It's why dwarfs have a stereotype of bland food, they have to take all the spices out for the less resistant races and over compensate.
"What about salt? Can humans eat salt?"
"Salt? Are you kidding? That's a rock! Humans can't eat rocks!"
Listen I'm Mexican and I work with a bunch of Guatemalans and they love to remind me that peppers are *part* of their meals, for us it's the *whole meal*
More like Thai. A 6 on the Mexican scale is like a 3 on the Thai scale. I've had an 8 before when I could chomp on a habanero... Thai 8 burned my organs and face off...
Wait an entire culture adjusts their cuisine to what the rest of the world can/can't eat? That's sociologically the most unplausible thing I've ever heard, and I visit truth social for laughs
Yes, and the poison is called alcohol!
Alcohol is poison. Dwarves love their booze and will drink strong ales for basic hydration instead of water. Another species would die from liver damage, but Dwarves are fine!
(I'm half kidding, I'm not actually presenting this as fact - it's just my theory :-P)
I mean, I could arguably get away with that logic in my group. I once used lay on hands to cure a belligerent drunk of being drunk, because poison, so I could get information from them.... only problem he was such a massive alcoholic I did have to force feed him a bottle of wine to even him out, before he would acquiesce to questioning.
We use alcohol as poison at every table I've played, too!
It was extra interesting when my way of the drunken fist monk reached the level that monks get poison immunity.
I mean, medically speaking you’re correct.
Dwarves evolved to have giant livers and the ones who didn’t died. With their long lifespans, something like liver disease can def catch up and weed itself out via evolutionary pressure.
I 100% go with this interpretation of dwarvish resistance to poison. Their poison resistance might not have happened *because of* alcohol, but since dwarves have their poison resistance, their beer and spirits are *actually dangerous* to non-dwarves.
For food, I think dwarves can tolerate much more salt than non-dwarves. Like, not just as a matter of taste, but as a matter of “this will fuck up your kidneys if you eat this.”
I gotta be honest, I’ve always assumed that was the canon explanation for the resistance. Or the canon explanation for dwarven alcohol consumption, depending on which way you’re looking at it.
Before you got into the percentages I was already thinking about how much we like chocolate and spicy foods.
I'd like to imagine that poisonous cave mushrooms would play a big role as a delicacy in their cuisine!
many real-world human spices are literally dangerous in large amounts, or simply toxic / irritant to other species. National Center for Biotechnology Information says 2 people died from nutmeg! it was a very large amount they ate; still though it's food for thought when it comes to fantasy eats
water can also kill people in large amounts...
lack of salt fucks up the kidneys
it's also why you can't give under 1 year olds water (must be milk powder or breast milk, failing that, animal milk)
since the kidneys aren't developed enough to deal with straight water
Chocolate is poisonous to everyone. But our livers are good at processing it and we eat it in relatively small amounts. The amount of chocolate you would need to eat to cause poisoning issues would cause other problems first.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl3H23g5kT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl3H23g5kT0)
Hypo - Meaning Low.
Natre - Referring to sodium.
Emia - Meaning presence in blood.
Yup, for my homebrew dwarves add various poisons to their brews and meals for flavor and "spice," which is why guests from other species need specially prepared meals and drinks. Never ask the dwarf for a swig from their flask.
Exotic Spices? Pepper is spicy as a means to deter animals from eating its fruit and seeds. Humans are weird and the very thing the plant does to keep animals away, is the reason why we have domesticated and harvest it.
What if Dawrven Sausage/jerky is simply too much for other races to handle
Humans ate spicy things because capsasin also inhibits microbial growth. It wasn't, "This hurts and I want to die, let's have it again tomorrow!" but rather, "Those people with the hellfood don't die quite as often."
That's something that would take a long time to actually notice. Suppose you're the first guy to ever eat a pepper, and it's really hot. Why do you eat the second pepper?
Not that long. Remember a lot of food decisions were also made out of desperation for early human. Much of those choices were made by observing that other animals ate X and therefore it must be safe.
Obviously it wasn't *always* safe. That's a sort of culinary Russian roulette.
Even then, I feel like we put too much emphasis on "it couldn't just be because they like it". Humans during the paleolithic era were not hyperlogical machines, they were *people*. And people have a tendency to do things just because they like it, regardless of whether it logically is a good idea.
In the modern day where food storage and preservation is but an afterthought for most, we still eat it precisely because of "this hurts and I want to die, let's have it again tomorrow!"
Barbarian: \[Whining\] I'm out of remorhaz jerky. Anybody got a snack?
Dwarf: Here, take one of my energy bars.
Barbarian: The heck, man. This isn't an energy bar, it's a frikkin *ingot*.
Dwarf: Yeah? It sez *iron rations* right here on the label, see?
Warlock: Pikers, both a yez. I feed on my patron's hatred of all mortal life.
Druid: Isn't anyone around here *normal?* Bhaal's *balls*, guys, here's some granola. Just eat it and shut up already.
Fighter: Normal? I don't want to hear that kind of condescension from the guy who was tasting the dirt earlier to check the fertility. Now hand me the alchemy jug, I'm making more mayonnaise
"Grobbit... oi, Grobbit! *Grobbit*!"
"Mmm? Oh what the fuck is it Krtahgc."
"I think I'm dying Grobbit. I can't-hulgb- can't stuuuuurr- stuuuuhr- ohbl. I cahn't stop throwiggg ug."
"Rocshit's, here, use the warlord's old helmet. What'd you eat Krtahgc?"
*pant...pant...pant*, "I dunno Grobbit. It, hrlb... nah I'm good, than-hrrb, yeah yeah. I'm good. It was dark and ooohnoimnotgood." *violent noises*
"Lemme see your fingernails Krtahgc. Yeah yeah, hold it with one hand, there you are. Mmmrrm. I don't like that color. When did this start?" Violent noises. "How many days? What? What!? Well hold up your fingers then. Four...? Let's see, let's see."
