Cannibalism among PCs, take two

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I thought the subject of cannibalism among PCs was an interesting one, and I've gotten P-Kitty's permission to reopen the topic, so long as it's not a poll. (Thanks, PK! ) And that's good in a way, actually, because it gives me the chance to delve a little deeper than the other thread was going. (No offense intended to Edena, who opened the original thread in the first place.)

If you've played (or allowed) a cannibal character, how did it impact the game? Presumably, it colored the PC's interactions with NPCs (unless the entire culture was cannibalistic, of course). But how did the other players/PCs react? Did they want to consider it an evil act automatically? Did they react with revulsion? Did they just accept it as a trait of the character?

I'd like to include more details of this sort in my campaigns and with my PCs, but sometimes it's hard to tell how people will react. With the players in my old group in Houston, there seemed to be a sharp line of demarcation. Anything they can accept, they can accept calmly and with aplomb. Any behavior that crosses that line, they refuse to accept in a fellow PC under any circumstances, even to the point of asking the player to change characters. (Can't say yet how my Austin group behaves, since we haven't had as much time.) As it happened, I was almost disappointed at how quickly they got used to my wife's cannibal character.

So how did things go when you did it?

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Toss in a Dark Sun feral halfling.

(Or, as happened in someone's Star Wars campaign, a more feral, hungrier Ewok.....)

 

[tsadkiel]

(Or, as happened in someone's Star Wars campaign, a more feral, hungrier Ewok.....)

Them's my Ewoks, I think.

Anyway, I played a Nehwon Ghoul once. It was in a very bad campaign, so, while I had intricate explanations at hand to describe the social ramifications of my eating of sentients, I never got a chance to eat anyone, since I was too busy dealing with the party's tendency to attack random passing orcs.

 

[arwink]

My friend and I play, respectively, a gnoll and a half-dragon in a planescape game. Both of them are more than willing to chow down an a fragment on demi-human from time to time. The main reason it's allowed, really, is because it's both humerous to watch them try and justify it to their more normal companions, and because it emphasizes the alienness of their personalities. The gnoll is essentially an anarchist warrior with a firm belief that demi-humans taste better, and the half-dragon firmly believed that all creatures existed as prey for himself and his full-dragon bretheren before he discovered the outer planes and the myriad of lifestyles there. Mostly though, it's just part of the fun of the characters, both are big and dumb and a little outside the norm. They make a change from the weeks of elven druids and half-elven fighter rogues that we'd normally play, and will probably play again once both the characters are dead and gone.

 

[the Jester]

Well, in my campaign one of the base classes in the Cannabix, which is like a druid with a profound fear of the elements of nature, who works to appease the sea, sky and land through a variety of means, including sacrifice. One of their class abilities is the cannabalism ability. Just as fighters are master of the feat and rogues are master of the skill, cannabix are masters of the ability increase. They gain a +1 bonus to an ability score as a class feature at 2nd, 6th, 10th, etc. level (so a single-classed 20th-level cannabix has increased abilities twice as often as another class). However, they don't exactly choose which ability increases; it depends on what hearts they've eaten as sacrifices.

There have been two pc cannabi in my game, though one was a 2e specialty priest back in the day. Both were fun pcs to dm for, though the 3e character eventually got old for his player and he retired him. Very unpredictable; he was a tabaxi cannabix/bone witch (a prestige class designed for cannabix, they can read entrails, keep a head around to talk to, etc. Creepy, primitive savage magic stuff.)

The cannabix' interactions with others are always colored by the fact that theirs is an old, forbidden religion (after all, what "civilized" nation wants its people eating each other?) Usually they keep their proclivities secret, although the tabaxi pc was always spotted with blood (but as a tabaxi, most people put it down to feline predatory nature, eating birds, etc.)

Just a few brief thoughts...

 

[Tonguez]

As it happened, I was almost disappointed at how quickly they got used to my wife's cannibal character.

Reminds me of a Joke

Two Cannibals are eating lunch. One of the cannibals says to the other "I don't like your wife" other cannibal replies "Well just eat the chips then!"

Anyway in my Mythic Polynesia Campaign I've replaced Barbarians with Cannibal Savages (when the whole culture is neolithic Barbarians need something to differentiate them) whose Rage is a form of Blood Frenzy.
The players were originally ready to condemn this as an evil act and so I had to explain to them that in Polynesia cannibalism was not inherently evil.

The eating of ones enemies was not 'evil' although it was considered repulsive by some groups (such as Tahitians). Of course the eating of non-enemies was condemned in all but the Cannibal cultures (where it was considered bad manners).
What differentiated the Cannibal Savage from regular cannibalism was that these groups made raids for the express purpose of killing and eating human flesh. With this in mind the PCs were then left to react.
Most decided that it was repulsive to their particular Island although one character has decided to multiclass to Cannibal Savage and openly devour the eyes of his enemies!

Another Joke
What do vegetarian Cannibals eat?

Suedes!

 

[mythusmage]

Technically speaking, it wasn't cannibalism, but there was the time my (human) priestess of Chauntea dined on some elf. By invitation.

We were dealing with some friendly orcs at the time, and needed some information from them. They asked us to join us for dinner, which happened to be elf stew. The elves, being dead, put up no protest.

We dined. The orcs divulged their information. We beat the bad guy.

Our DM never did divulge what elf tasted like, but I like to think they tasted of a fine cut of beef.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

They gain a +1 bonus to an ability score as a class feature...

I use a similar concept in my upcoming half-orcs book. The barbarian-ranger gets a little perk from the hearts of his favored enemies.

I have in the past played a lizardman who routinely ate his fallen enemies-- and in fact chided his "civilized" companions for doing otherwise: killing something or someone and then just leaving the body to rot is wasteful and disrespectful of Nature and of the sacrifice of the fallen warrior.

Wulf

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

(Guess I'll re-post this from the other thread...)

Let's see...

I got 'inspired' after reading DUNE for the first time many, many moons ago.

I poulated the Sea of Dust with a race whose fighters were actually Monks.

Sand colored purple worms infested the region.

The warriors used hand-crossbows firing darts with paralytic poison, and carried knives made from the teeth of the aforementioned giant worms.

They also carried one other item beneath their robes that makes all of this relevant for this thread...

A waterskin that had the ability to convert any liquid placed in it to pure water--and, of course, the only liquid to be found while traversing the sea was the blood of their fallen foes!

(Hey, I was young...)

 

[Xyros]

IMC, I've given thought to designing a "cannibal-sorcerer" PrC, taking my cue from lines in a Clark Ashton Smith story about two sorcerers who had decided to consume a colleague and gain his magical abilities. I forget which story it was offhand . . . "The Death of Malygris"?

The PrC would involve some manner of gaining the spells of any cannibalized sorcerer (or powers, if the cannibal-sorcerer class is given a more psionic focus to reflect my campaign), although I've yet to really think about the mechanics.

It wouldn't work for wizards - they gain their powers through education - but for psions or sorcerers, the power's in the blood. It seems a natural progression to think that by consuming that blood - and the flesh of a magical predecessor - one would gain his abilities.