As seen on Library of Attnam: https://attnam.blogspot.com/2022/06/challenge-quarter-hour-of-writing.html
Spice - a valuable and portable storage of value, consumable - what's to separate it from drugs? Probably that drugs can be consumed on their own, while spices are condiments - I would never eat a handful of cloves.
This as a restriction lends itself to thinking up interesting spices-as-magic-items. Like oils of +1 weapon or whatever, only good. For example, perhaps there is a sort of salt that transforms slimes into edible rations, or a barbecue rub that, when applied to the dead body of an outsider, lets you then eat it and later vomit it out reformed and reanimated like a summoned monster - angel wings & devil ribs.
Drugs - you assume all the neat stuff is illegal. Spices? More complex. Perhaps there are sumptuary laws. Trade routes disrupted, we need someone expendable to map a new route through the Mines of Megadeath. Some asshole alchemist has figured out a way to synthesize a syrup with 99% of the flavour, steal the recipe and rough him up.
Can also apply the spice to yourself - get yourself so spicy you can't be swallowed or bitten without the monster having a coughing fit. Hot sauce arms race to become the least appetizing culture on the face of the earth.
Spices for things that don't eat regular food regular-like. What's spice to a mind flayer? Repressed libidinous thoughts? Is lead poisoning delicious or disgusting to them? Mercury poisoning? Is there a cattle-species of humanity they're breeding with a weaker blood-brain barrier, developed with the same dispassion we might discuss superior marinade techniques? Were mind flayers responsible for the failure of Roman plumbing infrastructure?
Intelligent rust monsters sprinkling verdigris on a breast-plate. Perhaps there is a commonality between the fancy lads of our kind and theirs in consuming edible gold leaf on food.
Spices covering up bad food - a restaurant that serves negative energy-charged meat drowned in pepper sauce, its clientele are rendered undead from the belly-out, weeping & still-living bodies being dragged behind slithering lengths of zombified intestines.
Spices with esoteric preparations - perhaps the salt used in a binding-circle is infused with otherworldly flavours.
I ended up putting it on hold, but for a while I was getting really into the videogame Triangle Strategy. Despite being a medium-to-high fantasy setting, the plot revolves largely around salt and the mining, distribution, trade, profit, etc. therein. Even without any mechanical implications, or magical implications, it propels everything forward, driving the politics and intrigue and feeling interesting and real.
ReplyDeleteI like these ideas for spices as well though, especially the idea of "Spices for things that don't eat regular food regular-like". There's a lot to be done with that for sure.
I'm getting some Dungeon Meshi vibes. :)
ReplyDeleteMind Flayers breeding slaves for specific delicious thought patterns should be canon.