Food, Rations, & Sustenance
Survival in Chondara is not guaranteed. Steel breaks. Magic falters. But hunger and exhaustion are constant companions on the road. Food is not merely flavor---it is preparation, endurance, and the difference between pressing on or turning back.
Grimhowl treats food as a limited but meaningful resource, designed to support travel and recovery without devolving into bookkeeping or abuse.
Rations & Meals
Food is divided into two broad categories:
Rations -- Preserved, travel-ready food intended for long journeys.
Meals -- Fresh or cooked food prepared during rest.
Both follow the same core rules unless otherwise stated.
Meal Breaks
A Meal Break represents time taken to eat, drink, and recover your strength.
A Meal Break may be taken only when the party is not in immediate danger.
Frequency Limits
A character may benefit from food once every 4 hours.
A character may only benefit from food a maximum of 3 times per day.
Attempting to eat beyond these limits provides no mechanical benefit.
You may still eat for narrative reasons, but your body gains nothing further.
Benefits of Eating
When you benefit from a ration during a Meal Break, choose one of the following:
Recover 1 HP, or
Recover 1 MP
This choice is made each time you eat.
Cooked Meals
A Cooked Meal represents food prepared with time, heat, and care. Each meal takes 10 minutes to prepare per 4 people.
Preparing a Cooked Meal requires a DC: 2 Crafting or Survival check. Each ★ allows you to cook enough food for 4 people.
When you benefit from a Cooked Meal, you gain its effects. For example, cooking up Village Loaf & Drippings you choose:
Recover 2 HP, or
Recover 2 MP
Cooked Meals still count toward:
The 4-hour limit
The 3 meals per day limit
Unless modified by a Path ability, Cooked Meals provide no additional effects beyond increased recovery.
Extended Rest & Food
An Extended Rest represents meaningful downtime---sleep, shelter, and recovery.
To gain the benefits of an Extended Rest, a character must have eaten that day.
Food is required for true recovery.
Fatigue
The world is harsh, and the body only endures so much.
Missing meals, forced marches, environmental hazards, or prolonged strain may cause Fatigue at the GM's discretion.
Fatigue applies a stack of Disadvantage. Continued Fatigue can apply additional stacks at the GM's discretion.
Fatigue is removed only by completing an Extended Rest and benefiting from food.
Fatigue represents exhaustion, malnutrition, and physical wear---not injury.
Design Notes (For the GM)
Food is not an infinite healing source.
Players are encouraged to think about when to eat, not whether they remembered to.
The system rewards preparation and pacing, not hoarding or stalling.
Additional effects from food are Path-based and never assumed.
If food is plentiful, the journey is easier.
If it is scarce, the world reminds them why walls exist.
🩸 Deli's Notes: On Eating, Resting, and Not Dying
"I don't care how tough you are, sweetheart---bones don't knit and minds don't clear on empty stomachs."
Food in Grimhowl is not about realism for realism's sake. It exists to shape pacing and decisions.
Common Meals
Food in Grimhowl is preparation, not indulgence. A good meal steadies the body, sharpens the mind, and decides whether you press on or fall back.
Each meal below is a complete dish with a fixed effect.
Unless otherwise stated, consuming a meal:
Requires a Meal Break
Counts toward the 4-hour limit
Counts toward the 3 meals per day limit
Is consumed on use
Each meal lists a Wealth Cost, shown as a descriptor and a number.
The number is the meal's Purchase DC, equal to the Lifestyle Upkeep DC of the same tier.
A character may only benefit from one meal per Meal Break.
Poor Meals (DC 2)
🍞 Village Loaf & Drippings
Rough bread and thin grease. It fills you up.
Effect:
Wealth Cost: Poor (DC 2)
This is the baseline meal for those scraping by---better than rations, nothing fancy.
🥣 Stonecut Porridge
Thick, bland, and warming.
Effect:
Wealth Cost: Poor (DC 2)
Cheap, flexible, and dependable when resources are thin.
Modest Meals (DC 3)
🍲 Roadwarden Stew
Built for long days and heavy packs.
Effect:
Recover 2 HP
Gain +1 Move until the end of your next encounter
Wealth Cost: Modest (DC 3)
A traveler's staple---made to keep people moving.
🧂 Salted Organs
Hard to eat. Harder to kill.
Effect:
Recover 2 HP
Gain +1 resistance to poison until the end of your next encounter
Wealth Cost: Modest (DC 3)
Unpleasant, but effective. Favored by those who expect the worst.
