
Ghouls were established in Fallout 1 and they need water to survive.
Any game that states otherwise is breaking canon in my eyes.

You can break my canon any day.

 

[Mr Fish]

You can break my canon any day.

 

[Norzan]

Coffin Willie could have been buried for like a day because you lose track of time when you are isolated with no actual way of tracking time.

At least with Kid in the Fridge we got an actual confirmation that he was in the fridge for 210 years, with Coffin Willie we got told that he was there for months from the person that couldn't tell the passage of time.

 

[laclongquan]

I am pretty much on the side that ghouls need water (body function, BIOLOGY!) and Coffin Willie just bragged out of his ass. As some people said above: he's in a closed space, cant tell the passage of time.

If you want to use his statement as a basis to do your thing... expect to be laughed at for this detail later~

 

[SquidWard]

Ghouls need water. Sometimes developers will make a quest for novelty or comedy without taking implications of it seriously (both Coffin Willie and FridgeKid). Willie does say, "Nothing more boring than bein' in a coffin for months." But as pointed out more than once already, passage of time is hard to decipher when you are isolated from the world.
Though, we know from the lady who was isolated for 500 days, she thought time was moving slower than it actually was (believing only less than 200 days had passed). Another study that isolated people under different conditions (normal day/night light cycle, patient determined day/night cycle, and constant illumination) all produced a signal that an hour had passed longer than an hour apart with varying degrees of inaccuracy due to their light cycle. So we could say Willie must have been buried even longer than a few months if he thinks it's only been a few months but it's also a video game from the 90s that probably didn't bother with any of this nonsense.

If they don't need water, then why would taking the water chip matter so much to Necropolis unless you fix their water pumps?

Maybe to some extent ghouls could be generally fine without water for a longer period than your regular human but nothing too extreme. But there's no logical reason to believe they don't need food, water, and probably sleep as well. The exceptions are well, exceptions. Not everything will be meant to be taken seriously. Especially not in a game like Fallout 2.

 

[Norzan]

There's also a giant difference between some months and over two centuries. I could maybe buy that ghouls could survive for a few months without water and food, but eventually they would have to eat and drink or else they die. But i sure as shit ain't buying two whole centures of not needing to eat and drink.

Not to mention Fallout 4 has a ghoul in another quest that said he needed to eat and drink to survive, but apparently he didn't need to be quick about it because according to another quest in the same game ghouls can postpone it for over two centures.

 

[Dr. Sep]

I haven't been on this forum in about three years, but I was recently playing Fallout 2 (which I never actually managed to complete) and something left me perturbed. I was ransacking the graves of Golgotha, and as I shamelessly pilfered from the fallen souls of New Reno, I accidentally rescued a ghoul. He said he was buried alive, left entombed without water for several months.

Can ghouls just live without water? The plots to both Fallout 1 and Fallout 3 (esp Broken Steel content) fall apart if this is the case. So maybe they can just live longer without water... or maybe it's just Coffin Willie. Does anyone have any theories or is there a bit of lore I'm missing out on?

[I know there's that Boy in a Fridge quest in Fallout 4 but that game's a piece of shit (imo)]

I'm pretty sure I read or watched something that said the ghoul in Golgotha and Coffin Willie were oversites. I don't have a source though.

 

[Aures]

Ghouls from FO3 leaves a bad taste after FO1-2 but then again neither of these games are clear about what ghoul is or what ghouls need. For table top gaming reason i came up with my own explanation(and rules) for ghouls 10-15 years ago(i dont remember the exact date). Since i have no longer access to my notes, it was something like this:
Ghouls are too radiated that radiation provides them energy to stay alive and like a nuclear reactor, they need water to get rid of poisonous chemicals, due to this ghouls dont need to consume food or breath inorder to stay alive(they can still do it as a habit or just for taste). They need radiation and thrive on it, because it sustains some sort of high-energy reaction which literally keeps them alive on the cellular level. And if a ghoul for some reason doesnt absorb radiation, his body starts to consume itself(because their bodies are radiated) turning them feral in the process. If ghoul neglects consuming water, poisonous chemicals spread into their bodies, causing brain rot, turning them feral in process. Radiated water consumption is best way to survive for a ghoul. Something like that.

 

[SquidWard]

Ghouls from FO3 leaves a bad taste after FO1-2 but then again neither of these games are clear about what ghoul is or what ghouls need.

Cannibalism is already a touchy subject, but I imagine eating radiated old-ass humans wouldn't help the taste. Try eating people BEFORE they turn to ghouls?