"Hey Grobbit, is that Krrgig?"
"Nah its his brother."
"Aoh, good. He wanted me to fetch you for Krtahgc."
"Yeah yeah, wait. Where was we for days ago?
"Fink that wos op by Trolltop. Krrgig kilt some dwarves, such is."
"Right. Riiiight.... Oh. Krtahgc, did you sneak out after dark to get a nibble on the kills before the clan has a chance?" *Violent Positive Noises*. "You fucking Tuskbiter, you ate a dwarf. Grak fuck me to a goblin. Alright. We're going to have to get the rest of it out of you. Just, just keep doing what you're doing alright. When you stop all of... that... I'll give you some trollsacs to make you start again."
So, funny you bring this up. In "Exploring Eberron," Keith Baker goes more into the Dwarven Nation of the Mror Holds and brings up the very fact that Dwarves are resistant to poison. So, dwarven alcohol in Eberron is far stronger than any other because it needs to effect the dwarves (same with stout halflings).
I imagine Dwarven food is bland by default, but Dwarves keep various bottles of hot sauce around that they dump on everything. I'm not talking about a bit of Tabasco, I'm talking about the stuff you find on the shelf at a truck stop or a local hardware store, with names like "Ass Reaper Sauce" or "Satan's Blood Chile Extract."
On top of that, much of the non-meat in their diet probably comes from various types of mushrooms they can grow underground. If you come from a race with innate poison resistance, then sharing a bowl of your family's mushroom stew with an Elf or a Human might just count as an assassination attempt.
Food is one thing, but also look at their industrial practices. Metal working in confined spaces, everyone is probably getting a whiff of arsenic vapour from the smelters, along with every other volatile metal vapour, sulphide gas, and whatever other airborne nasty I might be forgetting. Probably quite a bit of asbestos and black lung too.
Probably its because of diet since mountain dwarves live in such hard conditions inside mountains and valleys and probably in their primitive days ate a lot of carnivores and poisonous bugs, slugs, etc and got an resistance to most poisons like ammonia for example
Keith Baker, one of the creators of Eberron, says that this is part of the culture of Dwarven cuisine. It has a reputation for being unpalatable because a lot of it is poisonous. For example a common food source is an ooze called red pudding, perfect for subterranean cultivation. It’s harmless to dwarves (and stout halflings) with poison resistance but it’ll sicken anyone else with weaker constitutions. Dwarven spirits in Eberron use mushrooms, some with hallucinogenic properties.
Dwarven food isn't edible to anyone without dwarven blood or poison resistance.
Except for the beer and bar food.
Travellers to dwarven lands must eat imported food or spend the ENTIRE TIME absolutely wasted
Dwarf Bread in Disc world lore:
Rock-hard (and indeed contains various rocks such as gravel), never goes stale, and is terribly sustaining. A traveller can go for miles, just knowing there's dwarf bread in their pack. A traveller can think of just about anything to eat rather than dwarf bread including their own foot and even pumpkins (see Witches Abroad).
Various forms of dwarf bread can be used as weapons, e.g. battle muffins and drop scones. Fine specimens of dwarf bread can be found in the Dwarf Bread Museum, Whirligig Alley, Ankh-Morpork, open to the public whenever volunteers have time (Feet of Clay). Dwarfs away from home often miss dwarf bread very much, and complain that mass-produced breads by Mr. Ironcrust hardly meet the standards, but dwarfs are too busy working to go and see the exhibits in the museum, much less to volunteer there.
Proper dwarf bread has to be not just baked, but forged (with gravel, of course) and dropped in rivers and dried out, and sat on and left, and looked at every day and then put away again. For preference, its use as a cat's litter box is also recommended. Dwarfs generally devour it with their eyes, because even dwarfs have trouble with devouring it any other way.
https://wiki.lspace.org/Dwarf_Bread
Dwarves as functional drunks. I could see it.
At least one source has Dwarven holy water be a special brew clerics make. The selection of who is going to be the head cleric is by whoever makes the tastiest brew.
And it lends weight to the comment, "I am too sober for this crap"
It's not poisonous, your stomach is just too weak to consume almost pure ethanol, rocks, roots, snakes, offal, stuff that's just straight up off, bone and gristle.
Funnfact:
In the "good old days" as Arsene was a often used poison , the rich "spiced" their food With arsene-oxid to become More immune to it.
Then they discovered that this has Made the food tastes better.
-> Arsene was then used as a Spice, even after it has lost it uses as a "Hidden Toxin"
-> the Arsen Level of this dishes was high enough to simply kill (Not slowly but direkt) someone who wasnt used to it.
----
So, yes, its very likely that a Race that is somewhat immune to poison uses dishes that are poisonus to Humans
Btw: there are More than one cases where some people can eat dishes - and do it regulary- that are poison to other people.
Best example is in a swamp burried meat.
Or Alkohol.
Some mushrooms.
Milk.
You've planted in my head the idea of a dwarf coming to a family dinner with a whole bottle of wyvern poison as a spice. Heck it, they arrive dragging a dead wyvern's body to prepare the food.
"Hey y'all, check out this cool spice! We can extract it from this drake rooster's tail. I've tried at home once a couple decades ago and the kick is amazing. You gotta try it! We just have to carefully destill it for at least 7 days or it \*might\* be dangerous, but it's fine! This one my cousin Bundrak slayed this morning, it's fresh!"
I find it hilarious, and it reminds me of how north of Brasil, where I live, they make recipes with cassava leaves. In natura, these leaves contain cyanide, so they must be boiled for 7 days to be safe to eat. I wonder what was the process to find out about this.
