Ration Grab-bag
Bolded words: These signify concepts and details that I am interested in having you readers flesh out. You are invited to comment with your ideas!
What exactly do you eat while in a dungeon or days out on the road? Stew, biscuits, mushrooms, sure. But if you’re getting bored of that, try some of these crowdsourced rations!
Knob-Headed Water Nut
Logan Howard
The delightful and refreshing knob-headed water nut is thick skinned and has a small bumpy “head” and a large round “body” separated by a thin “neck”. They are usually carried on the belt by a small strap around the neck portion. If broken open, they deliver a sweet milky juice that packs a strong nutritional punch! Many travelers will carefully cut into the head so that a lid can be made and the husk can continue to be used as a water jug.
Jant Pearls
Greg Soper
Ground up leaves from the fibrous Janta bush, dried, powdered, mixed with spices and water, formed into 3-inch balls, and left to dry in the midday heat of the desert sun. The outside develops a thick, chewy crust, while the inside is a mushy porridge that almost oozes out after taking a bite. The taste is thoroughly saturated with the fragrant, sage-like smell of the bush. Those not used to the taste tend to gag after eating, but after years of living off of these, the “Watchers of the Hills” claim that they taste like nothing.
Scrap Pudding
Fred Bednarski
A cheap travel ration made from boiling leftover meats with bonemeal and spices long enough to make it into a dark jelly. In a good jar it will keep for more than a month. Smells like a good gravy, but tastes just sweet and salty with very little meat flavor. But hey, it has enough fat to keep you going. Oh, you are not supposed to eat the solid bits.
Grossnut
David LaFreniere
This variety of tree nut has a unique problem: it can never grow if it has been ingested. As a defense against being eaten, the plant evolved to taste worse and worse. The upshot of this for adventurers is they are cheap as hell and no animal life will spoil them or try to steal them. And as long as folks don’t chew too long, they really aren’t that bad…
Headloaf
David LaFreniere
Easy to find at taverns. Formed when bartenders scrape off the thick bubbly head that develops on a freshly poured draft of dwarven stout. The discarded suds solidify into something like a biscuit. Usually the barman just lets the regulars eat them as drinking snacks, but if you ask nicely, you can secure some for a road adventure.
Chloroplastidian
Elliott Ambrosetti
Generally only of use in warm sunny regions, this parasitic plant was originally found on ocean crossing migratory birds. When applied to the skin, as a solution in salt water, the plant matter stains the skin green as it enters through pores and follicles, granting the host organism the ability to draw sustenance from sunlight alone.
The host’s body will likely attempt to reject the invader so repeat applications are required to sustain photosynthetic ability.
Long term use is ill advised, as the parasitism seems to progress with the host developing further plant-like features; generating budlike protrusions on skin, spore formation on skin etc.
Stinkrats
Elliott Ambrosetti
Trained rodents bred for continual hunger. You release them when setting up camp and they scurry away to search for food to fatten themselves up before returning to their cage to sleep off their meal.
To avoid predators eating up your rations, they are coated in pig bile, giving them the horrid stench for which they are named; though it also tends to break down their fur and blister their skin. At first the bile is completely removed when skinned, but on long journeys as the skin is broken down the meat tends to retain the horrid stink of gastric juices.
Rock Soup
David LaFreniere
The plainsmen on the savannahs perfected this form of curing meats so they could save the bounty of the rainy season for the harsh times. They would hunt as much meat as possible, pack it in salt and spices, then let the sun have it in the day and the fire have it at night. After one week of this treatment, the “rocks” are ready: add a rock to any boiling water for an hour and you have a hearty stew.
Loomplia Berry
Logan Howard
These tiny berries taste bitter and cause an intense radish-like tingle in the nose. They deliver absolutely no nutritional value by themselves but are still very useful for adventurers. The little gray berries boost the immune system and actively fight infections. After eating just one berry, a full-sized human can safely eat a myriad of found and recently deceased items for almost two full days.
