Cannibalism

Usually defined as "eating your own species" or "eating a creature who, when alive, could carry on a conversation", cannibalism is an occasional feature of /tg/-related media.

/tg/ Applicability

Given how disgusting this topic is, and a history of racism associated with talking about cannibalism, you'd expect tabletop games writers (and writers in general) to avoid focusing on cannibalism in their works, even in very grim settings. And they generally do.

But some don't! Exceptions include:

• Always Chaotic Evil races or monsters practicing cannibalism on the species, cultural, or tribal scale.
• Alternately, a well-trodden cannibalism plot point is human (or demihuman) flesh being passed off as some other meat, perpetrated by some malevolent industry insiders or especially callous authorities.
• The other main group of exceptions are "horrific magic" situations, where the myth of "gaining the power of what you eat" is played upon, near-universally with the caveat that doing so is a very evil act.
• The smallest class of exceptions just involves cannibalism as part of a horrific murder. Basically, there's nothing cultural or mystical about cannibalism here. The person in question is just a sick fuck.

There are a few scenarios that blur the line:

• Some of the darker Furry settings where carnivorous animals never stopped eating sapient flesh. But that's Furries.
• Toon has quite a few scenarios modelled after "chase" cartoons like Roadrunner and Tom and Jerry.

Specific /tg/ examples

As a Tribal/Cultural/Species practice:

• In mythology (and thus freely used by tabletop games):
  • Ogres are categorically man-eaters (with a preference for eating babies), as well as giants on many occasions.
  • Vampires (both classical blood-drinkers and proto-zombie flesh-eaters) might also be classed as cannibals, though since they are undead, we tend to think of them as no longer being human to begin with.
  • Ghouls are fairly straightforward examples originally taken from Arabic mythology; their main identity is "graveyard dwelling man-eaters".
• In keeping with it's edgelord sensibilities, Warhammer 40k has a lot of examples. Here's just a few:
  • The Dark Eldar feed their slaves with processed corpses of dead slaves, among other things. The Dark Eldar themselves may also indulge in the cannibalism of other species if they feel like it, sometimes with their meal still alive and conscious so that they can additionally savor their agony.
  • The Kroot need to eat sentient beings in order to remain intelligent and regularly eats certain individuals to evolve specific traits.
  • The entire orkoid race is one big food chain in itself, and bigger/complex life forms will eat the smaller/less-abled ones below them if needed/they feel like it. A special mention however, goes to the eating squig, an simple orkoid life form that is solely made for the orks to cultivate, harvest, and eat.
  • Most orkoid species will also eat other beings if it fancies them, especially the orks themselves and larger combat squig species.
  • The Imperium feed people Corpse starch (made from processed human bodies). While it could be an extreme example of waste not want not (as this typically happens in Hive Worlds, where resources are stretched thin as it is), it is a bit grimderp too. The rejuvenate drug that was used by high imperial nobility and officers are made out of human fetus, guess that's unavoidable if one wishes to live longer.
  • Uncivilized Feral Worlds may have cannibalistic rituals within the tribes, especially if they're tainted by Chaos. Even if they're brought under the heel of the Imperium and the Imperial Creed is spread, this does not 100% guarantee that feral worlders will shrug off cannibalism completely.
  • Due to their Omophagea, Space Marines can consume the the brains of fallen enemies to take in their knowledge. Some astartes chapters also incorporate cannibalism into their chapter rituals in some way (such as the Blood Angels' blood drinking rituals). The Sons of Malice chapter is one notable example, except they were declared a heretic as a result (reasonable since they having been consume a lot of chaos worshipers corpses during their services around the pinky hole of all obvious evil). This makes one wonder the point of giving Spess Muhreens such an ability, given most of their enemies would be likely to corrupt via eating them. On the other hand, having the ability to sustain on any being's flesh while fighting far away without supply for a long time is a convenient but situational ability for survival, truly just how the Emperor intended.
  • The forces of Chaos regularly indulges in various forms of cannibalism (Nurgle followers for example, brew the corpses of defeated enemies into a variety of concoctions for consumption, and Khorne regularly involves the consumption of blood and other bloody gibs to worship him). Fluff however, tends not to not mention them too often, or in too much in detail when they occur.
  • The Tyranids are a race of blind, ravenous consumption and will eat anything and everything, including themselves if needed. Hell, some of their weapons fire living projectiles that attempts to devour their target within their short lifespan. Although since they are not sentient creatures, hell, they are not even individuals, it is hardly cannibalism. More like predatory behavior. In DOW: retribution, there's a scene where the hive tyrant let it self consumed by the digestion pool in order for its mind to reappear somewhere else in the sector.
• Similar to 40k, Warhammer Fantasy (and by extension Age of Sigmar) uses the concept of cannibalism to add extra grimdark.
  • Orcs & Goblins are as cannibalistic as their 40k counterparts.
  • Ghouls are former humans who have been deformed into monsters by the act of cannibalism. In AoS they're part the Flesh-Eater Courts, who have the added distinction of being deluded into believing they're being gallant knights when they devour people.
  • The Mourngul is another monster created from men driven to cannibalism, because for some reason the setting really needed two monsters with the same gimmick.
  • The Ogres are a race whose most distinctive feature is their constant hunger. Given that Ogres generally don't have a concept of morals, cannibalism is common amongst them.
  • The human worshipers of Khorne in Age of Sigmar are often shown as being cannibals.
  • Cannibalism is a big part of the Skaven. To them life is cheap, food is expensive and often someone can serve you better as lunch than as a wounded slave or as a backstabber.
• Dungeons and Dragons have many "true omnivores"; we won't count them unless they are intelligent.
  • Xanxost the Slaad, a frequent narrator in various Planescape books, would usually discuss the taste of some of the (sentient) species he was discussing. Usually as a punchline.
  • The "Flinds", a tribe or subspecies of Gnoll that eats other Gnolls, along with just about all the other races.
  • The halflings of Dark Sun eat only other races; but they're called "cannibals" anyway.

