Vapor curled from the cast iron pot. Thick, yel­low-spiced stew rolling slow with­in. Pep­pery; laden with rich, scent­ed oils. A ladle plunged through, came up bear­ing chunks of meat and cheese-laden pota­toes.

“Came good,” sniffed the bristly, thick-necked cook, fill­ing a wood­en bowl. He passed it to his right, to a woman clad in Ward Ranger’s thick woolens. She paused to inhale the creamy aro­ma before pass­ing it away, wist­ful, like­wise to the right. Each of the band of six received their share this way, passed hot bowls, then steel spoons, to gloved hands.

Each Ranger, cloak and woolen uni­form pulled tight ‘gainst the cold of their dark, moor­land camp­site, each brief untucked his or her chin to nod thanks.

“Thank the knock­ers for food,” mut­tered one. “Bloody starv­ing. S’pe­cial­ly after patrol.”

“And that shit with the bear.” Said anoth­er, beetling bushy brows. “Ta, Cap­tain.”

The cook nod­ded. “M’ plea­sure.” He turned through the steam. “Tap out them dampers for me, Pushkin.”

“Ye.” Pushkin, a squat Ranger with broad cheeks, tugged off his gloves, knelt by the fire’s deep, hot ash­es. He twitched some aside, care­ful, locat­ed a clutch of grey lumps like rocks with­in. Six, each pocked and crusty grey. Gen­tly, he tapped them, smiled as each rang hol­low. “Dampers is ready.”

“Jam­my,” approved the cook. “Pass ’em out.”

The dampers went round like a lot of feath­er­weight rocks. Eager, the Rangers held bowls on knees, cracked dusty fin­ger­tips into ashen lumps. With­in the grey crust split steam­ing, spongy crumb, filled with big bub­bles and bits of thyme. Warm, crusty bread.

They tore strips off the dampers, and with them, sop­ping, spooned stew into eager mouths. A lot of nod­ding and slurp­ing ensued.

“This is some seri­ous gourmet shite,” said Pushkin, swal­low­ing.

“Quite,” said the Lieu­tenant, iden­ti­fi­able by brass fir cones on her lapel. She wiped cheese and crumbs from her lip. “A pro­mo­tion for the Stew Cap­tain, I say.”

A cho­rus of “hear! hear!” mum­bled wet­ly into five bowls. The Stew Cap­tain nod­ded, gra­cious. “Aye, now. Thank the Muni­tions Office. Final­ly got us a good live ched­dar.”

“I bloody love ched­dar,” said the Lieu­tenant, tip­ping her bowl.

“For­get the ched­dar,” said a white-scruffed Ranger. “This ham!” he exclaimed. “Ain’t no bark­ing mut­ton.” **

“Quite,” said the Lieu­tenant. “Damn good ham. Can’t believe you got this off the Office.”

The Stew Cap­tain’s mouth lift­ed briefly from his own bowl, slurped, mum­bled. “Ta. But it ain’t ham.”

A few Rangers paused. “You mad?” said Pushkin.

“Nah. Just ain’t ham,” shrugged the cook.

“The shite you mean it ain’t ham?” said the white-beard­ed man, scowl­ing.

The Lieu­ten­tant squint­ed. “You did­n’t buy horse­flesh off any­one at the last camp, did you, Cap­tain?”

Brows knit­ted in exag­ger­at­ed offence; the Stew Cap­tain waved a hand. “Did­n’t buy noth­in’. Picked it up at last camp.” He paused. The Rangers looked askance.

“What is it, then?” said the Lieu­tenant.

“ ‘S bear meat,” said the Cap­tain, grin­ning. “Jol­ly kid at camp was a butcher’s son. Took some cuts off the beast for me.”

The Rangers deflat­ed some­what. “Oh, that’s fine, then.” A few shrugged, took a few more bites. The Stew Cap­tain smiled.

“Wait,” said Pushkin, pon­der­ing. “I’ve had bear. Did­n’t taste like ham, then.”

They paused again. Soup drib­bled from spoons and part­ed lips. “What’s bear meant to taste like?” said White-beard, squint­ing.

“Heard said,” mused the Stew Cap­tain. “Bear tastes like what bear last ate.”

“And, if I’m remem­ber­ing,” said Pushkin. “This bear last ate…”

“Cou­ple’a farm­ers and their kids,” said the Stew Cap­tain.

Some­one wretched. “Bloody hell,” said the Lieu­tenant, turn­ing pale. Pushkin began belch­ing wet­ly, bent over. A bowl spat­tered into the fire. The Stew Cap­tain laughed rau­cous­ly. 

“The shite’s so fun­ny?” said White-beard. The Rangers stared, hor­ri­fied. 

“Och. Ye should see yer faces,” said the cook, red with mirth. He tugged at his col­lar, wheez­ing. “It’s ham. I’m jus’ pullin’ yer dicks.”

“Bas­tard,” said the Lieu­tenant. She threw a spoon at him.

