Cannibalism as a character trait/the custom of an in-game faction/civilization/race/culture: acceptable? Too taboo? Edgy? Pointless? Can/how can it be done right?
>>45743539
Pointless. I don't see it really mattering as a major plot point unless someone wants to get into a retarded ideological debate about whether it's right or wrong or not.
A game mechanic that has psychological consequences on the player's character and any npcs that partake.
A game mechanic that lets you gain power in exchange for particular consequences.
>>45743539
I could see it being a neat way to really drive home to the characters (players) that the culture they're in is alien to them. That might be useful if they go exploring in far away lands.
>>45743539
Are those dudes a different race? Not really cannibalism then.
I think I've played two cannibalistic PCs in all my games, if you don't count a couple of bloodsucking oWoD Vampires.
One was a Eating-The-Hearts-Of-Brave-Enemies-Barbarian in old AD&D. Didn't make much change to the actual gameplay, except when he got killed and the rest of the party decided that the concept was distasteful (unlike murdering their way through countless hordes of NPCs) and left him to rot instead of doing a Raise Dead like the rest of the casualties.
The second one was a spellcaster in Rolemaster who had a ring which gave him extra magic points if he had eaten (significant amounts of) human flesh the last week, and reduced his stats if he hadn't. We mostly used that as a good reason to keep the party moving as he did his best to keep a low profile and mostly preyed on prostitutes or lonely goat herders. Think he got caught up in a TPK.
None of the characters left a lasting taste...
We've got one in our game. She does it partly for intimidation purposes, partly because she believes it gives her strength (the heart), partly because sometimes she's just hungry. Sometime she's pregnant as well, so believes it's conferring strength to the child. It's a post apoc game so some people are cannibals because there's a lack of food though, while others it's just thematically appropriate, overall though it's pretty minor and you'd have to go looking to find it. Other than the PC of course, sometimes she only eats people.
>>45743539
Societies in the real world that have practiced cannibalism often did so as a religious or symbolic gesture. The whole "gaining the strength of the fallen" thing. As far as I know they didn't usually consume much meat when they did it.
Usually it's pointless.
Unless they have a very well regulated and designed herding system, where people are put on display for the gormand to select who they will be eating tonight.
Also, keep in mind, cannibalism only is within species. If something is not of the same species, say a Gnoll eating Human flesh, it's not cannibalism.
>>45744230
Either that, or food is extremely scarce.
>>45744230
This, non predatory religious practices make sense. For example some IRL african tribes have everyone take a bite out of the dead as a recognition of the whole "the dead feed the living and live on through them" thing, which helps give solace to the bereaved.
>>45744311
yeh but people still look at you weird when you start cooking up the kobolds they've just finished slaughtering
>>45744230
Those religious practices didn't really occur in societies with a larger abundance of natural resources.
People use religion to justify necessity, religion itself is a product of culture not a prelude to it.
Most cannibalistic societies are island cultures who really can't overlook the kcals in a large mammal going to waste.
>>45744749
That's not cannibalism, it's putting vermin meat to a good use.
>>45744767
"manna from heaven"
The only kosher invertebrate is a locust, because when wandering through a fucking desert you need to make do with what god gives you and justify it in anyway you can.
religion is a product of man *tip fedora*
>>45744767
This is also true. Another anon mentioned it would be a good way to show that the PCs have entered a culture alien to their own, even if they are of the same race.
Basically it's probably not edgy if you base the in game culture's practices on actual cannibalistic practices or if they have actual reasons to be doing it. It probably will be edgy if the in game culture does it because whoa aren't these guys crazy they're eating people even though there is plenty of food to be found all over.
>>45744713
And spread Ebola.
>>45743539
Humans eating human meat is proven to spread diseases really, really efficiently. So that's why it's evolutionary and sociologically not acceptable to eat same species meat.
Not even ants eat the bodies of their fallen, and they repurpose everything, instead, they use them as fertiliser for mushroom farms (wood ants anyway)
Have you ever been lost at sea mate?
Drawing straws for who gets to be supper
The biggest draw to cannibalism in a fantasy setting would be the magical ramifications, at least for me.
Like the Eaters from Joe Abercrombie's books. They can take on another persons form, they can move faster than a person can see, have the strength of a dozen men, can do crazy shit like melt a coin in the palm of their hand. The downside appears to be that unless you embrace being an Eater, it's apparently absolute suffering because a lot of them are very thankful to be killed, on the rare occasion they are.
A friend of mine played a reptile dude where part of the culture was that you ate your kin after they died (children eat parents etc, the whole "snake eating it's own tail in a loop" affair). After eating and digesting the family member, you would keep one of their bones in a vial, traditionally worn around the neck, as a token to remember.
It wasn't a big thing except that his character had lost his son to pirates and so had to eat his own son, and because this fucked up the pattern of descendants eating their elders thing he was shunned and dishonored in his clan.
It was actually a pretty awesome piece of character building that simultaneously represented his alien customs while also describing the tragedy of his past.
>>45745002
You're funny
Can I use this joke with my friends?
>>45743539
It's fine as a way to make some minor monster or evil faction seem spooky. As part of any larger or more advanced community, it's stupid. There's a reason why cannibalism has been discarded by all cultures as they grow. It's inefficient and largely self defeating.
