50 Tavern Specials

This is what happens when you order 'the special' at any tavern.

Leech Dinner [47]

50 Tavern Specials

[1] Edible Metal. Easily chewed if warm, tastes metallic but not nearly as bad as you'd think. Gives you +1 AC tomorrow, your piss is rust colored.

[2] Purple speckled egg. 1 in 6 chance for Wizards and 3 in 6 chance for Rangers/Druids to recognize what kind of creature's egg this is. Tastes delicious but must be eaten raw.

If taken and incubated the egg will hatch into a Wumpher, which is like a tiny 1 HD basilisk that makes people fall over if they make eye contact with it. Exception is the first person it sees after hatching, who it imprints upon as its mother.

[3] Bottled Dinner. Looks like a tiny vial of water, but you drink just a few drops at a time and you are totally full and satisfied. You save enough liquid for 10 rations, no carry weight.

[4] Tiny animated animagolems. Look realistic, but flesh is like taffy and they react like animals do. Taste like the animals they represent; plate is filled with tiny pigs, chickens, cows, goats, and doves. Not for the faint of heart.

[5] Wizard bread. It's like a typical loaf of bread cut into a bunch of slices, but each piece has a 'unique' flavor. Every piece also has crazy colors and patterns. Player with the lowest charisma score will grab a piece of bread that tastes like baked scorpion anus.

[6] Ectoplasm soup. Literally ghost ectoplasm, boiled so it cannot cause possession. Tonight you will dream a few scattered and strange memories, 1 in 20 chance that one of them features your parents or elderly people you know.

[7] Extremely realistic and expertly sculpted meatloaf that is shaped like a sleeping puppy, complete with a collar. Nobody but you seems disturbed by picking it apart with knife and fork.

[8] Pig trotters. These pigs walked along a holy road, so it's actually really delicious.

[9] 14 Apples surprise. Each 'apple' is really just a hollow edible apple-skin shell. Within each is a different kind of fruit, meat, or even a cream filled one for desert. Extremely good, but expect the chef to be angry with you if you don't finish it since it's a very difficult dish to make.

[10] Ogre Pies. The moment you try to cut into or bite a pie, a single ogre-like fish of dough and stuffing comes out and starts punching you and knocking your knives away. Treat it as a 1 HD combat encounter that deals nonlethal damage.

[11] Shark buried in the backyard for decades and allowed to rot with a specific type of mold. It smells, looks, and tastes as bad as it sounds.

[12] Indescribable sheep organ stretched over a bowl filled with water and veggies. You're supposed to gently suck on the membrane to draw out the moisture and some of the veggies, and when you're done you finish by eating the organ.

[13] The barkeeper claims it's bottled dinner and many of the inn's residents pat their bellies contently with it. It's actually just water and this is a scam.

[14] Pickled Spider eggs. You get a +2 saves vs poison the next day. 1 in 20 chance a live spider comes out of your mouth and crawls away after your meal, but nothing else comes of it.

[15] Riceballs, nothing on it, just rice. Nobody in this tavern has ever even seen a grain of rice before, so the meal isn't totally bland.

[16] Sustenance berry. Tiny tasty berry that counts as a large meal. Dinner is over immediately.

[17] Hot scones, sprinkled with sugar.

[18] Roasted chicken with figs stuffing its belly so full it looks pregnant. Wholesome meal.

The chef will barge in after the meal is over and claim that someone ate his wedding ring that was in the chicken but it's just a stupid prank he pulls to newcomers.

[19] Marinated duck with sugar caramelized and flattened into the shape of long feathers for a candy desert.

[20] Solid block of honey, with bees still inside of it. They're considered part of the meal.

[21] Extremely basic meal but you get a little imp named Bethex chained to the center of the table to serve you and slap around with your spoon.

He's grumpy and angry and knows he is there as part of his contract just to entertain people. He does have a very sensitive ear though and will relay any juicy table gossip to demons abroad.

[22] You're given a bucket with a live fish in it. That's the meal. The tavern master offers a gold piece to anyone who can get the fish out with both hands tied behind their back and without knocking the bucket over.

[23] An old sage comes to the table and starts describing the most incredible and delicious dinner you could imagine. He's a great storyteller and changes it to suite each guest based on what they would like.

At the end of the story it is revealed that the story was the dinner, and you are all sated as though you ate, but incredibly unsatisfied.