🌿 Clear-Mind Broth
Bitter herbs that steel the will.
Effect:
Recover 2 MP
Gain Advantage on your next Willpower check before your next meal
Wealth Cost: Modest (DC 3)
Chosen when resolve matters more than comfort.
🍞 City Feast Plate
Fresh bread, rich drippings, and real portions.
Effect:
Wealth Cost: Modest (DC 3)
A proper meal by city standards---simple, filling, and satisfying.
Comfortable Meals (DC 5)
🍯 Sugared Mash
Fast energy and sharpened senses.
Effect:
Recover 2 MP
Treat Vigilance as if it were 1 rank higher until the end of your next encounter or until your next meal
Wealth Cost: Comfortable (DC 5)
Expensive, processed, and effective. Favored before dangerous work.
🥩 Hootmaw Steaks
Apex meat, earned the hard way.
Effect:
Recover 3 HP
Gain +1 resistance to physical damage until the end of your next encounter
Wealth Cost: Comfortable (DC 5)
You pay for the risk it took to put this on the plate---and the strength it gives you after.
🩸 Deli's Notes: On Eating Before It Matters
"Food isn't healing. It's deciding who you are when things go wrong."
A meal should feel like a choice, not a chore.
If players treat food as an afterthought, they'll stumble into fights hungry and unfocused. If they plan, if they spend just a little more than they're comfortable with, they'll feel the difference.
Poor meals keep you alive.
Modest meals keep you sharp.
Comfortable meals mean you expect trouble---and plan to walk away from it.
And if someone at the table complains about the price?
Tell them to skip the meal.
The world will collect its due soon enough.
Drinks & Drinking
In Grimhowl, drinks are temptation. They steady the nerves, loosen the tongue, or sharpen the eye---but they always carry risk.
Drinks exist outside the normal food rules.
Drinks do not count as meals
Drinks do not restore HP or MP
Drinks grant Advantage on a specific check
A character may benefit from multiple drinks, at their own risk
Each drink provides one instance of Advantage, applied to the next appropriate check.
Drinking & Endurance
After consuming a drink, the character must make an Endurance check to resist its effects.
Endurance Check Difficulty
First drink: DC 2, requires 1★
Each additional drink within the same hour:
Increase the DC by +1
Increase the required ★ by +1
Examples:
Second drink: DC 3, requires 2★
Third drink: DC 4, requires 3★
Mixing Drinks
If a character consumes a different type of drink within the same hour:
Increase the DC by +2 instead of +1
Still increase the required ★ by +1
Mixing drinks is riskier than repetition.
Failure
On a failed Endurance check to resist drinking:
The character loses all drink benefits
The character gains 1 stack of Disadvantage
The character suffers --1 Move
If the character chooses to continue drinking after failing:
Gain +1 additional stack of Disadvantage per drink
Gain an additional --1 Move per stack
Sobering Up
Drinking-related DCs and ★ requirements tick down by 1 per hour since the first drink
Disadvantage and Move penalties remain until your Endurance DC returns to 2
Common Drinks
Each drink lists its Wealth Cost, shown as a descriptor and number.
The number is the drink's Purchase DC, equal to the Lifestyle Upkeep DC of the same tier.
🍺 Small Beer
Thin, bitter, and safer than the water.
Benefit:
Restriction:
Wealth Cost: Poor (DC 2)
☕ Bitterbrew
Overboiled leaves or scorched beans.
Benefit:
Wealth Cost: Poor (DC 2)
🍷 Spiced Wine
Sweet, sharp, and loosens the tongue.
Benefit:
Wealth Cost: Poor (DC 2)
🥃 Burngut Spirits
Distilled hot enough to sting the lungs.
Benefit:
Wealth Cost: Poor (DC 2)
🍯 Sweetfire Shot
Sugar, spice, and questionable judgment.
Benefit:
Wealth Cost: Modest (DC 3)
This drink is rarer, more refined, and far more dangerous than it looks.
🩸 Deli's Notes: On Drinking Like You'll Live Forever
"One drink sharpens you. Two make you bold. Three convince you you're right."
Drinks aren't meant to be optimal. They're meant to be tempting.
If a character drinks before a fight, they're betting on themselves.
If they drink after, they're pretending the world didn't almost kill them.
Let them stack the glasses.
Let the dice decide when confidence turns into regret.
That's Grimhowl.