Scavenger diet

[Bruno]

Vomiting and diarrhea are life threatening illnesses, particularly in combination. They cause dehydration rapidly leading to death if severe, and if moderate and sustained cause dehydration and weakness leading to loss of condition and death.

In the western world we have lost track of this because of having unlimited clean drinking water on tap. In the developing world diarrhea remains a major killer of children. In wild animals it's just as terrible.

[jason taylor]

Is it big enough to play the robber or is it the little guy that gets the little crumbs?

Crushing Jaw is a possibility. Scavengers are probably more likely to eat marrow then predators.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Vomiting and diarrhea are life threatening illnesses, particularly in combination. They cause dehydration rapidly leading to death if severe, and if moderate and sustained cause dehydration and weakness leading to loss of condition and death.

In the western world we have lost track of this because of having unlimited clean drinking water on tap. In the developing world diarrhea remains a major killer of children. In wild animals it's just as terrible.

I was afraid I wasn't going to be fully understood.
I meant a single incident of hurling or loose stool. Not severe food poisoning or continuous multi day evacuations.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Varyon

It creates roughly two classes of foodstuffs - those generally edible, and those edible by characters with Reduced Consumption (Cast Iron Stomach) or Doesn't Eat or Drink (Cast Iron Stomach)*. This is instead of as things are now, where there are full-cost rations (generally edible), 2/3 cost rations (CIS 1), 1/3 cost rations (CIS 2), 1/20th cost rations (CIS 3), 1/100th cost rations (CIS 4), and possibly zero-cost rations (for those with CIS on Doesn't Eat or Drink, which is basically CIS 5). When not doing the abstract handling of it, this means as a GM if a player expresses interest in having his character eat something, I would just have to ask myself if the object is generally edible or would be edible with CIS. I don't need to figure out what level of CIS is needed to turn some old leather into a meal - I just let a character with CIS replace however many meals the Advantage lets him with appropriate quantities of leather.

It also gives guidelines on how CIS can help when not purchasing food. As it stands, CIS gives no benefit for foraged food, unless the GM decides to be mean and dictates some/all of the food you found is inedible without a certain level of CIS.

*I don't think CIS is a RAW Limitation for Doesn't Eat or Drink, but I see no reason not to include it.

Sounds like now vultures and mushrooms need to ensure they eat some percentage of non-carrion food. And track the ratio. Instead of just eating whatever is suitable down to and including their acceptable levels of iron-foodness. That sounds like making things more fussy both IC and OOC.

[Bruno]

I'm not sure mushrooms can process non-damaged material. They need a certain amount of breakdown first to "pre-digest" it, so to speak, and then they push the process along with a vengeance.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Sounds like now vultures and mushrooms need to ensure they eat some percentage of non-carrion food. And track the ratio. Instead of just eating whatever is suitable down to and including their acceptable levels of iron-foodness. That sounds like making things more fussy both IC and OOC.

My variant of CIS doesn’t require those who have it to eat a certain quantity of low-quality food, it simply allows them to do so. A Feuyaner with CIS 2 can certainly eat 3 meals of normal food and drink fresh spring water for the day. It’s just he could instead eat 1 meal of normal food, 2 meals unfit for human consumption, and replace 2/3 of his water intake with swamp water.

Edit: I see what you mean now. Yes, a creature with CIS on reduced consumption rather than doesn’t eat needs to eat a certain amount of food of sufficient quality. This may be some unrotted meat on a carcass or similar.

[Anthony]

My understanding is:
Normal Reduced Consumption: reduces cost and weight of food.
Cast Iron Stomach: reduces cost but not weight of food.

This might mean some edible food in the mix, particularly at low levels.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm still longing for a conclusive table of food/scavenger ratings sorted by the level of Reduced Consumption.

A quick pass at rules for realistic scavengers and food poisoning:

Generally, predators and scavengers have short digestive tracts and/or highly acidic stomachs which allow them to deal with most of the nasty stuff they eat. They (usually) have an extremely well-developed sense of smell or taste which helps them sort the edible from the inedible and which allows them to detect carrion at a distance. They're also likely to have very well-developed vomit reflexes just in case their sense of smell fails them.

