Books I Sell

2017/09/28

OSR: 1d100 Barbarian Delicacies

Barbarians get to eat a special ration to restore HP. Here are 1d100 delicacies for people from Foreign Parts, where they'll eat anything

Items on this list cost 1gp per serving and are only available in major trading cities. People from Foreign Parts buy them to remind themselves of home; everyone else think the items listed are disgusting, confusing, or a complete waste of time.


De Materia Medica, 1300s

1d100
Meat
1 Hanging meat. Salt it, flatten it, leave it to air-dry until it falls apart. Really tough, a little green around the edges.
2 Pickled eyeballs. Mostly flavorless, slightly greasy, hard to explain to visitors.
3 Dried eel.  Leathery. Smells like wet dog.
4 Weird bit.  The tendon from the left leg. The wattle. The gizzard. Something you wouldn't normally eat.
5 Blended organ sack. A stomach filled with other bits of animal and special spices, left to ferment. 
6 Rotting fish.  Has to be a very specific kind of fish. Carried in glass bottles. Smells like death.
7 Dried crickets.  Served in honey. Well attested in holy books; less appealing these days.
8 Fermented crab. PC swears it's an aphrodisiac; everyone else thinks the smell is off-putting.
9 Dried meat. Mashed with fat and berries and dried in strips. Tastes like the bottom of a gardener's boot.
10 Mashed stoat. Minty fresh for some reason.
More Meat
11 Baked rat. Except it's not a local rat. It's some kind of smug-looking foreign rat.
12 Pig grease. The leftovers from a thousand plates of fried pork. Crunchy. Kept in a jar.
13 Mashed ants. Lured out by the PC and cooked in a pot, then mixed with grain. Terrifyingly awful.
14 Whole songbird. Would be fine, but it's coated in some sort of black foul-smelling paste. 
15 Fermented bird. Store it in a sack then drink whatever drips out. Absolutely awful.
16 Dried lizards. Tiny. Eat a handful at a time. Crunchy but extremely dry. 
17 Rabbit ears. Why the ears? And why eat them with the fur still on?
18 Sea thing. Horrible little sea insect. Too many legs, bright pink, baked then preserved in red sauce. 
19 Tiny flat fish. Smoked, and then kept in a sack. Eaten whole. Pungent smell and scales everywhere.
20 Teeth. Handfuls of broken teeth from all sorts of animals. Swallowed whole.
Eggs
21 Eggs, cooked. Boiled in something unpleasant, left to dry in the sun. Tastes like battery acid.
22 Eggs, fermented. Buried in clay for a month. Sulphrous, crumbly.
23 Eggs, mashed. Mixed with some horrible root. Smells like burnt meat.
24 Eggs, candied. Put in an urn with weird roots. Crystallized, snaps like glass, tastes like hair.
25 Eggs, fish. Lots of little tiny ones, black like stones. Briny, unpleasant aftertaste. 
26 Eggs, insect. White, the size of a thumb, taste like soap.
27 Eggs, lumpy. From a bird with the hiccoughs, maybe. Bulges. Tastes like milk.
28 Eggs, snail. Pickled in brine. Thin shell, tastes like mushrooms, slight worries of snails hatching inside you.
29 Eggs, sea. Not sure if they are from a plant or a fish. Large, green, briny pouches.
30 Eggs, exotic. Blue and green with stripes. From somewhere in the mountains. Watery and sulphrous.
Strong Drink
31 Horrible herbal liquor.  Sold in tiny glass bottles, vaguely greasy taste.
32 Blessed water. Blessed by a particular saint or god. The PC can taste the difference.
33 Green infusion.  Apparently made by monks. These monks must be real sick bastards.
34 Brown liquor. Very strong, made by alchemists, dries out your throat.
35 Honey beer.  Comes in clay pots. Delicious but distinctly foreign. 
36 Fermented cloves.  More of a mash than a drink. Will make your earwax run.
37 Red liquor. Thick like treacle, tastes like fruit, but makes everyone but the PC throw up 10 mins later.
38 Bitter leaves. Make a horrible medicinal drink if soaked in boiling water. The PC eats them raw in emergencies.
39 Pale brown liquor. Made from trees, somehow. Tastes like pine needles, sap, and splinters.
40 Buttery wine. Not made from grapes, that's for sure. Strong, but kind of slimy. Starchy flavour.
Root Vegetables
41 Fat purple turnips.  Kind of tasty if cooked, but the PC insists on eating them raw.
42 Long grey carrots.  Very very spicy.
43 Rock-like vegetable. Devoured raw, leaks milk. Utterly disgusting.
44 Round green lumps. Some kind of nut? No one is sure. Incredibly bitter aftertaste.
45 Thin white roots.  Served by the handful. Faint smell of cut hay.
46 Corkscrew turnips. Worse than regular turnips in every way, from appearance to texture to cost.
47 Fat white root. Like an obsese carrot, but it tastes like sweat. When dried it starts to fall apart.
48 Horrible onion. Red, not yellow, and sharply acidic. The devil's onions.
49 Lumpy root. Shaped like a deformed person or a sick animal. Orange and fibrous, strong flavour. Chewed.
50 Hairy yellow root. From a flower. Tastes like vinegar, but it keeps away insects.
Leafy Vegetables
51 Broad green leaves.  Opens the pupils, increases the heart rate, makes the PC talk very quickly.
52 Diamond leaves.  Tingly, stains the teeth green, fairly mild flavour.
53 Small grey leaves. Ashy. Sold by apothecaries. Strong hallucinogen, PC is immune.
54 Stringy frayed leaves. Tastes like soap. PC insists it does not taste like soap.
55 Flat green leaves. Bitter, watery. Slowly rot into a dripping mass that is still, somehow, edible.
56 Fern leaves. Taste like grass, but with runny sap. Stains the teeth green.
57 Orange leaves. Dried and crispy. Crushed up and held under the tongue. Makes the PC sleepy an hour later.
58 Little round leaves. Tastes like copper and makes everyone but the PC sneeze uncontrollably. 
