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Has anyone touched on cannibalism in their games?

I was just reading this fascinating Vox article on the subject:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8052239/cannibalism-surprising-facts

And it immediately filled me with fodder (heh heh) for campaigns.

There are obvious interesting riffs one can use -- what if the 'treasure' of a given monster (or hero) is a heart, that you can consume for some effect?

Mmm all this talk of Cannibalism is making me hungry... I could MURDER and Indian right now...


Oh wait....;)

Quote from: Will;816291Has anyone touched on cannibalism in their games?

No.

Apparently, just you.

Of course, you could respond by saying, "Eat me!"  :D

I didn't recently find out that the founder of Jameson liquor bought a 9 year old slave girl in Africa just to give her to a cannibalistic tribe in return for getting to watch (and sketch in watercoulour) them dismembering and eating her). For a few handkerchiefs.


So...that happened.

In answer to the OP, no I haven't touched on cannibalism in my games. Just like rape, its just not a subject I find enjoyable or interesting to explore through play-acting. And I play RPGs for fun.

ghouls wanting to eat you count as cannibalism? goblinoids? giants?

i think that harely stroh mentioned that his next dcc adventure, journey to the center of aerth, will feature cannibalism rules. mmmmmmm...

also, tcho tcho bak bon dzhow!

It's a recurring theme among goblins, in my game world.
Enough so, that someone eventually opines that the number one killer of goblins, is goblins!

Doh. How did I manage to forget Lovecraftian Ghouls?

I guess I HAVE had cannibalism in my games before. Been a while.

Delta Green has an interesting bit where there's a schism between ghouls -- old traditionalists who see themselves as having a holy role as eaters of the dead, and some new upstarts who think that hey, everyone's going to be dead eventually, so why not hurry it along and get somewhat fresher food?

Shadowrun has several meta-varients that are cannibalistic.

In one of my settings, ritualistic (and mostly symbolic) canibalism is a part of one of the more prominent barbarian cultures: They eat a small morsel of flesh or blood as a token of respect for honored members of their clans or honorable foes they defeated, either in combat or as a part of a funeral rite. Members of these tribes even brag about the taste of their flesh and that at their funeral their won't be enough food for all the mourners.
(And no, they are not a particularly violent or "evil" tribe, but they do have that reputation).

i played a war-verteran once who, during a siege, had turned to cannibalism to survive. didn't have any great impact on the game except a few tasteless jokes.

Quote from: shlominus;816327i played a war-verteran once who, during a siege, had turned to cannibalism to survive. didn't have any great impact on the game except a few tasteless jokes.

I heard it tastes like pork

Quote from: Will;816291Has anyone touched on cannibalism in their games?

I was just reading this fascinating Vox article on the subject:
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/17/8052239/cannibalism-surprising-facts

And it immediately filled me with fodder (heh heh) for campaigns.

There are obvious interesting riffs one can use -- what if the 'treasure' of a given monster (or hero) is a heart, that you can consume for some effect?

I've done it a bit. In one of my settings there is a myth floating around that eating sorcerers gives you their powers, so people occasionally test this idea out.

In horror or exploration themed settings it may be an element.

And guess what? Wayyyyyyyyy back in Isle of Dread. Cannibal tribes.

Bemusingly thats a running gag with Jannets half-orc characters. She seems to invariably end up on the menu as the "piggy". In fact thats how we found out there were cannibals on the Isle. (The patron who found the letter describing the isle "neglected" to mention that little bit of datum.) Sure enough we landed near one of the cannibal tribes and Jan's half-orc (human fighter as the basis. Nothing extra) gets caught.

Also theres those damn halflings in Dark Sun. I despised them as a character and a player as we had to pretty much every encounter kill on sight.

As for ghouls. Technically not cannibals as they are supposed to only eat the dead. D&D Ghouls eat the living. Making them not really ghouls.

And on a macabre note. The town I moved into boasted having had a ghoul. Doesnt surprise me. The whole town could have fit in a Lovecraft story. Theres a reason why I put nearly a thousand kilometers between it and me.

One interesting thing from the article is how cannibalism has several different motives, and how often it becomes part of propaganda.

