The Pitch

So, I would like to run a vore-themed game of pathfinder. I've seen a few people running games like this and I would like to try my paw at it. My approach might be a bit different though. Even though vore would feature predominantly, I would see it as primarily a story=driven game. Some vore might happen in combat, but I foresee most vore happening outside combat with NPCs.

At the same time, I don't want a game that is nothing but eating each other. In my game I would like combat, storytelling, and vore to all sort of transition into each other, breaking the monotony of the other two. There would be full scale combat, story arcs, AND detailed vore scenes, just not all the time. In fact whole sessions could go by without one of those elements. I don't want to compromise any of them.

Since I’d like to take the story seriously, I would like to take the vore seriously. When someone gets eaten, whether its an NPC or PC, it needs to matter. There's not going to be permavore, as that would make vore really high stakes and probably impossible to work with. Reforming takes time, and is only possible under certain circumstances, so it’s more than just a minor inconvenience. I’ll get more onto that later

Goals

There are a few reasons I want to do this. First, I would like to try to have a setting where vore happens in some kind of context. I would like there to be ramifications for vorish actions, both positive and negative. Doing one vore RP after another, in total isolation, feels like being stuck in the Groundhog Day movie. In this game, eating NPC A will have an effect on NPC B, and so on.

The second reason is more simple: I really want to be part of a long-running RP with a group of people. Pathfinder seems like the popular choice for a ongoing RPG, but I would happily run Ironclaw or learn a new system (heck I would run F. A. T. A. L. If I had to at this point). I just miss having a long running game.

Third, I have come up with a furry, vorish campaign setting that I really want to play with. I've been quietly working away at it for years, and I'd be bummed if it never went anywhere. I will get more into that later.

How I plan for it to work

Vore and reformation in my game is based on "soul storage." When a predator digests their prey, they obtain and store the prey's soul within their body. Depending on how familiar the predator and prey were beforehand, they might even be able to communicate. Most towns are built around Artifacts of Reforming, which allow predators to bring those they've digested back to life. There are also one-time-use reforming crystals that can be taken with you. A particularly magical being might be able to reform their prey (or even themselves) without a crystal, but that ability has a long cool-down and is very physically draining. If a predator eats another predator, they get all of the souls that that predator ate. They could thus "save" any prey that had been eaten by a nefarious predator by eating them.

So say one of the players ate a locksmith NPC and then later needed to break in to something. They would have the option to reform the locksmith and see if they will help out. This is also a great way to transport prisoners.

As great as all this sounds, it does come with a cost. First of all, anyone who takes the vorish feats is marked as a predator and MUST eat someone every few days. Each day that a predator doesn’t eat someone, a little counter will go down by one step, which eventually leads to stat penalties. The only way to reset this counter is eat someone. They’ll have a few days, but after a few sessions they will be pretty much forced to sneak into some village and gobble up a resident.

This leads me to the second issue, almost all NPCs are unwilling prey. Even though most towns are built around Artifacts of Reforming, that still doesn’t mean that random villagers and farmers are willing prey. The nearest Artifact may be several days walk away. There’s no guarantee that the predator will reform them any time soon, or even at all! There’s obviously going to be a stigma between the prey species and the predator species.

There’s one last bit that I’d like to cover, too. Since the souls of the digested prey can communicate with the predator if they know them well, this means that a digested PC may still be able to take an active role. I haven’t quite nailed down the mechanics of how that’ll work, though. I’d like to experiment.

Random Character Ideas

Here’s a list of some random NPCs/PCs I’ve thought of just to sort of be thematic.

Aureana is a female jaguar cleric. She’s the type that’s always out there to do good and help others in need. While preaching, she would talk about how important respecting nature was and how the food chain was part of it. She felt like - because she eats people - she has to devote herself to society.

Barron Caseum III is the lord of a small village. He is a mouse, and he outright forbids any predators from eating him, or any of his friends and family. All such mice mark themselves by wearing blue and gold capes, all the rest of the rodents he seems to not care about.

There is an evil band of slavers lead by an anthro wolf. They abduct their slaves by eating them and reform them into chains at their own hideout. Somehow they’ve managed to get their hands on an Artifact of Reformation of their own.

The world of Miiar

I’ve thought a bit about the actual back-story and setting the game is going to take place in, too. Here is a bit of history:

Hundreds of years ago a powerful necromancer was on a worldwide conquest. Hundreds of kingdoms had fallen to him and been reduced to undead wastelands. Everything the living races could throw at this necromancer was slain and turned undead, making his undead empire even more powerful. He was even starting to get to the level where he would start slaying and defeating the very gods.

The trouble was, while it would take the living races years and years to raise a formidable army, the necromancer could raise an equal sized undead army with about as much effort as snapping his fingers. That’s not to mention all the resources that the living races needed - food and supplies - that the necromancer could simply ignore. Even a victory against the necromancer would scarcely mean anything, since another undead army would simply be awaiting the victors.

Since the very life of the world was threatened and civilization was collapsing, a bunch of druids came up with an epic-level spell, empowered by desperate nature gods. That spell was to “transform every wild beast of the forest into an army" and thus created anthros. Now the living races could raise armies just as easily as the necromancer, and the war eventually came to a close.

Now, unfortunately, there weren’t nearly enough domestic animals to feed all the obligate carnivore anthros. There was barely enough food to feed the surviving humans, much less all of the new anthro herbivores. On top of the food shortage, all of the animals still held all their previous instincts. They had, after all, been wild animals only a short while earlier. So they all started eating each other despite having been given sentience. What was left of civilization completely collapsed. The dwarves hid in their mines, the elves disappeared into dark mystical forests, and the humans fell to barbarism.

There were still a whole lot of necromancy doodads laying around from the previous war. Eventually an order of wizards of unknown origin developed the technique for soul storing and reforming using the Artifacts. However, the area where that technology/magic is available is still relatively small. Most of the rest of the world is covered with herbivore and carnivore anthros fighting with each other.

What I’m looking for in a player

Just from reading everything so far, I hope that you have sort of an idea of what kind of player I’m looking for. The game is going to be character based and story driven. The players need to be ok with plot-heavy stuff, even though vore is pivotal element. None of this “I eat him cause he looks gud,” stuff. Just like I'd rather not have players randomly set livestock on fire because they think it'd be funny. That being said, I'd like them to really enjoy the vore when it happens too. I like to think of it as the vore-equivalent of romance in a epic fantasy novel.

I hate to say it, but I sort of foresee this game appealing mostly to people who plays as predators but don't mind being a switch occasionally. I think I could accomidate a pred-only player, but I don't know if I'd be able to make a prey-only (or even mostly-prey-only) player happy. If they did get eaten all the time, they wouldn't be able to directly involve themselves nearly as much. Who knows, though, maybe I'm wrong.

Above all, I need players who will make the effort to be present at each gaming meet-up. I need their patience as well. I am HARDLY an expert at Pathfinder. In fact, I've barely played D&D before, so I'll be learning as I go.

Also I'm working on a map for the campaign setting right now.