The title basically says it all. I have a player, a cleric, that has recently been infected with lycanthropy. He failed the save but I didn't tell them what happened exactly. Now I am faced with the fact that I have to and want to reveal this curse in some manner.
I want it to be a fun reveal. Im thinking of having some kind of trigger that transforms the player into their were-version (wereboar). It should still feel like a curse, but I want it also to be an option for them to keep it if they are okay with dealing with the curse.
So the two questions are, what is a fun and somewhat common trigger that can cause the transformation? And what should the rules be for changing into the wereboar?
In my game, there are two triggers for Lycanthropy - the first is the usual full moon, the second is when you fail your second Death Saving throw. The beast comes out from within you to save itself, with 10hp and a desire to flee, then eat to heal. You could try using that method for it! they have no control, and could seriously hurt those nearby, but also get saved from death - ergo it being both a curse and a blessing, depending on your morals.
I used the Moonbeam when I did a lycanthropy reveal in my previous campaign. The party was entering a restricted library where only certain people got access; the library had a permanent Moonbeam spell on the front door to ensure no shapechangers pretending to be authorized personnel could get through...and it outed the werewolf in the party.
If you use lycanthropy's damage mechanics (immunity to non-silvered damage), then you can easily hint that something is different with the cleric when the rest of the party is getting beat up after a rockslide or a bandit attack, but the cleric is just fine. In my games, lycans can't touch silver without it burning them, so they have to avoid paying with or accepting silver coins. Make an ale cost 3 silver, watch them shrink back from the payment or the change they get. These are commonplace and subtle, and it can make for really fun discoveries if they choose to research what is happening to them.
Curse of Lycanthropy. A humanoid creature can be afflicted with the curse of lycanthropy after being wounded by a lycanthrope, or if one or both of its parents are lycanthropes. A remove curse spell can rid an afflicted lycanthrope of the curse, but a natural born lycanthrope can be freed of the curse only with a wish.
A lycanthrope can either resist its curse or embrace it. By resisting the curse, a lycanthrope retains its normal alignment and personality while in humanoid form. It lives its life as it always has, burying deep the bestial urges raging inside it. However, when the full moon rises, the curse becomes too strong to resist, transforming the individual into its beast form — or into a horrible hybrid form that combines animal and humanoid traits. When the moon wanes, the beast within can be controlled once again. Especially if the cursed creature is unaware of its condition, it might not remember the events of its transformation, though those memories often haunt a lycanthrope as bloody dreams.
Some individuals see little point in fighting the curse and accept what they are. With time and experience, they learn to master their shapechanging ability and can assume beast form or hybrid form at will. Most lycanthropes that embrace their bestial natures succumb to bloodlust, becoming evil, opportunistic creatures that prey on the weak.
PLAYER CHARACTERS AS LYCANTHROPES
A character who becomes a lycanthrope retains his or her statistics except as specified by lycanthrope type. The character gains the lycanthrope’s speeds in nonhumanoid form, damage immunities, traits, and actions that don’t involve equipment. The character is proficient with the lycanthrope’s natural attacks, such as its bite or claws, which deal damage as shown in the lycanthrope’s statistics. The character can’t speak while in animal form.
A non-lycanthrope humanoid hit by an attack that carries the curse of lycanthropy must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 + the lycanthrope’s proficiency bonus + the lycanthrope’s Constitution modifier) or be cursed. If the character embraces the curse, his or her alignment becomes the one defined for the lycanthrope. The DM is free to decide that a change in alignment places the character under DM control until the curse of lycanthropy is removed.
Wereboar. The character gains a Strength of 17 if his or her score isn’t already higher, and a +1 bonus to AC while in boar or hybrid form (from natural armor). Attack and damage rolls for the tusks are based on Strength. For the Charge trait, the DC is 8 + the character’s proficiency bonus + Strength modifier.
Wereboars are ill-tempered and vulgar brutes. As humanoids, they are stocky and muscular, with short, stiff hair. In their humanoid and hybrid forms, they use heavy weapons, while in hybrid or animal form, they gain a devastating goring attack through which their curse is spread. A wereboar infects other creatures indiscriminately, relishing the fact that the more its victims resist the curse, the more savage and bestial they become.
