Ah, how I love tea. Almost as much as I love a little weird science-fantasy gaming of an evening. So imagine my delight when I realised tea sets were an item in the core rules of Troika!, which has to be my favourite RPG at the moment.
I've wanted to write something about this lingering idea for a magical version of tea that is prized in certain worlds for its effects- I think it was germinated nearly a decade ago when I first read this thread years ago, which I think had the British of that world doing just that. Anyway: here's a patchy list of fantasy teas.
I've wanted to write something about this lingering idea for a magical version of tea that is prized in certain worlds for its effects- I think it was germinated nearly a decade ago when I first read this thread years ago, which I think had the British of that world doing just that. Anyway: here's a patchy list of fantasy teas.
Afternoon
Tea under Endless Skies
Travellers through the humpback sky meet, and sit and sip at tea while they parley. The denizens of Irifice take theirs on plazas coiled around spires that reach the sky, for pleasure and business. In Azurhaven, visitors are plied with brews made from magical leaves.
In the Highest Worlds, where magic is purely an imagined and unreal thing, the various forms of tea may simply be relaxing or stimulating to a drinker. As one descends through the worlds towards the deeper chaos, it becomes an altogether different matter: teas’ can be brewed that alter one’s perception, or ameliorate the drinker. There are teas whose steam dances with a genuine will of its own, and teas which reflect the future faces of the one who leans in to taste.
A Menu for
your Perusal
Roll 1d2, then 1d6
Roll 1d2, then 1d6
11… Empire Breakfast
Tea
is a blend most popular in the Empire of Prydain, where the Greencoat Druids
sip it for its magic-enhancing powers. Gives 1d6 points of Magic, which can be
used in place of Stamina for spell costs.
12… Yennish Sencha is left to dry out in great bowls, only opened under the light of the moon. There are many small cults and initiatory orders built around the prophetic visions granted by this tea. After drinking, a player may receive one description of a future locale from the GM, OR have a free pass on death once by declaring that their vision has not yet come to pass.
13… Vendin Matcha has a popularity like no other in the former Vendin-Conglomerate, where the powdered leaves are drunk from brew-cannisters which are sold like fizzy drinks there. The cheaper brands are sweetened mush, but the really high-end drinks give their drinkers a temporary 2 points in all mentally focussed skills.
14… Underwood Brew is a haphazard drink grown from the wiry wild teabushes of Daldria, and brewed largely by the maddened hedge-men and women who haunt the Great Ridge. Your average inhabitant wouldn’t touch the stuff, pungent and bitter… but with it the hedge-folk can speak in the language of trees for as long as the thick taste stays on their tongue.
15… Milkwood Oolong is an Irifician favourite, delicate and fine. The highest echelon of nobles in the City of Spires sip at Milkwood to sweeten the very meaning of their words, automatically making them more likely to land favourable with listeners.
16… Tremulan Tisanes are in reality a whole range of teas, spiced and flavoured with various leaves. They are the drink of choice for the djinn-eater theocrats, who bind the unwary spirits to the plants themselves and then drink them down.
21… Dioresque Tinctures are rarely taken for pleasure. This is a brew, syrupy sweet, which will temporarily fend off almost any of the deadly maladies which stalk that beautiful city. It grants immunity to disease for 1d3 days, at the permanent cost of that many points between Luck and Stamina.
22… Fomalian Caravan Tea isn’t actually from Fomalia, but the explorers who first brought it to their civilised eastern enclaves thought that sounded more dangerous and exotic. It does have a stimulant effect- a drinker must test their luck, or else have the jitters and lose 2 Skill for the rest of the day and miss a night’s sleep. On a passed test, gain an extra initiative chit until your next rest.
23… Saahni Chai is a blessed liquid of pure starlight, brewed in the celestial city itself. It’s said to bring true yet fleeting oneness with the multiverse to the drinker, but no-one has yet bottled the stuff to take it from Saah.
24… Spiced Vyhemi made its way from the sphere of Kraimera to fighting pits on a hundred worlds for its power to send a drinker into a blood-hazed frenzy at the slightest provocation. Curiously, actual Vyhemi-born drinkers remained staunchly unaffected.
25… Mud Stew is the closest translation for the tea brewed by the Tribal Orders Most Splendid, a collection of diverse cultures dwelling alongside the winding Yahza River. It is very popular amongst the tribes there for the resistance it provides against the ever-present Sorrowflies, though visitors have discovered it grants almost total immunity to all manner of psychic effects.
26… Cahali White Tea is a relaxing tea which restores all stamina used on spells in the last 2d6 hours. It is another popular Irifician drink, though all of the very high quality stuff is hoarded by the Tower Academies.
12… Yennish Sencha is left to dry out in great bowls, only opened under the light of the moon. There are many small cults and initiatory orders built around the prophetic visions granted by this tea. After drinking, a player may receive one description of a future locale from the GM, OR have a free pass on death once by declaring that their vision has not yet come to pass.
13… Vendin Matcha has a popularity like no other in the former Vendin-Conglomerate, where the powdered leaves are drunk from brew-cannisters which are sold like fizzy drinks there. The cheaper brands are sweetened mush, but the really high-end drinks give their drinkers a temporary 2 points in all mentally focussed skills.
14… Underwood Brew is a haphazard drink grown from the wiry wild teabushes of Daldria, and brewed largely by the maddened hedge-men and women who haunt the Great Ridge. Your average inhabitant wouldn’t touch the stuff, pungent and bitter… but with it the hedge-folk can speak in the language of trees for as long as the thick taste stays on their tongue.
15… Milkwood Oolong is an Irifician favourite, delicate and fine. The highest echelon of nobles in the City of Spires sip at Milkwood to sweeten the very meaning of their words, automatically making them more likely to land favourable with listeners.
16… Tremulan Tisanes are in reality a whole range of teas, spiced and flavoured with various leaves. They are the drink of choice for the djinn-eater theocrats, who bind the unwary spirits to the plants themselves and then drink them down.
21… Dioresque Tinctures are rarely taken for pleasure. This is a brew, syrupy sweet, which will temporarily fend off almost any of the deadly maladies which stalk that beautiful city. It grants immunity to disease for 1d3 days, at the permanent cost of that many points between Luck and Stamina.
22… Fomalian Caravan Tea isn’t actually from Fomalia, but the explorers who first brought it to their civilised eastern enclaves thought that sounded more dangerous and exotic. It does have a stimulant effect- a drinker must test their luck, or else have the jitters and lose 2 Skill for the rest of the day and miss a night’s sleep. On a passed test, gain an extra initiative chit until your next rest.
23… Saahni Chai is a blessed liquid of pure starlight, brewed in the celestial city itself. It’s said to bring true yet fleeting oneness with the multiverse to the drinker, but no-one has yet bottled the stuff to take it from Saah.
24… Spiced Vyhemi made its way from the sphere of Kraimera to fighting pits on a hundred worlds for its power to send a drinker into a blood-hazed frenzy at the slightest provocation. Curiously, actual Vyhemi-born drinkers remained staunchly unaffected.
25… Mud Stew is the closest translation for the tea brewed by the Tribal Orders Most Splendid, a collection of diverse cultures dwelling alongside the winding Yahza River. It is very popular amongst the tribes there for the resistance it provides against the ever-present Sorrowflies, though visitors have discovered it grants almost total immunity to all manner of psychic effects.
26… Cahali White Tea is a relaxing tea which restores all stamina used on spells in the last 2d6 hours. It is another popular Irifician drink, though all of the very high quality stuff is hoarded by the Tower Academies.
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