So it seems my players REALLY REALLY like the idea that eating the flesh of a fallen opponents gives you some of his memories.

I understand that it can be used to allow the players to make an escape by eating a fallen pilot and learning how to fly a jet... or give some key information at the specific moment in the story.

But I think my players are pushing the whole thing a bit. I decided to run Final Sanction today (with some modification to account for using their characters, using Requisition and having a Librarian in the team), but to give you an idea...

- After the battle for the temple, they ate SEVERAL rebels, trying to find one that was infected by Genestealers in order to get information on the broodlord (in front of the most likely terrified PDF members...).

- Later in the city, after clearing a sniper nest, they ate the sniper to try and learn more about the location of other sniper nest.

- After slaughtering the Hollow Guards in the House of Echoes, they ate some of them in order to confirm that there was no genestealer infiltration among their rank (they were afraid the Stealer had gotten to the astropath).

- After saving the Lord Governor from the Genestealers... yeah... you guessed it... they ate genestealers in order to find out where the Broodlord was.

And yes, we're fully aware that you don't need to eat the entire corpse... they just slice off something like a finger or carve or the brain and chew a part of it or what not. One of the player is roleplaying his Space Marine has a bit of a cannibal (I.e. He enjoys the taste of human flesh and the flash of memories of his fallens foes... interesting concept, but I'm thinking he's going end up slightly corrupted... He doesn't go around killing people just to eat them, but if they have time, he pretty much always make sure to taste everything... that sounded weird).

So yeah... it is a bit of a problem for me, because ultimately the idea of Space Marines walking around and field of battle and sampling the fallen like a fat girl at a buffet kinda clash with my mental image of the Adeptus Astartes... but I can get over that.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the guy who decided to roleplay a marine with an odd quirk doing it, but the idea of getting information from a fallen foe is tempting for everybody. Why bother to capture and interrogate a target if you can just shoot him in the head and then munch on one of his finger? A lot of mysteries/investigation issues also become moot as 'Kill, Eat, Know' becomes the best way to find information...

What's more of an issue is that they are rather vague about what you can actually get info wise from an eaten target. Do you get total recall? If so... how long ago? Do you remember deeper, personal thoughts (political opinion, or key pad access codes, etc) or is more of a skimming the last thought of the target?

I personally ruled (pretty much on the spot) that all you got were jumbled flash of information (similar to what you got in Prototype when you assimilated a victim for those who played the game) but with no way to control the information... so you would more often than not, get useless information. I also ruled that Genestealers (and other Tyranids) are just way too alien for the information to be worth a ****.

So... how do you guys handle it?

Or am I the only one who has players who think they're playing the rpg version of pac-man?

I usually throw around insanity or corruption points depending on the type of flesh consumed. If they're eating tyranids, throw a nasty poison there way, or some insanity points as the flesh ingested temporarily connects them to the Hive Mind or Broodlord for a fraction of a second.

I also try to use some common sense for most run-of-the-mill enemies. Random rebels aren't going to know the secret codes/secret base location/fortress weakpoint, nor are they going to know any useful skill an Astartes can temporarily use that he doesn't already have access to.

To be clear about this: the reason why I would give out insanity points in this instant too is because it is insane. It is insane to consume sentient beings at will - that is without a **** good reason. And as the GM I'd handle this based on gut feeling (no pun intended) - if something is over the top, there will be IPs. Corruptions points only in the case of beings severely tainted by the warp.

And the actual information gained through consumption should be very murky, probably even more murky than information gleaned through the use of psy. Consider this: you only gain access to one skill of the victim. That implies to me that a whole lot information will be lost. In fact if you want to discourage your players give them partial information in such a manner that it will be highly misleading and turn out to be dangerous. Don't make the info gleaned reliable.

Maybe the password they get is 3 days old and it changes daily? That could mean trouble.

Alex

It also invalidates some of the fluff a little...