Wereboars live in small family groups in remote forest areas, building ramshackle huts or dwelling in caves. They are suspicious of strangers but sometimes ally themselves with orcs.
It should still feel like a curse, but I want it also to be an option for them to keep it if they are okay with dealing with the curse.
As soon as the player chooses to keep the curse instead of doing anything he can to get rid of it, his character's alignment changes to Neutral Evil. This essentially means that he immediately loses control of his character if he refuses to act accordingly. A wereboar who embraces the curse wants to spread it to others, so he wants to infect the rest of his party. Unless the rest of his party willingly let themselves be infected, he immediately becomes hostile toward them. If the player refuses to play along with this, he loses control of his character who then becomes an NPC under your control. He may only regain control of his character if the curse is broken.
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There are at least two things to consider here - the mechanical aspects of lycanthropy and the role playing aspects. Whether lycanthropy will ultimately work in your campaign depends a lot on the players.
Mechanically, lycanthropy only really has mechanical benefits - the most important being immunity to bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage that isn't magical or silvered. The vast majority of monsters that the party will encounter will be unable to affect the lycanthrope. The Tarrasque is a CR30 creature, but the only way it can damage a lycanthrope is by swallowing it. Goblins, koblods, orcs, ogres, giants ... none of them can damage a lycanthrope. If you allow a character to become a lycanthrope then they will be able to wade through almost every combat and completely overshadow any of the other characters. This is so noticeable that the other players will start asking to become lycanthropes also.
Almost all of the downsides to being lycanthrope are social or role playing. People don't like lycanthropes since they often attack others. It is a CURSE but unfortunately, very little of the mechanics is actually a curse. The curse is that the character becomes a ravening beast at the full moon or can't control themselves. However, forcing this on the character removes player agency. The player can't decide what they do, the curse does. The player can't decide not to eat their friends, the curse makes them do it. The player can't decide not to eat the village children, the curse made them do it. However, most of that isn't much fun. Trying to control the curse should mean that the character should sometimes fail at it. If there is no chance of failure then most PCs will say "Sure, I want the benefits of being a lycanthrope, there don't seem to be any downsides."
----
However, being turned into a lycanthrope is a fantasy trope. If you really want to play it out then I'd strongly suggest toning down the mechanical benefits and introducing some mechanical downsides. Perhaps the beast within makes it difficult to get a good nights sleep. for example: There is a 1/4 chance that the character will not receive the benefits from a long rest. This would mean one day out of four on average the cleric would not restore hit points or recover spell slots.
Either way, if you really want to include lycanthropy as anything more than a curse that the characters really want to remove, you should ideally make it so that there are both mechanical and role playing reasons for a character to either decide to remain a lycanthrope or work to find a cure.
---
In terms of revealing the curse. Wereboars gain a strength of 17 if it isn't already. The character may notice that they feel stronger. A wereboar also drops to 1hp instead of 0 if reduced to 0 by 14 hit points of damage or less. This could happen to the character in combat and they might wonder why they aren't unconscious. You could also mention that silver seems to burn the character or that its senses might seem more acute (depending on the characteristics associated with boars). The character could also be angry more frequently or find themselves feeling more selfish (since wereboars are neutral evil). There would be changes to how the character thinks about their companions or interactions with NPCs that could also foreshadow the change. Finally, there is an actual transformation due to full moon or perhaps failed death saves as suggested above.
... but I would give it some careful thought in terms of whether lycanthropy is something you actually want as an ongoing effect on some of your characters in your campaign.
It gives some homebrew/house rules you can use to implement lycanthropy so it evolves/developes over a few levels.
Some other bits:
Boars are omnivores and are apparently good at sniffing out Truffles.....so maybe have the Cleric wake up one night and start sniffing for truffles and mushrooms, crawling on all fours and snuffling at tree roots., maybe introduce some DC10 Wisdom saves when they eat, if they fail then its hogs at the trough time and if they pass then they feel a sensation of needing to eat everything but it passes.
Wereboars in older editions were neutral aligned so you could tweak the curse a bit change the alignment to that instead of neutral evil.
