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Have been studying ways in which magic could be used to feed starving refugees and the adventurers.

One player has an idea. The spell "Stone to Flesh"

The caster can change 50 pounds of stone to "flesh" per level.
So, is that meat?

What I really want to know is, since the spell is permanent, costs 30(?) PPE, can the adventurers find some rocks, then cast the spell and start BBQ to eat and serve up to the starving refugees?

I have always held that, yes, you can do this. It is not "de-petrify", but "turn stone into flesh", which means you can turn a rock into meat.

What kind of meat? I lean towards a pork or chicken analogue, but I would, for example, let someone use a combination of spells to make what they want... make a cow out of clay (with or without the spell), turn it into stone, then turn the stone into meat? You have beef. Was that clay, then stone, ever cow? No. But you turned a non-living stone cow into a non-living flesh cow, so you have beef, and tripe, and hooves, because magic. I think there's precedent for this, from the spell combinations suggested by "Sculpt and Animate Clay Animals" (7th level Earth Warlock); leave off "Breath of Life" and you've got a corpse.

However, if you've got Create Bread and Milk, and "Stone to Potato", you've got a pretty good meal going.

Create Bread and Milk is the typical go-to spell.

However, if you want to get fancy, you could use the rules in Nightbane WB 3 to formulate your own spells...
Create Soup and Salad for starters
Create Steak and Lobster Tails for entrée
Create Apple Pie and Ice Cream for dessert

Basically, you should always have a culinary wizard on your team...

As an idea for GMs re Stone to Flesh, don't make it too easy for the players. It says "flesh", but what kind? Make up a random roll table and if the option rolled was human flesh... maybe with a partially formed ear or nose just to make a point of it... Perhaps in desperate circumstances, where it is the only option for sustenance, PCs would need an attribute check for ME. Keep it interesting...

Question:
Are Rifts Ley Line Walkers and such permitted to select the "Create Bread and Milk" as an invocation spell?

Do animals, like dogs and such, eat bread and milk?

I would think of it as a go to spell but imagine going for weeks eating nothing but bread and milk for breakfast lunch and dinner.

If a necromancer we came across with a chicken bone brewed some chicken soup I'd be singing their praises and offer them the bones of my enemies.

Tastes better than dirt.

Fusionist and russian Nature guy gets it.


BTW. Just thought of something.

Can stone to flesh spell be used to create skin grafts for paramedics and medical doctors to quick patch injured patients?

Now that is an interesting question. I don't have an answer, but I'd be more inclined to allow it if

1) You made a patient-like sculpture
2) You were using magical or psionic healing.

The patient-like shape would be sympathetic magic to make sure the flesh was more likely to be compatible, the magic or psychic healing would help integrate it into the body more seamlessly.

I love coming up with creative ways to use magic and psionics

For Stone to Flesh used on a rock, I'd make it come out like tofu. Edible and filling, but not satisfying like a steak.

The other option for starving refugees is the good old Sustain spell. It affects two others by touch, is only 5th level, lasts for a day per caster level, and only costs 12 PPE.

I think somewhere I created a Techno-Wizard food dehydrator that made Sustain-infused beef jerky. One ounce of jerky was as filling as a normal meal.

Yes, LLW could learn it through level advancement or purchase.

Dogs are able to eat bread like humans in moderation as they are omnivores. Bread-only diets are not particularly nutritious long term for either humans or dogs. Milk causes nastiness. Other animals depend on the species. For example, cats are carnivores and should not be fed bread.


Here, I might suggest packing the wound with pebbles rather than sculpting. However, I agree that a second spell of healing would be needed for a basic graft. Especially if the pebbles are dirty and could contaminate the wound. With psionics, I'd say psychic surgery would be required if nerves and such needed connecting.

Oh, that's brilliant.

[quote]However, I agree that a second spell of healing would be needed for a basic graft. Especially if the pebbles are dirty and could contaminate the wound. With psionics, I'd say psychic surgery would be required if nerves and such needed connecting.

I'd let you get away with a psychic healing touch, but I think psychic surgery or, if the psychic themselves were injured, bio-regeneration. Psychic surgery would be better, but some sort of magical healing to make sure the graft took immediately would help.

Like boiled chicken, eww.

I know it is unique to Wormwood as a spell of communion, but perhaps some variant of the Summon Edible Grubs (DB 01 pg 89) could be used by Summoners. Perhaps summons something like witchetty grubs that tastes like almonds.

