Some older readers may remember the first series of articles I wrote back in 2013, the Survival Out in the Wilds series focused upon a mixtures of D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder rules to expand players capabilities to use monster remains. The first article focused on skinning and the sales value of pelts, the second article was my groups own custom armour creation rule set, the third article continued with spell reagents and the final article was the cooking of creatures and some points to consider.

For quite some time since my group and I have often discussed how to cook various monsters and make logical guesses upon how they taste to the point in our campaigns we often attempt to cook at least one new monster each time.

Skerples of the Coins And Scrolls has taken this one step further, in support of GLOG (Goblin Laws of Gaming,) an old-school themed rules set published by Arnold K, Skerples has taken the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual and has listed beasts mundane and magical in alphabetical order with flavour, effects and occasional serving suggestion.

Below are a few highlights:

d30	Creature	Flavour or Effect
1	Barracuda or Gar, giant or Masher	Fish
2	Beaver, giant	Oily, fatty pork
3	Boar	Dense but faintly spiced pork
4	Buffalo	Faintly spiced beef
5	Bull or Cattle, wild	Beef
6	Camel, wild	Stringy beef
7	Crocodile	Cross between chicken and fish
8	Dolphin	Fishy. Next sailing voyage is cursed. 1-in-100 chance of being haunted by a vengeful dolphin ghost.
9	Eel	Fishy
10	Frog, giant	Buttery, faintly algal
11	Goat, giant	Mutton
12	Herd animal	Varies, but probably beef or mutton
13	Horse or Mule	Stringy mutton, lots of crunchy bits
14	Irishdeer or Stag	Venison
15	Lamprey	Fish

People
Eating most of the things on this list would be considered impolite or insufficiently rewarding. Adventurers will still try though. You could also roll to see what the trolls are roasting over the fire tonight. Intelligent creatures with significant magical effects are listed in the Special Creatures section. Eating fresh People might turn you into a wendigo. Eating rotten people might turn you into a ghoul.

Creature	Flavour or Effect
Brownie or Halfling	Fatty pork
Bugbear	Really bad mutton
Centaur or Minotaur	Fatty pork, blending into stringy mutton or beef
Dwarf or Gnome	Fatty pork
Elf	Pork, cures acne and dandruff
Giant	Fatty, very dense pork, requires 12+hrs of boiling
Gnoll	Fatty, very acidic pork
Goblin or Hobgoblin	Fatty pork, acidic aftertaste
Halfling	Fatty pork, slightly tastier than usual
Harpy	Mix of pork and chicken, tastes absolutely foul, provides no healing. Save vs Nausea.
Ixitxachitl or Sea Hag	Fish, but crunchy and bitter
Jackalwere or Lycanthrope	Fatty pork or creature's flavour. S ave vs intermittent partial lycanthropy
Kobold	Fatty pork, acidic aftertaste

Beholder
Flavour: flesh crackles like dry french fries. Invisible ichor drips upwards from your chin. In the distance, howling, or music.

Notes: must be eaten raw, and quickly.

d10	Result
1-2	Screaming Madness. Save or become permanently insane.
3-4	Outsider Flesh. Save vs Con. If you pass, gain 1 random mutation. If you fail, gain 1d6+1 random mutations.
5-7	Twisting Cells. Permanently gain +2 to a random stat and -2 to a different random stat.
8-9	Eye Rays. Gain a random spell. 1. Charm Person, 2-3. Eye Laser, 4. Fear, 5. Sleep 6. Telekinetic Shove. If you are not a spellcaster, Save or immediately cast the spell on a random target using d4 magic dice. If you pass your Save, you can cast the spell once per day using 1 MD, firing it from a random eye.
10	Natural Magic. You gain 1 Magic Dice and 1 spell slot. If you were not one already, you become a spellcaster.

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With the popularity of the last KAMB adventure Trick & Treat Troubles I've continued to create a few more adventures in order to support the Kobolds Ate My Baby community.

While Kobolds Ate My Baby in Colour was used to design the encounters the adventure can easily be adapted for earlier editions or for the Home Brew Kobolds Ate My Baby (TG Edition) which is designed for play by post. For clarification like many publications by WOTC's or 3rd party writers italic paragraphs will sections to be read out to the players with alterations if needed while regular text is information for the Dungeon Master.

