Magic Munchies: Using Special/Enchanted Foods & Drinks in Games

[AFGNCAAP]

Here's something else that I was wondering about (watching LotR: TTT & the e-Heroes thread helped stir this up):

Do you use "magical" foods &/or drinks in your games? When I say "magical," it can be something outright enchanted (like enchanted ale or magic cupcakes) or pseudo-mythic/legendary (like the golden apples from Norse myth or the elves' lembas bread from Lord of the Rings).

If so, how obvious is the magic in it? Does it have subtle effects (a small amount of the food is very filling, or helps rid fatigue quickly), or is the magic blatant (eating fruit or meat that acts like curing potions, or consuming food or drinks that restore youth or change your size)?

Just curious to see what's out there.

 

[Bloodsparrow]

Something that is mentioned a lot is that Darksun doesn't have potions, but instead uses fruits.

On the Mythic food subject, don't forget the Ambrosia of the Greek Pantheon and the Soma of the Norse. And as far as I can recall... The golden apples were not for eating... Or at least, eating the golden apples were never mentioned in any of the stories I've come across. But people always REALLY want them... Even the gods. So they must have some other properties or be REALLY REALLY yummy.

There is the spell "Good Berry" that enchants berries to give a day's worth of sustenance.

You can Create Food and Water as a Cleric... And there is the ever full water jug, and the bowl that creates oatmeal once a day... (I forget what it's called.)

You can use Prestidigitation to make things taste better.

And then there are traditional potions.

That was another thing, I seem to recall in 2ed there being something about how it was bad to imbibe TOO many potions. Something about the potions reacting to each other in the imbiber's tummy... Is this something that has continued on to 3ed? And would it apply to magically enchanted foods?

 

[Marius Delphus]

Potion Miscibility also appeared in 1E (don't know offhand about OD&D). Drinking a second potion while the first was still in effect was very risky... among other things, you might end up with one potion taking permanent effect, with neither potion in effect, or dead via explosion. Potion Miscibility was removed from the game because it created a chance characters would gain permanent new abilities merely by "rolling well" and that went against the 3E philosophy.

Murlynd's Spoon creates nasty gruel when *placed* in a bowl...

Sustaining Spoon: This unremarkable eating utensil is typically fashioned from horn. If the spoon is placed in an empty container the vessel fills with a thick, pasty gruel. Although this substance has a flavor similar to that of warm, wet cardboard, it is highly nourishing and contains everything necessary to sustain any herbivorous, omnivorous, or carnivorous creature. The spoon can produce sufficient gruel each day to feed up to four humans. Faint conjuration; CL 5th; Craft Wondrous Item, create food and water; Price 5,400 gp.

In one campaign of my acquaintance, magical food is dispensed by the god of chaos; eating a morsel creates any one of several thousand effects (chosen by the player's rolling many dice and the DM's consulting one of many books as determined by the die roll... it's quite intimidating for a risk-averse player like myself ). I've had height changes, skin/hair/teeth color changes, a new follower arrive, and a sudden new ancestral lineage; I've seen much stranger things happen to other characters.

Dwarf NPCs in one of my campaigns can change perishable food so that it won't spoil (the PCs haven't gotten the secret of it yet) and it's rumored they can create a half-strength heroes' feast just by assembling the right ingredients. In the same campaign, the elves are suspected of eating all manner of strange things, but really they're just creative vegetarians. The halflings grow a spice that, when added to a certain kind of potato, acts to delay fatigue for a couple hours (mostly harmless; the only side effect being that the fatigue is stronger when the effect wears off).