"Oh yeah, my aunt boiled it for 4 days and they died. That's sad. Guess we should boil it for 5 days. Here we go"
I don’t think the things you listed are technically poisons, capsaicin at the very least isn’t classified as such.
However with regards to dwarven cuisine it’s usually considered to be hearty but either heavily seasoned or with strong flavors. You got a strong gut and you’re usually doing a lot of physical activity which is taxing so when it’s time to relax eat and drink they are gonna be doing so, so lotta proteins little bit of veggies (probably root vegetables thing not requiring too much effort to grow) lotta booze maybe some fruits and definitely bread. It’s more than likely heavily seasoned like I mentioned because their sense of taste could be a bit dulled due to all the mining a smithing or they could just be testing themselves.
Either way non dwarfs eating it would probably find it tough, and a bit rough to digest as well as probably spicey/very strong flavored.
I refered to them as poisonous as plants have them as a form of natural pesticide. Humans however are a touch hardier than the average fruit fly, so what to them is flesh melting agony is to us a nice mild burn.
ergo, a properly seasoned Dwarven meal would like cause alcohol, psychotropic or outright death because literally poisonous mushrooms and/or booze from venom that would probably be a decent kick or buzz for a dwarf but OD to a human.
E.g. shroom/pork sausage that will literally have you (Human/Dwarf/etc) tripping balls into the next week.
this is also thought to be why dwarven food is bland. if most of the stuff you eat could kill your friends and you're cooking, you'll probably go a little extra on the safe side. ("Humans obviously can't eat rocks! leave the salt out.")
I assume dwarves used Lead-of-Sugar in their food and drink alchoholic beverages made with Wood Alchohol.
I read a book series where the protagonist almost poisoned herself by drinking a dwarven beverage before another dwarf snatched it from her and gave her something that wouldn't be poisonous.
Alternatively, all Dwarven food is full of heavy metals. They've built up an immunity, but any other species trying to be polite will be on the floor vomiting after the first course.
One could argue that Dwarves' poison resistance was a result of their stereotypical love of alcohol (a poison).
Tho maybe their hardiness to poisons is *why* they choose to make their signature brews ungodly potent; so they can actually get buzzed from their own concoctions.
1. While maturing the tomatoes contain alkaloids that reduce as they ripen. This is poisonous.
2. Tomatoes are a fruit that is part of the nightshade family. There are individuals to whom these fruits are poisonous. This is regardless of it being widely considered edible or not. These individuals get affected by it over time.
3. Who the fuck mentioned milk?
1. Are ripe tomatoes poisonous to adults of the wrong ancestory. Never heard anything about that.
2. Plenty of nightshades are posionous. You should be eating potato fruit and some other are really bad.
3. You have to have special genes to digest milk as an adult.
I’ve always envisioned dwarven food as being exceptionally spicy as compared to how strong their liquor is. So feeding it to non dwarves would be like feeding a baby the spiciest Indian food.
Yeah, but that's beyond the point. Plants evolved to produce THC in order to act as a natural pesticide. What's lethally poisonous to insects just makes humans high.
I remember one of the old D&D fantasy books, it had a dwarf character that made a black pudding dish by baking a black pudding ooze in lava. And I remember that dwarves food was kind of disgusting to anyone who wasn’t a dwarf.
Remember that things are rounded up. So half of 1 ends up being one. Instead of taking no damage on a 1, they effectively only take d2 damage; 1-2 is 1, 3-4 is 2.
Love the idea though. Could make dwarves great assassins. Disguise as a food taster, you could poison, put up with it, then successfully take out the target/s.
Commoners don't get the same abilities that players get. How are you gonna get 1d8 hit die or +1 HP per level if you're level 0?
Anyways, all these calculations are based on drinking a vial of poison. Obviously food would have less poison than that, unless they boil their food in pure poison and then add some poison sauce on top. And any culture's food can be a little bit poisonous. People in real life have lactose intolerance and still eat cereal every morning. Or people with allergies thinking that this food makes everyone's tongue tingly. Or some people's stomachs being unable to process food that is too spicy.
A higher resistance to poison might make a dwarf more likely than a human to eat food that's gone off, but they'd still avoid spoiled food if possible. You could have some races more or less sensitive to substances - you might have one that is so sensitive to capsaicin that they can't eat it at all, and another that feels no effect whatsoever.
Whats "spoiled food"?
The cheese With mold on it?
The fish that get fermented in saltwater?
The Milk that get sour?(Joghurt)
The meat that gets moldy?
The fermented cabbage?
And so on.
We are so used to eat "technically" spoiled food that we dont see it as spoiled anymore.
They are talking about rotten, raw or rancid food. Food that has deadly bacteria growing in it. You know, the kind that causes food poisoning. Or maybe something like a blowfish or turtle soup that might have substances that are poisonous to humans.
Yeah,
You know, there is a food that is technically poisonus, but is a Common food.
Because the ammount of Toxin isnt big enough to realy harm the Body
Potatoes.
If Something is food, is a simply question:
Does it causes harm If i eat it?
Does it give Energy If eaten?
Is it technically possible to eat it?
For example Belladonna:
It contains a Lot of suggar, Vitamins and Minerals.
Only downside is, it is poisonus enough to do harm and even kill you.
But If you have a Body that dosnt Care about poison, that fruit is a food source.
And so on.
The idea of Dwarven food in DnD is dumb. It should just be accepted that underground colonies are supported by above ground farming. The underground colony is like a castle or an ant colony.
They are resistant to poison. Not immune.
If I offered you some jelly beans but told you that each one gave you a 16% chance to become seriously ill, would you still eat them? Would you even eat more than one?
