Eating goblin meat???

[LeoLionxxx]

Hi, I am a relativly new DM running a D&D NEXT campaign with my freinds. Of couse, I am finding it a great experience and fun for all; my players keep me on my toes and of couse quick thinking is required where I don't anticipate the player's actions.

Which is why I would like little advice: The modual I wrote has the players currently in a dungeon with hords of goblins. Now, my players like to pinch their copper and seem to think eating their rations would be a real waste. Thus, they have been planning to eat goblin meat when their charecters need to eat.

What should I do when/if my players do decide to try cooking and eating goblins? I would like to discourage this but can see no real reason why they couldn't eat them is it's cooked well enough. What should I do?

[Rorrik]

They could get mad goblin disease?

In all seriousness, though, if you really want to avoid this situation you could have the deity(s) of the religious member(s) declare goblin flesh unclean for eating.

Frankly, if you have no qualms about eating humanoids (one step from cannibalism), and the meat is not infected in any way, this may actually be prudent in character. Who knows how long you'll be down there and your rations will keep.

[Crazyfailure13]

Ummm... Make it taste like evil?(Evil tastes like pink by the way)

or goblins do live in bad conditions in most settings, so if your's is one of these, have the meat be riddled with disease, Yellow fever, icky black lung sickness, mad cow disease, etc.

But really unless you want to make up a reason and there is none you could exploit, let them have goblin jerky, and tell them it tastes like chicken

[Ashtagon]

Goblin meat is perfectly edible, if you can get past the fact that it tastes like durian fruit.

The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour that is strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as pleasantly fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and revolting. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust, and has been described variously as almonds, rotten onions, turpentine, raw sewage, and gym socks. The persistence of its odour has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia.

[holywhippet]

Have them make a CON save or else turn into a weregoblin.

Ok, seriously now, goblins have Gods I believe so if the party start eating goblin meat then their patron God will be out for revenge. Have the party jumped by a literal small army of goblins out for revenge. Unless the party is really high level getting jumped by 50 or more goblins should be near unwinnable since with that many attack rolls against them there would be a number of critical hits every round.

Best case scenario (for the party) the goblins take them prisoner and their god bestows a geas forcing them to retrieve some item for the goblins - or else.

[J-H]

Goblin meat is perfectly edible, if you can get past the fact that it tastes like durian fruit.

Awesome bit of trivia, thank you.

[Rorrik]

Goblin meat is perfectly edible, if you can get past the fact that it tastes like durian fruit.

I will say this though: freeze the durian, and it tastes almost like banana yogurt, and the smell is greatly reduced.

It is also massive and spiky all over. The Malaysian version of Newton never stood a chance.

[Guizonde]

Goblin meat is perfectly edible, if you can get past the fact that it tastes like durian fruit.

based on this, make the pc's who try goblin meat flip a coin.

heads, they love it.
tails, omgrevolting-i'm-gonna-die-of-goblin-rear-end-cancer!

let's call it an acquired taste

then again, if they're real penny pinchers, they'll know that hunger is the best spice

[Thajocoth]

I see no problem with them eating any humanoids.

[Hylas]

I have eating any humanoid with a soul the same thing as cannibalism. Thus eating goblins would be an evil act.

[Slipperychicken]

Well, in 3.5 at least, that's Murder, and an Evil Act.

[TheCountAlucard]

You can do it in NetHack; IIRC, you really only get in trouble for eating humanoids if they're the same race (and even then, not if you're a caveman).

[Gnomish Wanderer]

I would be highly opposed to my players killing goblins for the purpose of eating them. If my players begin to resort to that I'd probably make goblin flesh addictive, make them crave it more and more as they start getting sicker and sicker. Serves them right.

If they were eating it pragmatically, I'd just make there a risk of disease, (in 3.5, like a DC12 Fort save or take Temp Con Damage daily until they pass the save, per goblin).

[mrzomby]

Ask for 4 fortitude saves per day, from player(the same thing I'd do if players in d20 modern wanted to save money by eating pigeons/sea gulls/rats).

[LibraryOgre]

So, it didn't occur to them to eat whatever the goblins are eating, instead of the goblins themselves?

However, per the Hacklopedia of Beasts,

Goblin blood or meat has a 75% chance of transmitting disease (usually "The Shakes"). Most people are wise enough to avoid it. Orcs and ogres are immune to these effects and are reputed to enjoy the taste well enough, partaking when no better food is available.

Alternatively, turn them into ghouls. Or, for real fun, you can always convert this guy...

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[Asmodai]

Nonsense! I can vouch for the goblin meat to have a slight lavender taste. They can wiggle a bit in your mouth, but you should just chew harder if they do.

[Kitten Champion]

I mostly recall Goblins from Pathfinder, so I might be overgeneralizing, but Goblins have very little meat on them. Having a fast metabolism, a carnivorous diet, hard skin, and being relatively tiny all makes them poor targets for nutritional purposes. Especially if you've got to go through the effort of preparing and cooking them without being poisoned or infected every meal time. The amount of meat, that is to say energy earned, is not going to be equivalent to the needs of a dungeon-delving adventurer. Sure you can live off rats - even gamy ones - but how well?

