Culinary Art (sage ability)

Culinary art is an authority-status sage ability that enables the character to produce food of a higher quality and taste than an ordinary cook, using the same materials. This improves the diner's experience, ensuring a far lower chance of a deleterious effect following the food's consumption.

Ingredients & Preparation

The taste of food derives in part from the ingredients used. Peasant food, like durables and staples, is surpassed by epicurean cuisine that's fresh and selective. Best of all, cosmopolitan, premium foods are sought after expressly for their taste and unusual cultivation.

Taste also depends on the ease of preparation. Cold camp fare, eaten in the outdoors, denies actual cooking of food; if a campfire is possible, the taste improves as well. Galley fare enables the benefits of a cookwagon or vardo; Scullery, the food that can be cooked in an ordinary kitchen. A guestkitchen is even better, as the environment is spacious and well-ventilated ... and finally, the lord's kitchen is best of all.

Taste

Culinary Artist, Taste of Food

Preparation	Ingredients
	Durable	Staple	Fresh	Selective	Premium
cold camp	nosh	nosh	savoury	tasty	flavourful
campfire	savoury	tasty	flavourful	delicious	piquant
galley	tasty	flavourful	delicious	piquant	mouth-watering
scullery	tasty	delicious	piquant	mouth-watering	ambrosia
guestkitchen	flavourful	delicious	mouth-watering	ambrosia	ambrosia
lord's kitchen	flavourful	piquant	ambrosia	ambrosia	ambrosia

A culinary artist is able to work with any food and in any environment — and is decisively able to make more with less. The table shows the various levels of "taste" that the culinary artist can produce. This version is similar to the table found on the nutrition & preparation of food page, but has been upgraded to express the results for a culinary artist.

In order of quality, "nosh" is agreeable food, encouraging the diner to scrape the remains from the plate; "savoury" has a sharper taste gives a feeling of being content and wholesomely satisfied; "tasty" is distinctly pleasurable and almost always calls for seconds; "flavourful" causes the diner to cease conversation and actively enjoy the taste of the food; "delicious" calls for the diner to share aloud the eating experience, declaring its noteworthiness; "piquant" is distinct and memorable, the sort of meal that one would certainly recall weeks later; "mouth-watering" cries for the food to be gobbled, even protected from others, as the diner cannot get enough; and "ambrosia" is simply ecstasy, eaten with eyes closed and at one with one’s pleasure.

Food that's described as "grub," hardly palatable but can be choked down for the sake of food, or "chow," about which at least the diner can be indifferent to the taste, are simply never produced by a culinary artist.

Efficacy

Efficacy

Taste	Roll
	18	17	11-16	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3
nosh	no effect						grumpy	tired	miserable	vomitous	diarrhetic
savoury	no effect							grumpy	tired	miserable	vomitous
tasty	no effect								grumpy	tired	miserable
flavourful	no effect									grumpy	tired
delicious	sated	no effect									grumpy
piquant	sated		no effect
mouth-watering	happy	sated		no effect
ambrosia	elated		happy		sated				no effect

This describes the effect of the food upon the diner. With some foods, there's always a chance that a given diner simply won't like what the preparer has done; but in every case, food that's piquant, mouth-watering or ambrosia nevers receive a bad reaction.

To use the table, roll 3d6 and compare with the column numbers. Most often, food with have no special effect on the eater, which in most cases is for the best. The effects described last for 12 hours, except when indicated otherwise. Descriptions for the effects are as follows:

Diarrhetic: 8-12 hours after eating, the character is struck with a round of violent bowel movements that dehydrates the victim and force bed rest. A -3 penalty to strength is received and the character has no appetite to eat their next meal; therefore, the penalty continues through the next 12-16 hours.

Elated: has such a fine frame of mind that a compulsion towards goodwill, generosity, empathy and uncommon bravery results. The character's ability stats are affected as though the character were a full age younger — that is, a mature person would feel like a young adult, a middle aged person would feel mature and so on; this includes any lowering of intelligence and wisdom, as results from feeling a bit "foolish" in the character's elation. Grants a +2 saving throw overall.

Grumpy: receives a -1 penalty to their charisma, applying to all checks. The morale of hirelings drops 2 points when standing within 10 feet of the character.

Happy: enjoys unusually good spirits, granting a +1 saving throw for most situations, and +2 vs. charm.

Miserable: receives a -1 penalty to strength and dexterity, applying to all checks. The character is bad-tempered and moody; after eating, a failed charisma check causes an outburst of anger and frustration, so that the character refuses to participate in any action for 1-4 hours.

Sated: feels very well throughout the next 12 hours, afterwards gaining +1 hit point without the need of a full day's rest and regardless of activities performed.

Tired: receives a -1 penalty to intelligence and wisdom, applying to all checks. The character complains a great deal about mostly everything; he or she won't find the will to perform any especially challenging task, such as forced march, while the party's travel progress is reduced by 10%.

Vomitous: after feeling miserable (see above) for about six hours, the character throws up most of their dinner. A -2 penalty is applied to constitution and all checks for the next 18 hours, while the character feels compelled to miss the next meal. Once the time has past and the next meal consumed, the character's constitution returns to normal.

See Also,
Cuisine (sage study)
Gastronomy (sage field)