Making meals of Monsters

[fuzzlewump]

Here's a 'ritual' I made up in another thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/269516-d-d-world-cuisine.html

Roasted Dragon Tail
Succulent dragon meat, ready to fall off the bone; that is, unless you run into complications.
Level: 1
Category: Recipe (Cooking)
Time: 1 hour
Duration: Permanent
Component Cost: Special (see below)
Market Price: 20 gp
Key Skill: Arcana or History
Over a well-tended fire, you create a delicious meal of dragon tail. However, dragon tail loses much of its taste and fabled magical properties within hours of the killing of the dragon.

Cooking dragon, while an involved process, is full of quirks in order to reach a great product. During one point in the process, the dragon must be turned carefully and evenly a certain distance from a particularly sized fire at a certain speed. Historians are familiar with these quirks as they are the subject of many noble chefs memoirs in historic cultures, and arcanists know many quirks about dragons in general. In a well-prepared kitchen, you receive a +2 bonus on the arcana or history check to determine the result of the preparation.

During the feast following the procedures, if shared with creatures outside of your party, you receive a bonus to social skills: Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate when used on those creatures. These effects last no longer than a few hours during and after the feast. In addition, after their next extended rest, eaters of the feast receive temporary hit points equal to the arcana or history check divided by 4, and for the entire day following the feast, but only once during it, the eaters can choose to deal damage of the same type of the original dragon's breath weapon to an adjacent enemy when they spend a healing surge.

Dragon size: tail will feed this many medium creatures for a day. Cooked dragon tail lasts 24 hours.
Medium dragon: Feeds 5, costs 10 gp in components
Large dragon: Feeds 15, costs 150 gp in components
Huge dragon: Feeds 50, costs 400 gp in components

Arcana or History Check:
9 or lower: Failed dragon tail. The dragon, being a hard material to work with, is ruined.
10-19: Average dragon tail. A little too crisp on the edges, just barely past finished in the middle. Still, delicious. +1 on social skills. 1d8 damage
20-29: Great dragon tail. Savory and moist, cooked thoroughly and evenly. +2 on social skills. 2d8 damage.
30-39: Exquisite Dragon Tail: For many, this will be the best meal that most have ever eaten and ever will eat; and they were probably incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to eat it. It takes an very skilled cook. +3 on social skills. 3d8 damage.
40+: Perfect Dragon Tail: Otherworldly. The feelings of happiness and satiation and contentment are so exaggerated and full, it's been described by the few who have experienced it as a dream; the best dream they had ever had. +6 on social skills. 4d8 damage.

Special Component: Fresh dragon tail meat as well as rare spices or arcane component substitutes, detailed above with dragon size. Most commonly, it will be a dragon you have slain. Buying dragon tail past around 6 hours after death of the dragon or separation of the tail from a dragon's body while is not unheard of, does not possess any magical properties and is not nearly as sought after.

I broke all kinds of rules with this but that was fun.

 

[the Jester]

Oh HELL yeah I've had a lot of this kind of thing over the years; heck, I ran a halfling campaign!

In my campaign, dragon is completely deadly to consume. It's too full of raw energy. However, a tiny amount of the heart's blood of a red dragon can be used in order to distill a most potent and somewhat narcotic liquor called tiley. It costs about 2500 gp for a sip of tiley, but a sip is all it takes to get your average Con 10 human quite drunk.

The halfling party used to cook up all kinds of interesting things. Giant crabs were a favorite, as were giant eagle eggs (they later bluffed their way out of a fight with the giant eagle, who was looking for her lost eggs).

In 3e I made an edible jelly template for an adventure for the halfling group involving jam contests and the cheater that was leaving a trail of dead bodies behind.

The subject of dwarven cuisine has come up a lot in my game too; basically, it's the reason why dwarves have an innate resistance to poison. Dwarves drink a whole lot; the alcohol helps keep their food subdued.

I remember the old adventure Steaks from I13 too- basically a short adventure involving trying to find the secret of this restaurant's new steaks. It was one of those "dm, pick your own answer" kind of things- which was a bit of a cop out- but it had some cool suggestions: purple worm, unicorns, etc.

There have also been a few times when groups have had starvation issues and had to eat monsters to survive, but those have been much rarer over the years post-2e since create food and water became so much easier to obtain (through quicker advancement especially).

Hippogriff jerky, giant turtle soup, shark fin- oh yeah, there's been a ton of "let's cook the monster" in my campaign.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Y'know...fantasy realm cuisine could make this funny old joke into reality.

 

[Hussar]

Found this and thought it was fitting for the thread:

The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals by Ann and Jeff Vandemeer

On a more in game note, when I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, rations were often an issue. Eating demonic meat was a very bad thing in my game. IIRC, Book of Vile Darkness actually has some fairly decent rules for effects. The bigger question came with, "Can we eat orcs and kobolds?" Turned into some interesting role play.

 

[KOM]

slowly smoked goblin with honey base glaze. need to apply glaze several times to soften the meat and add a pleasent flavour. skinning would be perfered to pervent toxic poisioning

 

[renau1g]

Ironically enough, this is the basis for an adventure I'm running on the PbP boards.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/living...-chefs-request-dm-renau1g-judge-covaithe.html