Out of the eater came something to eat
And out of the strong came sweetness.
Eating stands for power. Think of it: at its most primal, what is the definition of power? The ability to eat whatever you can without being eaten, or the strength enough to ward off all predators. It’s an elemental truth–one that lies behind all the layers of intellect and instinct, the drive to eat or be eaten.
But it’s not enough for you. Yeah, there’s some guys out there who get power from eating–but none like you. You know the true path to gastronomic glory.
The eating of eaters.
Man has a lot to make up for, having spent nearly all of civilized times eating domesticated cattle and, egh, vegetables and fruits. It doesn’t look to be getting better. Really, it’ll get much worse: you see scientists raving about synthesized meat, the ultimate in powerlessness. Born to be eaten.
Perhaps you’ll serve as an example of what man can do when he casts off civilization–not necessarily the whole mess, but hey, it’s envigorating to go wild and, well, tear a man apart and eat him.
It worked for the Romans.
The symbolic tension of the Vorophage is that you gain power by abandoning one of man’s best adaptations for survival. Man has placed himself at the top of the food chain thanks to technology and domestication; to get your strongest charges, you must lower yourself to the level of animals.
Gain a Minor Charge: Eat the prepared meat of a carnivore that’s at least mid-length on the food chain. Alligator’s good; rattlesnake’s passable, but eagle is better.
Gain a Significant Charge: Eat the raw meat of a carnivore you’ve hunted down and killed, with your bare hands if at all possible. The creature must be a genuine threat to your well-being, such as a wolf or (more likely) bear, though a swarm of lesser foes (a few rattlesnakes, ten or so piranah) are servicable as well. The most advanced melee weapon you can use is a stone knife or spear.
Alternately, eat human flesh, prepared (and not necessarily caught by you) or otherwise. The meal must be of one of the greater organs, such as the brain, heart, lungs, liver, and so forth.
Gain a Major Charge: Lead the performance of a Dionysan ritual that culimnates in the killing and eating of another human. You must have at least two others join in the rite. The sacrifice can be willing, but an unwilling victim will grant another Vorophage a major charge.
Taboo: Eat vegetables or fruits. These are beneath you, and consuming them will strip you of charges. Eating the flesh of an herbavore will drain you slower; at least you’re eating flesh. You lose two of your strongest charges when you do, though, unless the meat is raw and bloody, which only takes one charge. If you’ve hunted the meat yourself, you lose no charges. Just hunting for sustenance doesn’t require lo-tech equipment.
Charging Tips: Live someplace where you can hunt for food. Avoid eating meals you haven’t prepared to avoid suddenly flushing charges. Harvesting organs from highway accident victims may be uncouth, but a cheap way to get a few significant charges.
Random Magick: The “aspect of the predator.” Gain the features or qualities held by high-level hunters.
Blast: The victim of the blast has chunks of meat torn out of him, as if bitten by some beast. A minor blast is akin to a wolfbite; a significant blast resembles a bite from a prehistoric mammal or gigantic shark.
Minor Formula Spells
Blood Scent
Cost: 1 minor charge
You can track creatures by the scent of their blood for around one hour. If you’re searching for or following someone, you’re at a +20% shift.
By making a non-adjusted searching roll, you can smell if new scents have entered your range (about a hundred yards). You can’t immediately discern their location, though you can seek them out.
Flicker of Hunger
Cost: 1 minor charge
You can make an intimidation check with a +10% shift; your eyes alight with a fire akin to an alpha predator attacking its prey.
Gnash
Cost: 2 minor charges
The Vorophage’s minor blast.
Reave
Cost: 2 minor charges
Your next successful melee attack–undertaken in the next hour–deals gunshot damage. Hope for a good roll.
Scattered Deer
Cost: 3 minor charges
The target must make a rank-6 Violence or Self stress roll as he is overwhelmed with a sudden and real-feeling hallucination that one is a deer being ripped apart by wolves.
