Ghosts 2.0

People want ghosts to resemble those humanoids which they used to be.

For this, we will need to create a new way of making ghosts. This type of ghost will come from humanoids, and will be modeled on zombies from IVAN CVS, where special types of zombies were preconfigured using "CreateUndeadConfigurations".
Somehow, the torso and limb configurations will be retrieved to create a ghost and the colours of the torso, head and limbs will be switched to grey scale. One question is, what will ghosts equip? Does their gear need to be switched to ghost materials??
-One thing I'd like to implement is if the humanoid was killed by beheading, then the ghost that comes from that will forever wield its head (in both hands), and will also aquire an attribute bonus upon generation.
-Ghost bodyparts get sucked into hell when severed.
-Ghosts have move-type ethereal (walk through walls).
-After a number of days, all ghosts become invisible (as per another type of character we won't name)
-Ghosts of izzy, sherarax, danny?
-Ghosts of the slave from Attnam? If he dies during the game, he comes back a bit later to kick your arse. Makes you think twice about taking that guy with you.
-Ghost of Ivan??
-Ghosts only made from humanoids with souls?
-The question follows: Do goblins, orcs etc have souls?
-Undead dark frogs? (for that matter, zombie dark frogs?)

Most perversely there is the remote opportunity to make a spell scroll that splits the player's body and soul apart, so that the player becomes a zombie and must find his wandering ghost (somewhere on the level) in order to become human again.

What other things could be suggested to make ghosts more integral to the game?

Hmm... as for the ghosts of various named characters, I'd personally not want to see the ghost of Sherarax pop up a few floors after beating her and have to beat her again. Maybe there could be a few conditions on whether the ghost is summoned after the character's death? Or perhaps you could place the corpse in a special place (shrine room maybe?) to prevent the ghost from rising?

Ghosts only made from humanoids sounds good, but perhaps you could also have ghosts of former pets show up too? Vengeful if you killed them by yourself, helpful otherwise.
I do believe that goblins, orcs, mistresses and the like have souls. You could perhaps consider any creature with significant intelligence as having a soul too?

Oh, and how about a wandering ghost who gets randomly spawned and is neutral to both you and monsters? Might be an interesting find for science talking? Or something else? A special item perhaps.

Personally I think there should be a chance for something killed to become a ghost, but they retain their form only if they're powerful enough. Otherwise they just become your standard ghost.

A good criterion. I think that mistresses would make great ghosts too.

Re chao, there could be a chance for ghost to spawn from a specific death of a character. Also, levels could have a flag like "AllowGhostsToSpawnFromDeadChars = true" type of thing. There could be a cooldown timer between the time of creature death and the time when the ghost shows up.

Should the ghost show up on the level where they died? Or can they show up at any level where you happen to be? Should they show up where their corpse is?

You could offer a dead creature's corpse to a god to prevent the ghost from rising. (not every creature would have a soul, but say if you wanted to be sure that Sherarax didn't show up in ghost form...)

Ghosts could arise out of their former avatars being killed in a certain way (beheading?) or there could be simply a 10% chance of them showing up at all, after the death.

Another idea:
Engraving could be modified to require a tool, like a pen or something. Then you would dip the pen in some ink, and it would "engrave" onto the surface of the floor. Other ways to write would be by engraving with a tool that is harder than the floor on which is being engraved.

I introduce that idea because I thought it would be cool if ghosts could write threatening things in blood all over the dungeon floors.

You could use the intelligence criteria for that. If it's low, it just hangs around the corpse. If it's high, it'll hunt you down.

I like the idea of ghosts haunting you when you return to the floor where its body was struck down.

Also, engraving is neat. Perhaps for extra flavor, you could write it like MoRTiFEr SPeAks?
Maybe you could also engrave memorials to fallen companions to prevent their rising again?