An Unusual Crop: Fermentation (#4 GLÅUGUST 2026)
An Unusual Crop: Fermentation
Written from inspiration from one of my players my PC's - Padyte the dwarf cook, who will eat anything.
In food processing, fermentation is the conversion of carbohydrates to alcohol or organic acids using microorganisms—yeasts or bacteria—without an oxidizing agent being used in the reaction. Fermentation usually implies that the action of microorganisms is desired.
I am arguing for this GLÅUGUST post that fermentation and the desired food products are a form of crop. Lets not get pedantic.
C is for Cheese
Catoblepas Burrata
Whether some adventurers think its worth the risk to milk a catoblepas, others do it on a drunk dare and the most sensible harvest it from a freshly killed catoblepas' udder either way the milk they harvest can be made into cheese.
Taste: Smells of sulphur and boiled cabbage; tastes surprisingly buttery.
Processing: Requires a fire to heat the water. If the cheesemaker fails an Intelligence check (under stat on 1d20), the fumes escape: everyone in the room must Save vs. Poison or go blind for 1d4 hours.
Effect: Eating the cheese allows you to project a Death Gaze once within the next turn. Target must Save vs. Death or take 3d6 damage.
Sin Eaters Chèvre
Made from a Scapegoat's Milk. Looks, smells and tastes like goats milk, but the goat’s daily consumption of local sins curdles the cream into something dark.
Taste: Pungent spicy fragrance and a sweet and tangy taste.
Processing: Requires an Intelligence check modified by relevant backgrounds (e.g., Fromager). On a failure, the cheese spoils into a grey puddle of ash.
Effect: Eating the cheese absorbs the concentrated sins of a local parish. You are immediately [Marked by the Infernal]:
Clerics and holy beings can smell sulphur on you from 30' away.
Divine healing spells cast on you fail.
Devils recognize you as pre-approved soul currency, making them highly willing to barter or enter diabolic contracts with you.
The mark can only be cleansed by a Remove Curse cast by a high-ranking cleric who must then do penance for your stolen sins.
E is for Eggs
Thousand Year Dragon Eggs
First off, never eat actual dragon eggs. They cause magical radiation sickness, spontaneous combustion, and a swift death at the claws of an angry mother.
What the markets call "Thousand-Year Dragon Eggs" are actually the preserved eggs of wyverns or drakes. The preservation process doesn't take a millennium—it takes 6 months of burial, though eggs cured for several years fetch exorbitant prices.
Wyvern:
Raw: Wyvern eggs contain high levels of ammonia. It is toxic, must Save vs. Poison or take 2d6 damage and spend 1 hour violently retching.
Fermented: Buried in damp moss and lichen to leach the toxins. Eating it allows you to spit a stream of poison (10' range, 1d6 damage, targets must Save vs. Poison or be blinded for 1 turn) once within 24 hours.
Fire Drake:
Raw: Internal temperature remains at 200°C. Eating it inflicts 1d4 fire damage per round. Drinking water only makes it steam, increasing damage to 1d6. Can only be quenched by drinking oil or milk.
Fermented: Fermented in heat-resistant, oil-filled clay urns used in dwarven brass-foundries. Eating it grants you smoke-vision (30') and the ability to speak the language of flame for 24 hours.
Coral Drake:
Raw: Coated in a thick, supernatural slime. Handling it requires a Dexterity check or it slips away. Eating it raw causes a continuous Grease spell to emit from your mouth and pores for 1 day.
Fermented: Fermented in dry, sun-baked salt-sands. Eating it allows you to speak with coral and breathe underwater for 1 hour.
Amber Drake:
Raw: The yolk contains a defensive, slow-acting calcifying enzyme. Eating it raw forces a Save vs. Turn to Stone. On a failure, your flesh turns to translucent amber-coloured gel for 1 day (half speed, immune to slashing, double damage from bludgeoning).
Fermented: Cured in a heavily saturated alkaline saline solution, which neutralizes the petrification. If dried and ground into powder, the yolk serves as the primary catalyst for brewing a Potion of Invisibility.
P is for Pickling
Pickled Eye Tyrant Eyes
Eye Tyrants are strange creatures, their eyes are a rare, decadent delicacy. Only the absolute wealthiest, most eccentric wizard-patrons can afford them, often hiring desperate bands of mercenaries to harvest the wet, twitching globes.
Harvesting: The eyes must be carefully severed from a slain tyrant. This requires a sharp blade and a Dexterity check modified by a background in surgery, butchery, or hunting.
If the Tyrant is slain using bludgeoning weapons, magic, or if the harvesting check is failed, the delicate retinal membranes rupture, useless vitreous liquid. They are ruined.
