Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Adventuring Chefs

"So let me get this straight.  This guy wants to not only sponsor the expedition to find the gargoyle lair, he wants to come along?"
"Yep.  He says he prefers to kill his own food..."

The Adventuring Chef seeks out new flavors in the wilderness, searching for exotic flora and fauna which he then kills and uses in his groundbreaking recipes.  He's no snooty school-cook - he'd much prefer to be tooling around with a group of adventurers, living off the land, and hacking at weird beasties with a meat-cleaver.

"An otyugh, you say?  I've never had one of those.  Suppose it might go nice with some saffron."

I watch a lot of cooking shows, so it should come as no surprise that I've been contemplating the idea of an adventuring Chef class for some time.  It's a ridiculous concept, of course, but that's why Wampus Country is probably the best place for it; the Chef is somewhere between Man Vs Wild and Man Vs Food, tromping through unexplored hexes looking for something novel to stab and barbecue.

You can check out the current version here.  It's a cleric variant, essentially.  Will it still look like this by the time it makes it into the Wampus Country Alamanac?  No idea.  Some folks have suggested adding some details on food preservation and storage, or tweaking the way casting works; I'll play with it now and again and see what comes out at the end of the process.  It still needs a "potion-making" power, probably at about level 5, so the Chef can make a certain amount of permanent, transferable items.

"I ain't gonna lie, I swiped a piece of that goblin king and frizzled it up with herb butter."


As a bonus to the Adventuring Chef, here's a random table of types of food preparation (there is a meat bias).  You might be able to use it for...  wow, I have no idea.  The request of a decadent noble?  Means of artifact destruction?  Potion preparation by witches?  You'll come up with something.

1 - grill
2 - pan-fry
3 - roast
4 - deep-fry
5 - boil
6 - bake
7 - broil
8 - ceviche
9 - marinate
10 - steam
11 - simmer
12 - braise
13 - blanche
14 - saute
15 - caramelize
16 - sear
17 - barbecue
18 - spit / rotisserie
19 - poach
20 - infuse
21 - coddle
22 - smother
23 - smoke
24 - salt
25 - bain-marie
26 - stuff
27 - press
28 - grate
29 - grind
30 - raw

Oh, and if you play a Chef, this list of utensils might come in handy.

No snarky caption required.

8 comments:

  1. I've been playing around with something similar lately http://therosettadrake.blogspot.com/2013/07/reins-of-darkness-session-2.html

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  2. Though, admittedly with an occasional dark (pseudo-cannibalistic) bent to the otherwise comic-relief chef character

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  3. I played a halfling chef wizard in a game once. He tried cooking everything they killed and make press instead of potions.

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  4. Hmmm. I know had heard of something similar before, even though I like your take on this much better. Check these out:

    http://kafkaskoffee.com/wp/?webcomic_post=795

    http://tabletopshoptalk.tumblr.com/post/34980671372/new-class-adventure-chef

    http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/28530/The-Kolba-Chef--Class?it=1

    http://knowledgearcana.com/archive/ka09/KA_009_ChefWebExtra.pdf

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  5. I love this idea. I can see it being a fun time.

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  6. You should look at Uresia by S John Ross, one of the character classes is The Sporting Chef.
    http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/uresia.htm

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  7. The character Sanji from the animé/manga "One Piece" is an example of this. Capsule version: He's become the ship's cook on the heroes' crew so that he can eventually discover a legendary ocean where all the world's fish congregate. He fights using devastating kicks to preserve his hands for his culinary work. Being as it is animé, all of his attacks are named after cuts of meat or cooking techniques. His signature move is kicking so fast his shoe catches on fire.

    Actually, there's a lot of stuff that could be good Wampus source material in "One Piece", but I can't recommend it unless you've got a lot of time on your hands, because it's one of those loooong running animés that goes on forever.

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  8. You could always swap "Ceviche" for "Pickled" if you want to cut the most blatant bit of meat-bias.

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