I wasn't familiar with the Blood Drinkers (who probably have the worse kept secret...)... but yeah, it's supposed to be a big deal when/if the other member of the kill-team discover their blood drinking ritual.

But seriously, on what kind of ground can you object/be horrified at it when you still have some gray matter stuck in your teeth?

first make it that eating whole brain of victim counts (as most people on forum should know memories arent stored in hair or fingernails but in brain)

ingested flesh should have some time to be processed by space marine, half to few hours block muchkin overuse of omophagea (even marine digestion isnt instant)

and u gain skill or skill groups as untrained BASIC skill (u want to fly that eldar skimmer after brainy snack? sure test your 16-35% chance on every demanding moment)

if they do it to often, limit it in a way that previous brain snack must be completely digested and out of omophagea, or previous knowledge "visions" must end (int bonus in hours) or ingested memories mix into total completely incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo.

and when player use omophagea dont forget to fill his mind with both totally rubish and sometimes useful stolen memories. (like what he wanted on 13 birthday from santa dorn, why he have problems with girls, that his wife cheated on him with commanding officer u will talk in next scene and such...)

Tarkand said:

drinking blood is very common ritual amongst chapters, and its not secret ritual if chapter name comes from it.

I'd assume you can't pick and choose the memories you get. Thus, you'd get rudimentary knowledge of the most important skill of the victim and equally rudimentary flashes of memories. For a wonderful example, take a look at the game Prototype - you should be able to find footage of it and its "web of influence" mechanic on Youtube.

Regarding using it as an interrogation technique... it may work. Sometimes. When the memory is actually embedded deeply enough to be among those eaten. If it isn't, well, oops - looks like you screwed up.

As for the usage in general, I wouldn't restrict it too much. If they describe it in their after-action reports, have the watch commander admonish them because they did it in public. It's not exactly something that fits into the perception of the locals of their beloved Angels of Death.
(Alternatively, you could be mean and have a cult of cannibals crop up in one of the places your gourmet visited. If the righteous Astartes do it, it can't be wrong, can it?)

To be clear about this: the reason why I would give out insanity points in this instant too is because it is insane. It is insane to consume sentient beings at will - that is without a **** good reason. And as the GM I'd handle this based on gut feeling (no pun intended) - if something is over the top, there will be IPs. Corruptions points only in the case of beings severely tainted by the warp.

Is it more insane than shooting your own men so they go on charging into the meat grinder? Because that's another case of ends justifying horrible means in the Imperium...

Cifer said:

Correct, the RAW states that the GMs discretion determines what information is gained. So if you want them to stop using it, stop giving them get useful information through it.

If you still want to allow it, have them describe exactly how they are eating the brain. I'd imagine that they don't have any special tools for removing the brain. Sure, they have the strength to break open the skull with their bare hands. But that will damage the brain as skull fragments embed into it, leading to memories being destroyed. Then they need to break it into pieces that can fit down their throat, losing more memories. If they gulp down too large a chunk, their throat muscles will crush that chunk, destroying any memories within.

The chance of any specific memory remaining doesn't seem that good. Skills are a bit better, since they involve lots of memories, enough so that the SM can fill in the blanks.

Why bother to capture and interrogate a target if you can just shoot him in the head and then munch on one of his finger?

Even if I was letting them get any information they wanted, I'd still require them to eat the brain since that is where the memories are. Give them a chance to explain why the memories exist in other body parts, since that could be entertaining and/or they would be getting the warp involved, meaning they are just asking for you to invoke the psychic phenomena table as they take part in their memory stealing sorcery.

As for shooting them in the head, I'd think that a bolter round exploding inside the targets head would be one of the worst things to do if you want to examine the brain. You'd be lucky if there is a recognisable head left.

Then you have to consider hive mind creatures, like the nids. If the memory isn't in the creature being eaten, it can't be recovered. Hive minds allow for off site memory storage.