Significant Formula Spells
Alpha Wolf
Cost: 1 significant charge
You are followed by an aura of menace, as if you were a massive predator come to consume all before you. This lasts for an hour and gives a +10% shift to all intimidation rolls. Further, attacks aimed against you are at -10% given your fearsome mien.
Feast
Cost: 1 significant charge
The significant blast for Vorophages.
The Joy of the Eating
Cost: 2 significant charges
The target must succeed at a Mind roll that’s at least higher than your casting roll. If you succeed, the target will, for around an hour at least, suddenly have no problem with the concept of eating flesh of any kind, human or otherwise. After an hour or so, the victim may require a Self check depending on what he ate (self-1 for someone who cheats on his diet, self-3 for a vegetarian eating meat, self-7 for someone who gnoshes on human flesh).
If you critically succeed on your casting roll, then your victim’s self check is two higher–as he finds he enjoyed what he did, and wants to do it again, even if he ate a pile of rotting, maggot-strewn deer meat or someone he knew.
Devour Fear
Cost: 3 significant charges
For about eight hours, you don’t have to make any stress tests related to Violence or Self, no matter how horrific the tests were. At the end of the spell’s duration, you must roll all the stress tests you rolled, and gain an additional hardened notch in Violence or Self.
Feast of the Mind
Cost: 4 significant charges
Devour the brains of something you’ve killed. You either gain 10% in a skill you didn’t have before, or +5% in a skill you already have. You cannot gain avatar or adept skills through this spell, unless it’s the avatar of the Savage.
Major Charge Effects
Become an unstoppable horror for one battle. Drive a medium-size crowd–a few dozen or so–into an orgy of violence. Max out a victim’s failed Violence and Self notches, or give yourself maxed-out hardened Violence notches with no ill effect (beyond sociopathy).
Whoops… forgot the starting charges.
Start out with four minor charges.
Comments are welcome (and for whatever reason I’m drawing a blank on nicknames right now).
Hannibal Lechters – there’s nickname
Wow. They get major charges really easy.
Perhaps if they ate someone famous… like Tom Cruise.
Cheers,
Chris.
Someone’s been reading “Last Call.”
For the nick-name, how about “Renfields?”
T
Yeah, they get major charges easy–their major charge effects are thus highly localized, the worst effect being a riot. Though I suppose iit should be made it a little more difficult…
How’s this:
Get a Major Charge: Eat a living human being. You must do so in a ritualized fashion. The person eaten must be famous on at least a local level for anti-meat or pro-vegetarian activism–the head of the local branch of PETA or a popular juice bar might count. On the full moon, you must somehow get him into the woods, release him without any weaponry or tools, and hunt him down, leading the pack. When you and your “pack” find him, overpower him and devour him. If there are other Vorophages in your ritual party, a random one also gets a major charge.
You can only attempt this once a month.
I think your retardation of major charge effects is a little harsh – technically a sorcerer can do “anything” with a major charge -even do acts outside his magical domain – bringing the dead to life, dismounting an archetype, turning night into day, etc.
Contrastly getting a major charge from eating someone – ritualised or not – is too easy.
Major Charge: Eat someone famous in the public consciousness like a celebrity or a popular politician.
Ups the risks for the rewards.
Cheers,
Chris.
Perhaps for a Majr Charge:
Locate an area’s Apex Predator (the single most powerful predator, the one that could truly be considered to be the top of the food chain even over all the others of his species in the area), hunt it down, kill it and consume it completely, right down to sucking the marrow out of the bones. You may only use weapons which you have ritually made yourself for the specific purpose of generating this Major Charge, although many Vorophages choose to use their bare hands instead.
Note that the Vorophage may not generate a charge where they themselves are the Apex Predator. The thing (or person) must be objectively stronger and more powerful than the Vorophage themself.
That sounds good. Thanks, Regis! Concider his the Major Charge l’officiale.