It's finally Spring, a time for flowers, showers, and the dwarven meal, Delzoun "Tide-Me-Overs" from Heroes' Feast.
Like so many of the recipes in Heroes' Feast., there’s a lot taking the dish in and out of the oven to distill the juices for gravy. We condensed some of these steps to make the meal easier to cook and it worked well.
The recipe mentions that the meatballs are sweet and that’s definitely true. My daughter wasn’t thrilled about them, but I found them delicious. The brown sugar is certainly part of that.
One point of note is that baking meatballs at 475° was hot enough to raise the temperature in our little kitchen. Although it’s listed as a Spring tradition in the Forgotten Realms, preparation in the real world might be better for the end of winter. Or you could just grill them outside.
Narratively, weather can constrain game masters a bit in the stories they tell. Not worrying about the weather means playing whatever adventure fits the setting as needed, without placing it in a particular climate or time. But there’s a level of immersion that comes from a world with internal consistency. Changing seasons has significant implications, from worsening weather (depending on the region) to more aggressive animals in mating season. Spring is a great opportunity to have normally docile monsters turn into an adventuring opportunity.
You can keep track of weather in the Forgotten Realms with this helpful tool. There’s one for Greyhawk too. And if you prefer to create your own, you can use Fantasy Calendar—this tool has calendars for Ravenloft, Golarion, and Eberron too. Whatever you choose, a change in season can be an opportunity to disrupt PC’s travel plans … or just an excuse to eat meatballs.
You Turn: Do you keep track of seasons in your campaign?
A Spring Tradition
Like a few other curious dishes accredited to dwarves, dwarven meatballs are now canon in both Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. They’re listed on the menu of The Inn of the Last Home at 3 stl, but the description firmly positions the meal as hailing from the Forgotten Realms:Delzoun is a fallen dwarven nation in the Forgotten Realms:
Delzoun fell to an invasion of phaerimm, but its traditions live on in surface settlements. One of those traditions is Hornmoot:
As an Italian-American, I was curious to see how this metaball dish held up.
The Meal
Given these meatballs are in a brown gravy, the closest equivalent is probably Swedish meatballs. It pairs well with rice and mashed potatoes as a result.Like so many of the recipes in Heroes' Feast., there’s a lot taking the dish in and out of the oven to distill the juices for gravy. We condensed some of these steps to make the meal easier to cook and it worked well.
The recipe mentions that the meatballs are sweet and that’s definitely true. My daughter wasn’t thrilled about them, but I found them delicious. The brown sugar is certainly part of that.
One point of note is that baking meatballs at 475° was hot enough to raise the temperature in our little kitchen. Although it’s listed as a Spring tradition in the Forgotten Realms, preparation in the real world might be better for the end of winter. Or you could just grill them outside.
Rites of Spring
In typical adventuring games, weather tends to be mild or extreme: a pleasant Spring breeze or a snowstorm. There’s reason for this, because those are two states that either don’t affect the narrative (and can thus be easily ignored) or severely affect it, thereby becoming a major factor to be taken into account in the campaign.Narratively, weather can constrain game masters a bit in the stories they tell. Not worrying about the weather means playing whatever adventure fits the setting as needed, without placing it in a particular climate or time. But there’s a level of immersion that comes from a world with internal consistency. Changing seasons has significant implications, from worsening weather (depending on the region) to more aggressive animals in mating season. Spring is a great opportunity to have normally docile monsters turn into an adventuring opportunity.
You can keep track of weather in the Forgotten Realms with this helpful tool. There’s one for Greyhawk too. And if you prefer to create your own, you can use Fantasy Calendar—this tool has calendars for Ravenloft, Golarion, and Eberron too. Whatever you choose, a change in season can be an opportunity to disrupt PC’s travel plans … or just an excuse to eat meatballs.
You Turn: Do you keep track of seasons in your campaign?