DH Purge The Unclean does have a section titled Intrigue and the Telepath , which talks about how to run mysteries when one of the PCs is a telepath. It could be helpful.

I agree with Cipher, i wouldn't restrict this too much. Its a part of what the marines can do.

First off i'd play it that they won't do it in front of non-Astartes. This is a 'space marine secret', something that is part of their rituals and therefore not for the eyes of normal humans. It just seems cooler that way, to have them usher out the humans so they can engage in the secred rite.

Second, and this is the big one for me - this is essentially a core 'GM fiat' mechanic. It allows you as GM to feed in clues or skills that might be useful. The players don't get any say in the memories they access or the skills they gain, so you can definately control things so that it isn't generally a replacement for interrogation or whatever. In general i'd have the most common memories they access being the moment of the victim's death or some similarly strong emotional event. Perhaps if a player burned a Fate Point i might let them extract a specific memory they are after. In general though this should be a fairly random revalations.

I also like the idea that a marine can only benefit from one piece of flesh at a time. Therefore he gets no benefit from futher 'meals' until this one wears off (the acquired skill duration?)

Thirdly, the omophagea works by absorbing the genetic material associated with memory (Eh?!?!) from the victim, into the marine's brain. OK. My GM mischief-bells are ringing loud and clear on that. Corrupted genetic material being absorbed? There's definately a chance to bring in a progressive genetic damage thing there, especially if they're absorbing a lot of different material. Perhaps it starts to manifest as insanity points. Perhaps it affects his geneseed? Perhaps at the regular health checks they receive, the apothecary notices a weakening of the marine's brain cells, or spinal chord (where the omophagea is implanted. You don't have to impose any negative modifiers other than the apothecary warning the marine that he needs to go easy on the flesh eating as he may be causing himself damage.

Then thee's the issue of xenos flesh. I don't have much trouble with the consumption of human flesh, but eating xenos flesh? I don't think marines would do it for a start ('abhor the alien', etc.) If they did, i think the alien genetic coding wouldn't properly interact, so that not only would the marine fail to get any benefit, it would also make him sick. and the genetic shock would definately cause insanity or some other effect. As for tyranid flesh - i'd say its outright dangerous. Tyranid genetics are designed to absorb other species - especially that of the genestealers. I'd say there's an Astartes-wide taboo on eating 'nids, and any marine that does should parhaps suffer severe genetic damage, akin to perhaps the Genophage toxin (p172).

Bilateralrope said:

+1, this is really the key. The rest of the suggestions on here are pretty good too and add to the flavor (no pun intended), but this I think is the real key.

Cifer said:

Just because something is commonplace doesn't make it not insane. I would imagine folks like commisars either have things like jaded, fearless, etc., or would have ample Insanity Points.

Also, and I can't remember exactly where it's from, but I seem to recall a story where a Marine ate the bits of an enemy, but hated doing it because it was so messed up. He did it, but he did it because he felt it was neccesary. A kill team eating every enemy they come across within a 24-48 hour period is definitely insane, in addition to being something that not every marine would likely be okay with.

Charmander said:

Now I have a terrible image of Brother Zimmern traveling around the galaxy eating the naughty bits of everything he finds.

On a similar silly note, nothing says the Omophagea is under voluntary control of the Marine. This would means it tends to pick up bits from all animals that the Marine eats. I think this might predispose most Marines towards being vegetarians unless they like getting inside Bessie's/Wilbur's head everytime they have BBQ.

What about adapting the closer than flesh rules ?

For those that don't have access to the DH core rulebook, these rules mean that a telepath risks insanity and corruption whenever they use telepathy on an insane/corrupt target.

Couple things to add to all the above:

1. Any apothecary in the group would probably be monitoring the corpse-munching for signs of deffective behaviour, or genetic influence. First game my group played, the tactical marine consumed a portion of a Tyranid warrior, to learn the magos' bearings, and upon return to the Watch Station, the apothecary immediately ordered him quarantined him for a thorough investigation.

