Sunday 17 April 2011

Gluttony, Wrath and Petty Avarice

Trossley Rule: To precede reports of Actual Play with something everyone can use, related to the run.

In this case, a random table to determine just what it is your gourmand is munching on when gourmandising in ye olde North European fantasy land.

Click, and click again, to enlarge.

Roll d4 according to the intricacy of the dish, from 2 dice for a simple one, to 7 for a true extravagance. Consult the column for each die roll. Any "1" result requires determining the meat as well as cut on subtables 1A and 1B; real foppish gourmands may modify a column 2 result with 1B as well, possibly leading to "larks' tongues in aspic" and other delights. Finally, roll on column 0 to determine the method of cooking, for each 1, 2, and 3 result. I presume you know how to get a d40 and d50 result ...

"Farcing" is the practice of filling the roast animal with its own ground meat. "Jugged" is a means of preserving in jelly. Laver is an edible seaweed. Yes, they ate beaver in the Middle Ages. It was an acceptable non-meat for Fridays and Lent. You there in the back row, would you mind sharing what's so funny with the class?

***

Our heroes started off the run by making the first moves toward furnishing their abandoned house in the village, mortgaged to them on generous terms for a tithe of treasure. Crude logs worked by a woodsman's wife would have to serve as chairs and table, for now.

An expedition was then mounted to the Castle of the Mad Archmage - that nexus of adventure, menagerie of deadly creatures, level upon level of mystery and danger unparalleled in human history - for the sole and express purpose of retrieving two canvas tents from the stockpile discovered in the stirges' lair. This haul prompted much mirth from the gate guard Fergus, and Motley Tom the magical wares merchant. Undaunted, the party converted the canvas into bedding pallets for their house, and returned to the dungeon the next day to seek richer treasures.

The actual dungeon session only cleared two rooms - explored a long time ago in an alternate reality by the first delvers into the Castle Cellars. This party did not set the oil-soaked scarecrow in fire, saved like fiends against its fear effect, and found the treasure the other party missed. Smart! Then they went in the room with hooks on chains dangling from the ceiling, and just had to pull the one chain that went up through a hole in the ceiling. Not so smart! The hooks started flailing around and poor Balm got hit in the neck by two of them like a doubly unfortunate trout, causing a terrible wound that he's still recovering from.

That DF map is useful.
With a stretch of in-game downtime looming, the party decided to march to Utherton, and sell some of the loot that had been accumulating ever since the days of the millhouse adventure. Part of this involved carousing. Jessera rolled a hangover mishap, and her meeting with mentor Joya was thereby delayed for a day. The dwarf Grumpka rolled a fight mishap ... consulting Dramatic Personae, I found it was a priest, and indeed a militant of the same order, nay, the same training class as our Boniface. This one wasn't very kindly, and after some racial insults flew, each sprang to action with hand weapons concealed on their person. Grumpka had the better weapon with the handax, but this Fretanax fellow rolled better, after fumbling and falling down the first round, and scored two shallow hits with his dagger. Fortunately, Grumpka had completely won over the crowd by refusing to take advantage of the fallen man, and subjecting him to a rousing harangue (12 on reaction roll). The onlookers were able to cover her as she walked away, Fretanax crowing in triumph - but crowing alone.

The only uneventful "carouse" was henchman Cordoon's 68 silver piece meal under the limited but safer "gourmandising" option. Here I improvised on the spot a five-course medieval food porn epic, complete with "a loaf of bread stuffed with dormice" and "an eel in grape jelly and it turns out to be a marzipan eel." Cordoon was able to say, at the end, that he was more a man of the world for his experience, and he gained the second level.

So, um, yeah, I basically took about as twice as long to make the food porn table as to write that report.

2 comments:

  1. I have a cool book I found at a thrift store called To the King's Taste, that lays out a lot of medieval fare. I made up my local tavern menu based on it.

    (loaf of bread stuffed with dormice . . . blarrggh)

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  2. That table is pure awesome :) Thank you! Now, to see what I'd have to roll to get a turducken...

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