59 Veiny lumpy leaves. Bitter and horribly chewy. Like eating a sheet of lead. 
60 Curled-up leaves. Little balls of green, swallowed whole. Gives everyone but the PC gas.
Bread
61 Hard cakes. Why would anyone do that to bread? So dense they hurt your teeth.
62 Drip cakes. Bread thrown into boiling fat. Extremely weird.
63 Spice bread. A pinch of spice from Foreign Parts. Tastes like leather.
64 Rolled bread. Layered meat and cheese inside bread. Looks appetizing, but the spices used are very unusual.
65 Yellow bread. Made from some some grain from Foreign Parts. Gritty. 
66 Corpse bread. Like bread that's been left to die. So stale, so crunchy. Squeaks when you eat it.
67 Hole bread. The baker must be mad because it's full of air and holes! 
68 Stack bread. Tiny round loaves, hammered flat, then layered with some powdered spice. 
69 Incompetent bread. Strange flour and water cooked in a pan. Makes a round puffy thing. Goes stale immediately.
70 Round bread. Spheres of dough with meat and yellow spices inside. The spices are very strong.
Cheese
71 Blue-black cheese. Wrapped in the stomach lining of a goat. Smells awful, causes birds to fall from the sky.
72 White lumpy cheese. In a wineskin. Acidic, but fairly tasty on bread. PC insists it pairs well with fruit.
73 Grey runny cheese. Tastes like salt and sand. 
74 Yellow hard cheese. Looks fine but tastes appalling. Chalky, pungent, almost dusty.
75 Purple cheese. Made with blood or something. Veinier than usual.
76 Grey hard cheese. Thick rind, smells like a cow dying of starvation. Kept coated in wax.
77 Monk cheese. Made with milk from blessed cows and covered in the remains of holy candles. No real taste.
78 Travel cheese. Cheese with all the water squeezed out and replaced with an unpleasant thin oil.
79 Soft white cheese. Served in clay jars. Sweet, but causes gastric disasters in anyone but the PC.
80 Meat cheese. The PC insists on making it with things from the ocean and not pork or beef trimmings.
Mushrooms
81 Folded mushroom. Moist and curled like a calf's brain. Tastes like pine needles.
82 Black mushroom. Looks deadly and menacing. Tastes like buttercream.
83 Crinkly mushroom. Crunches like frost with white puffs of spores. No taste, but it gets in your nose and ears.
84 Round pink mushroom. Dilates the pupils and makes everything look fuzzy. 
85 Round grey mushroom. Deadly to dogs and cattle, but the PC swears it's fine to eat. Tastes like old beef stew.
86 Red mushroom. White spots, perfectly round, dries into little hard lumps. Dusty and acidic.
87 Tall white mushroom. Like little spears. Acidic taste. Smell like burnt bones.
88 Brown plate mushroom. Grows on the side of trees, apparently. Like eating a soggy plank of wood.
89 Puffball mushroom. Round white balls with fine brown dust inside. Dust chokes the lungs and tastes like ash.
90 Eye mushroom. Has wet black spots like eyes buried in soft white flesh. Tastes like peat.
Assorted
91 Brownish beans.  Taste like sawdust and bleach.
92 White beans. Like pebbles, but chewy. After a few minutes your tongue goes numb.
93 Red beans. Taste metallic, deeply unpleasant. Apparently very good for you in large quantities.
94 Horrible sea thing. Orange. Looks like a deflated penis. Probably tastes like a deflated penis.
95 Pointy red fruit. Full of seeds. Burns like fire, makes your eyes water, and gets all over your hands.
96 Oval green fruit. Bitter, salty, and chewy. Leaks oil.
97 Snake venom.  Makes the tongue go black. Not enough to kill anyone if ingested.
98 Pink salt. From the mountains. Apparently heals you and makes your hair grow. Just tastes like salt.
99 Cat milk. Seriously, who milks a cat? A thin crusty rind of milk.
100 Magic powder. Ground up wizard skulls or something. Makes your hair stick striaight out and your eyes bulge.

8 comments:

  1. awesome stuff - will stick with my own that are more city orientated
    i wish you had a pdf making button

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    Replies
    1. You've got your own? Why do I always find these things after I'm done writing mine? :(
      Anyway, might do that eventually, or put them up as PWYW PDF and make 10s and 10s of dollars.

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    2. big list here https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/p/blog-page_27.html
      http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/d100-pubs-in-shadel-port.html
      http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/foodies-guide-to-exile-island-1.html
      http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/foodies-guide-to-exile-island-2-pub-grub.html
      http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/foodies-guide-to-exile-island-3-wtf-is.html
      http://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/1d100-things-to-happen-in-pub.html

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cool list definetly useable to add some flavor to a campaign. (I'm not even going to appologize for the pun.). I've always liked how food can add to the feel of a fantasy setting, it's such a personzl but univerxal thing that it adds more to the feel than a volume of mock history.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! And yeah, one throwaway reference to a roast gilded swan can do more than any rants about polearms and horse breeds to set a scene.

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    2. Argghhh, sorry about the delete and typos in my second post...I'll eventually remeber to wear my glasses when I use my phone.

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