D&D 2024 Backgrounds - Cook
Numerous homebrew Chef backgrounds are out in the multiverse. The Chef feat made the cut for D&D 2024, but not everyone can be a chef. In fact, it’s cooks that are the core of any kitchen. The prep cook makes sure that everything needed for the dinner rush is on the line and ready to be used. The Garde Manger is a fancy title for the cook who works in the cold or salad section. Then there’s the line cook, standing over the grill, cooking the hot food that goes onto your plate. The cook is the unsung hero of any kitchen, rarely getting the credit they deserve, but definitely deserving of their own background.
Cook
Ability Scores: Wisdom, Intelligence, Dexterity
Feat: Culinary Knowledge
Skill Proficiencies: Survival and Investigation
Tool Proficiencies: Cook’s Utensils
Equipment: Choose A or B: (A) Cook’s Utensils, backpack, bowls, flask (5), ink, ink pen, journal, oil (2) traveler’s clothes, tinderbox, waterskin, 30 gp or (B) 50 gp
Growing up, you learned to wield a knife long before you thought of ever picking up a sword. Working in the kitchen was a way to earn a living and live a simple but satisfying life. A cook’s life wasn’t glamorous, which was quite alright for you. You saw chefs come and go, one day cooking for wealthy nobles only to see their fame and popularity crash before their eyes, and the next hot chef came onto the scene. You preferred cooking for the masses, providing them with simple but delicious food they could not only afford but enjoy and look forward to eating. Preparing and cooking food is a big part of who you are and how you communicate with others.
Your battlefield was behind the counters and in front of the stoves of taverns and inns. They were armed to the teeth with knives and ladles, which you learned to wield expertly. Some kitchens you worked in were a pleasure to work in, operating like a well-oiled machine. It was like being in a stage play, where everyone knew their lines and moved fluidly around the kitchen. Or maybe a symphony, where the combination of all the instruments made beautiful music. You may not have been the conductor, but no music was made without you being on the grill line, cooking one to a dozen meals simultaneously. They weren’t all good, however. Others were a nightly clusterf**k, with a new disaster seemingly every night. You fled such places as soon as you could find new employment. For a good cook such as yourself, finding work wasn’t hard.
As wanderers told tales of adventure, treasure, and danger, you yearned for more than the heat of the hearth. Stepping away from full-time cooking, you set off into the adventuring world. It doesn’t hurt that you’ve also realized your cooking tools and ingredients could be used in unconventional ways. Not only could your cook’s utensils create delicious meals, but wielded as weapons. You could craft spices to create smoke, weaponize hot oils, and slice open a foe with your butcher knife.
Background Story Ideas
You’ve worked in a few local taverns and inns throughout your years, learning and writing down recipes at every stop. Most of the food was the same, with very little change from place to place. You’ve decided to explore the world and diversify your recipe book.
You’ve worked at the same tavern your entire life, starting as a dishwasher and now the strongest and fastest cook that works there. Now, that is, until a group of wandering ruffians burned your beloved tavern to the ground. You’ve decided you will be the one to hunt them down and make them pay for what they did.
Food and ingredients used to be cheap enough to feed people meals they would love. As time passed, even the most basic foodstuffs cost more than the common folk could afford when made into a meal. You decide to search the land for new, cheaper ingredients to once again feed the masses.
Origin Feat
Culinary Knowledge
You’ve translated your kitchen skills to benefit you and your companions. A boning knife became a dagger, a mallet to tenderize meat was now a club, and ingredients could be used to heal or harm.
You gain the following benefits.
Kitchen Weapons. You are proficient in all simple melee weapons.
Goodberry. You know the goodberry spell. You can cast it once without a spell slot, and you regain the ability to cast it in that way when you finish a Long Rest. You can also cast the spell using any spell slots you have.
Antidote. As part of a Short Rest, you can cook food to revitalize a creature if you have ingredients and Cook’s Utensils on hand. You can prepare enough of this food for a number of creatures equal to your Proficiency Bonus. A creature that consumes this food at the end of the short rest can immediately reroll their save against an ongoing poison or disease with advantage.
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Art Credit - Paizo
