[quote=“SenorOcho, post:24, topic:12294”]The talk of vegetarianism in context is a little bit of an odd egg though. I imagine anyone who chooses that life due to the squeamishness of animal butchery is going to lose that after the first few days of butchering rotting corpses to keep them from getting up. Similarly, respect for animal life in a “It’s you or me, I’m starving” situation would likely go out the window.
Pretty easy to think that anyone who doesn’t treat it like a religion is not going to stick to it long in the apocalypse, unless it’s a player-imposed challenge or they’ve managed to actually get a very stable setup going.[/quote]
Note that anything you’ve said could be used just as assuredly as a justification for cannibalism.
Regardless, we have traits that:
a: Permanently give severe morale penalties to the player whenever they consume flesh because it “hurts” their stomach.
b: Permanently render the player literally, physically incapable of consuming eggs and flesh.
Both of these can be picked at character creation, and by that context, vegetarianism becomes a very important aspect to discuss.
Secondly, in health terms, note that there are forms of contagion that persist in cooked, and undercooked, meat, which could potentially pose potentially lethal, potentially permanently, health hazards to the one who eats them. How much more dangerous is a case of intestinal worms when the blob makes worms grow into meter long abominations? There’s no government body ensuring the meat you butchered from that rabid wolf isn’t going to make you suffer horrific, blinding intestinal pain followed by a xenomorph ripping its way out of your abdomen.
The more orders between you and your food, the less likely that food is to contain pathogens relevant to you. Fish, insects and vegetables are far, far safer dietary choices in the absence of readily available healthcare than other high order mammals, which are safer than humans.
View this from an in character perspective:
Aberrations: You’d need to be an especially dedicated carnivore to get the idea in your head to get the idea that a jabberwock, graboid or amigara horror is good eating. Anything extra-dimensional can be considered “last resort” by default. There’s a good chance that many nether entities are piggybacking on terrestrial organisms, so eating the terrestrial organism it inhabits might just make you Host #2 or just mutate you into having a tentacle for a face.
People/Animals: High chance of parasites and other pathogens. Limited cooking facilities means it’s hard to ensure meat is cooked thoroughly throughout, increasing the chance of picking up something terrible that you cannot easily treat. Clear blob presence shown by the various zombified animals.
Reptiles/amphibians/insects: The only insects and amphibians found in the game are clearly mutated in some unknown fashion to enable them to be the size they are. Mutated lifeforms generally make poor dietary choices, cockroaches especially. The only “safe to eat” reptile is the rattlesnake, since it can be assumed to be blob free or it would be the giant variety already.
Fish: Again, there are several mutant fish and undead varieties, and the majority of rivers in New England can be considered potentially toxic thanks to pre-catacylsm industrial waste as factories break down along the river banks. Lead poisoning isn’t generally something you can fillet away and will be present for years post-cataclysm until it all clears out into the oceans.
Birds: Appear to be entirely unchanged (albino penguins are actually nether denizens), suggesting they’re incompatible with the blob or have avoided contagion. Bird eggs can therefore be assumed safe as well.
Plants and fungi: All except the poppies are completely unchanged and devoid of mutations and undead varieties. Triffid and mycus not-withstanding (mycus fruit gives a very good example as to why you should avoid eating things from strange dimensions), fruit and plant matter shows no signs of significant change post-pocalypse.
In universe the long term side effects of blob consumption are completely unknown, and the blob clearly can survive fire. The only “safe” dietary sources are rattlesnakes and their eggs, birds and their eggs, non-mutated fruit and vegetables, and pre-cataclysm processed foods. Sensible survivors would be gravitating towards a mostly or exclusively ovo-vegetarian diet out of self-preservation.