The maps in this adventure were created with the free online map maker of Ye Olde Map Maker.

Kobolds Ate My Baby Adventure: Short & Sweet

This short adventure is design for between 4 to 6 Kobolds and should take approximately 30 to 45 minutes to complete depending on how much trouble and chaos occurs. It should be noted that the baby horrible death table should be disregarded for this adventure.

The following paragraph should be read just before or during character creation.

Tabriz Warlock Supreme has rent out your services to the marauding orc hordes of Warchief Dunbad (not to mistaken for marinading hordes of Warchef Dunwell, and his gourmet goblins), while your not sure if he was allowed to as King Torg (All Hail King Torg) was loaning you and your buddies out to him its best not to argue with a Warlock Supreme (unless you want to end up as ash). With little more than a green chubby finger pointing you towards the nearby woods south of his warcamp and a order of "Goes Get Food or be food" you begin your service to Warchief Dunbad. 

Once play is ready to begin read the following.

After trudging through the thick forest for what feels like days (though given a kobolds attention span its probably been a hour at most) with little more than the occasional berry, a squirrel that was too slow and that stick shaped chicken leg you've not found anything that you think looks particularly tasty. For a moment you begin to worry that you won't find anything and worse your beginning to feel hungry however before the gaze (and giant thumb) of VOR! can come down upon you at your brief spark of self preservation the sweet, tasty aroma of baby wafts into your nostrils. 

Rushing through the trees you eventually come to a small clearing in which the centre of stands a small cottage.

 Locations:

1. The Clearing.

 Smoke wisps from the chimney of the small cottage as the smell of stewing meat and vegetables teases you from one of the open windows, the cottage itself is made of timber and looks old but well maintained though it pales in comparison to the mighty halls of Torg. From the behind the cottage loud chopping and the thud of wood can be heard. 

If any of the Kobolds are interested of taking a look inside the cottage the window on the west side of the house is open, however the window is a little high for the average kobold so Sport rolls or something to stand on (like another kobold) will be needed.

2. Inside The Cottage.
Occupants: 1 Wench (Upgrade Dam to 3 for Iron Skillet), Baby
Loot: 2 Cooking Utensils, Kitchen Knife, Iron Skillet. Stew (4 Servings, heals 1 HIT per serving)

When/if the kobolds open the door:

The door opens and from behind you can see a young human woman clothed in a short dress and long red cloak sat at a table arranging a bundle of dried flowers to place in a straw basket, nearby over a fire pit hangs a small black pot in which a stew bubbles to completion. A waft of hot air drifting out catches your nose and the scent is unmistakable there is a delicious baby somewhere within!  

At this point if the kobolds don't immediately attack they are most likely planning their heist and trying to figure out how to get around the human.

The simplest ways to do this are:

• Attempt to sneak past her (2 Dice Sneak Roll) when her back is turned to tend to the stew, which may cause issues if all the kobolds do this at once.
• A kobold with Winning Smile could distract the hooded woman with the added bonus of been given a bowl of stew.
• Making a noise outside and luring her out.
• Break open the rear window (or one of them Sneaks in and opens it) and climb in but this may be noisy and this involves distracting or removing the woodcutter in area 3.

Once inside the cottage itself is very simple with only a single main room which consists of a kitchen/dining room with a adjoining bedroom where the baby lays in its cot.

In the case of a fight the kobolds have 2 turns before the Woodcutter arrives to investigate the noise. 

3. Behind The Cottage.
Occupants: 1 Woodcutter (Use Farmer, Upgrade Dam to 4 for Big Axe)
Loot: Chopped wood (As much as you need), Woodcutters Axe (Dam 4, -Big,-Bulky)

The sound of chopping grows louder as you approach, peering around the corner of the cottage you see the tall human wielding that wickedly sharp looking axe as he slices small logs of wood into smaller logs of wood. You'll never understand humans and their strange rituals.

The big threat to the kobolds safety, this fellow will happily axe first and ask questions later. If alerted to a fight he'll focus on any kobolds that have attacked or killed any of his family first.