That and there's the possibility that the smell of roasting goblin flesh could attract uncomfortable attention from their surroundings, creating more problems than it solves. After all, most things which normally eat Goblins would be roughly in the proximity.

So you can make their lives awful when they do.

If they want to save their resources the smarter, less disconcerting - and I suppose some would say more ethical - route would be to eat the grubs that are undoubtedly near any available water source the Goblins would have been using, or use magic logically to solve their dietary problems indefinitely.

[holywhippet]

Alternatively, turn them into ghouls. Or, for real fun, you can always convert this guy...

Spoiler

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Oh dear God no. Unless you made it utterly immune to all mind control you'd have players deliberately changing into it and having a spell caster dominate their mind to make them into a PC.

[Thajocoth]

I was assuming they were eating their fallen foes... That is, Goblins who attacked them. I see no evil in doing that. If they go Goblin hunting, however... That's another story.

[Rorrik]

So, it didn't occur to them to eat whatever the goblins are eating, instead of the goblins themselves?

When I first saw the title, I thought this is what it was about. It conjured images of the maggoty bread and rancid mead Frodo and Sam find in the Orc guard post on their way across Mordor. Wouldn't recommend eating that either.

[Guizonde]

wait, aren't goblins fungi?

[/40k]

[Kadzar]

Only if your PCs are elves, in which case they are morally obligated to do so.
[/Dwarf Fortress]

[Ozfer]

Hehe. Those silly elves. I feel morally obligated to drown them in water contaminated with FB dust. I'll cut down as many trees as I want to.

Anyway, back on topic. I basically agree with Thajacoth. Goblin hunting is when it goes too far. Eating the flesh of their fallen foes is disgusting and not really socially acceptable, but not really evil (Like elves).

[TheCountAlucard]

Goblins? They're fine - just don't eat any kobolds…
[/NetHack]

[Guizonde]

Hehe. Those silly elves. I feel morally obligated to drown them in water contaminated with FB dust. I'll cut down as many trees as I want to.

Anyway, back on topic. I basically agree with Thajacoth. Goblin hunting is when it goes too far. Eating the flesh of their fallen foes is disgusting and not really socially acceptable, but not really evil (Like elves).

+1 for the elves.

honestly, social acceptability goes out the window when necessity calls. in that case, it'd be neutral, pure and simple. live or die.

however, in this scenario, it's because they're penny pinchers. they have rations packed (if i read correctly), they're just trying to save a buck.
seriously. who gives a care about the cost of rations?! my dwarven cleric of pelor has managed to buy a fine quality meal with accompanying wine for 3 with all of 8 silver(which, incidentally, was 1/3rd his total money)! rations are like 1 gp for a week if we're going with top of the line balanced diet. it's like 5cp for hardtack per day.

[Rhynn]

Yeah, this is bad all over...

First, I too would say eating sentients is cannibalism is evil. There's a reason all the humanoids that do it regularly are evil. Indeed, if gods are real in your setting, cannibalism is probably a curse-worthy taboo for most of them.

Also, yeah, the Shakes. Eat sentients, get sick. Also, one classic origin for ghouls is humans who became cannibals.

And, yes, goblins are scrawny. There's not a lot of good meat on humans (whether Crusader accounts of the slaughter of civilians in the Crusades or a modern nutjob in Germany, they always focus on the ass meat), and goblins weigh something like 1/2 - 1/3 what humans do. That is assuming goblin meat isn't practically inedible.

You can let the PCs do it once, then start noticing creepy symptoms in themselves (that lead to nothing, unless they do it again) and maybe some subtle divine warnings. If they do it again, pull out the stops...

[Dewani90]

well, as long as they don't plan to use the skull as a bowl to eat nachos with extra crunchy sauce, but yeah, saving a penny on rations by eating the meat of a poor almost skelletal being who is hard to cook, has almost no meat and can have enough diseases to down the most healthy being is not exactly a good idea, they could get out of the cave/dungeon sometimes and go hunt a doe(yush, let's kill bambi mom again) or a falcon (unless you closed the gate till the adventure is over), bear meat is also very nutritive, some snakes, bunnies, fish are also edible, they could live of the hunt, after all, what you get on a restaurant on medieval times, roasted venison with a side of boar in a stick and cheap mead?

[Jenfrag]

Ummm... Make it taste like evil?(Evil tastes like pink by the way)

Why it sounded like you don't like the color pink?? Ha ha!

[Fayd]

In my DM's setting, goblins were bred by the fae to be foot soldiers and field rations for their armies. They have a flavor described as "zesty." They also barely have any intelligence to speak of and often eat their own if left to their own devices. It requires hobgoblins to not have things fall apart. Their paragons, alternatively called bugbears or demigobs, are more siege weapon than soldier.

[LeoLionxxx]

Thanks everyone, got some great ideas for you all.

I belive what i'll do is upright tell them that there doesn't look to be a lot of meat on the goblins. If they then proceed to cook multiples (to get a good amount of meat) i'll have 50% chance of each person liking it or not. Those that do like it perhaps will crave more, and if they indulge their urges i'll throw some health problem their way.