Introduction - Heroes' Feast Flavors of the Multiverse

Introduction. Can you name a tabletop activity that is highly social, builds community, and has infinite possibilities? If you said dining with friends, you're right. If you said Dungeons & Dragons, you're also right! Today, some fifty million people have played the game; D&D-inspired shows and movies top the charts; licensed D&D products fill retail shelves (ahem); and video games based on D&D's concepts rule the screens. In short, D&D is everywhere-including the kitchen! Initially published in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons was the world's first role-playing game and would go on to revolutionize all aspects of the gaming industry and pop culture alongside it. It introduced an array of now-pervasive gaming concepts, from leveling up to gamified role assumption, but it notably held on to some aspects of its war-gaming past. Born out of a gaming culture that prized realistic simulation, the notion of needing food was inherent in the earliest versions of the game, usually represented in the simple tracking of weekly rations. To have any hope of surviving a protracted excursion in the dungeon underworld, you needed to stay fed. Simply put, in D&D, you must eat to live. But adventurers also needed a place to meet, carouse, and gather information, and what better venues to place in front of them than taverns, public houses, and other places of food and drink? As the game developed through different communities, food became a key part of the game's narrative experience. In many of the early modules, it was not uncommon for taverns to have long lists of food and drink from which adventurers could choose. For example, in the iconic Keep on the Borderlands, adventurers have the option of no less than five drinks and eight dishes, from honey mead and bark tea to pudding and roast joint. By the time the Forgotten Realms campaign world was in full force, there were entire books devoted to rating and discussing inns and dining establishments (thanks, Volo!). More cosmopolitan venue...