Featured Project: A Gourmand’s Guide to Gastomancy
*As a note, the intro is written by Steph from TTRPGkids, and the article was written by the project’s creator since content is in pre-release/crowdfunding and is edited/approved by TTRPGkids for the site
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A Gourmand’s Guide to Gastromancy is inspired, first and foremost, by a love for food. The love of cooking and feasting together cuts across all our cultures and places. We feel it in restaurants with white cloth tables and kitchens with weathered old stools. Food carries the weight of tradition, the nostalgia of memories, and the strength of human beings caring for one another. This book is an ode to the seder, the potluck, the brunch; to secret recipes and bodega sandwiches.
There’s a special relationship between food and stories. Shared meals are a chance to bond and tell our own tales, to spark connections and sometimes tension. There’s also something intrinsically magical about food—think of the witch and her cauldron, Alice and her mushrooms, salt and sage and eye of newt. What better match than bringing together the magic of food and the magic of tabletop storytelling?
A Gourmand’s Guide to Gastromancy is a food-themed adventure and sourcebook for 5th edition of the world’s greatest roleplaying game. The book features three full adventures with maps, three playable ancestries, three playable backgrounds, 24 magic items, 23 monsters, 20 spells, three subclasses, and four real-life recipes players can make and bring to game night. Want to play a character who crossed the wrong fey and was turned into a talking pumpkin? How about casting a spell that covers your enemies in a sticky candy coating or causing a noodle eruption in the middle of a battle? Care to play as a Gastromancer wizard, harnessing the power of culinary magic to change the world? This book has it all.
The content is meant to appeal to all ages with family-friendly subject matter and clever game mechanics design. The first adventure is an introductory quest that can be played in a 2-hour session and is great for anyone who has never played 5e. This story is an ode to the author’s childhood about how the hatred of eating vegetables turns into a household overrun by veggie monsters! The second adventure takes beats from the movie Ratatouille, where a group of normal-sized adventures tries to help a massive cloud giant cook an impressive feast. The third adventure features a Willy Wonka-inspired candy factory where the party can join a gummy bear revolt against an evil candy medusa. While each of these adventures has a place for combat to showcase amazing heroic abilities, many of the encounters involve overcoming obstacles and working as a team to solve problems. The product can be used by children of middle school age, adults who enjoy the occasional light-hearted session, or mixed company. For children younger than middle school age, we recommend an adult facilitate running the story as Dungeon Master.
Find a copy of A Gourmand’s Guide to Gastromancy on DM’s Guild to start your adventure today!
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