Would it be cannibalism to eat a polymorphed chicken?

[Merkuri]

Rules lawyer explanation - If you polymorph a human into a chicken, once you kill him, he turns back into a human

Where does it say that? There's nothing about what happens when a creature dies in the baleful polymorph description, nor does it say anywhere "as polymorph" (which does specify that the creature changes back after death). There's also no general rules about this written in the description of the transmutation school.

 

[Merkuri]

This brings up a larger question about cannibalism in game. If an elf eats a dwarf is it cannibalism?

I believe there are actually rules about this in the Book of Vile Darkness. I think it also says somewhere that a humanoid eating other humaniods (regardless of race) is considered a cannibal, though it admits this is against the word-for-word definition of "cannibal."

 

[No Name]

The media has clearly given their answer to this. I believe it was an episode of Dr. 90210 where a patient underwent a sex change from female to male. Pre-op, all of the "naughty" parts were blurred. Post-op, the new man was shown working shirtless in the yard, un-blurred.

If polymorph were real, we'd all be watching "Food For Thought" on Fox network.

 

[Celebrim]

The media has clearly given their answer to this. I believe it was an episode of Dr. 90210 where a patient underwent a sex change from female to male. Pre-op, all of the "naughty" parts were blurred. Post-op, the new man was shown working shirtless in the yard, un-blurred.

I think we can safely say that the question of whether your humanity is intrinsic to your identity is a separate question from whether your gender is intrinsic to your identity. Unless the fantasy setting explicitly answers these questions, its going to be up to the DM to make a judgement because the D&D rules aren't going to.

I do know that in Middle Earth, gender is intrinsic to identity explicitly (in other words souls have genders).

However, I'm afraid that addressing all the possibilities here (and there are more than two) would be outside the scope of safe conversation at EnWorld because invariably people are not going to distinguish between how a particular fantasy world works and how the world we live in works.

 

[Halivar]

More importantly, would a sheep polymorphed into a comly elf maid.... err never mind.

And to think I used to believe that Birmingham, Alabama was rather cosmopolitan.

Does my smite evil work on him?

 

[Celebrim]

And to think I used to believe that Birmingham, Alabama was rather cosmopolitan.

Does my smite evil work on him?

Only while he's thinking it...

 

[roguerouge]

BUFFY: No, you can’t have this! It’s not beef! It’s people! The Doublemeat Medley is people! The meat layer is definitely people! It’s people! It’s people! Probably not the chickeny part. But who knows? Who! Knows!


OLD LADY CUSTOMER: What about the cherry pie?


Yep, The LE Cannibal Magocracy I referenced in the Helm thread is definitely opening up a new international chain store to follow up their dreaded Magic Wal-Marts....

 

[F5]

If the chicken can be restored back to its' human form (and it can, through various means), then eating the chicken is cannibalism, I think. If it was changed into a chicken in some way that was irreversable, completely subsuming the human essense of the victim and changing it into chicken essense, then it's not cannibalism, but it IS murder. You've killed the human just as completely as if you decapitated them.

Forgetting about the polymorph question, for a moment. You're a powerful mage whose lands are beset by a terrible famine. If you give a peasant a Ring of Regeneration, and tell him "You can keep this, but every couple of days I need a leg, to feed the village" it's defintely still cannibalism. Is it Wrong?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I answered probably not. If people who eat it didn't know it was once a human, then no. Just mix em up in the general chicken population and you're good to go.

Well by that criteria, just mix up some ground human into the ground beef. As long as the diners don't know, it's not cannibalism...?

Err, I really don't think knowledge of the act has anything to do with it.

By the strictest definition, cannibalism is about the flesh, not the soul or the "identity."

However, I voted yes.

 

[Dr. Harry]

It is cannibalism. It was cannibalism if Odysseus and men ate some of the crew that had been turned into pigs , it'd be cannibalism to the chickens.

I was bouncing back and forth, and I had been thinking that a relevant question would be to ask if chickens in the campaign world were normally intelligent (or, are there any intelligent meat sources).

This convinced me, though. I vote 'yes'