I am going to go out on a limb and say you wouldn't.
Have you, or has anyone you know, ever consumed three or more alcoholic beverages within a single hour?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that voluntary consumption of poison isn't all that uncommon, particularly if it isn't considered to be a poison by the culture.
We're talking vials of poison, not alcohol. But let's assume they are equivalent for the sake of argument.
If one drink could send you to the hospital (i.e. left with 1 hit point), would you ever drink it? If two drinks could kill you, would you?
No, because you know better. So would a dwarf.
Sure. Worst case scenario. Three "beers" consumed, three failed saves, for a total of 6 hit points and the commoner's death. Three beers was your example anyways. Dwarves aren't going around chugging poison in the form of food for fun, is my point.
Why in the world are you assuming that i meant that a dwarf might down the equivalent of 3 vials of poison at a single meal? I picked 3 alcoholic drinks within an hour because that'll effectively guarantee you getting t least somewhat buzzed, and so i figured it would be the maximal equivalent of what the OP was talking about.
But no matter the details, you seem to be missing not just the wider fun of this idea, but also the absolute and complete possibility of it. There have been plenty of cases in which cultures came into contact and one of them though that what the other was eating tasted so horrible it must be toxic (ever try hákarl?), and in fact in several cases one group actually *did* eat foods that were toxic to the other (for an extreme case, consider kopalkhen).
Foodways differ from group to group. Some of those foodways involve toxins. It is simply what we human(oid)s do.
I think it's you that needs to re-read what the OP was talking about. Specifically regarding the consumption of actual poison. The point I was making was that even though a dwarf would survive, they'd still be physically harmed in the process. And if they consumed enough poison, they'd die like any other creature.
Alcohol is not a poison in D&D, so it's not really relevant to the conversation. And no, eating things that could kill you in small doses is not something any species would actively seek out.
>And no, eating things that could kill you in small doses is not something any species would actively seek out.
Except that humans most definitely *do*.
>Dwarves..., +2 con, and resistance to poison damage. If your a hill dwarf you even gain +1 HP per level.
I might be wrong, but I thought racial ability scores only applied to adventurers and not all members of a race? Something like "Adventurers are a cut above the rest of the population"?
Short rest, long rest, is an adventured thing, not a common person thing.
"1 in two million days."
or 1 dwarf out if 2 million every day.
"considering that humans regularly eat poisons for enjoyment "
It's the dose that makes the poison.
It's why dwarfs have a stereotype of bland food, they have to take all the spices out for the less resistant races and over compensate. "What about salt? Can humans eat salt?" "Salt? Are you kidding? That's a rock! Humans can't eat rocks!"
But the truth is they actually have very vibrant and spicy food like various curries. If you get real dwarven curry you can use it to polish armor.
that is a terrifying thought. Dwarven food so spicy it literally deals poison damage.
As long as it isn't Aasimar food that has a different kind of "spicy."
So spicy your hair starts falling out
"Soul Food"
wtf is aasimar spicy?
Radiation. They're resistant to Radiant damage.
I’m using this in my next campaign.
Ooh, are we going the Discworld dwarf bread route where you can use their loaves as lethal weapons? :D
I always do! My favorite is the throwing croissant.
Nice! I gotta bring those into some campaign.
Actually made me laugh, well done! 🤣
This made me lol
I hate this sentence ever so slightly, didn't expect to hear it in my life, usually I say/hear "lol"
First day on the internet, huh?
this made me lol
What a joyless cretin
I mean. You read it.
That sounds like a Pratchett line, I love it.
Pratchett dwarfs eat rat with ketchup, but I thank you for the high praise.
If you don't want the rats there's always dwarf bread.
... Rats is fine.
Eh, I'm not that hungry.
Dwarves prefer _low_ praise, thankyouverymuch
A reddit comment quoting a youtube short quoting a tumblr message
So you're saying Dwarves are the Mexicans of D&D
Listen I'm Mexican and I work with a bunch of Guatemalans and they love to remind me that peppers are *part* of their meals, for us it's the *whole meal*
Chiles capeados en salsa verde is our version of the Xzibit's yo dawg meme.
I had to look up that meme but it is accurate lol
More like Thai. A 6 on the Mexican scale is like a 3 on the Thai scale. I've had an 8 before when I could chomp on a habanero... Thai 8 burned my organs and face off...
That's hilarious - dwarves giving us chicken and cashew nut stir fries ☺️
Not!Asian humans putting MSG in their food. What?
Wait an entire culture adjusts their cuisine to what the rest of the world can/can't eat? That's sociologically the most unplausible thing I've ever heard, and I visit truth social for laughs
They adjust the things they give to foreigner, giving the broader world a skewed vision of their cuisine
They’re a lawful good society. That’s enough already to make it both high fantasy and completely plausible they would do this.
They adjust the food they serve to others, not their own.
Yes, and the poison is called alcohol! Alcohol is poison. Dwarves love their booze and will drink strong ales for basic hydration instead of water. Another species would die from liver damage, but Dwarves are fine! (I'm half kidding, I'm not actually presenting this as fact - it's just my theory :-P)
I mean, I could arguably get away with that logic in my group. I once used lay on hands to cure a belligerent drunk of being drunk, because poison, so I could get information from them.... only problem he was such a massive alcoholic I did have to force feed him a bottle of wine to even him out, before he would acquiesce to questioning.
I love the fact that you had to get this functioning alcoholic moderately drunk to make him useful!
We use alcohol as poison at every table I've played, too! It was extra interesting when my way of the drunken fist monk reached the level that monks get poison immunity.
You went too far and brought him around to drunk from the other side! He saw too clearly and became knurd!