The question was brought up to challenge the adventurers to a non-combat problem. I know they all have wilderness survival but that won't be enough to feed everyone and is unsustainable in a given area.

Sustain is an awesome spell that replaces eating food. The only disadvantage is non-mechanical in that characters act like robots. Also, miss out on experience points from skill uses. I also want to reward players with morale or at least npc's when they do human living things like relaxing with a good meal, bathing, enjoying music. The buff I reward with is a saving through bonus or skill bonus.

The refugees sing the heroes praises as they save them from famine, lift their spirits with domestic and performance skills, shepard them to the closest town while fending off predators, slavers, and such. They can't take off or the people will be picked off. The people are vulnerable not the players.

Casting a spell is problematic if you are looking for players to work for their XP. It's just too easy. However, perhaps have them run down their PPE to absolute minimum levels so they have no reserves in case they need to cast in defense.

Or have them struggle to cast... perhaps they enter a strange d-shifting zone where there are phenomena that act as wafting Anti Magic Clouds or a magical dampening field. These could disrupt the ability of spells and force the party to rely on ritualistic casting for the stronger spell strength. However, raiders might strike during the rituals disrupting the magic. Maybe they have to invent the ritual based on what little they know of the spells they know... could lead to some surprising outcomes.

Or have hordes of alien ants eat all the food as fast as they are able to squirrel it away for the journey. Follow the ants to their ant hill to recover the food. Tracking and xenobiology XP!

Or have one of the refugees steal the food. And have them sprinkle crumbs on someone else. Who's telling the truth? Investigation skills XP!

Have them pass by an indefensible farm or village where some refugees may choose to settle down, with or without the permission of the current farmer/villagers. Or have someone steal crops. Fight off angry farmers or make amends despite limited resources? Alignment check XP!

Stone to flesh flesh would not be fulfilling in the slightest. It would create the tissue, but you're talking flesh with no developed muscle, no nutrients, other than the nutrients from that particular rock itself. Since by the logic that it can convert any rock to flesh, it doesn't say that it creates any particular nutrients or anything like that. So you'd still be eating rock, just soft gooey rock.

I find this to be a specious conclusion; after all, if you cast Stone to Flesh on a transformed person, they become that person again. If you cast Stone to Flesh on the subject of a "Sculpt and Animate Clay Animals" creature (having first turned the clay to stone), you create a corpse, not an undifferentiated slab of meat.

Especially if the stone were shaped into an animal shape, I see no reason it wouldn't make actual meat. Make stone turkey legs, and you get turkey legs when you turn them into flesh.

I guess the metaphorphosis spells would be the best way to use magic eat people.
Like turn into a dragon or some.

Sprinkle the rocks with extra minerals and vitamins just to make sure. 'Mystery meat' might fill your belly, but long-term, a regular diet is recommended for health purposes.

If the spell couldn't create nutrients, petrified people wouldn't return to normal when the spell was cast on them; they'd turn to dead.

The spell effect is: "transforms stone to flesh."

Transform- to change in composition or structure
Stone- hard solid nonmetallic mineral matter of which rock is made.
Flesh- the soft substance consisting of muscle and fat that is found between the skin and bones of an animal or a human.

There's nothing in the spell saying the flesh is created is special in any way, not that it's especially tasty and healthy to eat, nor that it's untasty and/or unhealthy.
It's just average flesh.
Just like the Basilisk's petrification ability doesn't say the stone created is soft and/or fleshlike in any way, so it's not.
Just like "Create Bread & Milk" doesn't say that it's only skim milk and Keto bread, so it's not.
Just like Fireball doesn't say it creates luke-warm fire that splashes around like water, or flows like air.

If the spells don't specify or describe an effect, it isn't there.
If we didn't know, for example, that the spell could be used to de-petrify people turned to stone, the description would only affect their actual flesh, leaving bone and skin still stoned.
But it does say that, so we do know it, or at the least can safely assume it.

Meat, fat, sinew, etc.
Everything but bone, skin, and I think the organs.



I don't see any reason why not.
I could make up some reasons if you like, but I don't see any reasons that necessarily exist.

Thanks Killer Cyborg,

I want player to be able to use magic and psionics creatively as long as it is NOT a direct attack that instantly kills who ever is opposing them without a chance.

If you have any ideas on creative uses of spells for flavor and to solve problems (not fighting) please share.

Very Respectfully,