Another option might be to play the lycanthropy like the Order of the Lycan Bloodhunter by giving them the bloodhunters "Hyrbid Transformation Features" ability once per long rest. That way they get a way to play the curse into Wereboar form but you dont have to worry about the lycanthropes usual resistances/immunities or over powering encounters etc. I've copied the hybrid featuyre below with a small adjustment for your reference:
Hybrid Transformation Features
While you are transformed, you gain the following benefits and drawbacks:
Feral Might. You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and you have a +1 bonus to melee damage rolls. This bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and to +3 at 18th level.
Resilient Hide. You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks not made with silvered weapons. Additionally, while you are not wearing heavy armor, you have a +1 bonus to AC.
Predatory Strikes. (I removed a section about adding crismon rite to unarmed strikes as your cleric wouldn't have crimson rites). You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes, which deal 1d6 bludgeoning or slashing damage (your choice). This damage increases to 1d8 at 11th level.
Additionally, when you use the Attack action to make an unarmed strike, you can make one additional unarmed strike as a bonus action.
Bloodlust. (Regardless of whether you are in normal or hybrid form), If you start your turn with fewer hit points than half your hit point maximum, you must succeed on a DC 8 Wisdom saving throw or move directly toward the nearest creature and use the Attack action against that creature. If you’re concentrating on a spell or are under an effect that prevents you from concentrating (such as the barbarian’s Rage feature), you automatically fail this saving throw.
If you have your Extra Attack feature, you can choose whether to use it for this frenzied attack. If more than one creature is equally near to you, roll randomly to determine your target. Once your attack is resolved, you regain control of yourself.
Another angle to deal with the OP mechanic side of it:
a) Maybe in your world the curse takes time. The immunity to normal weapons is the kind of thing that develops so for a long time he starts with Damage Resistance (ignore the first 5 points of damage) before it gets to full immunity. This would still make many combat encounters engaging without trivializing them at the onset. Perhaps it's a certain number of moons required to get to the full deal.
b) The downsides are often social. So create more social demands to balance it. And while it's a trope, nothing shakes up the party like the death of a favorite NPC at the hands of a werecreature.
If you REALLY want to dial up the drama, put the party on the heels of trying to track down a mystery monsters that always seems to strike at night and while they are sleeping/ making camp. Let the party slowly discover that the evil is them. :)
So the two questions are, what is a fun and somewhat common trigger that can cause the transformation? And what should the rules be for changing into the wereboar?
1) I would have the player character, on a full moon night, start agonizing while shapechanging into an hybrid form of Wereboars during on of the watch tour, taking waking up everyone in savagery and brutality. It would fight the party, forcing them to fight back and neutralize it to spare its life. The party would be forced to watch over it all night while snoring and grunting during unconsciousness, keeping most of them unable to sleep. In the morning, the character would awake with no memory and an insatiable thirst and hunger, and most likely gilt and urge to pray its god. This should be a shocking reveal! I would have the character slowly controlling it's lycanthropy, while frequently snifing or grunting unknowingly while seeing it's body getting more stocky and hairy.
2) The rules for Player Characters As Lycanthropes can be found in the Monster Manual, which also say the alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default but that you're free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign so Wereboars character in your game, may not necessarily be neutral evil.
It’s so interesting that it’s a cleric transforming into a lycanthrope.
Maybe a sacred temple or something that the character goes to has spells that reveal true forms? That could be interesting but it does depend on how pious your campaign is.
Not sure how people would feel about this one but use corruption points.
Malar is the Forgotten Realms god of evil lycanthopes, so assuming a similar god exsists in the OP setting grant the cleric the domain spells of the Nature domain in addition to those they normally get, these are from Malar trying to tempt the cleric.
Every time they cast a spell that is on the Nature Domain spell list they get a number of corruption points equal to the spells level and have to make a Wisdom Saving Throw witha DC of 10 + the number of corruption points they have and on a failure they "Boar out" and adopt their hybrid form, on a success they feel overly aggressive tendencies but otherwise over come it. You can then flavour the corruption points however you want, maybe they just start acting a little more surly and gradually become more violent etc.
