Ghoul Diet and Food Spells

[AlexanderHowl]

I have to agree. If I was a player of any character but a psychopath, I would feel completely justified with reporting that character to the local authorities and just let them deal with it. As a human, it is just bad business to let an anthropophage walk around free, as they could snack of random innocents.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by bmattos

2- Kind of easy that but just to be sure… Create Food “Produces edible food” can create human flesh? Can I specify what is the food I want?

I think that's mostly a question for the GM. He would probably be justified in having a Create Food variant for ghouls.

One of the more interesting interpretations I've seen for Create Food, albeit likely with DnD/Pathfinder rather than GURPS in mind, was from the webcomic Delve (no links, on account of no small amount of nudity). In that, Miko - priestess to the Goddess of the Hearth ("Goddess of the Oven and Knife, She Who Maketh the Loaf to Rise") - has the ability to create food at will. The twist is, she can only replicate dishes she has personally prepared before. Her introduction into the series is when she is accompanying a would-be dragon slayer, as she wants to be able to add some dragon-based dishes to her repertoire. I think this could be a decent interpretation for Create Food and the like - a typical mage might not be able to make anything better than squirrel-on-a-stick or whatever, while one who is also a master chef can (re)create incredible dishes with the wave of a hand.

Originally Posted by Anders

... otherwise you can say "it's a type of meat from my home far away."

It's an old family recipe for barbeque.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

I wouldn't let you get full value from restricted diet if you can conjure it up yourself, but aside from that it makes sense.

Some sort of Mitigator seems appropriate, yes. I'd eyeball it as somewhere between -80% and -60%.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I have to agree. If I was a player of any character but a psychopath, I would feel completely justified with reporting that character to the local authorities and just let them deal with it. As a human, it is just bad business to let an anthropophage walk around free, as they could snack of random innocents.

It would depend on the campaign, really. If it involves killing a lot of bandits or other "evil" humans - or even just the occasional one, if your ghoul is an efficient butcher and knows how to preserve the meat - it's not going to score you any points with the gods but waste not, want not. I mean, there are plenty of cultures that eat dog, but it's not rational to murder all of them for fear they'll kill and eat all our pets (for that matter, one of my coworkers has pet pigs, and he has yet to attempt to murder anyone who eats pork).

[AlexanderHowl]

There is a heck of a difference ethically and legally between pets and humans, especially when it also involves eating human flesh. In the USA, there are very few places where a prosecutor would bring charges if you killed a human cannibal and very few places in the USA where killing a nonhuman anthropophage would not have you hailed as a hero. At least in the USA, deliberate anthropophagy is one of the ultimate taboos, and the majority of Western societies have similar taboos.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Most of the players I've known don't just delight in shattering taboos, they drag them out back and do things I can't print here to them. Just give them some sort of personal loyalty to the anthrophage and roll with it if you want that sort of game, it's literally the entire premise of a three-season Netflix Sitcom.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

There is a heck of a difference ethically and legally between pets and humans, especially when it also involves eating human flesh. In the USA, there are very few places where a prosecutor would bring charges if you killed a human cannibal and very few places in the USA where killing a nonhuman anthropophage would not have you hailed as a hero. At least in the USA, deliberate anthropophagy is one of the ultimate taboos, and the majority of Western societies have similar taboos.

Such taboos are all well and good, and have strong bases (people who eat people tend to become dangerously unhinged thanks to prion infection, and animals who eat people have no concept of "acceptable target" and cannot be reasoned with), but we're talking about a sapient race that literally must eat humans to survive, but suffer no ill effects from doing so. A character of such a race is functionally similar to a vampire (albeit one who largely lacks the option of feeding without killing), and we're all familiar with stories/games/whatever where such can be perfectly acceptable protagonists. NPC's may dislike the character if they find out his/her true nature, perhaps even to the point of driving the character out of town (or worse), but that doesn't mean the party should turn on and kill the character.

[bmattos]

Originally Posted by Anders

I would say yes. Your calories need to come from human flesh.



It's unorthodox, but sure. It's magic.



God help me, I just googled "how does human flesh taste". Seems that it tastes like pork but has the texture of beef. I would say that someone who has eaten human flesh before can recognize the taste, but otherwise you can say "it's a type of meat from my home far away."



Not sure about this. It might just taste like deliciously cooked and seasoned human flesh.

thanks man.

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Congratulations for choosing GURPS!



IMHO, Restricted Diet (Unadulterated Human Flesh) (or Raw Human Flesh, or both) is a more severe Disadvantage than just (Human Flesh), so unless you have the former specifically, I'd say spices and seasonings are A-OK. They don't provide nutrition of course, but they don't for normal people, either, they just make your human flesh more palatable and possibly discreet. If you want to get fancy, you could stick the Can Substitute Limitation on there, letting you eat human flesh that is cooked, spiced, etc with the tradeoff that it might make you sick.

in the oficial ghoul there you can even try some other meat sources(Human Flesh; Substitution, Other Flesh, -50%), but i was not sure about season and spices.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The thing about Food Spells is that if you learned this many I would start to wonder why you didn't go one step farther and learn Essential Food. That would be perfect nutrition (and very tasty) for everybody at the same time.

