Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue
From Edge of Darkness Wiki
 Lords of Summer p. 138-141 | |
| Wyrd | ●●● |
|---|---|
| Preqs | Crafts ●● or Crafts ●● with a Specialty in Cooking |
| This box: view · talk | |
In a sweltering hot kitchen, a Gristlegrinder pleads with himself to find restraint, to not reach into the boiling pot with his bare hand to fish out the squirming crustacean within (for the Gristlegrinder is hungry, you see, ever-so-hungry). In a claustrophobic dining room furnished in black oak and red maple, a worm-skinned Tunnelgrub feeds a seven-course meal to a jury of drooling like-minded fiends. In a rat-hole bathroom a Chatelaine weeps into a dirty apron, knowing that her meal failed to bring a tear of joy to the eye of her Muse lover, wondering if she can do better next time or if her only recourse is to quaff a draught of drain cleaner.
The Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue (a term sometimes cut down to the "Knights of Gastronomy") are not proper knights at all, at least not in the way of waving a sword and galloping a horse into the thick of battle. Though, the Knights of this noble order might be inclined to disagree: They may very well argue that what they do is battle, of a sort, and what they do is noble. They march headlong into hot kitchens and with chef knife instead of sword contend with shrieking rabbits, the still-beating hearts of briar-wolves, the poisonous (until cooked) goblin fruits known as Gray-to-Blues (when the fruit is gray, it's poisonous, but when it turns blue, one may eat it without concern). They bring back the dragon's head and, by God, they're going to brine it and eat ribbons of its facial meats sashimi-style.
Mien
The first and probably strangest change involves the tongue. It becomes something else. Rarely does one find two tongues that are alike among the Knights de Cuisine. One might be forked, like a serpent. Another might taper to a sharp point. One even reported having a tongue with turgid suckers on it, as if from a squid's tentacle. A tongue might change color. It might ooze a sap-like saliva. It could be that the taste buds grow to the size of skin tags and wave subtly like a bed of anemone in ocean water.
And then, the aroma. Changelings of this order emit a faint smell of food, but how that aroma manifests depends on the nose of the target. If another changeling likes the Knight de Cuisine, she'll smell a more-than-agreeable odor, an aroma of food she loves: Thanksgiving turkey, perhaps, or butter cream icing. If she holds no opinion either way about the Knight, the scent is of a food she similarly cares little about; if she's could go either way with hot cocoa or braised beef shanks, maybe that's what she smells. And if she detests the Knight? A malodor of unpleasant food (unpleasant to that given changeling, at least) reaches the nostrils: Brussel sprouts, crabmeat, heady venison.
Outside the mien, all Knights de Cuisine possess pristine Montreaux-style white chef jackets. Most wear the jackets when cooking only. Some, though, sew into the jackets steel or Kevlar plates, making them armor they can bear into the Hedge.
Tracking Those Tenuous Tastes (Privilege)
The Hedge is home to a wealth of flavors that have never before graced the palate of changelings. What does milk squeezed from an oozing thorn taste like? What happens if you steam "hungry grass" and infuse a dollop of whipped cream with its essence? Can the blood of a killed Keeper be left to dry on a desert stone so that it can be flaked off (it looks almost like red pepper flakes, if you care to know) and sprinkled in a dish? If it has to do with taste, with finding an ingredient to fulfill a particular flavor in a dish, a Knight de Cuisine gains a +3 to any roll within the Hedge made to find a goblin fruit, track a hobgoblin, or search out some other element. This +3 bonus only applies if it relates to a dish she hopes to prepare. That said, if the search is made without needing to apply it to an upcoming meal, the changeling is still better at sniffing out ingredients: Rolls made to find goblin fruits not related to a dish (and only goblin fruits) gains a +1 bonus.
Joining
Learn to cook. It's obvious, really, but it's amazing how many changelings try to join up with this brigade of chefs without having mastered some of the basic skills. They'll test any changeling who cares to come through the door, first with mundane ingredients (the "make your best omelet" decree is perhaps the most common) and second with wilder ingredients often taken from the Hedge. Of course, being a chef within the Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue is about more than just skill: It's about the refinement of the palate, about handling the pressures inside a kitchen and outside of it. But these things aren't necessary from the getgo. They can be brought out, fostered and encouraged to grow like a plump fruit from a well-groomed tree. Skill, though... if a chef doesn't have skill from the beginning? Hit the bricks, pal. This noble order is for artists and professionals. Amateurs can suck a peach pit.
| |||||||||||||||||||