2. Any sensible Watch Captain of the Deathwatch would frown on the consumption of xeno flesh. Bit of a generalisation, but being irrationally xenophobic, and then running around snacking on aliens all the time is kinda.. uhm.. meh?

boruta666 said:

*melee ends*

*Blood drinker assault marine starts looking around innocently*

Other marines: "So...err... are you going to drink that or what?"

Blood Drinker: "The dark secret of my Chapter! How did you know?!!!"

Other Marines "....."

Closer Than Flesh rules are a great start-point. Just a load of evil cultists in front of you PCs, let them chow down, and then hand out a whole bunch of CP/IPs. Likewise, eating xenos brains isn't something that a proud marine is likely to be keen to stoop to, or risk being corrupted by. I imagine that eating orcs or tyranids could have some unpleasant side-effects, which are probably best represented with a corruption point or two. Dishing out a point of corruption or insanity every time players pull this stunt is a great way to make players think more before resorting to it.

As others have said: Brains are the way forward, as memories don't live in toenails.

Memories should be vague and jumbled. Or perhaps even more limited. After all, it's supposed to be for helping PCs adapt to alien environments, so you might want to restrict it to 'genetic memories' of what foodstuffs are safe or not, and simply give a bonus on Survival or perhaps Charm (knowing planet specific etiquette) and similar stuff, rather than specific knowledge.

If the players are keen to use the skill and want more information, you could gouge them XP for a talent where they train themselves to try to pull out more specific memories.

Would the most propable memory gained by the Speess Mehreen not be the last and strongest images in the victims mind just before he died?

Basically meaning that in most cases they get a "I want my mommiiiieee!!"

If this is done often enough I would certainly have the consumed memories mesh with and become indistinguishable with the Marine's own. Leading to interesting scenes when they meet motherly figures.

I am sure there would be no stigma attached to big, burly, manly demi-gods wailing and crying at the Hospitaller matron's bosom while the other Sisters of Battle and PDF of the garrison walks by snickering.

This seems like the only implant that GMs seem to really hate. I'm always seeing suggestions for how to keep players from making use of it without terrible side effects. I don't see anything similar for the other implants.

What is funny is that one of the defects for random roll chapters in rites is to compulsively eat enemies. With the GM getting to control what they learn, it really isnt that big a deal though. All you have to do is have them learn basic pistol training every time they eat a guard or other things they already have. It certainly isnt something players should be getting insanity/corruption points for; no need to off a character for using their emperor given gift in exactly the manner it was designed for.

Giving the players 'pistol training (SP)' is a purely gamist answer to the problem, that is legitimate by RAW, stops the 'problem', but which makes no sense. It's far better to solve a problem using an answer that makes sense than to simply use existing rules in a rather lame way to nerf the ability. Tell players five times in a row that all they get is memories of how to field strip a stub pistol, and your players will judge you to be a poor GM.

The problem is that the ability is very bad for the game, assuming that you want your players to do something other than gun down everything that's either a threat or might have valuable information.

Need to extract information from someone? Why waste time roleplaying or breaking out the Charm, Interrogation and Intimidation skills when you can just murder them and chow down?

Convoluted investigation best solved through creative thinking? Nah: It's just breakfast.

Complex puzzle to figure out access codes? We can have it solved by lunch. In fact, we can have it solved BY lunch.

Essentially and given free reign; pretty much any information that the players need can be obtained by a bit of murder and a sandwich. GMs need to 'munch-proof' plots in massively convoluted ways to prevent players resorting to 'bang-and-chew' to solve any problem.

It's bad because it encourages simple solutions, and discourages actually thinking about problems. It's pretty much the ultimate in hack-and-slash mentality when plot itself can be solved with murder and canabalism. Now, I don't know about you but my games already have a lot of hack-and-slash in, and I quite like my players to think for themselves during 'thinky bits', rather than just sucking the answer out of an NPC's brain.