So in a game, you could potentially have, say, a shamanistic culture where funerals involve a ritual eating of some small part of the dead, but some other group spins lurid tales of the 'savages who kidnap children and eat them in their depraved rituals.'

Very easy "OMFG look how fucked up this guy is" indicator to be used sparingly in horrific games.

VtM Rev had the Conspicuous Consumption flaw that required a vampire to devour parts of a victim (usually blood-rich organs such as liver and spleen) in addition to drinking blood, to replenish one's Blood Pool. I played a character with this flaw once, and there was a lot of gallows humor but precious little horror; and it was a pretty big challenge from my end, since I had to feed very rarely (and risk getting caught into a scruffle low on blood, or even outright torpor), or kill one person a day which would be a huge, giant Masquerade breach. And of course, I had to take a Path of Enlightenment or my Humanity would be gone in a couple of months.

Thankfully the campaign only lasted two sessions, for out-of-game reasons, so I didn't really get to experience the full trainwreck that was bound to happen; but for what it's worth, these two sessions had plenty of teenage gallows humor and precious little body horror. In my defense, well, we were adolescents. :o I would certainly not play this character, and I'm not sure I'd allow it as a GM nowadays; "let's be Chaotic Evil bad guys" as a premise doesn't really take you anywhere particularly interesting.

I find playing horrible bad guys only entertains me if I'm actually rooting for my opponents.

Quote from: TristramEvans;816336I heard it tastes like pork

Long-pigs!

At one point I was horrified when a work colleague related that he had eaten horse and dog at various points.

And then it dawned on me... pigs are very smart and self-aware. Could I really pass judgement when I eat pig? Either I should shut up about people's food choices, or give up eating similarly sentient animals.

I lasted about a month.

So now I refrain from commenting about dog eaters.

It also made me wonder if, in some alternate universe, some variation of me is feeling a bit put out about how delicious long-pork is.

My friend ran a very short lived game of Cthulutech that had a villain that called us on video and proceeded to bite of and eat the fingers of a friend of ours that he'd captured.

Needless to say, it both drove home the fact that this guy was evil as shit, and he needed killing in a very big way.

Sadly, due to one of the players being a dick, the group dissolved, so we never were able to put the bad guy in the ground.

It would make for an interesting spin on the superhero genre. Sort of like Highlander made by Deodato. You can gain heroes (or villains) powers by consuming them.

I'd say that sentients being eaten, sometimes by other sentients, is pretty much standart fare (heh) in fantasy.

As with all violence and touchy subjects in RPGs the real question is how far on the implied to explicit scale the portrayal is placed.

I'm more on the explicit scale, as with most things, for the simple reasonthat it opens up more options. But if someone at the table isn't comfortable, it is far from a dealbreaker.


Now for a more precise definition of cannibalism, meaning humans or very human like beings eating their own species.

It tends to be implied to happen in most games including ghouls, who have cannibalism as a common origin story. Monstrous humanoids are often portrayed as true cannibals.

In this way, it still is a rather standart thing, though commonly only implied.

Including cannibalism amongst humans or elves, dwarves, etc. is where I believe people will get uncomfortable in numbers. I can see three ways of including this in a campaign or setting:

1. Desperation. It takes a lot for people to go for cannibalism for actual sustenance. I'm not a fan of including this version, for the simple reason that things have really hit rock bottom when this happens. This not only makes a game world a very horrible place, most players and DMs do simply not have the ability to portray this amount of drama in a way that isn't cheap, cheezy and awkward, making this an active detraction from the game.

2. Because the person doing it is very, very disturbed. I'm not a big fan of this one either. There are thousands of ways to portray a person as evil and/or insane and many aren't so over the top. It's fine once in a blue moon, but more and I'd consider it in the same light as 1.

3. Due to ritual. This is the one I find has potential in games, particularly as the power of ritual tends to be very real in fantastic settings. This is also the option that isn't necessarily about evil and horror. Still mostly a background thing though.

The game I currently run is Hellfrost, which has a cannibalistic group called the Vendahl in it. I used them in one adventure but the cannibalism wasn't a major part of it.

Cannibalism is also a part of Deathwatch and other 40k RPGs featuring Space Marines. They have an implanted organ, the Omophagea, that lets them eat the flesh of another to gain part of its memory. I ran a short-lived DW campaign once but the Omophagea was never used.