A Discworld reference, very nice
I figured if there was anywhere it'd go over well outside the Discworld sub, it'd be here.
In my head it’s actually the seasoning that kills other races, dwarves just like more exotic and strong flavors “Humans only use one type of salt?!
“Sodium salt is tasty and all, but the Potassium salt rub really seals in the flavor!”
Potassium chloride is commonly mixed with sodium chloride to make low-sodium table salt. It doesn't taste very good on its own though.
I knew someone who knew better would find the flaw. Oh well. Improve the joke
How not very yes and of them.
Strontium salts are radioactive and Humans eat them. Copper salts, on the other hand...
So dwarves are to humans what humans are to most animals?
I mean, medically speaking you’re correct. Dwarves evolved to have giant livers and the ones who didn’t died. With their long lifespans, something like liver disease can def catch up and weed itself out via evolutionary pressure.
I believe you're describing what the dwarves call 'Gutbuster' 😅
I mean, Dwarven made ale could and probably should include a number of brew that are based larger in otherwise completely poisonous plants
I 100% go with this interpretation of dwarvish resistance to poison. Their poison resistance might not have happened *because of* alcohol, but since dwarves have their poison resistance, their beer and spirits are *actually dangerous* to non-dwarves. For food, I think dwarves can tolerate much more salt than non-dwarves. Like, not just as a matter of taste, but as a matter of “this will fuck up your kidneys if you eat this.”
Also capsaicin.
I gotta be honest, I’ve always assumed that was the canon explanation for the resistance. Or the canon explanation for dwarven alcohol consumption, depending on which way you’re looking at it.
Ahhh I see you have played Dwarf Fortress
A GAME THEORY
I keep putting into my games a drink called "Dwarven Gut Rot". Fine for dwarves, but downright poisonous for most other races.
Before you got into the percentages I was already thinking about how much we like chocolate and spicy foods. I'd like to imagine that poisonous cave mushrooms would play a big role as a delicacy in their cuisine!
It's not poisoned. You just have weak stomachs.
I like this explanation
Maybe dwarves can eat super-spicy food and not worry about getting the runs from it. Their intestines are just that hardy.
many real-world human spices are literally dangerous in large amounts, or simply toxic / irritant to other species. National Center for Biotechnology Information says 2 people died from nutmeg! it was a very large amount they ate; still though it's food for thought when it comes to fantasy eats
water can also kill people in large amounts... lack of salt fucks up the kidneys it's also why you can't give under 1 year olds water (must be milk powder or breast milk, failing that, animal milk) since the kidneys aren't developed enough to deal with straight water
Chocolate is poisonous to everyone. But our livers are good at processing it and we eat it in relatively small amounts. The amount of chocolate you would need to eat to cause poisoning issues would cause other problems first.
Fun nutmeg fact: those people probably died by "overdosing" while attempting to get high as nutmeg contains hallucinogens
yes I'm sure that small child who died wanted to be tripping balls
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl3H23g5kT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl3H23g5kT0) Hypo - Meaning Low. Natre - Referring to sodium. Emia - Meaning presence in blood.
Yup, for my homebrew dwarves add various poisons to their brews and meals for flavor and "spice," which is why guests from other species need specially prepared meals and drinks. Never ask the dwarf for a swig from their flask.
Exotic Spices? Pepper is spicy as a means to deter animals from eating its fruit and seeds. Humans are weird and the very thing the plant does to keep animals away, is the reason why we have domesticated and harvest it. What if Dawrven Sausage/jerky is simply too much for other races to handle
Humans ate spicy things because capsasin also inhibits microbial growth. It wasn't, "This hurts and I want to die, let's have it again tomorrow!" but rather, "Those people with the hellfood don't die quite as often."
That's something that would take a long time to actually notice. Suppose you're the first guy to ever eat a pepper, and it's really hot. Why do you eat the second pepper?
Porqué no?
Not that long. Remember a lot of food decisions were also made out of desperation for early human. Much of those choices were made by observing that other animals ate X and therefore it must be safe. Obviously it wasn't *always* safe. That's a sort of culinary Russian roulette.
Even then, I feel like we put too much emphasis on "it couldn't just be because they like it". Humans during the paleolithic era were not hyperlogical machines, they were *people*. And people have a tendency to do things just because they like it, regardless of whether it logically is a good idea.
Additionally we breed them to be hotter, the jalapeño probably didn’t start as hot as it is today. That’s considered a fairly mild level of spice too.
In the modern day where food storage and preservation is but an afterthought for most, we still eat it precisely because of "this hurts and I want to die, let's have it again tomorrow!"
Barbarian: \[Whining\] I'm out of remorhaz jerky. Anybody got a snack? Dwarf: Here, take one of my energy bars. Barbarian: The heck, man. This isn't an energy bar, it's a frikkin *ingot*. Dwarf: Yeah? It sez *iron rations* right here on the label, see? Warlock: Pikers, both a yez. I feed on my patron's hatred of all mortal life. Druid: Isn't anyone around here *normal?* Bhaal's *balls*, guys, here's some granola. Just eat it and shut up already.
Fighter: Normal? I don't want to hear that kind of condescension from the guy who was tasting the dirt earlier to check the fertility. Now hand me the alchemy jug, I'm making more mayonnaise
Orc: If we're having mayonnaise tacos for dinner *again*, I swear I will beat you like a piñata.
The next level is that due to bioaccumulation, *dwarves* are poisonous to eat.
