Undead diets

[Olgar Shiverstone]

So I'm flipping through a recently arrived copy of Libris Mortis when the section on "undead diets" sparks some truly bizarre ideas:

- All that material consumed by ravenous undead has to go somewhere, right? Or is it all, 100%, converted into negative energy powering undead? So I'm thinking an interesting -- albeit disgusting -- bit of dungeon dressing might be the evidence that ravenous undead consumers of flesh lurk nearby -- in the form of undead scat. Only what form would it take, and what hints and clues would you leave that some insatiable form of undead lurks nearby waiting to devour the party?

- Now what if there were some intelligent form of undead wanting to reform its ways with a change of diet. What does the ghoul-turned-vegetarian do? Or the vampire who is revolted by blood?

- Are there undead weight-loss programs? The Atkins diet for the unliving -- low on humans, high on gnomes and elves?

- And of course, there's always the undead with eating disorders. Undead wasting away from lack of eating might not be too frightening to a party (unless the lack of meal makes the undead even more ravenously hungry), but what about bulemic ghouls -- ravenously hungry, but with the partially ingested/digested remains of their last victims splattered about their lair? (And no, I'm not trying to poke fun at eating disorders which are serious diseases, so please spare the lectures -- how do you make ravenously hungry undead creatures even more frightening?)

 

[Macbeth]

What does the ghoul-turned-vegetarian do? Or the vampire who is revolted by blood?

Well, in Terry Pratchett's books they become tea totallers or coffee addicts. Basically they shift they're addiction to something more socially acceptable.

 

[s/LaSH]

Many undead are eating disorders, on legs. I think they're designed as terror weapons, at their core, creatures which you drop into an area and they're still keeping it unsafe a thousand years later. I like the idea of ravenous undead who don't need to eat, who can enter some sort of suspended animation if they begin to starve, and who come back from the brink ravenously hungry whenever an intruder enters their lair (and thus automatically emaciated and very hungry). I would assume there would be some excretion; for zombies, there's all that stuff dropping off them, it doesn't have to be scat, it could be gravedust or drooling ichor.

But undead with more serious eating disorders, I can see that as part of the (ahem)ed up nature of the beast. What do you say when your pal Billy just got eaten by some stinky dead thing, and then it just threw up all the little Billy mouthfuls and came after you? That's freaky, and I think I'll steal the idea.

 

[DragonLancer]

For those that do eat flesh, I tend to think that since they don't have biological functions, the devoured flesh rests - rotting - inside their stomachs. Eventually it will mush and leak or the undead will rot enough that the stomach bursts and it leaks out anyway.

But thats just my sick mind.

 

[diaglo]

the old Ravenloft novels had an Elf in them Sun elf iirc Jander Somethingorother who is a vampire with a problem being a vampire.

so if a ghoul goes nonflesh... does that make him no longer evil???

 

[Li Shenron]

Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea to have undead eat at all. They are dead, hence no living functions. Those who do are not "eating" in the common sense of digesting and get nutrition from their meal, but they are merely ingesting for the sake of taste or for a sort of unholy hunger, in which case I'd just say that the stuff they "eat" may come back with no change, or are otherwise utterly destroyed (I'd prefer this one).

I don't know if vampires are supposed to drink blood to sustain themselves or simply because they enjoy it. I wouldn't have them pee either anyway...

 

[alsih2o]

Hilarious stuff Olgar.

I think imc they would grab some flesh and it would turn instantly to ash in their mouths. Afterall, part of being undead is being unsatisfied, right?

 

[Tonguez]

What does the ghoul-turned-vegetarian eat

Swedes!

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

In Chinese and Korean myth, hungry ghosts are perpetually ravenous but the only food that doesn't choke them is the water that a monk usese to wash his rice.

In A Swarm of Stirges, the hollow husks are the result of an undead eating disorder. Hollow husks are as thin as it's possible to be - they're not even skin and bones, just skin, a translucent layer of it like a paper lantern. They're created when a humanoid is bled to death (by, for example, a stirge). Their dying agony attracts the attention of an evil spirit of terror & madness called an usthulag. Usthulags are native to the Negative Energy Plane, but when the humanoid's soul leaves its body, it creates a "vacuum" that sometimes sucks the usthulag across the planar barrier. Inside the humanoid's body, the ustulag begins eating away at the corpse's innards, gathering negative energy that's then used to animate the creepy, balloon-like skin which is all that's left at the end of the process.

 

[diaglo]

don't forget the rangers....

things like this will help the ranger with undead as his chosen enemy.