Sometimes treasure, renown, and experience just aren’t enough to express gratitude sufficiently. Should you be in need of a feast or banquet, use the following table to add a little variety to your party or let it serve as inspiration for a story hook. While a feast is unlikely to replace a quest reward, non-monetary rewards can add a great deal of flavor to the adventurers’ interactions. You can roll randomly for a result below using the handy number provided with each entry to figure out your result on a d20. You can also pick one that works for the area in which your characters currently linger.
1. An enormous, whole roast fish served steaming on a platter and surrounded by sliced citrus and root vegetables.
2. A collection of small clay bowls, each containing some never-before-seen delicacy: shredded vegetables, thick goops, delicate and crumbling pastry, or steamed buns.
3. A roast wild boar so large that the table bows under its weight. Leafy greens are piled high around the boar, and a giant tree fruit has been placed within its mouth.
4. The severed head of some foreign monster stands on a platter, surrounded by a hundred tiny steaming bowls of various colors.
5. A staggering variety of baked goods is piled high, all golden brown and decorated with fanciful patterns.
6. A small assortment of roast fowl, carefully arranged in a V as though cooked mid-flight.
7. The entire table is covered with plates piled high with unidentifiable sliced meats, each recognizably some foreign specialty.
8. Strange meats and fish are laid out atop some broad local leaves, and small bowls of steaming broth are set at each place.
9. An assortment of tiny porcelain cups surrounds a half dozen kettles and mysterious ewers on a low table.
10. Enormous piles of cooked grains and rice are scattered amongst smaller bowls of assorted steamed vegetables.
11. A single giant bowl filled with rice, vegetables, and steaming broth has hundreds of some strange underwater monstrosity posed along the rim.
12. A generous variety of steamed vegetables surrounds what appears to be a pile of enormous bird’s eggs in the center of the table.
13. Huge bowls of neatly sorted mushrooms steam merrily, surrounding a bizarre diorama suggesting tiny adventurers weaving their way through an underground mushroom forest.
14. Shallow metal pans sizzle with vegetables and grilled meat, and a stinging steam rises from each as their placed on the table.
15. Some brightly colored gourds have been hollowed out and serve as huge communal bowls for a variety of thick stews.
16. Woven baskets overflowing with fresh fruit, some still on the vine, surround the centerpiece: a whole buck roasted and cunningly reassembled.
17. Some simple hollowed loaves of bread filled with a hearty white stew and accompanied by cold meat pies.
18. Delicate, lacy sugar structures tower over intricately decorated cakes along with a staggering assortment of pies, cookies, and sundry sweets.
19. A series of strange, flat pies covered in melted cheese and an assortment of meats and vegetables.
20. Sweetly smelling roast meats and vegetables cannot distract from the severed human head centerpiece.
Nice, as usual. No 13 immediately gave me the idea of a hidden extra for inquisitive players. In the diorama, one of the figures could be shown finding an treasure cache/hidden cave entrance/whatever buried beneath one oddly coloured mushroom. Later (some dunegon levels deeper, or maybe on an expedition months later) the group comes across a real fungus forest with just such an oddly coloured giant mushroom…
Maybe not the most innovative idea, but I thought I’d share it anyway… :)
What a fantastic idea for a story hook! I’m using that.