• Paranoia has a few scenarios centering either around it, or the implication that Friend Computer's Food Processors use deceased Citizens of Alpha Complex as an input.

As a "Horrific Magic":

• Diablerie, from Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem, which involves eating another vampire's soul through their blood.
• The Devourers of the Flesh, from Mage: The Awakening, a Left-Handed Path that are more or less exactly what their name claims.

Standard Cannibalism Jokes

There are a few standard jokes or items referred to in word-play associated with cannibalism:

• The name "Long Pig" or "Long pork", from the semi-euphemistic description of the dish by certain Polynesian tribes.
• The actual taste of human meat has been compared to either pork or veal, depending on who you ask, and how it's prepared. Human musculature more resembles that of young cows, but our diet more closely resembles that of pigs (cows being obligate herbivores, pigs being omnivores).
• "Soylent Green" is the other favorite name for processed human flesh, after the movie of the same name and the book it was based on, "Make Room! Make Room!"
• LOOKS LIKE MEAT'S BACK ON THE MENU BOYS!

The Reasons It's A Touchy Subject

There are five main reasons why most modern media either avoids cannibalism, or downplays it:

1. Most mammals (that includes you!) are instinctively predisposed to avoid cannibalism (barring severe stress such as starvation), since, as mentioned above, cannibalism is a really great way to spread disease.
2. Eating people generally involves human corpses, which begs the question of where the corpses came from. Most people find the idea of someone being murdered to be eaten highly disturbing.
3. Native tribes were frequently accused of being cannibals or portrayed as being cannibals when they weren't. Many tribes who did practice cannibalism were mis-attributed as to when they practiced it. Given the subsequent abuse of the accusation by blatant racists to dehumanize natives, most modern works try to avoid the subject entirely to not be accused (even by double proxy) of propagating racist stereotypes.
4. There are some already rather disturbing people who find cannibalism a quite arousing subject. Any sane author who knows about this wants to keep a great deal of distance between their works and said people.
5. That shit's disgusting, yo.

History & Biology

Multiple cultures throughout history have practiced cannibalism, more for mystic/cultural reasons than out of necessity. The most common notion behind ritual cannibalism is that by consuming an enemy's flesh, a person would gain their strength. That being said, the practice was near-universally banned by nearly every group that had enough food (read: protein) to go around, for fairly obvious ethical, moral and hygienic reasons. Eating your own species is a really great way to spread disease, and not a very polite thing to do to a stranger.

A prominent example of a disease spread by cannibalism: A particularly nasty consequence of cannibalism is Kuru, a prion-based neurodegenerative disease which affected the Fore people of Papua New Guinea through their tradition of consuming their dead as part of the funeral rite (it was thought to free the spirit of the deceased). Symptoms include muscle tremors, loss of coordination leading to the inability to walk or even sit without support, emotional instability, and certain death. Things like this probably helped lead to the idea of ghouls and other such degraded man eaters.

More common is cannibalism by desperation. If fields burned before harvest lie under snow, storehouses plundered by passing armies, what little escaped pillage is either locked away in hordes or rationed out in sub-subsistence portions, game (including sparrows and rats) is running thin and people will kill each other for a sack of turnips, turning the remains of a dead enemy patrol into warrior-burgers and knight-steaks so you might make it to till the land again beats an otherwise assured miserable death. This sort of thing, while still unpleasant, is not so much evil as tragic.

Further, cannibalism was enough of an occasional feature of nautical life (almost always in fairly extreme circumstances involving a lack of food) to be somewhat regularly discussed when the subject came up. This side of the subject is probably beyond the nature of this article, save to note that it kept "civilized" people from being too high-and-mighty about the practice.

Also of particular interest, as it gets cited in /tg/ related discussions of the subject: the mating habits of certain insects, the females of which may eat the males after mating--although, by most biologists' accounts, many such species do so only rarely, except when in captivity.