If they get a number of corruption points equal to or exceeding their cleric level they lose access to their normal Cleric domain spells and abilities and switch fully to the Nature domain.
If they get 20+ corruption points they switch to worshipping Malar, become evil aligned etc.
As a DM you can then send them visions from their normal God warning them of somethng infecting their heart or giving some other cryptic warnings.
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getting stabbed and being resistant to non silver weapons
As for keeping a player as a werewolf I encourage keeping it as simple as possible.
Personally if I was to run a game with a were creature player I'd simply say they can't die to weapons that couldn't kill a werewolf e.g non magical/ non silvered weapons meaning but they can still be reduced to 0 hit points and fall unconscious. It easily becomes very complicated and unbalanced to give them a bunch of special abilities and stats. Minimalism is the easiest and most balanced option. The story justification would be that gaining animalistic abilities including leveraging their immunity to fight through lethal pain comes from the curse being in control. When ever they are triggered to transform they act like a wild animal with the standard were boar stat block and this should generally be a bad thing. If you can also do things like let the player pick some piggy aesthetics , double amount the food they eat or give the player a role play prompt like a flaw or madness but these should be kept non combat.
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Dear Dungeonmasters,
The title basically says it all. I have a player, a cleric, that has recently been infected with lycanthropy. He failed the save but I didn't tell them what happened exactly. Now I am faced with the fact that I have to and want to reveal this curse in some manner.
I want it to be a fun reveal. Im thinking of having some kind of trigger that transforms the player into their were-version (wereboar). It should still feel like a curse, but I want it also to be an option for them to keep it if they are okay with dealing with the curse.
So the two questions are, what is a fun and somewhat common trigger that can cause the transformation? And what should the rules be for changing into the wereboar?
Thank you in advance!
I feel like there are a few ways you could end up doing this:
Something involved with a full moon or something. A date night, festival, or other activity with a npcs around could make it really entertaining.
Another way to subtly foreshadow it is maybe with detect magic or other features like that, which would hint that it could happen.
I don’t know a ton about the rules of how it should happen, but I hope this helps
In my game, there are two triggers for Lycanthropy - the first is the usual full moon, the second is when you fail your second Death Saving throw. The beast comes out from within you to save itself, with 10hp and a desire to flee, then eat to heal. You could try using that method for it! they have no control, and could seriously hurt those nearby, but also get saved from death - ergo it being both a curse and a blessing, depending on your morals.
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I used the Moonbeam when I did a lycanthropy reveal in my previous campaign. The party was entering a restricted library where only certain people got access; the library had a permanent Moonbeam spell on the front door to ensure no shapechangers pretending to be authorized personnel could get through...and it outed the werewolf in the party.
If you use lycanthropy's damage mechanics (immunity to non-silvered damage), then you can easily hint that something is different with the cleric when the rest of the party is getting beat up after a rockslide or a bandit attack, but the cleric is just fine. In my games, lycans can't touch silver without it burning them, so they have to avoid paying with or accepting silver coins. Make an ale cost 3 silver, watch them shrink back from the payment or the change they get. These are commonplace and subtle, and it can make for really fun discoveries if they choose to research what is happening to them.
The Monster Manual has the rules for lycantropy.
As soon as the player chooses to keep the curse instead of doing anything he can to get rid of it, his character's alignment changes to Neutral Evil. This essentially means that he immediately loses control of his character if he refuses to act accordingly. A wereboar who embraces the curse wants to spread it to others, so he wants to infect the rest of his party. Unless the rest of his party willingly let themselves be infected, he immediately becomes hostile toward them. If the player refuses to play along with this, he loses control of his character who then becomes an NPC under your control. He may only regain control of his character if the curse is broken.
Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
There are at least two things to consider here - the mechanical aspects of lycanthropy and the role playing aspects. Whether lycanthropy will ultimately work in your campaign depends a lot on the players.