Once the kobolds have obtained the baby and managed to escape from the map without eating it then the second part of the adventure begins.

Thieving Witch

With your smelly, wailing but tasty treasure well in paw you race through the forest looking forward to cooking the noisy snack and impressing Warchief Dunbad with kobold cuisine, however a high pitch cackle above you suddenly draws your attention as the baby is snatched from your grasp. Racing away through the tree line on her gnarled broomstick the green skinned witch calls back "Thanks for the snack", while out of sight the scent of baby is still strong and you hurry after her.


1. The Garden

 A overpowering sweet smell seems to fill you with a rush of energy as once again the forest undergrowth thins into the clearing, the source of the smell seems to be the large building before you, a literal gingerbread house. Its brown baked walls studded with rock candy and panelled with peppermint, along its chocolate button roof tiles grimacing gummy bears gaze down at you. 

So our kobold hungry for revenge (and baby) will be wondering how to enter this den of delightful treats, any kobolds trying the thick peppermint slab doors will find them locked (and sticky) along with a cat flap that is far too small for them.

For those budding sneak thieves who want to explore around the side of the building a little further they will have to face their own problems of manoeuvring through the sugar glass grass requiring a 2 Dice Sports or Wiggle check to avoid taking 2 Hit of damage. To be fair only do this once for each side of the building though if anyone complains make they do it again and give them a Horrible Death Check that will teach em.

Much like the previous cottage the windows  are a little high for the average kobold so Sport rolls or something to stand on (like another kobold) will be needed.
Anyone attempting to peak into Room 3 through the window will alert the Witches guardians in the garden the Licorice Lasso Snakes: (advised 1 to 2 for each kobold)     

Licorice Lasso Snakes
4B 2E 2E 9R /3 AGL/Wiggle/ Candy Corn Fangs 1 DAM/ 1VP

Anyone who succeeds in Wrassling a Licorice Lasso Snake into their mouth defeats it instantly and gains 1 Hit back.

Despite the locked door entering the house shouldn't be too difficult and there are various ways of doing this. The most obvious and koboldy way is to attempt to eat their way in, now as tasty as this sounds having to eat up to your own body weight in sugar is certainly not good for you.
A kobolds bite does 1 Dam per action spent munching and the hits of the candy creations are Small Item (plate, door knob): 1 Hit, Normal Item (chair, end table) 3 Hits, Large Items (doors, a bed) 5 Hits and Walls are 8 Hits. For every 2 Hits of candy a kobold eats they gain 2 Hits back, however any kobold that eats their Hits in candy creations must roll on the Sweet & Sickly Death Table, a - Hungry kobold could quite literally eat themselves to death.

 

Sweet & Sickly Death Table
D6 Roll	Result
1-2	WAAAAAAAA SUGAR RUSH: The sheer amount of sugar courses through you increasing Reflexes by 4 for 1d6 Turns however while rushing things can lead to mistakes in normal people for a kobold it can be deadly. Every Skill become Dangerous and at the end of those turns you pass out for a nap for 2 turns.
3-4	I Don't Feel So Good: Your head spinning this way and that your blood sugar does the same. Roll a D6 1. or 2. - 1Vp, 3.or 4. -2 Hit, 5. - Miss 2 Turns Throwing Up, 6. Diabetes Gain 2 Horrible Death Checks.
5	Can't Eat Another Bite: Its too much, as the sweet taste coats your every sense your kobold has had enough swearing never to eat candy again. You kobold is unable to bring themselves eat (or bite) any more and should they be forced to in any way they gain a Horrible Death Checks as at this point they would rather bite off their own tongue.
6	Never Feed Chocolate to Dogs...: Everyone knows that Kobolds are related to dogs (apart from those weird dragon loving lizard things) and you don't feed chocolate to dogs. Even a kobolds iron stomach and mithril liver has to give up somewhere and yours has decided to head to Vors mighty snack tables. You die foaming from the mouth. Gain 2 VP for achieving the kobold dream of gorging yourself to death.

