Sweet Tooth
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"How can I tell you're a TK? Let me see … you're what? Four eleven? And in the last half hour you've demolished what must surely be your own weight in icecream. If you were a normal woman and ate like that you'd look like a basketball - it's just that since most TKs are men, hardly anyone notices."

Basic Information

A character with a Sweet Tooth has a very strong craving bordering on obsession for anything containing sugar.

To qualify, the character should be noticably more attracted to sweet things than a normal member of his apparrent1 species. The species thing is important given that some (e.g. cats) have very little ability to taste "sweet" whilst others have a diet consisting of little but sugars (e.g. nectar-eating insects or hummingbirds). Humans fall somewhere in between, having an evolved taste preference for high energy foods rich in sugars and fats which is strong early in life but tends to decline with age.

When dealing with human characters the sweet tooth may be used to indicate youth or immaturity (due to the tendency for sugar preference to decline with age) - if the character merely gorges on 'dessert foods' such as cakes and puddings it may be an indication of a lack of self control and/or gluttony rather than a sweet tooth.

See Also

Characterization Tropes

Sources

Bibliography

Game and Story Use

  • This might hide an alien metabolism with different food requirements than humans.
    • Alien Insectoids disguising themselves as human are typically displaying this behavior.
  • In some interpretations, empowered individuals who use a lot of their own energy in manifesting their powers (telekinetics are a favourite for this) may require a high energy diet to remain functional. Arguably fats are probably a better source of dietary energy, but sugars are probably more palatable than eating a pound of lard every so often.
  • In some fantasy interpretations, fairies have a fondness for sugar.
    • Which could be useful, if you ever need to bribe a fairy.
    • Only downside is, it makes them even more hyper.
  • In some treatments of the Cthulhu Mythos Lovecraftian Ghouls are almost as fond of chocolate and sweets as they are of decaying human and will accept either as payment for ransom, bribes etc.
    • "Scary thing that likes sweets" is a useful meme, either as an 'interesting fact' or as something that helps humanise a monster.
  • It's possible for the side-effects of medicine to give you a sweet tooth. There's at least one anxiety medication that causes intense carbohydrate cravings that are really hard to resist. If a character is struggling with this, it may give the PCs an inroads for bribery, distraction, or manipulation.
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