Sure, its a good idea.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Ghouls should also have Odious Personal Habit (Anthropophage) [-15] and Social Stigma (Monster) [-15] and, depending on the version, some ghouls will also have Appearance (Horrific) [-24], Bad Smell [-10], and Disturbing Voice [-10]. In any case, the vast majority of humans either will run screaming from ghouls and attack without mercy.

Like @RedMattis say, my intention is to be more subtle, if not totally undetectable, if there is somehow...

im using the template on the Fantasy book as base for the idea.

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Unless the entire party is evil, I think that this character would only divide the party. Think about this: if the character had no other food source, and couldn't manufacture human flesh, he would eat on of the other PC's.

As GM, I don't allow such characters.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I have to agree. If I was a player of any character but a psychopath, I would feel completely justified with reporting that character to the local authorities and just let them deal with it. As a human, it is just bad business to let an anthropophage walk around free, as they could snack of random innocents.

even if he is conjuring his food? ok, maybe come a situation that i cant do this (no mana zone, no fp...) and maybe im forced to eat someone, but... im still have the chance to eat other sources of meat, and other peoples (in secret) instead of other PC's...

i thinking it's a very specific situation, cant casting, no other sources of meat, no other people around...


----

all things considered, yes i know, its a problematic concept, its based on a cannibal psychopath for godsake... soo its obvious if the PCs are goodguys and they discover this trait, and gone. Thats why its a priority to find a way to keep secret, soo.. thats why i thinking in use food spells...

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Unless the entire party is evil, I think that this character would only divide the party. Think about this: if the character had no other food source, and couldn't manufacture human flesh, he would eat on of the other PC's.

As GM, I don't allow such characters.

I generally agree, but I tend to solve it differently.

Basically if for whatever reason the party turns on a character then as soon as they leave the physical presence of the rest of the party they will be an NPC and their player will be forced to create a new character.

If the party "splits" I'll go with whatever side makes the most sense to keep in the narrative (which likely means more moral side).

This is something I make my players aware of when they want to f.ex. play a vampire and keep it secret from the party (in or out of character). It is up to them to figure out how to not get thrown out.

[AlexanderHowl]

Vampires are a pretty diverse lot though, as they can use Leech to drain HP, FP, ST, HT, IQ, DX, or Youth, so they are not necessarily going to be dangerous. For example, a vampire with Leech (Accelerated Healing, +25%; Blood Agent, -40%; No Signature, +20%; Steals FP, -25%) [20] is going to probably going to feed through intimacy, so their 'victims' might not even notice their feeding (just that they are unusually tired at the end of the fun). I am afraid that ghouls are not so fortunate in their requirements.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Vampires are a pretty diverse lot though, as they can use Leech to drain HP, FP, ST, HT, IQ, DX, or Youth, so they are not necessarily going to be dangerous. For example, a vampire with Leech (Accelerated Healing, +25%; Blood Agent, -40%; No Signature, +20%; Steals FP, -25%) [20] is going to probably going to feed through intimacy, so their 'victims' might not even notice their feeding (just that they are unusually tired at the end of the fun). I am afraid that ghouls are not so fortunate in their requirements.

The point is more that they might get thrown out when discovered. Besides, it they have hidden being a vampire then who knows what else they may have been hiding. In most settings the vampire races probably have a pretty rotten reputation (which might be very deserved).

A ghoul, especially during times when dead human are common (during war f.ex.) a vampire might be more troublesome to deal with. For one, unless the ghoul needs fresh meat they can survive for a pretty long time per-corpse. Many types of vampires often need to go feed on a daily basis.

The one in our party is going to upgrade his Leech to be "Accelerated". He doesn't have Euphoria or any other affliction linked to his bite though, so he is forced to secretly assault people for blood at the moment.

In his case he'll probably be fine though. The party already freed one of three a recently turned vampire mercenaries from various control spells in a spur of the moment plan by the group's mage. The others have been taking turns feeding her and attempting to find a cure without knowing that their "scout" (the vampire player character) is also a vampire and awkwardly observing the whole ordeal. Either way, they are far to trusting an tolerant, so unless he does something dumb they'll probably let him stay. That party has almost turned into an adoption service for tamable or sapient monsters.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I have to agree. If I was a player of any character but a psychopath, I would feel completely justified with reporting that character to the local authorities and just let them deal with it. As a human, it is just bad business to let an anthropophage walk around free, as they could snack of random innocents.

Nah, that's not the problem at all. The problem is that they might snack on me!