Wednesday 1 April 2015

Where's My Next Meal Coming From?

Someone recently asked me how Bastion would feed itself, being a city of millions with only a backwards Deep Country and a few Failed Cities as potential trading partners.

It's easy! Again, look no further than the three principles of Bastion (Everything is Here, Everything is Complicated, Nobody Knows Who's in Charge). If you can think of an idea for feeding the city, somebody is doing it, and they have a dozen rivals with different approaches. By the time the food has come from source, gone through processing, been packed into a tin, and cooked up on a stove, the average citizen may not have a clue where it originally came from.

So if you're in doubt, roll d12 and ask Where is the next meal coming from?

1: Mass-Curry cooked up in an old industrial vat. Indistinguishable contents.
2: A vault of cans sealed underground in case of a city-wide famine. Somebody broke in and is selling it off cheap.
3: Massive cattle shipped in from the desolate fields of Deep Country. Tough but plentiful meat.
4: Surplus Gruel from a dwindling orphanage.
5: Soup Taps. An attempt at creating a new utility for every house, Produces a salty, metallic broth with occasional chunks.
6: Catch of the Day. Massive fish, crab, and octopus haul at the docks today, so everybody has taken something home.
7: Blubber Cheese. When a whale is dragged into dock, the first customers get the chance to stash some away until it matures into a crusty, pungent delicacy.
8: Pie Factory. Mass produced tin-pies, undisclosed filling.
9: Urban Foraging. Mushrooms, vermin, bugs, and herbs all pulled from the gutters.
10: Grain Shipment. Failed Cities sometimes offer food to Bastion as a sort of "Don't Invade Us" tax.
11: Allotment Vegetables. Even if you don't own an allotment, it's easy to buy or steal some prize cabbage and turnips.
12: Spotted Loaf. Rough dark bread scattered with raisins and given out to the most needy. The middle is always soggy and is often pulled out and thrown by children as a prank.

3 comments:

  1. Entries 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, and 9 certainly carry that possibility.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There's a reason the orphanage is dwindling and has so much surplus...

    ReplyDelete