Other methods can include: 

• Melting/burning their way in, a Cup Of Elemental Summoning: Milk Milk Elemental, will demolish up to 15 Hits of Candy Creations before melting into sticky Sludge. Those using fire will have be more careful as hot melted chocolate hurts.
• Using Dungeon to lockpick the door or Wiggle to limbo through the Cat flap.
• Eating or smashing their way through the Windows or Roof tiles which are the thinnest parts of the building.
• Going down the Chimney though this will result in any kobolds taking 2 Hits of Damage as they splash into the Witches Special brew and will have to treat this as drinking a random Booze.

Any method of entry that damages the house will awaken the Gummy Bear Guardians who spring and bounce from the rooftop to attack (Advise: 2 for each kobold).  

Gummy Bear Guardians
8B 2E 2E 9R /3 AGL/ Wrassle + Bouncy/ Sticky Hugs 2 DAM/ 2VP 

2. Inside The Cottage.
Occupants: 3 Imps
Loot:Witches Special brew (5 Servings, Random Booze effect.)

When/if the kobolds make their way inside:

The candy creations continue inside, the floor tiles made of dark and white chocolate patterned in occult symbols, the walls supported by giant chocolate logs by Vor even the table, cooking implements and somehow the fireplace are made of various different types of candy. Flapping lazily in the air a trio of arguing imps seem to be taking swings at each other with candy apples as maces.   

The Imps are frankly sick of sweets and are looking forward to a feast of baby and are quite happy to add the kobolds to the menu as horderves unless given an alternative quickly. If the kobolds have somehow made themselves wet (such as falling in the witches cauldron) then they suffer -1 Agl as they stick to the floor with every step. 

Imp x3
2B 14E 19E 13R / 4 AGL / Speak Kobold / Magic Spark (ranged) 1 DAM/ 1 VP

Due to the imps habit of fighting each other the witch will ignore any sounds of combat unless the kobolds themselves are particularly noisy.

3. Witches Bedroom
Occupants: 1 Witch
Loot:Baby, 4 Spell Pages, Witches Hat. (2 Armour), Flying Broomstick

A rumbling snore so deep that you can feel it through your fur rattles from the sleeping witch as slumbers upon the bed, beside her in a small candy floss cot your stolen baby goos happily at seeing you. However at this slightest noise the witch rolls over unsteady in her sleep and kicking her stripy stocking covered legs, her boots thudding on the bed. 

A Sneaky could get away scot free here at snatching the baby (3 Dice Sneak Check) but its likely that the witch will wake up as soon as the kobolds make any noise in the room, leading to a fight.

4.Cell
Occupants: 2 Skeleton Children (Use Bad Kid)
Loot:Nothing!

The doors to this room are heavy, the hardened toffee barely moving under your weight. Inside the room is pitch back but your keen eyes pick out the black licorice chains and whips, your about to look further when a pair of small skeletons rise from the floor rushing towards you.

The witches last 'guests' the cursed pair lash out at any living thing to enter the room.

Wrapping up

With the baby retrieved and possibly a few new foodstuffs the kobold will hopefully think to carry some candy back for the orcs, allow the kobolds to attempt some cooking rolls if you wish but its time to add up that VP. Any Kobold bring back something meaty (baby, Imp, witch) gains a bonus 4 VP as does any kobold that gets ambitious and attempts to bring a whole wall of the gingerbread house for example.  

Finally a little epilogue

Returning to the camp of Warchief Dunbad the large brutish orc looks sceptical but gives you a chance to cook (rather than be cooked), thankfully your candied Baby Surprise and various other sugar treats are a big hit throughout the camp and soon everything from halfing head and elf ears to dire boar and owl bear is been thrust your way to receive a candy coating. When morning comes around however many groans can be heard echoing amongst the tents, it seems that the large fangs of the orcs are not suited to such sugary meals and many have developed cavities, perhaps now is a good time to grab some payment/loot and go back home before Warchief Dunbad decided he wants you in the pot after all. 

I hope you've all enjoyed this little adventure, please leave comments below and I think I may just leave a few of my own with any further details I decide upon when reviewing this adventure.