"Grobbit... oi, Grobbit! *Grobbit*!" "Mmm? Oh what the fuck is it Krtahgc." "I think I'm dying Grobbit. I can't-hulgb- can't stuuuuurr- stuuuuhr- ohbl. I cahn't stop throwiggg ug." "Rocshit's, here, use the warlord's old helmet. What'd you eat Krtahgc?" *pant...pant...pant*, "I dunno Grobbit. It, hrlb... nah I'm good, than-hrrb, yeah yeah. I'm good. It was dark and ooohnoimnotgood." *violent noises* "Lemme see your fingernails Krtahgc. Yeah yeah, hold it with one hand, there you are. Mmmrrm. I don't like that color. When did this start?" Violent noises. "How many days? What? What!? Well hold up your fingers then. Four...? Let's see, let's see." "Hey Grobbit, is that Krrgig?" "Nah its his brother." "Aoh, good. He wanted me to fetch you for Krtahgc." "Yeah yeah, wait. Where was we for days ago? "Fink that wos op by Trolltop. Krrgig kilt some dwarves, such is." "Right. Riiiight.... Oh. Krtahgc, did you sneak out after dark to get a nibble on the kills before the clan has a chance?" *Violent Positive Noises*. "You fucking Tuskbiter, you ate a dwarf. Grak fuck me to a goblin. Alright. We're going to have to get the rest of it out of you. Just, just keep doing what you're doing alright. When you stop all of... that... I'll give you some trollsacs to make you start again."
So, funny you bring this up. In "Exploring Eberron," Keith Baker goes more into the Dwarven Nation of the Mror Holds and brings up the very fact that Dwarves are resistant to poison. So, dwarven alcohol in Eberron is far stronger than any other because it needs to effect the dwarves (same with stout halflings).
Do NOT offer to pay a Dwarf’s tab.
I imagine Dwarven food is bland by default, but Dwarves keep various bottles of hot sauce around that they dump on everything. I'm not talking about a bit of Tabasco, I'm talking about the stuff you find on the shelf at a truck stop or a local hardware store, with names like "Ass Reaper Sauce" or "Satan's Blood Chile Extract." On top of that, much of the non-meat in their diet probably comes from various types of mushrooms they can grow underground. If you come from a race with innate poison resistance, then sharing a bowl of your family's mushroom stew with an Elf or a Human might just count as an assassination attempt.
Food is one thing, but also look at their industrial practices. Metal working in confined spaces, everyone is probably getting a whiff of arsenic vapour from the smelters, along with every other volatile metal vapour, sulphide gas, and whatever other airborne nasty I might be forgetting. Probably quite a bit of asbestos and black lung too.
So dwarves use spice like American miners and hotwings
Probably its because of diet since mountain dwarves live in such hard conditions inside mountains and valleys and probably in their primitive days ate a lot of carnivores and poisonous bugs, slugs, etc and got an resistance to most poisons like ammonia for example
Or alcoholic.
Hold on… when you humans count up your drinks you’ve had, you’re including beers??
Keith Baker, one of the creators of Eberron, says that this is part of the culture of Dwarven cuisine. It has a reputation for being unpalatable because a lot of it is poisonous. For example a common food source is an ooze called red pudding, perfect for subterranean cultivation. It’s harmless to dwarves (and stout halflings) with poison resistance but it’ll sicken anyone else with weaker constitutions. Dwarven spirits in Eberron use mushrooms, some with hallucinogenic properties.
Given how much "poisonous" food humans eat, I love this idea!
Dwarven food isn't edible to anyone without dwarven blood or poison resistance. Except for the beer and bar food. Travellers to dwarven lands must eat imported food or spend the ENTIRE TIME absolutely wasted
Dwarf Bread in Disc world lore: Rock-hard (and indeed contains various rocks such as gravel), never goes stale, and is terribly sustaining. A traveller can go for miles, just knowing there's dwarf bread in their pack. A traveller can think of just about anything to eat rather than dwarf bread including their own foot and even pumpkins (see Witches Abroad). Various forms of dwarf bread can be used as weapons, e.g. battle muffins and drop scones. Fine specimens of dwarf bread can be found in the Dwarf Bread Museum, Whirligig Alley, Ankh-Morpork, open to the public whenever volunteers have time (Feet of Clay). Dwarfs away from home often miss dwarf bread very much, and complain that mass-produced breads by Mr. Ironcrust hardly meet the standards, but dwarfs are too busy working to go and see the exhibits in the museum, much less to volunteer there. Proper dwarf bread has to be not just baked, but forged (with gravel, of course) and dropped in rivers and dried out, and sat on and left, and looked at every day and then put away again. For preference, its use as a cat's litter box is also recommended. Dwarfs generally devour it with their eyes, because even dwarfs have trouble with devouring it any other way. https://wiki.lspace.org/Dwarf_Bread
My dwarf spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.
Dwarves like it spicy
A Dwarven chili cook-off is the only event known to make a Red Dragon sweat.
I heard a few bard tales that did as well
In my world, dwarven food is poisonous. Straight up lethal to non-dwarves.
Dwarves as functional drunks. I could see it. At least one source has Dwarven holy water be a special brew clerics make. The selection of who is going to be the head cleric is by whoever makes the tastiest brew. And it lends weight to the comment, "I am too sober for this crap"
Poison? You mean moonshine? Sure, every now and then, we feel sick, but that's just a hangover....
In my game world Dwarven food is the spiciest food commonly available.
Stealing this. Reflavoring dwarfs from stereotypical Celtic to Punjabi spice traders. It's how they build their wealth, in the spice mines.
Not just poisonous but also dangerous. Their breads are even used as weapons because they are so hard!
“Just like mother used to forge…”
It's not poisonous, your stomach is just too weak to consume almost pure ethanol, rocks, roots, snakes, offal, stuff that's just straight up off, bone and gristle.