Quote from: Will;816397At one point I was horrified when a work colleague related that he had eaten horse and dog at various points.

That's a very American thing - and it changes over time too. Many of us grew up thinking of dogs are man's best friend, the horse is #2. Somehow, we tossed in dolphins (Flipper!) and whales for good measure.

Food culture fascinating. For all the variety of meat that is available today, what actually gets eaten seems quite limited. How many people under 20 (in the US) do you know who have eaten venison, elk, rabbit or duck?

Other than not eating dog or horse, I try to be a bit adventurous (for a USian); I love blood foods, for example.

I find our food habits odd. Like lamb -- lamb is delicious, but rather uncommon here. (Though not TOO hard to find, most places)

I haven't played Firefly, but I imagine Reaver cannibalism is addressed somewhere in the book(s).

Also, a couple of the monsters/cryptids (mostly supernaturally-warped humans) I designed for Corporia have cannibalism as part of their main 'ick' factor.

The Morlocks include elements of Torchwood's weevils and HG Wells' morlocks. They hide out in sewers and underground access tunnels and kidnap people for food.

The Phages are cannibalistic serial killers with spider abilities, and are a bit like the Reavers in that you never know if they will kill you or eat you first.

Quote from: Will;816291Has anyone touched on cannibalism in their games?

Yes, I've found it quite useful.

Cannibalism is the palatable (ahem) taboo in gaming. It lets you point out a group or entity and say "they're not just bad, they're REALLY bad" in a way that most people don't find squicky. Much like slavery, it lets players get all noble on somebody's ass and feel completely justified. They might get uncomfortable, but "horror movie" uncomfortable.

And, if things are set up right, you can get them to be a little tempted when there is some kind of specific, defined advantage to it. Magical transfer of skill, strength, or whatever, the player just might have thier character take a nibble if they stand to gain.

I've used cannibalism a few times in RPGs as appropriate. Some Horror RPGs, I think I used it in Rolemaster many years ago, when the adventurers went into a major Orc lair in a mountain (does Orcs eating Elves count as Cannibalism? or do they have to be the same race?).

A couple of years ago I ran "Rise of the Runelords" and I'm sure one of the Rise of the Runelords scenarios had Cannibals in it.

Of course I did. In fact, the last major PC to die in my campaign was retired due to him engaging in an act of cannibalism with ghouls, then taking the road into Dreamlands to dance forever in the pale light of moon of dreams.

Quote from: One Horse Town;816420It would make for an interesting spin on the superhero genre. Sort of like Highlander made by Deodato. You can gain heroes (or villains) powers by consuming them.

Aberrant (of course) had a rather vile cult of personality that believed that eating a Nova was like eating a god. The PCs end up discovering a slow regenerating Nova that these freaks had captured and been eating alive till he went insane.

Marvel had a mutant called Dirtnap who ate people and gained their appearance and powers. He ate a rat to escape and ended up stuck as one. Theres been a few others like Reverend Styge in Nightstalkers who ate people to maintain his power granted by one of the pages. And of course Wendigo, who is a person cursed to turn into a monster after eating someone. Needless to say every time they put one down a new one pops up sooner or later. What is it about Canada that engenders that? yeesh! It was statted out in MSH as was I think Styge?

Quote from: Will;816441I find our food habits odd. Like lamb -- lamb is delicious, but rather uncommon here. (Though not TOO hard to find, most places)

Yes, that's one that's disappearing. I was fed whale one time in Japan (some of that 'harvested for scientific purposes' that can show up in supermarkets) and didn't much care for it. One region is famous for its "horse sashimi".

A note about lovecraft - cannibalism isn't just for ghouls! The Picture in the House is an example of implied cannibalism. The Rats in the Walls someone munches their friend. In the revision "The Mound" the K'n-yan people blend humans with other critters for riding, slavery and eating.

It is interesting that the effects of the disease Kuru, caused by canabalism among tribes in NEw Guinea, does have symptoms that would be entirely appropriate to ascribe to a ghoul; body tremours, unstable stance and gait, and uncontrolled pathological bursts of laughter.