[24] Regular tavern food but you're treated to a shitty talent show where all the village commoners try to impress you with shitty talents.

At least one of them will actually show some talent and could become a useful first level hireling of a class related to their act. Arm wrestling for fighter, juggler for thief, word games and riddles for magic user, etc.

[25] After ordering the special every single member of the tavern has to let you take a few pieces, bites, and swigs of whatever they are eating and drinking.

[26] Horse testicles.

[27] Pasta tied into an incredibly complicated knot. You're supposed to just cut it with your knife, but if you manage to untangle it the tavern owner will give you the night's stay free.

1 in 6 chance to untangle. Add your Int modifier.

[28] Grass, ivy, dandelions, briers and other useless weeds and inedible plants. The chef in the back is actually a goat man and forgets that other people can't eat that stuff like he can.

[29] It's a watermelon as big as your head.

[30] Alcohol soup. Barely fills you up, but gets you drunk. You humiliate yourself while drunk but heal 1 HP.

[31] Cyclops eyeball. The chef admits he had no idea what to do with it and decided to make it a special. Actually not that bad. It's actually years old but never spoiled or dried out.

[32] Very cheap shish kebab. You hear rumors about it being made of rat meat, but the chef will deny it unless you march into the kitchen and see for yourself. 50% chance of it being true.

[33] Tray of cookies set up with a checker board. It's magically enchanted so you can't actually eat any except the opponents pieces you capture. Can also be chess, Go, etc.

[34] Extreme novelty farm set. You have a tiny plot of land set up on your table, where you thresh tiny crops, separate the tiny wheat from the tiny chaff, grind it in a tiny finger-pinching millstone and then bake your own bread with it.

If you're friends with the tavern owner and on the run from a powerful force he'll offer to let you shrink down and hide in that mini farm which would become regular sized for you. Expect giant (regular) sized rat attacks.

[35] Bowl of regular beans, seasoned and salted. Kind of boring meal, but one of the beans has a little paper fortune inside which hints at the party's next dungeon or hex-crawling adventure.

[36] Seared flank of a famous and feared type of monster. Served fresh. The chef has a couple of them locked in the basement, but sadly they aren't worth any experience points. They've been domesticated and all the fight in them is gone.

[37] Chocolate fountain.

[38] It's a rock. Everyone is given a spoon with a magical stone to flesh enchantment, so you can scrap against the rock and get a little dollop of meat. It's pretty bland and tasteless.

[39] Root vegetable marinated in a rare ingredient soup for months on end. The root is bland and tasteless but the sauce is exquisite.

[40] The meat of a creature people don't normally eat, like a horse, donkey, lizard, gorilla, etc. You get a lot for the price, probably due to the unpopularity.

[41] Edible giant teeth. You have both hands on a big metal clamp to crack them open then suck out the meat inside.

[42] Slippery eels sausages. You'll leak slime from the bottom of your feet an hour after eating them.

[43] Chunky pasta sauce and noodles. The character with the lowest dexterity gets a big nasty stain on their tunic, cloak, or spellbook cover.

[44] Huge squash, requites a strong jaw to eat. If you fail a saving throw, you'll hurt your jaw and have a -1 to reaction checks tomorrow.

[45] Rose tinted taffy. Can be stretched far and hold a lot of weight, and you get enough of it that you'll have some left over. Can be used as makeshift rope in a pinch.

[46] Premium Elf Salad. If you're an elf, you'll get 1d6x100 experience points and feel like you're back home. If you aren't you'll get a +2 saving throws vs paralysis and bonus to reaction checks against elves until the next time you chop down or set fire to a tree.

[47] Several fat leeches, who were fed on a rich diet of different animal and human bloods before being friend and served to you. If you're a vampire this meal heals you 2 HP, if you aren't you just think it's kind of gross.

[48] Generic gray slop which a Wizard waves his wand over to change into something that looks and smells appealing. Secretly, all the food they sell is that gray slop, they just prestidigitate it all.

[49] Giant spider legs. You break them open no different then a crab.

[50] Fish fillet of a golden magic talking fish, which most people say grant wishes. The next time your character makes a wish out loud (as in “I wish X”), he'll burp up a little paper drawing that looks like that wish coming true with the words “Then you shouldn't have eaten me, asshole!”