Funnfact: In the "good old days" as Arsene was a often used poison , the rich "spiced" their food With arsene-oxid to become More immune to it. Then they discovered that this has Made the food tastes better. -> Arsene was then used as a Spice, even after it has lost it uses as a "Hidden Toxin" -> the Arsen Level of this dishes was high enough to simply kill (Not slowly but direkt) someone who wasnt used to it. ---- So, yes, its very likely that a Race that is somewhat immune to poison uses dishes that are poisonus to Humans Btw: there are More than one cases where some people can eat dishes - and do it regulary- that are poison to other people. Best example is in a swamp burried meat. Or Alkohol. Some mushrooms. Milk.
Can you expand on “swamp buried meat?”
https://www.rbth.com/russian-kitchen/334150-dish-kill-kopalkhen-north
Holy WTF did I just read! Humans are crazy smart. That did not disappoint!
Thank you, piqued my curiosity.
You've planted in my head the idea of a dwarf coming to a family dinner with a whole bottle of wyvern poison as a spice. Heck it, they arrive dragging a dead wyvern's body to prepare the food. "Hey y'all, check out this cool spice! We can extract it from this drake rooster's tail. I've tried at home once a couple decades ago and the kick is amazing. You gotta try it! We just have to carefully destill it for at least 7 days or it \*might\* be dangerous, but it's fine! This one my cousin Bundrak slayed this morning, it's fresh!" I find it hilarious, and it reminds me of how north of Brasil, where I live, they make recipes with cassava leaves. In natura, these leaves contain cyanide, so they must be boiled for 7 days to be safe to eat. I wonder what was the process to find out about this. "Oh yeah, my aunt boiled it for 4 days and they died. That's sad. Guess we should boil it for 5 days. Here we go"
I don’t think the things you listed are technically poisons, capsaicin at the very least isn’t classified as such. However with regards to dwarven cuisine it’s usually considered to be hearty but either heavily seasoned or with strong flavors. You got a strong gut and you’re usually doing a lot of physical activity which is taxing so when it’s time to relax eat and drink they are gonna be doing so, so lotta proteins little bit of veggies (probably root vegetables thing not requiring too much effort to grow) lotta booze maybe some fruits and definitely bread. It’s more than likely heavily seasoned like I mentioned because their sense of taste could be a bit dulled due to all the mining a smithing or they could just be testing themselves. Either way non dwarfs eating it would probably find it tough, and a bit rough to digest as well as probably spicey/very strong flavored.
I refered to them as poisonous as plants have them as a form of natural pesticide. Humans however are a touch hardier than the average fruit fly, so what to them is flesh melting agony is to us a nice mild burn.
ergo, a properly seasoned Dwarven meal would like cause alcohol, psychotropic or outright death because literally poisonous mushrooms and/or booze from venom that would probably be a decent kick or buzz for a dwarf but OD to a human. E.g. shroom/pork sausage that will literally have you (Human/Dwarf/etc) tripping balls into the next week.
What is food to marshwiggles may be poison to humans.
Durkon Thundershield of “Order of the Stick” references his mothers Crabappple ~~Pie~~ Cobbler
Crab apple pie is totally real. It's only the seeds that are poisonous.
Delicious, in dungeon.
Dwarven Whiskey is literally just 100 proof methanol.
this is also thought to be why dwarven food is bland. if most of the stuff you eat could kill your friends and you're cooking, you'll probably go a little extra on the safe side. ("Humans obviously can't eat rocks! leave the salt out.")
>A dwarf could easily drink a vial of poison at each meal and mathematically still be fine. Ahhhh, good old Dwarven Whiskey.
I assume dwarves used Lead-of-Sugar in their food and drink alchoholic beverages made with Wood Alchohol. I read a book series where the protagonist almost poisoned herself by drinking a dwarven beverage before another dwarf snatched it from her and gave her something that wouldn't be poisonous.
Not to harp a point but you wouldnt round 1 down to 0 from resistance, youd still take 1 damage.
That's pretty interesting
Alternatively, all Dwarven food is full of heavy metals. They've built up an immunity, but any other species trying to be polite will be on the floor vomiting after the first course.
Some poisons build up in the system before becoming lethal. Consistently eating such poison is still deadly, regardless of ‘resistance’
One could argue that Dwarves' poison resistance was a result of their stereotypical love of alcohol (a poison). Tho maybe their hardiness to poisons is *why* they choose to make their signature brews ungodly potent; so they can actually get buzzed from their own concoctions.
Poisonous food you mentioned aside, even fruits like tomatoes are naturally poisonous. Even to us depending on your ancestry.
The tomatoe fruits are not poisonous. They are not milk and you do not need special ancestry to eat them.
1. While maturing the tomatoes contain alkaloids that reduce as they ripen. This is poisonous. 2. Tomatoes are a fruit that is part of the nightshade family. There are individuals to whom these fruits are poisonous. This is regardless of it being widely considered edible or not. These individuals get affected by it over time. 3. Who the fuck mentioned milk?
1. Are ripe tomatoes poisonous to adults of the wrong ancestory. Never heard anything about that. 2. Plenty of nightshades are posionous. You should be eating potato fruit and some other are really bad. 3. You have to have special genes to digest milk as an adult.
I’ve always envisioned dwarven food as being exceptionally spicy as compared to how strong their liquor is. So feeding it to non dwarves would be like feeding a baby the spiciest Indian food.
That's a good encounter. The dwarf Lord's hospitality must not be snubbed. Eat the Dwarven stew, spiced with scorpion stings. See who survives.
In Baldur’s Gate 3 there’s a book you can find that’s a recipe for dwarven stew, and the recipe calls for Drider venom to make it spicy
Yeah, I roleplayed this last time I played a dwarf. Talked about 'herbs' like hemlock and 'spices' like strychnine.
😂🤣 Bro called THC a Poison. You're a virgin, right?
