HP and food: what you eat matters

Homebrew Toys #8

Hi everyone!, this is another piece of homebrew I had hidden in a notebook. This is a variation on the “Blood and Will” pools I show you in this post.

In that previous post, I shared with you how I allow my players to push the odds in their favour by allowing them to expend X HP to increase in +X their rolls.

This version of “blood” that I will show you here does the same but tries to point at another issue that I have encountered with my game group: how inconsequential food is to the mechanics of the game.

The thing is that my group’s players truly enjoy describing what their characters eat, how they gather what they eat, and how they cook whatever they have gathered. But then, when they finish their descriptions, and if they have done a good job preparing a hearty meal, they look at me like waiting to hear that now their characters are better equipped for the challenges to come. But when the challenges come, whether they eat well or bad, tasty or bland, does not really matter.

That’s why in this system I tried to include food in the equation. To give a meaning to the actions of my players when they decide to go fishing for food instead of eating the stale bread they have stored at the bottom of their saddlebags.

Blood

You have 3d6 + the-modifier-of-Constitution points of Blood.

Your Blood is your HP. Damage makes you lose Blood. To restore your Blood, you have to rest and eat.

Your blood is made of five colours: Blue, Black, Red, Green, and White.

Distribute the initial Blood you have into these colours.

This is your blood tint and will change depending on what you eat or how you rest. Your blood tint determines which attributes can be empowered by it (also which spells your blood can weave, and against which spells your blood is weakest, but more of this in another post ;) ).

Blood and food

Food is the boon that gives life to all living creatures.

It transforms the lifeless matter into life force.

Everything alive or not is made from some proportion of these colours.

Blue, Black, Red, Green, and White.

To use them, you have to eat them, you have to make your body fulfil its function, to digest them into the life distilled in your blood.

Blood is the essence of your power as a living creature. What you eat determines which attributes you can empower with your blood.

You can always feed X points from a colour to add +X to a roll.

• Strength feeds from red

• Constitution from green,

• Dexterity from blue

• Intelligence from black

• Charisma from red

• Wisdom from green.

• White feeds nothing.

When you eat, you change the balance of these colours in your blood.

• If you eat something RAW, you can take only one point of blood of a random colour.

• If you COOK them, you can take 1d4 points of blood. Each one from a random colour.

• If you have special cooking gear, you can extract 1d4 colours of your choice.

• If you are full of blood, eating changes the colour balance of your blood. When you eat of one colour, you add a point of Blood of that colour and erase a point of Blood of any other colour.

Rest

Eating restores your blood: 1 point eating raw, 1d4 points if you cook.

Catching your breath restores 1d4 of blood (White).

One night of rest restores 2d6 of blood (Red).

Foods and their colours

There are four colours within anything you can eat: Blue, Green, Black and Red

The number of rations you can take from any source depends on its size. Two handfuls of anything is considered one ration.

When EATING one ration, you ROLL 1d6 as many times as you have to:

• 1 time if you eat it RAW

• 1d4 times if you COOKED it.

The result of the 1d6 die tells you which colour you consume from the food (if you have special COOKING GEAR, you choose instead of rolling):

Animals:

• Birds: 1 Blue, 2-6 Black.

• Cat: 1-3 Blue, 4-5 Black, 6 Green.

• Deer: 1 Blue, 2-3 Red, 4-6 Green.

• Dog: 1 Blue, 2-6 Green.

• Fish: 1-6 Blue.

• Fox: 1 Blue, 2-5 Red, 6 Green.

• Horse: 1 Blue, 2-3 Black, 4 Red, 5-6 Green

• Insects: 1-3 Black, 4-6 Blue.

• Kodkod: 1-2 Blue, 3 Black, 4 Red, 5-6 Green.

• Otter: 1-5 Blue, 6 Green.

• Rat: 1-4 Blue, 5-6Green.

• Sea lion: 1-5 Blue, 6 Green.

• Wolf: 1-4 Red, 5-6 Green.

• Worms: 1 Blue, 2-6 Green.

Others:

• Fruits: 1-4 Blue, 5 Red, 6 Green.

• Tubbers: 1-6 Green.

• Nutts: 1-3 Blue, 4-6 Green.

• Leafs: 1-2 Blue, 3 Black, 4-6 Green.

• Mushroom: 1-2 Blue, 3 Black, 4 Red, 5-6 Green.

Examples

Example 1 (raw food): 
You have gather some fruits. You have enough for two rations. You eat the two rations raw. So you recover 2 Blood points from eating the two rations of fruits.
To find out the colours of these Blood points you roll 1d6 for each and compare the result to the colours of a fruit.
Fruits: 1-4 Blue, 5 Red, 6 Green.
Your two rolls of the 1d6 are: 1 and 5. 
So you get 1 blue Blood, and 1 red Blood from the fruits.

Example 2 (cooked food): 
You have caught a bird. The bird is large enough to be cooked into one ration. You roll 1d4 to determine how much Blood you can recover from this ration. You roll 3, so you recover 3 Blood points from eating the bird.
To find out the colours of these Blood points you roll 1d6 for each and compare the result to the colours of a bird.
Birds: 1 Blue, 2-6 Black.
Your three rolls of the 1d6 are: 5, 2, and 6. 
So you get 1 blue Blood, and 2 black.

Example 3 (cooking more than one type of food together): 
You have caught a fish and gather some mushrooms and tubbers.  You cooke them into one ration of soup. You roll 1d4 to determine how much Blood you can recover from this ration. You roll 2, so you can recover 2 Blood points from the soup.
To find out the colours of these Blood points you roll 1d6 for each and compare the result to the colours of the fish, the mushroom and the tubbers.
Fish: 1-6 Blue.
Mushroom: 1-2 Blue, 3 Black, 4 Red, 5-6 Green.
Tubbers: 1-6 Green.
You decide from where you take the Blood for each roll
Your two rolls of the 1d6 are: 1 and 4.
You decide to tak 1 green Blood (from the Tubbers using the result of 1), and 1 red Blood (from the Mushroom using the result of 4).

Example 4 (eating more than one cooked ration): 
You have hunt a deer. You cooke it into five rations. You eat three rations. You roll 3d4 to determine how much Blood you can recover from these three rations. You roll 2+4+1, so you recover 7 Blood points from eating the three rations of deer.
To find out the colours of these Blood points you roll 1d6 for each and compare the result to the colours of the deer.
Deer: 1 Blue, 2-3 Red, 4-6 Green.
Your three rolls of the 1d6 are: 2 and 2.
So you get 2 red Blood points.