Waste Not Want Not
I feel like Cleric is just upset because he can’t find anything in his sacred texts that specifically forbids this.
In a world with multiple sentient species, what would a cannibalism taboo really look like? Those couple of days worth of rations that you buy at character creation can’t last forever, and you’ve got to eat something while you’re out in the wilderness. Just keep an open mind and you can turn a traditional adventure into a shopping expedition. After all, if goblins and kobolds are kill on sight, what difference does it make if you eat them too? They aren’t people. They’re just personifications of the principle of evil. And even if evil tastes a bit past the expiration date, it’s still edible. All it takes is the willingness to look at random encounters as a food source. I mean sure, you spend hit points rather than gold pieces to acquire your grub, but the concept is the same.
I’m being silly here, I know, but take a step back and think about the game at large. How many times have you worn dragonhide armor? How many times have you taken a shot of troll styptic? Ever pause to consider what your amulet of natural armor is made from? I’m not saying that a self-respecting adventurer ought to change his ways. I’m just saying that there may be a fantasy-world version of Green Peace out there trying to save the noble orc from overharvesting.
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“When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.”
I mean hey, if you really feel the need to roleplay Fantasy Hannibal lector, okay. But, it’s not strictly necessary.
For getting along in the wild, you make a Survival check once every 24 hours. And taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many times before you get it right. That combination of rules makes me think Survival is not the best candidate for taking 20.
More to the point, Fighter is the only one in the party proficient in Survival, and that chucklehead sunk all of his skill points into Perform (male model).
takes 20 in Survival
“I found food! I also found a Dire Bee hive, a clearing filled with Poison Joke and a Curse-rotted Greatwood. On the way back, my foot even found this cool bear trap. I think it might be vorpal.”
A vorpal bear trap has a radius of (your height – your head).
A campaign I was once in had a running gag about +5 adamantine vorpal bear traps. We never actually saw one, but that’s because they are the signature weapon of the ogre ninjas. We also never saw any ogre ninjas, but that is because they are REALLY sneaky.
Take 20 on survival takes 20 days. Fight all the 80 encounters without food.
I’m in a party where the ONLY player who has any ranks in any food-gathering at all was…a Drow they’d found turned to stone, thought was an elf, and used a stone-to-flesh potion they’d found earlier on it. (The “oh shit” when I said “white hair” was very, very satisfying.) Now, we’re playing the World’s Largest Dungeon. The party has a choice. Amazingly, they’ve chosen to eat the “natural jerky” the Drow finds (mummified orc, mostly) rather than have the cleric dedicate all his level 3 spells to feeding the party.
As a mega dungeon fan, I’ve got to ask: How far are you guys into the World’s Largest Dungeon? Are you going to try and play the whole thing?
We’re four areas in, but the party is kind of falling apart because of differing work schedules. The DM is determined to get us through it, but we haven’t played in a couple months now.
Oh man, there is a great manga called Dungeon Meshi. It’s all about what kind of delicious food one can make inside a dungeon with it’s inhabitants. It’s honestly a great fantasy story in and of itself. Definitely worth checking out.
But on the topic itself. I always make sure that my characters can cook. I love being the chef of the party as it makes way for a lot of neat interactions and developments.
I’ve always wanted to invent some kind of homebrew system to allow cooking to give buffs à la WoW. Sugary snacks to make you hyperactive (haste)… Booze to make you resistant to bludgeoning damage… Off brand Red Bull for flight…
I know this is a late comment, but i had to share this story. I once made a character who made food using the weirdest ingredients possible, including but not limited to: illithid heads, myconids, medusa hair, and alchemist’s fire. bunch of stuff like that. He kept it all in a sack, and when he went to cook, he blindfolded himself so that his recipes could never be committed to memory. If you ate any of it, you would roll a d20, and the number determined the effect. It ranged from knocked to -3 hitpoints (1) to barf rainbow acid lasers for an hour (20).
Is… Is barfing rainbow lasers helpful?
Also of note, I too know the “joys” of eating myconid. Can’t say I was a fan: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/psychedelic
In my homebrewed setting I actually redesigned Minotaurs to be a playable race, and they are cannibals (which I defined in this case as eating the flesh of other humanoids). It’s not just a cultural (fluff) thing either- there are mechanical benefits to be had from chowing down on filet-of-elf or orc-stew. And I’d say a surprising number of players seem to suddenly become fans of the “c’mon guys, he’s not getting any deader” mentality when playing one.
In-universe, the race can run the gamut of alignments (none of this “always evil” stuff here), with good Minotaurs respecting other culture’s taboos and evil ones actively hunting down humanoids ala The Most Dangerous Game. Most of them agree though that other race’s funeral rights are a waste of resources.
Racially they are also pretty rare, which is good, because they tend make most other humanoids nervous. Even the most evil characters are rarely comfortable around someone who has no problems considering them an emergency food source. I think it takes someone truly sociopathic to not be a little unnerved by something like that.
Huh. Now you’ve got me wondering about the culture of real world cannibals.
…
A quick google later, and it sounds like “unnerved” is spot-on.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/sleeping-with-cannibals-128958913/
I stole from both The Wandering Inn and Pratchett by having a goblin character who was totally fine eating humanoid, including goblin, because waste not, want not. If it was someone she cared about, she’d keep a small piece as a memento and remembrance. She’d be sad, but thousands of Calories going to waste? That’s no way for a people living on the absolute margins to live. Don’t eat the brain or other nervous tissue though. Gives you a case of the shakes that will kill you eventually.
I mean… We don’t eat bodies because of cultural taboo, but also the possibility of disease transmission. Which raises the question: Are there diseases endemic to humans but not goblins?
I do enjoy reminding my players of their need to eat. In my current campaign, the party of 21st-century regular joes (regular until embroiled in a modern fantasy plot) were recently stranded on a fey plane. The witchy girl knew enough of folklore to warn the others against eating or drinking anything they found lying about – but then it dawned on them that nobody really goes around with several days worth of food and drink in their pockets.
There were a couple of very uncomfotrable days until they were fortunate enough to find a more seasoned traveller from the Prime who had set up shop selling tinned spaghetti to goblins…
The goblin cult who worship Chef Boyardee are not to be trifled with. They’re full of carbs and ready to rumble!
In a world with multiple sentient species, what would a cannibalism taboo really look like? Those couple of days worth of rations that you buy at character creation can’t last forever, and you’ve got to eat something while you’re out in the wilderness. Just keep an open mind and you can turn a traditional adventure into a shopping expedition. After all, if goblins and kobolds are kill on sight, what difference does it make if you eat them too?a very good question, worth pondering about my own way of life.
Since writing this comic, I’ve found out this manga exists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicious_in_Dungeon
Nice to see somebody else exploring these big questions.
I’m not saying that a self-respecting adventurer ought to change his ways. I’m just saying that there may be a fantasy-world version of Green Peace out there trying to save the noble orc from overharvesting. I strongly agree with this opinion of the author. If understood in a different way, life will be different. Now I see that saying is true.
Well hey, if you’re into ‘noble orcs,’ skip ahead a few hundred comics:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/origin-stories-van-helscion
great