In addition: Look at canon. How many problems that Asartes have faced in dozens of different books could have been solved by just murdering someone and breaking out the spoons? Lots. But it doesn't happen that way. Not once have I seen it used in a novel. Clearly there's a reason why it's not used for canon reasons, above and beyond the literary reason that any sane writer would want to minimise the impact of such a plot-breaking ability in any novel.

Siranui said:

Since it's best used to gain 'species memory' I'd be happy with it limited to granting Survival for the local environment after eating upon a native (sapient or not). If the SM already has Survival trained, then a +10 isn't out of line. This type of use shouldn't rack up any Insanity and should be the "approved and intended use" of the implant.

With added Talents - possibly needing Meditation - the SM might be able to make a Test to obtain other memories. This use might risk Insanity.

HappyDaze said:

It's the same thing with clairvoyance type powers. It's difficult to build a player-resistant adventure if you can't creatively come up with ways to handle powers like this. It's also difficult to come up with good ideas that keep within the fluff, keep within the theme and mood, but don't break investigative style adventures.

I don't personally hate this implant or the psi powers, I do find them tiresome when they become the end-all-be-all solution to things. To me, as a GM, I don't give them 'bad' answers when they use a power, I just don't necesarily give them the information they were specifically looking for.

In the example of trying to eat a rebel soldier to find out where his sniper nest is (and also mind that I agree with the thought that you can only host one set of memories at a time as well as the whole digestion issue taking more than 30 seconds), give them something else the commander may have- a flanking manuver is inbound, knowledge that their air cover is about to be blown, or give them a bump to command or tactics for a little while. These things are "useful" but perhaps not so uesful that the power is overused.

As for it being used in the fiction, I'm pretty certain it's used by a SM in Ian Watson's "Space Marine" where a guy uses the brain to figure out how to drive a titan.

The thing is that the marines do not get to choose what they learn, all they get is a small portion of the creatures memory. It isnt a far stretch to argue they would usually just pick up on the most prominent and important memories. For rebel guardsmen, that would be either horribly dying left and right or training. The chances they would get useful information out of the sum life of experiences of one is small enough to keep marines from constantly relying on it. Which also fits how it is used in other fluff, more a random grab bag with little chance of usefulness but a chance nonetheless.

Charmander said:

Isn't that the same book that many refuse to use as a source of how the Imperial Fists behave (or misbehave)?

HappyDaze said:

Probably

I've not personally read it, simply have heard accounts from it, so I can't say with authority if it's any good or accurate in any way.

@Sippin: I agree that the GM holds the cards as to what's gained, but I think it depends on how a GM plays the enemies. If the hordes are portrayed in the sterotypical fashion of them being mindless/useless cattle then yeah, little info would be gained. If one consideres that each of them at one point had a personality, a training regimine, potentially a family, then sacrificed all of what they knew for whatever new life they're now leading (be it chaos, tau, genestealers, or simple rebellion). I still think that you could gain something useful or insightful about your enemy this way, it just might not be the location of the castle where the princess is being held or what the keycode to the gate is. Even something as seemingly bland as a trooper being worried because his quartermaster only issued them half rations that week is tactical intelligence that could be useful, but it's not going to break your game unexpectedly.

And I'd still consider IPs for folks that tended to 'over use' the power, up to a certain IP level (meaning a yet-to-be-determined-because-I-don't-have-the-problem-Inanity-rating could be achieved which would make you immune to the creep factor of eating everyone's brain, much like it makes 'mortals' immune to fear ratings).

First thing I would look at is if your player has the Hatred talent for that species. If he does, he will under no circumstances consume the flesh of a hated enemy. If they have Hatred for a species and they still need to eat it, make it a -30 WP test to be able to go through with it.

ItsUncertainWho said:

Depends on chapter too. Some might consider eating an enemy a form of ultimate defeat.

Alex