Dave Woodrum over at Fish Wife Games is a clever bastard. He's gotten some very useful little niche old school rpg products. Bare in mind that the following is in part a repeat of the Swords and Stitchery blog.
Here's the blurb from Drivethru Rpg :
Here's the blurb from Drivethru Rpg :
The Meat Lover's Guide To The Post Apocalypse...Because Even Half-Crazed, Mutant Road Savages Get Hungry Once In Awhile.
The Meat Lover's Guide to the Post Apocalypse is a small but information packed guide book that allows the players and the game master (GM) of a post apocalyptic setting a general set of rules for harvesting meat from slain animals and monstrous creatures. This book takes real world information, concepts, and methods of hunting and meat preparation and condenses such knowledge into a format that is readily accessible to the GM and minimizes the headaches of prior research. However, just because the information is condensed, this doesn't mean that this book lacks in diversity or flexibility in regards to the subject of harvesting meat. If you are a player or a GM that would simply be happy with just saying, “okay, you each have three days of food after butchering the atomic cow”, then this is not the guide book for you. Honestly, you simply make that up off the top of your head and it would be probably fine without further examination or research. However, if you are the type of GM that wants a more realistic approach to harvesting the meat from even the most unrealistic of mutated monsters, then this is the post apocalyptic supplement for you.
The contents of this book begins with a chart of several real world animals. Included in this chart is the average weight of such an animal, the type of creature it is, the amount of consumable meats, organs, etc. that one could expect to harvest from such a creature, and also the average calorie intake of 1 pound of the creature's consumable meat, organs, etc. From there you will find a section on how to establish the same general guidelines for mutated, monstrous creatures as well as other animals not already included in the basic charts. In addition to this information, the reader is provided with a wealth of additional information. Such information includes, but is not limited to, figuring out how many days worth of food a creature yields based on the calorie intake of the characters, issues with spoilage and how to properly preserve meat, and notes on the damage to potential meat harvests that is caused by wounding or killing a creature in combat.
On a final, but very important note, this guidebook is developed in a manner that makes it system generic. Thus, it is compatible with most, with not all, tabletop, paper and dice role playing games that are based on a post apocalyptic Earth. When developing the product, the author recognized that there are multiple takes on what a post apocalyptic environment would be like. Some simply incorporate the aspects of a zombie uprising, with no other truly out of the ordinary elements, while others go for a very exotic world full of strange, exotic mutations. Some, on the other hand, a middle of the road ground that is very gritty and full of skullduggery and desperation. The “road nomad” style post apocalyptic movies of the 1980's are good examples of this vision.
Whether your world contains exotic mutated creatures, or simply the currently existing animals of the world, this guide book will provide you with the basics of guiding the adventuring party in their quest of staying alive to fight another day.
Pages: 30 (counting cover and table of contents)
Written By: Dave Woodrum
Alright if your still reading there are some very interesting stats in the book regarding mutants, monsters, etc. The genre of survival horror has a propensity for running low on food the many vectors of the "zombie disease" it seems natural that a book like this is going to be very useful in a horror campaign when beloved pets, relatives, etc all become food.
There is also the "Phantasm II" Factor.
Given the propensity of the Undead in AD&D Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, etc. There is an under utilized AD&D mythos that hardly ever gets used these days. That's the Negative material plane which is one of the main animating forces of these creatures. Everyone I've talked with has said that there's a connection between the demon lord Orcus & this plane.
The Negative Material really came into its own in the hands of Jeff Grubb in the Manual of The Planes & several Dragon magazine articles. But it hasn't been heard from since. Personally I've used it as the abode of this gentleman & the source his technology.
The Phantasm movies allow a DM to throw in a zombie plague into a game but allow the undead to be a controlled burn off rather then a full on balls to the walls zombie infection. This saves the background of the campaign while having the threat of the shambling hordes in the background. Also psychic classes should be able to detect the negative energies.
The guide also gives a bench mark so that a DM will know exactly how much food a zombie can eat. The undead of the Tall Man and his ilk aren't normal zombies. There's talk of a plague and such in Oblivion and some of the other films. Back in my video store days I knew a vital zombie expert. Mack was the sort of guy who could quote chapter and verse of any of the Dead movies and the Italian stuff as well.
The Phantasm movies allow a DM to throw in a zombie plague into a game but allow the undead to be a controlled burn off rather then a full on balls to the walls zombie infection. This saves the background of the campaign while having the threat of the shambling hordes in the background. Also psychic classes should be able to detect the negative energies.
The guide also gives a bench mark so that a DM will know exactly how much food a zombie can eat. The undead of the Tall Man and his ilk aren't normal zombies. There's talk of a plague and such in Oblivion and some of the other films. Back in my video store days I knew a vital zombie expert. Mack was the sort of guy who could quote chapter and verse of any of the Dead movies and the Italian stuff as well.
He had a very solid point on where the Tall Man and the others were different. The undead free willed mechanisms of the Tall all are animated by that Yellow Goo. That stuff gets into an ecosystem it will foul up the local food supply as well as anyone who comes into contact with it.
Half of my players of a "Phantasm" game that I was running at the time were gathering food. They were picked off one by one "Ten little Indians style". Why not take it one step further & have Orcus himself causing the problem. Cults of Orcus can be & have been the focus for countless campaigns.
The cross over factor alone between Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord is worth it. Given the hit points of Mutant Future characters this might even be very doable.
Half of my players of a "Phantasm" game that I was running at the time were gathering food. They were picked off one by one "Ten little Indians style". Why not take it one step further & have Orcus himself causing the problem. Cults of Orcus can be & have been the focus for countless campaigns.
The cross over factor alone between Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord is worth it. Given the hit points of Mutant Future characters this might even be very doable.
The bottom line is that zombie plagues can be very different then the usual run of the mill shambling hordes and grabbing some calorie intake on this sort of thing adds a bit more to a game.
The bottom line is that this a great addition to the weird and strange post apocalyptic landscape.
You can get this wonderful little book right over at DriveThru Rpg right HERE
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