Mechanically, lycanthropy only really has mechanical benefits - the most important being immunity to bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage that isn't magical or silvered. The vast majority of monsters that the party will encounter will be unable to affect the lycanthrope. The Tarrasque is a CR30 creature, but the only way it can damage a lycanthrope is by swallowing it. Goblins, koblods, orcs, ogres, giants ... none of them can damage a lycanthrope. If you allow a character to become a lycanthrope then they will be able to wade through almost every combat and completely overshadow any of the other characters. This is so noticeable that the other players will start asking to become lycanthropes also.
Almost all of the downsides to being lycanthrope are social or role playing. People don't like lycanthropes since they often attack others. It is a CURSE but unfortunately, very little of the mechanics is actually a curse. The curse is that the character becomes a ravening beast at the full moon or can't control themselves. However, forcing this on the character removes player agency. The player can't decide what they do, the curse does. The player can't decide not to eat their friends, the curse makes them do it. The player can't decide not to eat the village children, the curse made them do it. However, most of that isn't much fun. Trying to control the curse should mean that the character should sometimes fail at it. If there is no chance of failure then most PCs will say "Sure, I want the benefits of being a lycanthrope, there don't seem to be any downsides."
----
However, being turned into a lycanthrope is a fantasy trope. If you really want to play it out then I'd strongly suggest toning down the mechanical benefits and introducing some mechanical downsides. Perhaps the beast within makes it difficult to get a good nights sleep. for example: There is a 1/4 chance that the character will not receive the benefits from a long rest. This would mean one day out of four on average the cleric would not restore hit points or recover spell slots.
Either way, if you really want to include lycanthropy as anything more than a curse that the characters really want to remove, you should ideally make it so that there are both mechanical and role playing reasons for a character to either decide to remain a lycanthrope or work to find a cure.
---
In terms of revealing the curse. Wereboars gain a strength of 17 if it isn't already. The character may notice that they feel stronger. A wereboar also drops to 1hp instead of 0 if reduced to 0 by 14 hit points of damage or less. This could happen to the character in combat and they might wonder why they aren't unconscious. You could also mention that silver seems to burn the character or that its senses might seem more acute (depending on the characteristics associated with boars). The character could also be angry more frequently or find themselves feeling more selfish (since wereboars are neutral evil). There would be changes to how the character thinks about their companions or interactions with NPCs that could also foreshadow the change. Finally, there is an actual transformation due to full moon or perhaps failed death saves as suggested above.
... but I would give it some careful thought in terms of whether lycanthropy is something you actually want as an ongoing effect on some of your characters in your campaign.
This article might be helpful: https://halflinghobbies.com/the-complete-guide-to-lycanthropy-in-dd-5e/
It gives some homebrew/house rules you can use to implement lycanthropy so it evolves/developes over a few levels.
Some other bits:
Boars are omnivores and are apparently good at sniffing out Truffles.....so maybe have the Cleric wake up one night and start sniffing for truffles and mushrooms, crawling on all fours and snuffling at tree roots., maybe introduce some DC10 Wisdom saves when they eat, if they fail then its hogs at the trough time and if they pass then they feel a sensation of needing to eat everything but it passes.
Wereboars in older editions were neutral aligned so you could tweak the curse a bit change the alignment to that instead of neutral evil.
Another option might be to play the lycanthropy like the Order of the Lycan Bloodhunter by giving them the bloodhunters "Hyrbid Transformation Features" ability once per long rest. That way they get a way to play the curse into Wereboar form but you dont have to worry about the lycanthropes usual resistances/immunities or over powering encounters etc. I've copied the hybrid featuyre below with a small adjustment for your reference:
Hybrid Transformation Features
While you are transformed, you gain the following benefits and drawbacks:
Feral Might. You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and you have a +1 bonus to melee damage rolls. This bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and to +3 at 18th level.
Resilient Hide. You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks not made with silvered weapons. Additionally, while you are not wearing heavy armor, you have a +1 bonus to AC.
Predatory Strikes. (I removed a section about adding crismon rite to unarmed strikes as your cleric wouldn't have crimson rites). You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes, which deal 1d6 bludgeoning or slashing damage (your choice). This damage increases to 1d8 at 11th level.
Additionally, when you use the Attack action to make an unarmed strike, you can make one additional unarmed strike as a bonus action.