Quote from: Will;816441Other than not eating dog or horse, I try to be a bit adventurous (for a USian); I love blood foods, for example.

I find our food habits odd. Like lamb -- lamb is delicious, but rather uncommon here. (Though not TOO hard to find, most places)

I eat lamb everyday. Gyro place across from work.

Another cannibal sighting. Steve Jackson's Sorcery FF-style gamebooks.

And theres the cover to the Forgotten Realms set, The North.

Quote from: Omega;816498Marvel had a mutant called Dirtnap who ate people and gained their appearance and powers. He ate a rat to escape and ended up stuck as one.

Interesting... there's a spell in Delta Green like that, popular with ghouls. 'You can take on the appearance and mannerisms of a target! Component: eat the target'

Quote from: TristramEvans;816507I eat lamb everyday. Gyro place across from work.

mmm. Now I'm hungry.

(I love ground lamb burgers, meatballs, in shepherd's pie... mmm)

Maybe I'd love ground people, too!

It's an occasional theme in my campaign.  The rock troll race in my world is heavily influenced by RuneQuest trolls, and varying levels of ritual cannibalism is de riguer.  There's a troll cult requiring its members to eat a ritual amount of vegetables once a month, and elves are canonically classified as "vegetables" for that purpose, although the trolls hotly protest that there's nothing requiring them to eat elves ...

Since the funeral ritual for the most worthy and honored trolls is to be popped into the stewpot and shared out at the funeral feast, "May your flesh be eaten" is a polite parting phrase.  It's rather funny to hear my wife, whose character likes trolls and speaks their language, say that in a chirpy little-girl voice.

Nope, never used cannibalism as far as I can recall.

As for lamb, I think I tried it once and didn't like it. But that may have been a bad example since the restaurant didn't normally serve it. Last August I was in New Hampshire and tried a bison sirloin steak at a restaurant and that was pretty good. Never tried elk, venison, rabbit or wild boar.

Actually this thread brings up an interesting side notion. In many games characters find magical items that grant various bonuses, rings of +1 protection, necklace of +2 vs. evil, etc. But in old timey myths primitive people believed that carrying around totems from powerful individuals or beasts provided protections, health and other benefits. (How many Christians believed that having or touching a piece of the True Cross would save their lives?) Has anyone ran a campaign where instead of a +1 ring the NPCs wore a "bone from Mighty Jim" which provided a boon? Or had to eat an organ from the Horrible Beast to gain a boost for a time?

Bison is quite good. Also fights cancer.

Quote from: Will;816518Interesting... there's a spell in Delta Green like that, popular with ghouls. 'You can take on the appearance and mannerisms of a target! Component: eat the target'

That was likely drawn from one of the modern short stories set in the Mythos by other authors. One I recall had a female ghoul falling in love with a graveyard poet who was pining for his dead love. She eventually was allowed into the locked crypt to eat the body so she could assume her form for one last tryst.

One of the Cthulhu LIVE scenarios is a mad priest whos going town to town killing people and serving them up at a BBQ party as part of prepping them unknowing for a ritual which is woven into the big sermon at the end.
Another one had a serpent man wizard. One of his spells was to consume someone and assume their form. Jan, who LARPs once a year on a C-LIVE event said she and a friend were, true to Jans knack for that, cooked up by some serpent men. "And I wasnt even a half-orc this time!"

How are you defining cannibalism? Is it just eating your own species? Or is it a fantasy or sci-fi setting with numerous sapient species? If so, does it count if a Klingon eats a Ferengi? I tend to define it as a sapient species eating another sapient species. Which means eating dragon is an act of cannibalism. Lots of fantasy and sci-fi races are sapient even though they aren't humanoid.

I've used cannibalism extensively over the years. I tend to have my orcs engage in ritual cannibalism. Consuming the hearts of opponents they respected. It is a sign of honor for the fallen. Many non-orcs don't see it that way. I've used goblins that eat their dead because they live in a subterranean world. That much protein can't be allowed to be wasted. They keep the bones and encase them in clay. They fire harden the clay and glaze it with pigments. Each family keeps the immediate dead in their homes. Older family members are moved to communal tombs.

I view cannibalism as a morally neutral act.