In GURPS terms, Reduced Consumption (Cast Iron Stomach), is usually accompanied by Acute Smell/Taste, Discriminatory Smell, Resistance (Food-borne diseases and parasites) (Limitation: Nuisance Effect: Vomiting Required, -10%), and Resistance (Ingested Poisons (Uncommon), Limitation: Nuisance Effect: Vomiting Required, -10%).

Generally, the wetter and more neutral in pH a food is, the more vulnerable it is to spoilage. Spoilage is caused by pathogenic bacteria and fungi, which reproduce at mathematically predictable rates based on temperature and initial colony size. Food-borne pathogens usually produce toxins which aren't removed by cooking and which can't be removed from food or drink.

The rule of thumb for food safety is that temperatures below 40 *F or above 140 *F (4.5 to 60 *C) are required to keep bacteria and fungi from multiplying to dangerous levels before food can be served or stored. Prepared food left at temperatures above 40 *F or below 140 *F isn't considered unsafe to serve after 2 hours of exposure, although there are exceptions. Halve these times in hot weather, increase them by 50% in cool weather (below ~60 *F/15 *C). Reduce spoilage times to 1/100 at proper storage temperatures unless the food is frozen, boiling, or near boiling (~200 *F/90 *C).

To avoid food poisoning roll vs. HT. Failure results in vomiting and/or diarrhea (treat as Moderate Pain and Retching which lasts for 20 - HT hours). Critical failure results in 1d-3 HP of toxic damage and loss of 1 FP due to dehydration. Each doubling of unsafe storage time gives a cumulative -1 penalty to HT rolls, up to a maximum of -10.

Roll vs. Smell or Taste -2 with a bonus equal to the HT penalty/3 to detect spoiled food. No penalties apply and you get a bonus equal to the HT penalty if you have Discriminatory Smell or Discriminatory Taste.

The Cast Iron Stomach limitation gives you a +10 bonus to avoid food poisoning. If you want levels, use the +3, +8, Immune (or +10) scale used for Resistant.

Assume that badly spoiled food (i.e., with a -10 penalty to HT rolls to avoid food poisoning) is obviously spoiled and can be identified as such with a simple Vision roll, or a roll vs. Smell or Taste at +3. It can still be consumed by creatures adapted to eat such foods, but it only has 50-90% of its normal food value due to the effects of bacteria, fungi, and scavengers.

Look at food safety info if you want more detailed rules.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Spotted Hyenas (probably a close comparison for Gnolls) prefer to hunt their own meat (and are quite good at it) but are hardly fussy - they eat bone, hooves, hair, teeth, etc off fresh kills and scavenged kills, along with some dubious quality left-over meat.

Even hypercarnivores like lions will eat a lightning-struck magotty wildebeast they stumble across, but vultures have the specialized stomach acids and enzymes [1] to sterilize anything, and hyenas have the bone-destroying jaws to process the allegedly inedible.

Hyenas actually have an unfairly deserved reputation as scavengers, while lions (especially males) have an undeserved reputation as mighty hunters. Often, lions will hijack fresh kills made by hyenas, leopards, and similar critters.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I don't think lions really count as having Cast Iron Stomach. They just are willing to risk HT rolls for rotting food in exchange for not risking life and limb wrestling with large herbivores.

Due to their relatively short digestive tracts, most might have a low level of Resistance to ingested poisons and food-borne disease.

Felines will have Restricted Diet (Obligate Carnivore) which models their relatively inefficient guts and need for high protein diets.

Bone-crunching carnivores like hyenas will have increased Biting ST (treat as limited Striking ST) and a Perk (Bone-Crusher) which allows them to safely crew and consume hard naturally-occurring organic materials like bone, horn, or leather.

Vultures have a similar Perk (Acidic Digestion) which allows them to ingest and digest hard organic materials as well as anything else which is vulnerable to concentrated stomach acid.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Spotted Hyenas might more properly said to have a "low level" of Universal Digestion - digesting even fresh bones and hooves is a challenge few animals are up to.

UD requires excessive eating time. Most carnivores work on the gobble and go model, since who knows what bigger, meaner carnivore is lurking nearby. I'd model hyena using the perk described above.

[Flyndaran]

Cats need an amino acid that is almost impossible to find outside of animals, taurine, same goes for an essential fatty acid that most other mammals don't need in their diets.