Anthropophagy

Anthropophagy is the Endowment of the hunter conspiracy the Faithful of Shulpae in Hunter: The Vigil.

Anthropophagy is the secret ability for members of the Faithful to absorb the immortality and abilities of monsters, i.e. "gods", they eat.

A hunter with this Endowment can eat a monster and absorb its Dread Powers. To use Anthropophagy, she must kill the monster and eat pounds of its flesh equal to the dots she seeks to acquire. This devouring occurs in a single setting.

In the case of a monster with the Revivify Endowment, that creature can return to life after a number of weeks equal to the hunter’s Anthropophagy dots. If the hunters do not successfully kill the monster first, feasting on a pound of flesh causes the monster one lethal level of damage.

A group of hunters with Anthropophagy can share a single corpse, but only one given hunter can gain any given Dread Power; the character with the highest Anthropophagy dots gets first pick. The monster must have enough flesh to feed the entire group. As a rule, a monster has about three pounds of edible flesh per dot of Size. This amount may be reduced in the procurement; every health level of lethal damage on the monster counts for one pound that’s effectively rendered inedible.

The human stomach is not meant to process that much raw flesh. For every pound devoured in excess of a hunter’s Stamina dots, that hunter suffers one lethal damage as a result.

Once a hunter has devoured the monster, she may spend a point of Willpower. After doing so, the hunter gains a dot in any one of the monster’s Dread Powers that are greater than that of the hunter’s, up to the number of dots she’s earned in Anthropophagy.

The hunter can have a number of dots in the Revivify Dread Power equal to her Anthropophagy dots, and a number of dots equal to her Anthropophagy in other Dread Powers as well. Those dots may be divided however she chooses among any other combination of Dread Powers.

The hunter may abandon any of these Dread Powers at any point in time, reflexively. To fuel them, she’ll use her own Willpower. Additionally, killing someone and devouring their flesh breaks Integrity.

References

• HTV: Mortal Remains, p. 112