Quote from: Tetsubo;816826How are you defining cannibalism? Is it just eating your own species? Or is it a fantasy or sci-fi setting with numerous sapient species? If so, does it count if a Klingon eats a Ferengi? I tend to define it as a sapient species eating another sapient species. Which means eating dragon is an act of cannibalism. Lots of fantasy and sci-fi races are sapient even though they aren't humanoid.

I've used cannibalism extensively over the years. I tend to have my orcs engage in ritual cannibalism. Consuming the hearts of opponents they respected. It is a sign of honor for the fallen. Many non-orcs don't see it that way. I've used goblins that eat their dead because they live in a subterranean world. That much protein can't be allowed to be wasted. They keep the bones and encase them in clay. They fire harden the clay and glaze it with pigments. Each family keeps the immediate dead in their homes. Older family members are moved to communal tombs.

I view cannibalism as a morally neutral act.

I think I've mostly defined it as eating sapient (humanoid) species, yes. Good point on the dragon, never thought about it - but it's a good way also to paint the cultural differences of the setting. Eating dragon meat can be widely acceptable, because it gives you power, or it can be still considered an evil/sinful act in "cultured" societies (The Portable Door by Tom Holt comes to my mind in that regard), while orcs eating their dead can be seen as odd and evil, for a variety of reasons - if only because we all know that orcs are ugly and evil, right?

Quote from: TristramEvans;816310I didn't recently find out that the founder of Jameson liquor bought a 9 year old slave girl in Africa just to give her to a cannibalistic tribe in return for getting to watch (and sketch in watercoulour) them dismembering and eating her). For a few handkerchiefs.


So...that happened.

In answer to the OP, no I haven't touched on cannibalism in my games. Just like rape, its just not a subject I find enjoyable or interesting to explore through play-acting. And I play RPGs for fun.

Wasn't the founder technically, it was his son I believe - or grandson. Someone down the line of dilettante heirs in any way. But yes, an interesting and definitely dark story:
 http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/11/09/the-gruesome-cannibalism-behind-jameson-whiskey/

And I will admit myself a morbid understanding of his act.

Quote from: Tetsubo;816826How are you defining cannibalism? Is it just eating your own species? Or is it a fantasy or sci-fi setting with numerous sapient species? If so, does it count if a Klingon eats a Ferengi? I tend to define it as a sapient species eating another sapient species. Which means eating dragon is an act of cannibalism. Lots of fantasy and sci-fi races are sapient even though they aren't humanoid.

I've used cannibalism extensively over the years. I tend to have my orcs engage in ritual cannibalism. Consuming the hearts of opponents they respected. It is a sign of honor for the fallen. Many non-orcs don't see it that way. I've used goblins that eat their dead because they live in a subterranean world. That much protein can't be allowed to be wasted. They keep the bones and encase them in clay. They fire harden the clay and glaze it with pigments. Each family keeps the immediate dead in their homes. Older family members are moved to communal tombs.

I view cannibalism as a morally neutral act.

In a fantasy world I tend to use it to mean sapient humanoid species, though deep down, I know it probably really ought to mean any sapient species (or at the very least, there needs to be a word for eating something sapient as well as something that is sapient and visibly resembles you).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;816343I've done it a bit. In one of my settings there is a myth floating around that eating sorcerers gives you their powers, so people occasionally test this idea out.

Same in my campaign, although it's typically seen in the form of "animal eats a wizard then ends up more intelligent".

Quote from: Tetsubo;816826How are you defining cannibalism? Is it just eating your own species? Or is it a fantasy or sci-fi setting with numerous sapient species? If so, does it count if a Klingon eats a Ferengi? I tend to define it as a sapient species eating another sapient species. Which means eating dragon is an act of cannibalism. Lots of fantasy and sci-fi races are sapient even though they aren't humanoid.

Remember kids. Ewoks are not in any way cannibals because they dont eat their own kind. (That we have ever seen...)

In Glorantha, ogres eat other humans, the Cannibal Cult eat other humans (and maybe Morokanth, which counts in a very specific context), trolls eat other trolls and so on. Aldryami are described as "Vegetarian cannibals", but I think that applies to them eating normal plants, which doesn't count, in my book.

