Equipping a fantasy adventurer

submitted by Cornfed from self.Fantasy

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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

You can go without food for a long time

If you're chilling at home, yeah. Other health issues aside, you can look at someone as having a bank of 3500 calories they have available to spend for every lb of weight they have above starvation, but basal metabolism is eating up 2-2.5k of that every day also.

And that's not the only issue, below 1200 calories or a without a certain amount of fat, and our hormones stop functioning correctly.

Also refeeding syndrome, which is really unpleasant if not fatal. Once you go as little as two weeks without calories, eating again can make you very sick.

And blood sugar levels. People get light headed without food.

I didn't mean to go on so much about this one point and now I have to run, I'll try to address more of your reply later.

[–]Cornfed[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I've gone more than two weeks without food. I'm actually 4 days into a fast now. Yes it can cause problems but they can be managed. Suffice to say, probably you could hunt for food when you couldn't buy food. On the average fantasy quest, would your character really have to go that long without food he wasn't carrying? We are presumably assuming he is not already emaciated or diabetic or whatever.

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Depends what kind of country he's travelling through.

An inhabited place would have some kind of inn a day's walk from each other (for exactly that kind of traveler). Out in the wilderness you'd probably have to think about conserving your calories and how you can live off the land. And just hunting isn't going to keep you going so you're going to have to put a few hours aside each day just to find food.

[–]Cornfed[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Maybe you set snares at night. Once a week or so you catch a pig or deer. You gorge yourself, cut and dry strips of meat and live off them the rest of the time. In the right environment you could probably do that indefinitely.

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If you are catching something once a week that means you have to carry a week's worth of food.

A few strip of meat a day won't sustain you if you are walking all day and burning calories. This is why people used to have bread as their staple food.

[–]Cornfed[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That doesn't follow. The need for food is generally overrated.