My one 3rd Ed CE Fighter was because he was a deliberate parody of edgy "villainous protagonists".
He was later killed by the party's Cleric after some blasphemous activity.
>>45745646
> friends
> he means reddit
>>45743539
1. It's a custom with a lot of historical, anthropological and mythological basis, not to mention psychological. Any of those things could be expressed by making a character or group of characters into cannibals.
2. It is considered one of modern western society's ultimate taboos. That alone can be allow it to be used for drama as few things could shock the players more (if done right, of course) than, say, a cannibal serial killer or a cult which practices cannibalism. Sometimes, the very fact that it's taboo is relevant - for example, the Cannibals (capital C) of In Dark Alleys are an order of radical Gnostic mystics with superpowers who gain their name because their initiation rite requires them to consume human flesh in order to prove that they do not consider it to be any holier than any other aspect of the physical world.
3. In some settings, the primitive belief that cannibalism can give you power might very well be true. The most obvious way to pull this off is with spiritualist/shamanic type characters, but there are other ways (for example, in KidWorld, roving bands of killer called "Eye Eaters" are known to consume the eyes of children as a means of temporarily fighting the disease which has turned all adults blindthis actually has an in-setting scientific explanation. In the optional setting "KidNight", which features supernatural elements, the "Eye Eaters" actually have the power to gain different abilities based on which organs they consume.
(cont.)
>>45746492
4. Finally, cannibalism itself can be a plot point, as it is in Far Cry: Primal (which I'm assuming you know, since you chose it for the OP pic).The Udam are slowly going extinct from "skull fire", and it's the desperation that is causing them to raid the other tribes more and more frequently. The Udam know that the Wenja and Izila do not get "skull fire" and believe that consuming their flesh would make them immune. Tragically, while nobody within the setting can make the connection, the player observing the symptoms can easily figure that "skull fire" is actually a version of kuru, a disease contracted through the consumption of human flesh. In other words, the Udam are doomed to destroy themselves because the more desperate they become to fight the disease, the more human flesh they eat, and the more they eat, the more of them contract the disease.
I am down to include ritualistic/lite cannibalism for a character. Stuff like >>45744713 or Momma Hind of the Umayyads who bit/ate the liver of Muhammad's uncle for some vendetta, or the Aztec/Mayan eating the heart or whatnot. But I wouldn't be liable to play a full on cannibalism character myself
And as for edgelordiness, while I'd personally think the presentation should be even handed then again you did have a faith like the Aztecs' which was just ireedeemably edgelord by modern standards. No "Yeah we sacrifice people on an almost industrial scale and eat their heart but we also care for the elderly and have charity drives". Though then again supposedly many sacrifices were treated like kings in the year leading up to it (not so much when it was Qelzomohekzuham's EVERYHEART MUST GO CLEARING HOUSE EXTRAVAGANZA. By the primordial serpent We have Tlaxcans hearts, Ocotelolco hearts, Tpeticpac hearts, and even Tizatlan hearts by the baker's gross! Every fifth visitor gets a free Xoloitzcuintli burger!)
>>45743539
I'm currently playing a openly and aggressively cannibalistic character, but he's a barbarian in a comically evil campaign. So his behaviour is pretty par for the course, at least in it's edginess and gratuitous violence. I did once see a guy successfully play a chaotic neutral Druid who after being unable to find food in the city the party was in (his character didn't believe in currency and kept trying to barter) ended up eating a homeless guy in an alley.
>>45744767
Didn't the Aztecs practice some form of widespread religious cannibalism? Or was that just a Spanish myth that arose from the actual human sacrifices?
How comes eating human flesh leads to so many diseases? I mean, it's not like the people who had the flesh before had those diseases, right? Is it that something about the process of eating the meat causes them to spread, or something? How comes you can get kuru or whatever from eating meat, but the people who had that meat before didn't suffer from kuru? It's a prion, not a magical curse.
>>45746860
No one is quite sure, and there are a lot of theories. It's not just human flesh, any animal that engages in long term and frequent cannibalism will develop prion diseases. It can also occur totally randomly, like in the case of Mad Cow. Unless that jumped species from something else. But that also leads us to ask where that came from.
>>45746860
Everyone has prions, your own are not harmful to you. Anyone else's though, are harmful to you.
>>45743539
Could be an interesting form of honouring the dead if done properly. The eating of the dead would be highly ritualised as part of someone's funeral. Only their family and closest friends would be allowed to partake of the flesh of the deceased and it would serve as a way to always have the lost beloved with them. As such it would be seen as a great honour to partake of a dead person's body that is not family and the equalif not greater to being disowned if you are forbidden from eating a dead family member. You could limit the consumption to the organ that is believed to contain the soul.
This cultural tradition could help explain the ritualised way certain tribes carry out their warfare as the identification and retrieval of any slain would be of paramount importance. The burning of the fallen or similar actions of getting rid of the dead after a battle would thus be considered amongst the worst of warcrimes. Ignorance of this taboo amongst foreign invaders or the like would make for a great opportunity for otherwise hostile tribes to come together under a common banner to rid their land of the invaders.