I've used cannibals in several ways:
To gross people out (Didn't work)
To stretch taboos (Didn't really work, as the PCs either refused to eat or accepted that they did not know what they were eating)
As Bad Guys (Didn't work, as the players knew the Bad Guys were culturally cannibals and accepted it)

Quote from: Omega;817031Remember kids. Ewoks are not in any way cannibals because they dont eat their own kind. (That we have ever seen...)

Werent they going to eat Chewbacca? Because Ewoks were just Wookies on a budget with the name spelled backwards.;)

Quote from: TristramEvans;817074Werent they going to eat Chewbacca? Because Ewoks were just Wookies on a budget with the name spelled backwards.;)

Yep. And bemusingly the Ewoks look like pint sized versions of the original design sketches.

(http://i.imgur.com/cV08Jww.jpg)

Quote from: Lynn;816439Food culture fascinating. For all the variety of meat that is available today, what actually gets eaten seems quite limited. How many people under 20 (in the US) do you know who have eaten venison, elk, rabbit or duck?

How poor are you, and do you live somewhere where hunting culture is venerated (like the American south), or despised (like Berkeley)?

Most of my family from South Carolina have eaten anything the walks, runs or slithers in the area. My friends in the Bay Area seem to think Fuddruckers offering Buffalo or Ostrich meat is "outrageous".

Quote from: danskmacabre;816475A couple of years ago I ran "Rise of the Runelords" and I'm sure one of the Rise of the Runelords scenarios had Cannibals in it.

Hook Mountain Massacre had hillbilly inbred Ogrekin, and yeah, "Mama" had a collection of girl skeletons under her bed ("she don't like competition!").

"Soylent Green? What's that stuff like?"

"Varies from person to person."

I've used cannibalism in my game mostly as a marker for particularly dangerous primitive tribes/creatures.

Quote from: RPGPundit;818249I've used cannibalism in my game mostly as a marker for particularly dangerous primitive tribes/creatures.

Why is cannibalism the mark of a 'primitive' culture? Why couldn't it be part of an 'advanced' culture? I mean we see body mutilation in 'advanced' cultures *now*. It doesn't seem to be much of a leap towards cannibalism...

Quote from: Tetsubo;818309Why is cannibalism the mark of a 'primitive' culture? Why couldn't it be part of an 'advanced' culture? I mean we see body mutilation in 'advanced' cultures *now*. It doesn't seem to be much of a leap towards cannibalism...

There were of course some advanced cultures that did engage in cannibalism.  The Aztecs, for example.

But generally speaking, cannibalism tends to very quickly become a social taboo in cultural development.

Quote from: Tetsubo;818309Why is cannibalism the mark of a 'primitive' culture? Why couldn't it be part of an 'advanced' culture? I mean we see body mutilation in 'advanced' cultures *now*. It doesn't seem to be much of a leap towards cannibalism...

Well , for one the practice induces a neurological disease...

Quote from: TristramEvans;818652Well , for one the practice induces a neurological disease...

Technically, cannibalism transmits prion disease, and does not "induce" it. It's a vector, like mosquitoes are to malaria, not the causative agent.

And while any prion disease, theoretically, could be transmitted through cannibalism, kuru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29) amidst the Fore of Papua New Guinea (who practiced mortuary cannibalism) is the one documented incident.

Quote from: Lynn;816439That's a very American thing - and it changes over time too. Many of us grew up thinking of dogs are man's best friend, the horse is #2. Somehow, we tossed in dolphins (Flipper!) and whales for good measure.

Food culture fascinating. For all the variety of meat that is available today, what actually gets eaten seems quite limited. How many people under 20 (in the US) do you know who have eaten venison, elk, rabbit or duck?

My redneck cousins (and their preeteen/teenage children) in Baldwin County and Mobile will eat anything that stands still long enough to shoot.  They get more feral pigs than anything else since there's no bag limit or hunting season.

Quote from: The Butcher;818669And while any prion disease, theoretically, could be transmitted through cannibalism, kuru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_%28disease%29) amidst the Fore of Papua New Guinea (who practiced mortuary cannibalism) is the one documented incident.

And, it's why I never eat any neural matter (any more). Plus, it tastes icky. No head cheese for me!