For further information on Kobolds Ate My Baby see the links below:


Kobolds Ate My Baby - Wikipedia 
Kobolds Ate My Baby - Scribd 3rd Edition
Kobolds Ate My Baby - Deluxx Edition Review
9th Level Games

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1. The Presence Of NPCs: Arguably the most notable difference, in personal experience with my own parties over the last 10 years I've noticed players may be reluctant or shy to roleplay in character when speaking to one another or pursue possible cross party agendas but will be more than willing to chat to NPCs and use them like puppets. Part of this is due to player personal preferences some groups dislike having inter party conflict or romance due to possible issues with player/character separation (who hasn't heard stories of groups dissolving after two or more players took a character death by another party member personally). Another issue is simply that some players simply will not know what to do or discuss because they are talking to another character who already knows everything they might talk about or alternatively certain players (particularly newer players) may feel uncomfortable with been in the spotlight. While there may be NPC's such as followers, fellow travellers or captives in a camp fire scene more often than not the party knows the exact alliances and motivations of these NPCs (or in some cases be directly under the control of another player) so there is no mystery or risk.

2. A Variety Of Additional Purpose: A camp fire scene has arguably 3 core purposes: to rest, eat and heal, to create a temporary area of safety and to allow time to perform tasks such as changing equipment, interrogating a captive or performing a complicated spell, wait for a contact to arrive etc. A Tavern can cover all three of these in its own way and provides more possibilities such as gathering information (both discreetly and overtly), indulging in celebration and vice such as drinking and wenching, acquiring supplies and wealth (through merchants, fences and gambling) as just a few examples and because of this it retains more of an important role even into the later campaign as the party gain access to versatile magic. In addition a campfire scene in nearly all scenarios occurs while the party is travelling between locations (even if that location is between floors in a dungeon) whilst a Tavern might be a stop between locations or lie in the heart of destination if it is within a city.

3. Location And Illusion Of Safety: Even if a Tavern is owned by the local thieves guild and has a two people drinking in the corner who a group suspects wants them dead a tavern will nearly always seem safer than a camp. This may seem a strange claim but when analysed it is down to the simple fact that far easier for both a player and character to identify possible risks and sources of danger. After all you only really have to analyse the people within the tavern, if your worried about been killed in your sleep you barricade the door of your room and check for possibility other entrances, if your worried about poison you eat your own food and drink, in the case of a fight its often well lit and attackers are visible. There is no worry about possible roaming monsters, the elements, the possibility of the shelter collapsing and all the other issues that may affect a camp and because of this players are more likely to engage and take risks and be involved in scene where in a camp scene its set up, make a strong fire, deploy spells and bunker down.

4. Player Familiarity: Simply put many players and dungeon masters are more personally familiar with the concept and imagery of a tavern through media and personal experience making it far easier immerse themselves into the scene. Often camp fire scene in films and book shows the characters recuperating and mentally relieved at the break from the events of the day or alternatively nervous and in fear of what may occur during the night, but because of the detachment between the player and character and often the emphasis on heroic roleplay its difficult to portray either of these feelings in roleplay.

1. It allows wilderness classes such as Rangers and Druids to bring their skills forth and gives them some time in the spotlight.
2. It creates a scene where characters can interact with each other in a casual, non stressful manner.

• I've introduced more encounters with other travellers on the road such as day to day merchants, PCs in the wilderness may also encounter stray animals, a lone hunter or even another adventuring party though I try to limit these encounters. It helps bring detail to the world and helps with players who have trouble role playing with other player characters.
• Describing possible weather and conditions that may affect possible camp sites, this combined with some detailed descriptions of the land have lead to rather entertaining side adventures as the parties refused to stop and sort out better camp sites.
• I also have a general rule of a single camp fire scene per journey (unless the players want more or a event causes another) unless the journey is particularly short. This reduces the problem of the party growing overly wary when questioned about camping as mentioned earlier.

Music
Music in the wilderness means you are not afraid of being attacked and what reminds characters of home more than the songs of home. +1hp per level per night in camp where music is played. The idea came for having bards as hirelings, but I've allowed characters to buy and play their own instrument. This costs some money and takes up encumbrance space. And how about the noise? I wouldn't want to penalize too much, or players would never play music in camp, maybe just a +1 to encounter rolls.

