A humanity in which eating a slain animal is a sacred act and cannibalism even more so, in fact has been for as long as anybody can remember
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Of course there are parasites, but humans have had time to coevolve and breed symbionts to keep more malicious parasites and prions at bay
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Eating someone, you become part of their extended family, host the same guests the rest of the family shares, sometimes jealously protects
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Symbionts that produce certain vitamins, stimulate muscle growth, protect against diseases, repel mosquitoes, heighten the mood
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Add magic to the mix: certain symbionts grant magical powers. Wizards, to be less tasty and not be hunted down, eat disfiguring parasites
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"Great power comes at great cost" - like being the equivalent of a leper.
Children aren't considered persons until they've consumed flesh:
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Some are used in experiments to separate the power-symbionts of great wizards from their parasites, killed if they don't catch symbionts
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Some symbionts are incompatible - it is a complicated science to find just the right combinations and some paraethnicities form around that
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Be too eclectic and a bad interaction may kill you
Cities where they put citizenship-symbionts in the water supply and food
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okay okay time for another world building entry:
synkretie.net/writings/world
(you get three ways of human inheritance! exciting!)
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