Innovative In-game Cuisine

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

For some time, I've wanted to include a new in-game exotic foodstuff: Stone transmuted to flesh. Edible stone. Does meated marble taste different from marbled meat? Would your PCs eat granite that was meat? Would you?

Better yet, what fantasy foods are served in your campaign? Fruit from the elemental plane of fire? Dragon Haggis?

 

[Testament]

A delicacy in the Republic of Hydebarad is grilled Chuul tentacles. While on the open grill, Ky'Husa (a local alcohol) is poured over them, and they are quickly extinguished, and served while still smoking. Apparently the paralyctic venom is the secret to the intense flavour kick they have.

The Duregar (who are desert Dwarves in my world) brew an intensely potent drink out of Scorpion venom. No-one else will touch it, for obvious reasons, while the Duregar name for it roughly translates out of their language as "sugar".

 

[The Shaman]

Just the usual: eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, tongue of dog...

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

[BUMP]What NPC dinner guest wouldn't be impressed when your PCs serve him or her a desert of sweetened diamonds with a sauce of pureed gold[/BUMP]

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

A delicacy in the Republic of Hydebarad is grilled Chuul tentacles. While on the open grill, Ky'Husa (a local alcohol) is poured over them, and they are quickly extinguished, and served while still smoking. Apparently the paralyctic venom is the secret to the intense flavour kick they have.

A paralytic poison being flavorful. Interesting. I could see it being neccesary to serve a mild paralytic with something that has an unpleasantly strong taste. The description you give though makes it too interesting to pass up. I'm putting together an exotic restuarant in my mind right now.

The Duregar (who are desert Dwarves in my world) brew an intensely potent drink out of Scorpion venom. No-one else will touch it, for obvious reasons, while the Duregar name for it roughly translates out of their language as "sugar".

I have something similar: a very stout liquor brewed from mushrooms, but with an odor and taste of trout. I don't remember the name right now, but I'm sure I will remember it as soon as I've posted. One-Eye's hogsmead is a mead that the Tarfoot Orcs brew in a hog's stomach (or bladder).

tongue of dog...

Never taste anything that can taste you back.

 

[The Shaman]

Never taste anything that can taste you back.

Back in the day before I became a vegetabletarian, I though beef tongue made tasty sandwiches...

The one epicurial rule I live by is, "Never eat anything bigger than your head."

 

[Zappo]

I've stolen the dwarf bread (a parody of lembas) from Discworld. It's the only bread that is smelted, rather than baked. They make it with sand in place of flour. They say that a loaf of dwarf bread can keep you going for months: just by thinking about it, your hunger vanishes. And it never goes stale (staler, at least). It makes for an effective blunt weapon too.

Some time ago, the party found a bottle of an unidentified tanar'ri beverage. After careful testing and an identify spell, they determined that the drink was 187% alcohol. Yes, that's right; the bubbles are actually microscopic pocket dimensions that contain many times their own volume in alcohol, resulting in a drink which is much stronger than 100% proof.

 

[Testament]

A paralytic poison being flavorful. Interesting. I could see it being neccesary to serve a mild paralytic with something that has an unpleasantly strong taste. The description you give though makes it too interesting to pass up. I'm putting together an exotic restuarant in my mind right now.

Glad you like the idea. For the record, Ky'Husa is served steaming hot, and is actually a mild hallucinogen rather than a true alcohol. Most foreigners can't stand the taste of it, as with most 'local' brews in real life.

Here's some more.

*Assassin Wine, harvested at great risk fresh from wild Assassin Vines. It's notoriously heady, with a distinctive musty taste. There's at least one vineyard trying to cultivate several varieties. The workers in the field are all undead, since the vines don't bother trying to kill them.

*Beholder's tongue goes for somewhere in the vicinity of 200 marks (gp) in the restaurants of the Empire. Carefully roasted and filleted, and served with an expensive red wine sauce.
Its eaten more for the prestige of being able to afford it than the taste, which is, from all reports, rather bland.

*Krakenmari. 'Nuff said.

*At least one desperate adventurer has reported that doppleganger tastes like whatever you want it to.

 

[philreed]

I'm starting to think that you make these threads specifically for Ronin Arts. Either that or we just have a wide variety of PDFs for DMs to use. Such as Menu Items and More Menu Items. Each one features twelve different items that could be found on the menu of an inn or tavern, including two different descriptions for each menu item (one for a common eatery and one for a fine, fancy establishment). We even included a one-page menu that a DM can use as a handout in More Menu Items.

 

[Chaldfont]

Here's a cut-n-paste from my notes for an adventure where the PCs are forced to travel to a drow city. It's inspired by something I heard on NPR about a ramen place in Japan (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1604880).

Hehehe, the ranger in the party failed his Con check to get a bowl (and the chef smacked him with a big iron spoon), used a hat of disguise to cut back in line and, when he finally got his food, rolled really low on his Fort save. The other PCs, spellcasters, made their saves and didn't get sick.

Ramen-Toa
Baanjopoolp promised to get the PCs a space in line to the most popular food cart in the Arch. Normally, one has to wait hours to get a steaming bowl of greasy noodle soup, but Baanjo pays beggars to stand in line for him. Sometimes (ok, most of the time) line-cutting leads to a fight (this is a chaotic drow city after all). In this case, the group cuts in front of a Large humanoid wearing a hide cloak. It is a hungry maur, who welcomes the chance to stretch out for a good row.
The reason for this long line is that ramen-toa smells so good that one must make a Will save (DC 12) to resist jumping in line. And because of the magical nature of one of the ingredients (see below), it just gets harder to resist after eating just one bowl.
Once they make it to the front of the line, an old fat kuo-toa named Fuku-Ando serves up either a small or large order of ramen-toa. Just like Seinfeld’s soup-nazi, Fuku-Ando suffers no deviation from his strict rules. It takes a Concentration check (DC 15, but Baanjo helps out for a +2), just to get a bowl! If a character manages to follow the rules and get a bowl, he may try to finish it (Fort DC 20 for small, 25 for large). Anyone who cannot finish a bowl will not ever be allowed to have another and may even be attacked by other patrons.
Of course, as good as the ramen-toa is, its hell on your digestive system. Ramen-toa acts as a magical poison with two affects: the mundane effect of cramps, diarrhea, gas and other unpleasantness caused by the greasy noodle soup (Fort DC 20 primary: sickened 1 hour/secondary: nauseated 1d4 hours, second saving throw is made after one hour, not one minute as is usual); and a magical weakening of the will (no saving throw) from the cranium rat brains. The magical effect manifests as a –4 penalty to Will saving throws that is reduced at the rate of one point per day (e.g. –3 after one day, -2 after two, etc.). The penalty to Will saves goes completely unnoticed, but may be removed by a remove curse. This is the effect the mind flayers intended when they introduced the cranium rats into the Throat.