“Should bet­ter put him down for a de-motion, Lef­t­enant,” said Pushkin, clutch­ing his bel­ly. “On account of endan­ger­ing me sup­per. S’got too much pow­er.”

Glar­ing, the Rangers resumed eat­ing. The damper had near gone. Some ladeled up sec­onds.

“Tha’s true, innit,” mused the cook. “Stew Cap’n’s an offi­cer­ship with plen­ty too much pow­er.” He chewed, idly. The Rangers were qui­et. 

“Could make ye eat horse­flesh, dog­meat, man­flesh. An’ so long as I cook it good.…”

He winked. “Ye’d nev­er be the wis­er.”

The Stew Captain

Since the mus­ter­ing of the first army, the assem­blage of the first crew, the con­vo­ca­tion of the first cut­ter-band, work­ing folk have need­ed feed­ing.

And ever since there have been hun­gry com­pa­tri­ots, there have nec­es­sar­i­ly been folk to feed them: Stew cap­tains. Mem­bers of a role ancient and inte­gral to mar­tial tra­di­tion. No com­pa­ny, crew, nor band is com­plete with­out such a culi­nary quar­ter­mas­ter. A pre­par­er, guardian, and dis­trib­u­tor of the stewpot’s pre­cious con­tents.

The stew cap­tain’s role is pro­lif­ic. In nation­al armies, they are non-com­mis­sioned offi­cers drawn from the ranks of a nation’s respec­tive quar­ter­mas­tery or muni­tions corps. Every squad has one or two. They are account­able for the store, acqui­si­tion, prepa­ra­tion, and dis­pen­sa­tion of comestibles amongst their fel­lows. Like­wise, mer­ce­nar­ies, ships’ crews, and cut­ter bands hold a sim­i­lar tra­di­tion, hir­ing or assign­ing a mem­ber or more for the spe­cif­ic and all-impor­tant task of feed­ing the rest.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly among cut­ter par­ties is the stew cap­tain a trea­sured role. A cook can be for­giv­en all oth­er labors, so long as he can lug a pot of stew, keep it hot, and fur­nish stocks of fresh bread and meat when the par­ty sets down a weary rest. It is a beloved role, for hot food is oft the best of the sparse com­forts avail­able in bleak places and black­ened tombs. To cut­ters, a fel­low who can cook is best as any who can shoot or fray. A wel­come com­pan­ion. Where­as an ex-quar­ter­mas­ter, a real stew cap­tain trained in armies’ ways of feed and pro­vi­sion, is deemed a more pleas­ant ven­tur­ing-mate than even a knight.

Indeed, it is a stew cap­tain’s skills which make them so trea­sured out of all ven­tur­ing pro­fes­sions.  For while many enough can hold a pike or scout a cursed gorge, few can mend heart and limb with a mush­room pie and a draught of well-cho­sen beer. 

Be it prowess at spit roasts, fryups, bak­ing, or lit­er­al stew, it is skill at cook­ing that enti­tles a culi­nary offi­cer. The cook­ing sys­tem by which this skill is rep­re­sent­ed, as it appears in the Incunab­u­li Sys­tem playtest, is detailed below.

SYSTEM: PREPARE MEAL

A meal is suc­cess­ful­ly pre­pared via a Cook­ing roll. ***

A suc­cess­ful roll cre­ates a prop­er meal. A fail­ure destroys 1d6 por­tions. A roll of 1 result­ing in fail­ure destroys all.

Cer­tain items and con­di­tions pro­vide a bonus to Cook­ing rolls:

• Fire (+2)
• Water (+1)
• Uten­sils (+1)
• Appro­pri­ate Spit, Pot, or oth­er­wise (+1-3)
• Spices (+1-3)

Spices, pro­vid­ed they com­ple­ment ingre­di­ents, may pro­vide a bonus not exceed­ing +3. Cer­tain ingre­di­ents may inflict a malus on the cook­ing test, due to con­sis­ten­cy or fla­vor. Spices may coun­ter­act this malus.

Meals require a min­i­mum of three ingre­di­ents. Water does not count. One por­tion of each ingre­di­ent is required per crea­ture to be fed. Addi­tion­al ingre­di­ents upgrade the qual­i­ty of the meal by one point.

• 3 ingre­di­ents (restores 1 blood, bestows Fed)
• 4 ingre­di­ents (restores 2 blood, bestows Fed)
• 5 ingre­di­ents (restores 3 blood, bestows Well Fed)
• 6 ingre­di­ents (restores 4 blood, bestows Well Fed)

Addi­tion­al­ly, hot meals stave off the effects of cold. They pro­vide a char­ac­ter +1 to their next cold resis­tance-relat­ed roll made.

To pre­pare a meal, the cook must have an appro­pri­ate con­tain­er or con­tain­ers (pot, skil­let, pan, spit) large enough to hold all por­tions. Any food cooked that doesn’t fit in or has no con­tain­er applies -3 to the roll.