The Hearth
If the campfire is the extension of the hearth, maybe it should offer some protection against the dark. I'll repost an idea here:

A cleric, or anyone versed in the Old Ways, can take a stone weighing a half-stone or more from the night's fire. By incorporating it into the next night's fire ring they make that fire a hearth. Each night of doing so makes the hearth magic stronger. Undead and shape changers can not enter the light of a true hearth.

Half-stone is ~7 pounds which is one of my simple encumbrance slots. I'm not interested in the bookkeeping part now. Maybe just, using the hearth a second time on gives the protection, but skipping a use in a fire will mean you have to break the stone in again. Particularly old stones taken from ruins or abandoned cottages might function as magic items that give extra bonuses. 

The Campfire Fuel
Telecanter discusses a hearth stone idea that is tremendous. In the same vein, I like the idea of a particular type of wood helping the party. If those with botanical knowledge harvest these special woods to burn in the fire they enjoy some varied bonuses.

Wood with its effect
Barkbane This thick-barked wood is purported to keep all dogs and wolves at bay and is found to be nauseating to lycanthropes (any lycanthrope suffers a small attack penalty while fighting near barkbane).

Bloodthorn This reddish wood has severe thorns all over it. Those who have open wounds will find they quickly close and coagulate (a small immediate healing bonus for those affected by naturally occurring battle wounds of the cut/slash sort).

Greencloak This leafy, vibrant tree has wood that burns with a very thick low-laying smoke. Anyone who burns greencloak is somewhat obscured as the green smoke helps hide them. The GM may institute a small penalty to any foe trying to spot the party’s campsite.

Wyrdwoode This white, gnarly wood burns with a pale yellow smoke. The smoke has a calming effect on all persons and animals nearby (horses won’t spook as easily, the party familiars will rest easily). The wood’s effect may reduce the duration of any sort of agitated condition or mental state (shaken, scared, etc.) or remove the effects of a spell that affects the target’s mental state.

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As the torch lit shadows danced across Duncan’s face he surveyed the cave “Well I’m glad you all brought extra rations this time but we must be careful and conserve what we can.” looking over to his dwarven companion he found Sandell already answering the question he was about to ask. “Well there's too much snow to dig through without tools if you wish to keep all your fingers.. though we are in luck. This stone looks worked.. crudely so its not my clans work but if it was some human prospector we may find some tools we can use further in.” Stepping past the group so the torch would no longer hinder his darkvision  the dwarf surveyed darkness of the cavern ahead. Holding his hand out to signal to the others not to advance yet the dwarf stepped forward across the icy stone floor, his free hand now moving to his pack unhooking the throwing axe drawing it slowly he raised his arm if taking aim before hurling it towards the darkness of the ceiling.  

The darkness seemed to get even blacker for a moment before a startled bat fluttered down panicked as Isabel rolled her eyes shaking her head “You missed the bat.”, responding with an annoyed grunt Sandell  waved his hand dismissively “I wasn’t aiming for the bat...” a stalactite seemed to sway for a moment before dropping to the floor, stepping towards the now dead  Darkmantle Sandell retrieved his axe with a smug grin. “Well now we have dinner.”

Welcome to part 4 of the Survival Out in the Wilds series, in this last article we are now going to address possible uses of beasts and monsters as food, the possible things to consider and if Orc really is the other white meat.
This article is a little different from the others, its not going to be as rules focus as the previous three as Craft cooking has an excellent rule variant already available on the D&D wiki provided by the user Eiji which I will post a brief overview of below:

Table: Skill Synergies

Epic Check

You can cook foods that have an almost magical quality to them.

Advanced Cooking
Certain recipes possesses advanced cooking methods which mimic spells. You may only benefit from these cooking based spell effects 1/day, though you may cook any number of meals you wish.
In general, the formula is DC 20 + (10 x spell level) (cantrips are just 25), and typically with a lower caster level to not as to outdo actual magic. For example, a Cure Light Wounds effect would likely be DC 30. Appropriate material components in the form of ingredients should always be provided.
As you can see these rules are extremely simple and quite effective at making the craft skill useful but not overpowered, I’ve refrained from listing any particular special meals for now though I may cover these in a future article.
As a basic rule of thumb most animals are edible when cooked for long enough apart from a few rare cases however it should be noted that with more unusual creatures the Survival skills from our first article should be used to prepare the creature before cooking.

