First, I see a weretiger, a nasty and fantastic beast inspired by the old werewolf tropes of European myth. It is a meaty ingredient with lots of flavor. Part man, part beast, all awesome!
And what's this...an Aerial Swamp?? Where does he find this crazy stuff! It will be very interesting to see how our contestants cook up these seemingly contradictory elements--the temptation of course, will be to emphasize one and diminish the other. You can bet our judges will be watching this ingredient very closely.
And here we have...Human Slavers! I know that many of you might assume this ingredient has a plain, vanilla-like flavor, but you are so very wrong! See, here in this kitchen, most DMs think of slavers as decidedly non-human!
There seems to be a bit of a disturbance over on the other side of Kitchen Stadium...some struggling, some rioting...I'm not sure what's going on, but I'll try to get a closer look... ... ...oh this is very interesting. Chairman Radiating Gnome has brought out Universal Suffrage as an ingredient! This is one of the game's most savory motivators. DMs used to cook with this a great deal back in the 70s, but you don't see it all that often anymore.
And on the far table, the Chairman has placed two more ingredients...I don't really know how to describe them. They...wait, the Chairman is speaking now. I'll try to translate the Japanese...it's difficult; I don't really speak it fluently...but...oh my. I am told that these items are a "Broken Chronometer" and a "Songbow!"
A broken chronometer! This is the sort of ingredient that can bring robust, delicious flavor to the meal, or it can send it right into the trash. The chef must be very careful when handling this, because it can easily overpower the dish with unwanted sci-fi aromas or bad 80s TV flavor. If handled correctly, though, the dish will absolutely sing with flavor!
And speaking of "singing," the Songbow here is impressive. This is the sort of ingredient that is selected to challenge the chef's creativity. Is it a thing? Is it a person? Can it be anything else? The temptation will be to pigeonhole the Songbow into a single place, and season it heavily. But doing so runs the risk of burying all of those delicate layers of flavor that the Songbow could bring.