Bloodlust. (Regardless of whether you are in normal or hybrid form), If you start your turn with fewer hit points than half your hit point maximum, you must succeed on a DC 8 Wisdom saving throw or move directly toward the nearest creature and use the Attack action against that creature. If you’re concentrating on a spell or are under an effect that prevents you from concentrating (such as the barbarian’s Rage feature), you automatically fail this saving throw.
If you have your Extra Attack feature, you can choose whether to use it for this frenzied attack. If more than one creature is equally near to you, roll randomly to determine your target. Once your attack is resolved, you regain control of yourself.
Another angle to deal with the OP mechanic side of it:
a) Maybe in your world the curse takes time. The immunity to normal weapons is the kind of thing that develops so for a long time he starts with Damage Resistance (ignore the first 5 points of damage) before it gets to full immunity. This would still make many combat encounters engaging without trivializing them at the onset. Perhaps it's a certain number of moons required to get to the full deal.
b) The downsides are often social. So create more social demands to balance it. And while it's a trope, nothing shakes up the party like the death of a favorite NPC at the hands of a werecreature.
If you REALLY want to dial up the drama, put the party on the heels of trying to track down a mystery monsters that always seems to strike at night and while they are sleeping/ making camp. Let the party slowly discover that the evil is them. :)
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1) I would have the player character, on a full moon night, start agonizing while shapechanging into an hybrid form of Wereboars during on of the watch tour, taking waking up everyone in savagery and brutality. It would fight the party, forcing them to fight back and neutralize it to spare its life. The party would be forced to watch over it all night while snoring and grunting during unconsciousness, keeping most of them unable to sleep. In the morning, the character would awake with no memory and an insatiable thirst and hunger, and most likely gilt and urge to pray its god. This should be a shocking reveal! I would have the character slowly controlling it's lycanthropy, while frequently snifing or grunting unknowingly while seeing it's body getting more stocky and hairy.
2) The rules for Player Characters As Lycanthropes can be found in the Monster Manual, which also say the alignment specified in a monster’s stat block is the default but that you're free to depart from it and change a monster’s alignment to suit the needs of your campaign so Wereboars character in your game, may not necessarily be neutral evil.
It’s so interesting that it’s a cleric transforming into a lycanthrope.
Maybe a sacred temple or something that the character goes to has spells that reveal true forms? That could be interesting but it does depend on how pious your campaign is.
Not sure how people would feel about this one but use corruption points.
Malar is the Forgotten Realms god of evil lycanthopes, so assuming a similar god exsists in the OP setting grant the cleric the domain spells of the Nature domain in addition to those they normally get, these are from Malar trying to tempt the cleric.
Every time they cast a spell that is on the Nature Domain spell list they get a number of corruption points equal to the spells level and have to make a Wisdom Saving Throw witha DC of 10 + the number of corruption points they have and on a failure they "Boar out" and adopt their hybrid form, on a success they feel overly aggressive tendencies but otherwise over come it. You can then flavour the corruption points however you want, maybe they just start acting a little more surly and gradually become more violent etc.
If they get a number of corruption points equal to or exceeding their cleric level they lose access to their normal Cleric domain spells and abilities and switch fully to the Nature domain.
If they get 20+ corruption points they switch to worshipping Malar, become evil aligned etc.
As a DM you can then send them visions from their normal God warning them of somethng infecting their heart or giving some other cryptic warnings.
There's a few options for a reveal
As for keeping a player as a werewolf I encourage keeping it as simple as possible.
Personally if I was to run a game with a were creature player I'd simply say they can't die to weapons that couldn't kill a werewolf e.g non magical/ non silvered weapons meaning but they can still be reduced to 0 hit points and fall unconscious. It easily becomes very complicated and unbalanced to give them a bunch of special abilities and stats. Minimalism is the easiest and most balanced option. The story justification would be that gaining animalistic abilities including leveraging their immunity to fight through lethal pain comes from the curse being in control. When ever they are triggered to transform they act like a wild animal with the standard were boar stat block and this should generally be a bad thing. If you can also do things like let the player pick some piggy aesthetics , double amount the food they eat or give the player a role play prompt like a flaw or madness but these should be kept non combat.