It has been a little quiet on the site, but I am back now, though still waiting on my Witches and Wanderers. So, today I am taking a look at the Cooking Innovation and the newly released recipe cards!
Have you gotten lucky so far to get one or more of them with your order(s)?

First a look at the stuff we already know: the Cooking event can be triggered for 1 endeavor, which provides you with 4 recipes to chose from. All of which consist of a Vermin Resource, various quarry resources, typically from 2 different monsters, and some Fresh Acanthus.

The stand-out recipe from these 4 is the Venison Oso Buco – aka the Nightmare Tick one as it can be made from any single lope fight (if you get the vermin) and also grants +1EVA.
Again, generally speaking, all stat-based recipes cook the danger out of the bugs and pair it with 10 survival gained. Finally, whilst the “Remove all disorders” on the Stuffed Cockroach can be nice, it isn’t usually all that necessary. This leads to an overall viewpoint of “too expensive for what it does”. And whilst I would have to agree from an early to mid-game point of view – especially as you can still eat the bugs raw as well – I have found myself more often then not swamped with resources later down the line that I don’t really know what to do with. The wrinkle in that being the fact that you need rather specific resources for each recipe, of course.

It should also be worth mentioning that in any campaign that includes the Sunstalker, the Strange Resource Salt can be used to add +1STR to any cooking recipe selected from the Cooking event as well, making it a little more worth your while.
You do need to keep in mind that you won’t be making any 3 Eye Stew with the node system applied though (unless you are fishing for Phoenix Eyes from Dead Monster terrain or farming Vampire Artichokes underground).

With the last month’s sale however we saw the release of 4 new cooking recipes! Ever since the September sale orders from HQ have a chance to contain a lil’ something-something (likely around 97% as all orders should be packed with at least 1 of these cards).
Meant as a small “Thank You!” from the team for ordering from them, the recipe cards have triggered a little bit of FOMO in the community. For now we know for sure that: these are basically the first half of the whole set (the other half entering rotation come October), the team has loads to give out, the cards are meant to be traded amongst the community and – if interest is strong enough – will be released in a separate product way down the line so anybody could potentially complete their set eventually.

I personally love this, and hope my dice arrive with one of these cards – watch me complain in a week or two if I did not get one I got the Flower Knight one! Hurray!
But even in that case, should you get snubbed on one of these cards, on discord we have been encouraged by a team member to hit up support should we not get a recipe.
I’m not saying you should, but if you are truly that desperate…
It is also well worth to mention that you do not need the cards to use them! Even Team Death is not opposed to print&play solutions on this one! Bra Mithra has shown a great mock-up over on his discord for a cheat sheet if you want to take a look.

I might make a page, at least for a while, with all the recipes as well, but I’d rather get one myself first.

At the time of writing this, 4 recipes have been found (which is all of them for this month as confirmed by a Team Death member), which include Bloom Kinilnat (Flower Knight), Spidiculeg Boil (Spidicules), Succulent Grib (Gorm) and Greatleg de Grenouille (Frogdog).

This one is expensive, but well worth it. The Black Lichen is of course a Lvl3 additional drop from a lot of monsters (including Flower Knight), so you will be into the late game by the time you can start making this. This mainly looks like a way to catch up new survivors to me. It could also be a (somewhat expensive) +1LCK-delivery-system via Sleeping Virus Flower coming from the same Lvl3 Flower Knight you got your other ingredients from.
Also, no Vermin required for this one!
Edit: I was able to craft this since it was released and we used it to catch up a young promising PotSun character. It worked really well for that!

Spidiculeg Boil
1 Exoskeleton (Spidicules)
1 Venom Sac (Spidicules)
1 Crab Spider
1 Fresh Acanthus.

Benefit: Reduce damage from every hit suffered by 1 to a minimum of 1 (record this).

This might be the best recipe of the 4 we have seen so far, as it is not considered an ability and thus does stack with other instances of the effect. Together with the Silk Body Suit or Leprosy you can build quite the sturdy survivor for tanking hits to the face.
The Venom Sac is a highly sought after resource though. Used for the Death Touch SFA, which also now combos with Toxicimitar Badar’s (Indom) content. Both spider resources are also one-ofs in the incredibly small deck.

Succulent Grib
1 Lonely Ant
1 Meaty Rib (Gorm)
1 Jiggling Lard (Gorm)
1 White Charcoal – optional!!!

Benefit: Gain Burnt Nerves ability. (Immune to Bash.)
And +10 personal survival limit if made with White Charcoal.

Another VERY interesting one. Finally the Lonely Ant gets used for something! The Gorm resources are decently well sought after however, especially the Jiggling Lard: Greater Gaxe, Riot Mace and Regen Suit all need it, whilst being immune to Bash is not quite as good as it sounds at first. Of course, much like the Leather Armor Set bonus – if it ends up mattering in a fight it is incredible!
The White Charcoal (coming from scout stuff – including a potentially game-ending event) is a weird touch, but optional stuff is always welcome in my book.