The Brine: Due to their alien biology, normal vinegar or alcohol will not preserve them; they immediately dissolve into foul-smelling gray sludge. They must be boiled in the acidic, enzymatic residue of various Oozes for one hour, then sealed in lead-lined jars to ferment for one month.
Blood Ooze Brine
Fermented in the hot, iron-scented fluids of a boiling blood jelly.
Taste: Like pennies and raw beef.
Effect: Consuming one eye restores 1d4 Hit Points immediately.
Risk: Eating more than one in a single 24-hour period overloads your nervous system with alien blood pressure. Roll immediately on a Chaos Magic table as your skin briefly turns translucent and sparks with magical static.
Cherenkov Ooze Brine
Cured in the highly radioactive discharge of the radioactive oozes.
Taste: Tastes like static electricity; makes your teeth buzz.
Effect: Your skin permanently glows with a faint blue light (equivalent to candle light, 5-foot radius). For 1 hour, your pupils dilate into deep, lightless wells, granting you X-Ray Vision—you can see through solid stone, wood, or dirt up to 10 feet deep.
Seeing the living as walking, meat-draped skeletons is deeply unsettling. You must immediately roll a Morale check or suffer a -2 penalty to all attack rolls and checks for the hour due to shaking hands.
Risk: Eating more than one eye in a week turns you into a walking fallout hazard. For the next 24 hours, you exude a toxic aura: any creature within 20 feet takes 1 point of damage per round, and those within 10 feet take 1d4 damage per round. Your allies will hate you.
Ink Ooze Brine
Preserved in the pitch-black, excretions of an ink pudding.
Taste: Bitter, oily, and leaves your teeth stained solid black for a week.
Effect: Consuming one eye floods your mind with ancient, geometric spell-forms. Within the next 24 hours, you can write or copy a single spell scroll from your spellbook or memory with zero material/gold cost—your black-stained saliva acts as the perfect, magical ink.
If you manage to consume ten of these eyes over the course of a month, the ink permanently saturates your lymphatic system. Your spellbook is magically tattooed directly onto your flesh, allowing you to memorize your spells by looking in a mirror or tracing your own skin.
Mercury Ooze Brine
Cured in the heavy, shifting, silver-liquid of a quicksilver ooze.
Taste: Cold, artificial sweeteners, and unbelievably heavy in the stomach.
Effect: Your skin takes on a dull, metallic sheen. The next spell cast directly at you within 1 turn is automatically reflected back at the caster as if by a mirror. The effect then ends.
If you consume three of these eyes in immediate succession, your body temporarily acts as a grounding rod for magic. The next spell cast at you is harmlessly absorbed and stored in your memory, allowing you to cast it once within 24 hours (even if it is not on your class spell list).
Ochre Ooze Brine
Fermented in the thick, yellowish, grease of an Ochre Jelly.
Taste: Like rancid lard and lead batteries.
Effect: You gain Resistance (half damage) to all lightning attacks for 24 hours.
Risk: Eating 1d4 of these eyes over a short period permanently changes your body odour. You smell exactly like an Ochre Jelly to other oozes. While this prevents them from attacking you immediately (they view you as a sibling), it also means every ooze within 100 feet is passively attracted to your location, slowly crawling toward you like a lost pet.
Y is for Yeast
Mage Boule
This recipe doesn't need any explaining:
Recipe: A scroll of Mage Hand. A scroll of Animate Object. 00' Strong bread flour. Wizards yeast - scraped from a dusty spellbook. 1 Vial of holy water
Taste: DO NOT EAT - IT IS CONSIDERED CONSCIOUS, SENTIENT AND INTELLIGENT AND WILL HOLD A DRUDGE
Effect: Upon baking, the creator must pass an INT check and a CHA check. Success yields a Level 1 Magic-User Retainer (HD 1, knows Mage Hand). It requires a daily feeding of flour and secrets.
Risk: Highly sensitive. Any hint of betrayal, deception, or unkindness causes it to desert the party, become an NPC Nemesis, and dedicatedly study Fireball until it can cast it at your face.
Crimson Host Used by vampire hunters to disguise their movements to their quarry. Crimson Host bread is baked using unique ingredients to bring about an undead disguise.
Recipe: Bonemeal - The drier the bones the better (Mummy bones are preferred).Blood of the innocent - The younger the more effective. Myconid Spores or Myconid Mycelium.
Taste: Umami overtones, unsettlingly pleasant and a heavy iron crust.
Effect: Makes you appear as the undead and makes your skin deathly cold to the touch for 4 hours.
Risk: During this time, holy water burns you as if it were acid (1d4 damage per splash), and domestic animals (dogs, horses) will bark, whimper, or refuse to let you ride them.