I love generating pictures of cute dogs seated at the dinner table. (AI art)
Though The School of Taste belongs to the three minor sense schools, along with Smell and Touch, it is by far the most popular and generates the most income for the greater college. Why? Because of the quality of its culinary instruction, which creates the world’s finest chefs and chef-mages, professions highly in demand among the wealthy and members of nobility.
Chef-mages are considered careerists and are not found amongst adventurers except in rare cases. Often they are Aromamancers as well, or have graduated the School of Taste as part of their mastery of all five senses. But, it’s also not unheard of for a mage to consider this their basic school, in which case they are known as Gustomancers or Gourmancers, depending on their orientation.
Some may considered the magic of this school weak or frivolous, but it also contains many powerful and unique spells, such as the ones below.
Magic of the Five Senses: Taste
| Spells | Bitter Truth: Spell that creates a bitter taste in the caster’s mouth whenever they hear a lie. Useful in interrogations.
Detect Magic: The School of Taste version of the smell requires the mage to touch their touch to the item or just stick it out to taste the general atmosphere. The taste also carries the strength of the magic, which school it belongs to, and its orientation (neutral, malign, or beneficial). Use of this spell over many years causes the mage to develop it innately. Glassify Food Item: Changes a food into a lovely edible glass and gem sculpture without affecting its taste or nutritional value. The sound of cutlery slicing into it induces such pleasure beings will forget about anything other than eating it and chewing each bite slowly in ecstasy. Afterwards, they develop a craving for more and with this addiction are brought under the influence of the mage. Salt Egg: Cantrip that sprinkles just the right amount of salt on a hard-boiled egg to make it tasty. Sourpatch: Makes any drink, even magic potions, taste mouth-puckeringly sour. Sweet Words of Nothing: Cast on small candies, this spell wraps them in shimmering pastel cellophane on which is written a simple action-oriented, but nonviolent, command of up to four words: Go Away, Put Down Your Weapons, and the like. The command is activated when the recipient tastes it. Transform Clay into Cheese: Works on up to one pound of clay. The clay still looks like clay, but tastes like cheese and has its texture. |
| Magic Items |
Chalice of the Sommelier: This golden cup gives the drinker the skill to know the vintage of any kind of wine and how much it is worth.
Gagblade: A magical dagger that overwhelms its victim with the taste of the worst thing they’ve ever eaten, causing their attack and defense scores to go down. Heart of The Cobbler: A smooth red gem that will transform any unappetizing food into a hot fresh fruit cobbler. Hunger of The Gargoyle: A curse that instills in the target a desire to eat rocks and stones, which they think has the most delicious taste ever, over regular food. Needless to say, unless the curse is removed they will eventually die. The Phoenix Forge: A small, gold-plated, portable stove, beautifully embellished with bird imagery, that cooks any kind of food in under three minutes. Ring of Proboscidean Refreshment: Creates enough nutritious food to feed an elephant or elephant-like creature for one meal. Includes mammoths, mastodons, and mumakil as well as fantastic elephantine creatures like Ganesha, Grootslangs, and Baku. The ring is made of silver in the shape of a dozen elephants holding each others’ tails with their trunks. Tongue Sheathe: A thin, flexible piece of metallic foil that encases the mage’s tongue. It enhances the sense of taste, enabling them to detect poisons, impurities, and magical residue in foods without harm to themselves. |
| Special Magic Item: | 
Box of Breath Weaponry: One of best-known magic items of the entire Five Senses College system, this useful container comes in many forms. Basically, it’s a small box divided into 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 partitions, each of which contains a certain food which the magic of the box keeps preserved. Each food, when chewed, allows the mage to use a breath weapon that extends outwards in front of them to form in most cases, a cloud up to ten feet in diameter. Some of the foods, and the effect of their breath weapon, are thus: Banana peel: Tripping and falling gas Chicken: Fear gas Chili pepper: Fire Cookie and milk / Chamomile herbs: Sleeping gas Dried peas: Fog cloud Garlic: Repulsion gas Honey: A swarm of angry bees Ice cube: Cold / Blizzard Mushrooms: Cloud that causes hallucinations Olive pits: Choking gas Limberger cheese: Stun gas Onion: Tear gas Breath mints: Refreshes the user’s breath after using the breath weapon There are many more foods and effects. The magic is in the box, so it must contain whatever food it was created to hold. The box itself may be plebian and unremarkable, or made of polished metal, inlaid wood, or evenbe ornamented with cloisenne and gems. Mostly, it appears similar to a cosmetic or a scribe’s workbox and usually has a handle for carrying, like a briefcase. Each compartment can contain 1-4 servings, and thus uses, of the food, depending on the box’s size. |
