I've talked about Food in world building before, this time we delve deeper into what is served at the noble tables of the dragonbloods - or what is served when the point is to dine extravagantly?
All this will of course be set against the backdrop of the hosts day-to-day extravagance - chairs of rare woods, hangings of extinct beasts, paintings by great masters, war trophies, relics - all the things that are rare and coveted are just the frame for the feast.
For best impression the hosts would like to hit as many of these as they can - getting more extravagant and perhaps reaching the bounds of the hosts tastes and/or courage as we go down.
Materials
- gold layered glazes
- magical ingredients
- spices within the food
- exotic game, beasts served by a house of hunters
Accompanying performance
- artistic endeavour - ice sculpture, elaborate chocolate or sugar confections
- atmospherics (incense, drugs)
- entertainments during feast
- servers - matched, enchanted, lavishly uniformed
Difficult to execute foods
- hard to procure normal things - seafood inland sourced via teleportation or flyers with ice-buckets
- very rare or last of something
- complex cooking methods
- very long preparation times
- skilled chefs
- method fatal to chefs
Extravagant sensation seeking
- narcotics and intoxicants
- extra-planar projection
- extra-sensory tastes - expanding the standard range of sensory acuity in taste, smell
Gonzo altering of guests experience of the feast
- magically transformed mouthparts
- venom tasting
Ultra-gonzo - almost certainly needs a wizard to host
- whole transformation - guests become hummingbirds, oozes, etc
- soul-jarred into different guests body
- feast experienced as a backwards time-loop
Villainous tables
- sentient and/or good beast served as dishes
- cannibalism, incl. of performers
- spectacle fights with loser served
- vampiric feasts
The goal being to impress and overawe your guests with your resources and unconcern about squandering them; be they coin, time, the lives of your vassals up to and including your immortal soul. Should your nobles also be mages then see d30 Archmage status flexes for ideas on what they might want to showcase to impress their peers.
As well as ideas for a feast your PCs will attend, it can be the plan for the feast a patron or ally is intending to host - and they need help with acquiring or pulling off certain aspects - sourcing a particular exotic ingredient or convicing a famed chef to come run the banquet. Combine all that with only learning of the tasks after the invites have been sent out and we have a nice ticking clock to drive adventures.
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