Last column I covered food in a macro scale and how it could influence a setting. In this column I am going to discuss the logistics of food for the purposes of worldbuilding. Contemporarily, farms and ranches produce most of our food. Seafood, of course, is harvested from the oceans via fishing ships, but aquaculture is used in the production of sea vegetables, shrimp and some species of fish.
This may not be the case in a given setting, which may feature magical foods, advanced science-fiction production methods, or some other means of feeding a populace. A good example of an alternate food source comes from the Bible, in the form of manna which was sent from heaven to feed the Israelites during their exile.
A more macabre example could occur in a science fiction setting with transporter technology. A person enters the booth, and they are scanned, transformed into information, and then reconstructed on the other side with thoughts and memories intact. What if the transporter does not actually get rid of the being at the origin point? What are you going to do with 80 kilograms of high-grade protein aboard a space station?
This would be a great opportunity to use a ubiquitous fast food chain with its location near a transporter bay to reinforce how cheap life is, and also how dystopic and pragmatic a setting may be. It’s also a great way to surprise your PCs, if one of their previous iterations escapes and shows up to warn them of something. Do they assume it’s a cloning accident, or do they already know how the sausage is made and call a hotline established for cleaning up transporter accidents? Such a setting detail would fit in a blackly humorous game such as Paranoia, or something rather more depressing like “grimdark” cyberpunk.
Some foods cannot be farmed or ranched. A famous example is silphium, which the Romans called laser. The plant and its resins were famed as a seasoning, medicine and an aphrodisiac. It was so important that the stalk and its seeds have been stamped into ancient coinage. Unfortunately for the silphium plant, it was also impossible to farm, and it eventually went extinct.
Now imagine a fantasy setting that revolves around rare and exotic ingredients garnered from magical places and creatures. Unicorn milk may require a virgin milkmaid. Cavern truffles might grow only in the depths of dangerous caves, and dragon steaks, well. Given a setting like this, one could even assume the primacy of culinary magic where the GM replaces spell components with spell recipes.
A potion of healing recast as a plate of Eggs Benedict has the fun knock-on effects of filling a PC’s stomach up (requiring them to wait before they can take another) and forces parties to bring picnic baskets into dungeon crawls. An adventuring party could very well be organized along the lines of Escoffier’s brigade de cuisine, with a head chef fighter, a sous-chef thief, a saucier wizard and a pastry chef cleric.
Contributed by M.W. Simmes. See her previous worldbuilding article in this series here.
This may not be the case in a given setting, which may feature magical foods, advanced science-fiction production methods, or some other means of feeding a populace. A good example of an alternate food source comes from the Bible, in the form of manna which was sent from heaven to feed the Israelites during their exile.
A more macabre example could occur in a science fiction setting with transporter technology. A person enters the booth, and they are scanned, transformed into information, and then reconstructed on the other side with thoughts and memories intact. What if the transporter does not actually get rid of the being at the origin point? What are you going to do with 80 kilograms of high-grade protein aboard a space station?
This would be a great opportunity to use a ubiquitous fast food chain with its location near a transporter bay to reinforce how cheap life is, and also how dystopic and pragmatic a setting may be. It’s also a great way to surprise your PCs, if one of their previous iterations escapes and shows up to warn them of something. Do they assume it’s a cloning accident, or do they already know how the sausage is made and call a hotline established for cleaning up transporter accidents? Such a setting detail would fit in a blackly humorous game such as Paranoia, or something rather more depressing like “grimdark” cyberpunk.
Some foods cannot be farmed or ranched. A famous example is silphium, which the Romans called laser. The plant and its resins were famed as a seasoning, medicine and an aphrodisiac. It was so important that the stalk and its seeds have been stamped into ancient coinage. Unfortunately for the silphium plant, it was also impossible to farm, and it eventually went extinct.
Now imagine a fantasy setting that revolves around rare and exotic ingredients garnered from magical places and creatures. Unicorn milk may require a virgin milkmaid. Cavern truffles might grow only in the depths of dangerous caves, and dragon steaks, well. Given a setting like this, one could even assume the primacy of culinary magic where the GM replaces spell components with spell recipes.
A potion of healing recast as a plate of Eggs Benedict has the fun knock-on effects of filling a PC’s stomach up (requiring them to wait before they can take another) and forces parties to bring picnic baskets into dungeon crawls. An adventuring party could very well be organized along the lines of Escoffier’s brigade de cuisine, with a head chef fighter, a sous-chef thief, a saucier wizard and a pastry chef cleric.
Contributed by M.W. Simmes. See her previous worldbuilding article in this series here.