Greatleg de Grenoille
1 Spindly Paw (Frogdog)
1 Monster Organ
1 Gilled Fungus (Frogdog Indom)
1 Fresh Acanthus

Benefit: +2MOV & +10 survival

+2MOV can be incredibly powerful.
I almost don’t want to write anything else, but the Gilled Fungus is an indomitable resource, and thus I fear I must. Additionally it is used as a few things already – the Jaw Saw for one, a weapon I have not personally tried yet but I keep hearing about all the time – and the Bitter Prophesy endeavor at Mere Omens (I) for a +1 departing insanity bonus.

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We are now up to 7 different recipes – the remaining 3 can be found here!

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Whilst it does feel like you need to jump through more hoops to get these recipes going, they do generally provide more oomph as well. Also keep in mind that all of them can be augmented by Salt for an additional +1STR, and monster resources can be substituted by the lope indomitable resource Prime Beast Steak included with the recently released Wanderer Aeneas – which does mean you can make almost all of these just with the lope as a basis as the recipes are not reliant on the monster it stems from being in the campaign, but rather just you triggering the Cooking event on the innovation. They are functionally considered additions to the event itself and thus always present.
There is also an interaction with DBK’s Subterranean Agriculture (I) and its Black Harvest Event. Whilst harvesting Vampiric Artichoke you may ignore 1 ingredient from a cooking recipe – which does not seem to be limited to “monster resources”!

For now we are left to speculate on what the remaining recipes might be, but we will be finding that out in early November without a doubt.
Sunstalker and Dragon King are obviously getting a recipe if you ask me, as is DBK. If we were getting another 4 as it seemed at first, it would be a tough choice between Slendy, the tree and Lion God for the final one.
I’m sure Dark Water Soup could do all manner of crazy things, but I do have to say.., I think I’d almost rather have a really strange Lion God recipe. Eat some Iron, gain a bunch of STR and depression – so that its either the best thing ever or completely useless. I’d like something along those lines, I think.
In a perfect world we are still missing at least 6 recipes. So, here’s hoping for the future, but sadly, we have a soft-confirm by a Team Death member that we are set to get 3 more recipes, which pretty much locks in my expectations as above. .

In summary, I do really like this approach and if the recipes end up on the official site at some point, or we get them with a card-pack for instance, this is a great addition to the game.
And whilst it is a little sad that you can only get them from HQ orders, there might still be hope for them to cut a deal with their distribution partners. I would not advise you to solely order from HQ just to get these cards – but, still, if you see something you really like – like the dice sets or minis you can’t get from other warehouses (like the PotSun boxes) these are neat bonuses to get in addition to your order.
Of course, one of the biggest questions is how long these are going to last before stocks run out, but besides direct comments made by Team Death members we don’t have any real way to gauge that for ourselves.
So far the statement has been “they should last a good while”. So, don’t try to fall to FOMO, wait for Black Friday at least! *laughs in ordered dice*

Also, please – PLEASE – do not buy them from random people online, you are basically guaranteed to overpay for them and we should not be encouraging scalper-behavior either!
But.., I’m not your dad, so.., just try and think it through.

And that is that – the current state of Cooking (I) is certainly looking up.
And whilst these cards do not necessarily fix one of the main complaints about the Cooking event – it being too expensive – they offer new alternate ways to engage with it and keep it more relevant in campaigns not solely relying on the Core monsters.
Also, the “too expensive” argument might be a mind-set type of thing, I feel. It is most certainly hard to get working and early on in a campaign likely not worth spending the resources (and endeavor) for a single stat upgrade – but once armor sets are mostly built, weapons chosen, more often than not resources will just stick around from my experience. Just keep the Beast Steak around instead of the Screaming Brain.
It is also a nice double dip for the 10 survival when you are looking to do some Nightmare Training (I).

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Aside from trying to figure out what I wanted to post today, I am still very much waiting for my Witches and Wanderers to finally show up. And posts will be picking up again once they have finally arrived.
Sorry about that!

In the meantime I have been painting a little. I finished one of my most used models over all my previous campaigns – White Lion dude with King’s Spear – and the Bullfrogdog Armor mini I used in Season 1.
Both minis were incredibly brown at some point during the process and I am looking forward to the more colorful stuff once I eventually get to Phoenix Armor. But for the time being there are still 1 Leather Armor mini and 2 squires on my desk right now.

And just in case you were wondering (you probably weren’t) when I went away for my trip – the Feline Entity came along and joined me.

As always, thank you very much for your time, I hope you do get the cooking recipes you want most from the shop!
Amathul