As I was munching on my bacon cheese burger a few minutes ago, while watching a very educational video about why pork is forbidden in some religions and cultures, my thoughts turned to Verra.
We've had a
little poll about some Verran cuisine around the new year, and based on some of the cultural influences, we know the Niküans are going to be eating a lot of seafood, and the Empyreans are going to be eating candied nightingale tongues and fried mice.
I think it would be cool to lean into racial and religious cooking in Verra. If not religious cooking, at least racial, but special dishes for the holidays makes sense to me. And I mean in actual game-mechanics terms, not just fluff and lore.
For example, underrealm noodles could buff the stamina of all races, but it'll give Tulnar a bit more stamina than the others. The other races should have their own stamina food too, like a codliver paté for the Niküans, where they would get a stronger buff than other races. The same principle could apply to religious cuisine.
It will force the developers to create a more expansive menu in the game, and we won't see the same 4 dishes be BiS food-buffs like we've seen in other games, and the only thing you'll see for sale in the shops. This also creates a much more varied gameplay experience for the cooking profession, and getting different ingredients ties into the whole regional trade system, etc. I think it'll be more fun for tavern owners too, being able to sell different racial food-buffs and striving to really excel in having more variety than the competition. Or they might want to roleplay it, and only sell Py'Rai dishes or something.