Here is a few points to consider when your players decide to start preparing dinner:

1. Eating Sentient creatures intentionally is consider an evil act and taboo by many cultures.
This may seem obvious and various races are known for this (Orcs, goblins and kobolds) however you have to remember not all sentient races are humanoid nor are they immediately recognisable as sentient, there have been some cases of some parties killing and eating monsters only to later find out that the monsters are sentient.
The initial case can be considered an accident (in the case of alignment, the locals may still be angry)  but if the party does not regret their actions or continues to hunt these creatures they are definitely committing evil acts.
Eating the flesh of sentient humanoid regularly also runs the risk of ghoulification or in the case of brain eating risk exposure to the hard to detect and deadly prion and is addictive.  

2. Carnivores probably have a higher incidence of parasites and possible toxins, due to biomagnification.
If you are not familiar with about biomagnification I suggest the wikipedia article for more details but in game the effects of this are relatively minor but here is an example of how it can be used from one of my previous campaigns:
The party has recently killed a Dire Boar on the way to a mages tower and fancy pork chops for dinner, boars do actually eat smaller animals and rodents and this Dire Boar been eating the local rats and Dire rats from around the tower.
These rats have been living off the trash from the tower which includes spoiled potions, old remnants of spell components and even the odd discharge magic item or creature, each ingesting a small amount of magical pollution which is then passed up the food chain to the Dire Boar becoming more concentrated and powerful before been passed onto the characters eating the Dire Boar who lack any of its natural built up resistances. This can be particularly deadly in real life though in the game above one character’s skin turned green for 5 hours and another grew a cat tail.

3. Just because its edible or tastes nice doesn’t mean your characters will actually be able to stomach it.
Have you ever been offered fried insects, bulls testicles, sheep's eyes, raw octopus, codfish sperm or Haggis?
Some of these are delicious but by simply knowing what they are or their appearance when served has caused people to vomit or wretch so why would your characters be any different?
In certain cases it may be suitable to have the player roll a Fortitude check to eat (or keep down) the meal at a basic DC of 12 which you should modify to the situation.   

4. How to describe the taste?
I’ve found that the actual difficulty with players who wish to have cooks as characters is when cooking a monster or creature for the first time, they often want a detailed description of the taste.
I find the best solution is to often compare it to existing meals, this can be quite difficult on some occasions especially for the stranger creatures.

If you are having trouble with description it should be noted that carnivores typically have stringy, unpalatable meat with a greasy very distinctly metallic gamey taste, also due to going up the food chain, each consumer processes minerals and vitamins, leaving behind meat with less nutritional value than the food it consumed, with carnivores yielding the least nutritional value. This means the character probably wouldn’t feel as much energy after eating it as he would when eating a steak or turkey meal.

Finally regarding our last topic regarding orcs, the answer should be no unless your using the old boar headed orcs in which case the answer changes to maybe.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this series of articles as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them and please feel free to post any comments or to contact me.

Quick Link: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Grimacing as he bit once more into the cooked rubbery flesh Samuel chewed slowly barely swallowing his meal as he looked on in amazement at Isabel hastily devouring the greasy meat of the darkmantle.  Shuffling towards her trying to distance himself from the small campfire as Sandell cooked another skewered tentacle he plucked up the courage to ask the question “With no disrespect to Sandell’s cooking and thanking the divines for the food, I have to ask how can you eat this so... eagerly.
A look of contemplation crossing her face the young Enchantress paused for a moment before answering “Well when I was an apprentice nearly every meal I ate was porridge so I enjoy the chance to eat anything new after so long..” taking a handkerchief from her she started cleaning her fingers and lips as Sandell nodded approvingly as his rough chuckle echoed in the cave. “Ahh then you’ll be in for treat when we get to my clans outpost, blind deep fish cooked in ale sauce with three different type of mushroom, perhaps with a side of goat.”
As the dwarf stroked his beard imagining the  feast Samuel felt Isabel press against his side now giving him a sly playful smile behind her handkerchief  as she whispered to him “It also helps that the first cantrip I learnt let me give anything the flavour I chose.. I think I be practising it alot if we’re both to to survive honoured grandfathers cooking and his clans hospitality.”   

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