Quote from: Baron Opal;818733And, it's why I never eat any neural matter (any more). Plus, it tastes icky. No head cheese for me!

Not a fan of brains either (beef brain, sliced, breaded and deep-fried, is a thing around here), but we end up consuming little bits of nerve tissue with every cut of meat.

Quote from: The Butcher;818736Not a fan of brains either (beef brain, sliced, breaded and deep-fried, is a thing around here), but we end up consuming little bits of nerve tissue with every cut of meat.

Yeah, you can't "de-nerve" meat.  If the animal has it, you're probably ingesting some prions, but it take a real long time to express, but once it does...bye bye, 100% fatality I believe, Butcher can check me on that.  Also there's no way you can treat meat to kill prions that will leave the food edible.  The good news is, it's very very hard to cross species lines, because the proteins have to be near exact in order to have the prions induce the mal-folding in other species.  Even going from Mad Cow to Creutzfeld-Jakob isn't easy.  That's why cannibalism is a proven vector in cows and people - the proteins are exact going from cow to cow or human to human.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;818713My redneck cousins (and their preeteen/teenage children) in Baldwin County and Mobile will eat anything that stands still long enough to shoot.  They get more feral pigs than anything else since there's no bag limit or hunting season.

Its good that they have that kind of diverse experience. Too many suburban / urban youth don't get much more exotic than whatever gets blended into McNuggets.

Here in Uruguay they still eat cow-brains in the countryside.  I've tried it, didn't care for it at all.

Brains seems like chitlins', one of the foods you either love or hate.

Quote from: CRKrueger;818759Yeah, you can't "de-nerve" meat.  If the animal has it, you're probably ingesting some prions, but it take a real long time to express, but once it does...bye bye, 100% fatality I believe, Butcher can check me on that.  Also there's no way you can treat meat to kill prions that will leave the food edible.  The good news is, it's very very hard to cross species lines, because the proteins have to be near exact in order to have the prions induce the mal-folding in other species.  Even going from Mad Cow to Creutzfeld-Jakob isn't easy.  That's why cannibalism is a proven vector in cows and people - the proteins are exact going from cow to cow or human to human.

Correct on both counts. CJD (including vCJD) is uniformly fatal, as are all prion diseases, and yeah, though the prion protein (PrP) exists on all mammals, it's not particularly conserved so it took a fair bit of mutation to become infective from sheep (scrapie) to cows (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a.k.a. mad cow disease) to humans (vCJD).

I think this thread is lamentably thin on actual stuff that's usable in a game, so here are some ideas:

- If you eat a captured warrior of a hostile tribe, you eat a tiny part of that tribe's ghost, as well. Do it enough times, and the hostile god will be nibbled into powerlessness while yours takes over.

- Two allied tribes will agree to cordially each others' members when they die peacefully. Eventually, the two gods will intermingle to create a new, third divinity, and the two tribes will merge.

- Eat enough men (without sharing), and ghouls will become less hostile to you. Eat more, they will become entirely indifferent. Eat even more, and they will occasionally heed your commands. Eat a hundred men, consuming all of them entirely and alone, and by sheer force of blasphemy you will be able to raise them as a nocturnal horde in new, ghastly bodies to wreak havoc on the world.

- Eat another man's brain, and the intermingling of his brain tissue with yours will render you both immune to all  psionic effects and unable to use psionics yourself.

- Eat enough brains, and the Mind Flayers will start hunting you down. Keep at it while evading or fending them off, and eventually, having earned their respect, you will be allowed to join them in a new, glorious body.

- Eat enough strange fish, kuo-toa, mermen, tritons and the like, and the Aboleth will start hunting you down, etc...

- Paladins/clerics/cultist of the cannibal god can eat a dead man's eyes and see his last moments if life; eat his brains and learn something they knew.

- The cold, hard ground is a bad place to be after death, and the afterworld is a joyless place. Being eaten by a friend will delay your journey there as long as you continue living in him, or anyone who eats him in turn, or eats his eater, etc..

- Eat a man who died in a fire, and fire will not harm you on one occasion. Eat someone who drowned, and one time you will not drown. Eat someone who was hacked apart in battle, a killing blow will be turned. Etc..