Dietary Lock

A metabolism locked to a specialty amino balance: thrives on its own rations, sickens on anything else.

A metabolism tuned to a precise amino and trace-element balance -- the in-fiction price of a high-specialisation line. On the correct rations the bearer runs clean and efficient. On standard fare the balance slips inside a day, and the body lets the bearer know it through fogged reflexes, dragging attention, and a creeping exhaustion that deepens the longer the wrong food holds. It is a logistics drawback, and in the field logistics is everything.

Rules Reference

Field	Value
Category	drawback
Engineering Lineage	Helix high-specialisation commercial lines (Vatspire batch-tuned metabolisms)
Point Cost	-2
Point Direction	grant

Notes

Effect Text: Requires specialty rations (4x standard cost). On standard rations after 24 h: -1 to all attack rolls, ability checks, and saves until properly fed; CON save each further day or gain one level of Exhaustion. Grants build points.

Lore Note: Deliberate, by Helix design: a line locked to its rations is a line bound to its supplier, and the Vatspire's batch-tuned metabolisms keep the catalogue's clients coming back. The specialty rations cost four times standard, and the Rim is full of dietary-locked stock trading hard for a case of the right feed. Sawbones know the failure mode -- a locked body on standard food is a body quietly running down -- and they stock the feed where they can.

Trait Id: Dietary Lock

Mechanical Effects

condition: always

Field	Value
condition	always
modifier	specialty only (4x cost)
target	ration requirement

condition: after 24 h on standard rations

Field	Value
condition	after 24 h on standard rations
modifier	-1
target	attack/ability/save rolls

condition: each further day on standard rations

Field	Value
condition	each further day on standard rations
modifier	1 level per day (CON save negates)
target	Exhaustion