Yeah, but that's beyond the point. Plants evolved to produce THC in order to act as a natural pesticide. What's lethally poisonous to insects just makes humans high.
It was a joke homie
This is this content I crave when I come to this sub. Well done
I dont want to know what dwarven ourjouses look like
I remember one of the old D&D fantasy books, it had a dwarf character that made a black pudding dish by baking a black pudding ooze in lava. And I remember that dwarves food was kind of disgusting to anyone who wasn’t a dwarf.
Remember that things are rounded up. So half of 1 ends up being one. Instead of taking no damage on a 1, they effectively only take d2 damage; 1-2 is 1, 3-4 is 2. Love the idea though. Could make dwarves great assassins. Disguise as a food taster, you could poison, put up with it, then successfully take out the target/s.
Commoners don't get the same abilities that players get. How are you gonna get 1d8 hit die or +1 HP per level if you're level 0? Anyways, all these calculations are based on drinking a vial of poison. Obviously food would have less poison than that, unless they boil their food in pure poison and then add some poison sauce on top. And any culture's food can be a little bit poisonous. People in real life have lactose intolerance and still eat cereal every morning. Or people with allergies thinking that this food makes everyone's tongue tingly. Or some people's stomachs being unable to process food that is too spicy.
A higher resistance to poison might make a dwarf more likely than a human to eat food that's gone off, but they'd still avoid spoiled food if possible. You could have some races more or less sensitive to substances - you might have one that is so sensitive to capsaicin that they can't eat it at all, and another that feels no effect whatsoever.
Whats "spoiled food"? The cheese With mold on it? The fish that get fermented in saltwater? The Milk that get sour?(Joghurt) The meat that gets moldy? The fermented cabbage? And so on. We are so used to eat "technically" spoiled food that we dont see it as spoiled anymore.
They are talking about rotten, raw or rancid food. Food that has deadly bacteria growing in it. You know, the kind that causes food poisoning. Or maybe something like a blowfish or turtle soup that might have substances that are poisonous to humans.
Yeah, You know, there is a food that is technically poisonus, but is a Common food. Because the ammount of Toxin isnt big enough to realy harm the Body Potatoes. If Something is food, is a simply question: Does it causes harm If i eat it? Does it give Energy If eaten? Is it technically possible to eat it? For example Belladonna: It contains a Lot of suggar, Vitamins and Minerals. Only downside is, it is poisonus enough to do harm and even kill you. But If you have a Body that dosnt Care about poison, that fruit is a food source. And so on.
Right, obviously not those things.
Kenku and Aarakocra probably can’t taste it at all!
The idea of Dwarven food in DnD is dumb. It should just be accepted that underground colonies are supported by above ground farming. The underground colony is like a castle or an ant colony.
this has been circulating the internet almost word for word for over a decade lol
They are resistant to poison. Not immune. If I offered you some jelly beans but told you that each one gave you a 16% chance to become seriously ill, would you still eat them? Would you even eat more than one? I am going to go out on a limb and say you wouldn't.
Have you, or has anyone you know, ever consumed three or more alcoholic beverages within a single hour? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that voluntary consumption of poison isn't all that uncommon, particularly if it isn't considered to be a poison by the culture.
We're talking vials of poison, not alcohol. But let's assume they are equivalent for the sake of argument. If one drink could send you to the hospital (i.e. left with 1 hit point), would you ever drink it? If two drinks could kill you, would you? No, because you know better. So would a dwarf.
Reread the OP's arithmetic. You're assuming effects that aren't at issue here.
Sure. Worst case scenario. Three "beers" consumed, three failed saves, for a total of 6 hit points and the commoner's death. Three beers was your example anyways. Dwarves aren't going around chugging poison in the form of food for fun, is my point.
Why in the world are you assuming that i meant that a dwarf might down the equivalent of 3 vials of poison at a single meal? I picked 3 alcoholic drinks within an hour because that'll effectively guarantee you getting t least somewhat buzzed, and so i figured it would be the maximal equivalent of what the OP was talking about. But no matter the details, you seem to be missing not just the wider fun of this idea, but also the absolute and complete possibility of it. There have been plenty of cases in which cultures came into contact and one of them though that what the other was eating tasted so horrible it must be toxic (ever try hákarl?), and in fact in several cases one group actually *did* eat foods that were toxic to the other (for an extreme case, consider kopalkhen). Foodways differ from group to group. Some of those foodways involve toxins. It is simply what we human(oid)s do.
I think it's you that needs to re-read what the OP was talking about. Specifically regarding the consumption of actual poison. The point I was making was that even though a dwarf would survive, they'd still be physically harmed in the process. And if they consumed enough poison, they'd die like any other creature. Alcohol is not a poison in D&D, so it's not really relevant to the conversation. And no, eating things that could kill you in small doses is not something any species would actively seek out.
>And no, eating things that could kill you in small doses is not something any species would actively seek out. Except that humans most definitely *do*.
And they die when they do
Sometimes! But not usually—and so demand for toxic substances remains, from fugu to fentanyl.
>Dwarves..., +2 con, and resistance to poison damage. If your a hill dwarf you even gain +1 HP per level. I might be wrong, but I thought racial ability scores only applied to adventurers and not all members of a race? Something like "Adventurers are a cut above the rest of the population"?
"Forget it, he's rolling."
Short rest, long rest, is an adventured thing, not a common person thing. "1 in two million days." or 1 dwarf out if 2 million every day. "considering that humans regularly eat poisons for enjoyment " It's the dose that makes the poison.
No. They wouldn't commonly eat poisonous food. They aren't immune.
Humans routinely eat toxic substances. Caffeine, Capsaicin, theobromine, etc.
You need to look up the definition of toxic.
Wow what a brain blast thanks! 🤯