Endless Blue - Week 28 - The Culinist, Farmer of the Fathoms

Sociology

Culinist — Farmers of the Fathoms

Culinists are the farmers of the fathoms, wielding aquaculture to produce consumable bounties for piscean life to thrive.  Through cunning manipulation of kelaguen — the tiniest wonder fungi — they can fertilize barren silt, ferment the ubiquitous ricelqua into alcohol, and infuse the unremarkable acari fruit with wonders of magic.

They cultivators of magic in the truest sense — they raise crops infused with magic.  The fruit of their art can impart spells upon the consumer much like drinking a magical potion, but only after harvest has produced the ripened bevy.

Aquatic fungi have been used for millennia as a supplement to aquacultural endeavors, improving soil content so that greater yields could be harvested.  The concentration on this “wonder yeast” — called kelaguen — led to curious pisceans experimenting with the fungi, cultivating it much like a packbreeder would pedigree his animals.  This led to the invention of leavened bread that used the acidic properties of the acari fruit to not only activate the kelaguen but to generate heat enough for baking and brewing through an exothermic chemical reaction.  Generations of tinkering with the kelaguen strains has led to a plethora of distinctly different kelaguens, each strain individual to the culinist who cultivates it.

Adventurers:  The adventuring culinist is an exercise in logistics.  He needs to prepare ahead of time to have infused acari fruit on  hand during his travels, where he cannot bring his crops along with him (at least not without significant arrangements to drag a hydroponics garden).  Spending any length of time away from their fields demands that culinist stock pile their infused fruits, which in turn requires the forethought of choosing which spell to till into the soil.

Alignment: Those that can plan out events in the long term and co-ordinate their time make the best culinists because they can make the most out of the convoluted process, but they do not need to be lawful to utilize the class’ abilities.

Culinists in the Known World
Culinists can be thought of as harvest mages, requiring a crop to reach ripening before it can harvest the fruit of its efforts.  Some travelling culinists have taken to carrying potted acari plants with them so they might ply their trade while away from their fields.  Otherwise, a culinist needs to pay close attention to the ripening of his stock and make sure he has seeded his infused bounty in the most opportune order.


GAME RULE INFORMATION
Culinists have the following game statistics.

Abilities: Intelligence is the foremost statistic needed for the culinist, for it grants bonus spells as well as heightens the class’ core skillset, but the manual labor entailed in aquaculture requires a decent Strength scores, and a strong Wisdom is essential for noticing the tiny signs given by ripened fruit.

Alignment: Any.
Hit Dice: d6.
Starting Funds: 8d4x20gp.

CLASS SKILLS
The culinist’s class skills (and key ability for each) are Climb (Str), Craft (alchemy) (Int), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Int), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), and Survival (Wis).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier

CLASS FEATURES
All of the following are the culinist’s class features.

Culinist Class Abilities Chart

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Feats	Spells per Day	Kelaguen *
1	+0	+0	+0	+0	Arcane Infusion, Cultivator	A/2	2
2	+1	+0	+0	+0		A/3/0	3
3	+2	+1	+1	+1		A/3/1	5
4	+3	+1	+1	+1	Poison Resistance	A/3/2/0	7
5	+3	+2	+2	+2	Bonus Feat	A/3/3/1	10
6	+4	+2	+2	+2		A/3/3/2	12
7	+5	+3	+3	+3	Extended Freshness	A/3/3/3/0	15
8	+6/+1	+3	+3	+3		A/3/3/3/1	19
9	+6/+1	+4	+4	+4		A/3/3/3/2	23
10	+7/+2	+4	+4	+4	Bonus Feat, Rapid Ripening	A/3/3/3/3/0	27
11	+8/+3	+5	+5	+5		A/3/3/3/3/1	32
12	+9/+4	+5	+5	+5		A/3/3/3/3/2	37
13	+9/+4	+6	+6	+6	Succulent Flavor	A/3/3/3/3/3	42
14	+10/+5	+6	+6	+6		A/4/3/3/3/3	43
15	+11/+6/+1	+7	+7	+7	Bonus Feat	A/4/4/3/3/3	45
16	+12/+7/+2	+7	+7	+7	Preserved Fruit	A/4/4/4/3/3	48
17	+12/+7/+2	+8	+8	+8		A/4/4/4/4/3	52
18	+13/+8/+3	+8	+8	+8		A/4/4/4/4/4	57
19	+14/+9/+4	+9	+9	+9	Bountiful Harvest	n/a	+Int mod
20	+15/+10/+5	+9	+9	+9	Bonus Feat	n/a	+Int mod

* — Add the appropriate number of doses for bonus spells due to high Intelligence when they first become accessible.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The culinist is proficient in all simple weapons and light armor.

Cultivator: At 1st level the Culinist gains the ability to produce amounts of kelaguen for infusion with spell energy, called a dose.  The Culinist can generate a number of doses equal to the number of spell levels he can normal cast in a day, and infusing a spell into the kelaguen requires a number of doses equal to the spell’s level (cantrips use so little kelaguen that they can essentially be infused with trace amounts and do not influence the number of doses a culinist can generate).  This kelaguen is living and volatile, and if the kelaguen is not utilized within 24 hours the batch of doses dies.  Luckily the base culture of kelaguen can be used again the next day to generate a new batch of doses.

Arcane Infusion: Culinists do not cast spells as do normal spellcasters.  Instead, they infuse the potential of a spell into an acari plant via special fertilizer ingredients, notably their strain of kelaguen yeast. The process of infusing the kelaguen with spell energy takes the same time as if casting the spell, and the culinist must possess all the necessary components at the time of infusion.  Multiple spells cannot be infused into the same plant unless it is the same spell, and the plant will yield a number of infused fruit equal to the number of spells infused into the kelaguen.

The acari plant requires a day per spell level to successfully grow fruit infused with the intended spell.  Picking the fruit before or after this specific window of time results in the immediate loss the infused spell.  A culinist can tell if the time is right (or wrong) to pick an infused fruit by making a Spellcraft check at a DC of 15 plus the level of the infused spell.

The end result is that infused fruit are effectively potions of the desired spell, but have a limited amount of time to be used before spoilage (base of one week minus a day per spell level, minimum of one day).  Acari fruit infused with cantrips last a full week before spoiling.

Culinists draw from a limited list of spells.  In order for a spell to be eligible for infusion into acari fruit, it must have a target of self or creature touched (all spells on the Culinist spell list share this aspect).  This generally relegates their repertoire to supplemental and buffing spells, but offensive touch spells, such as enervation, can be infused.  Such “negative effect” fruit are not normally created, but under the right circumstances (such as being used in baiting a trap for large, dangerous game) they can come in handy.  Culinists receive bonus spells from a high Intelligence score, and must have an Intelligence score at least equal to 10 plus the level of the spell to be able to infuse their magic (Int 10 for cantrips, Int 11 for 1st level spells, etc.)  The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a culinist’s spell is 10 plus the spell’s level plus the culinist’s Intelligence modifier.

As culinists gain new levels, they may pick two new spells from their spell list to add to the pool of magic they can infuse into acari.  These spells can be either from the highest level of spells the culinist has access to, or he  may chose from levels already attained. 

Detect Magic, Spellcraft, and Infused Fruit

To the untrained eye, an infused acari fruit looks no different than a magic-less one.  These gelatinous, palm-sized seedless fruit are greyish in colortion, with a relatively thick, rubber skin that holds the semi-solid pulp.  However, under the effects of a detect magic spell, infused fruit appear vivid and colorful. Infused fruit will radiate an aura under detect magic, its coloration tied to the school of magic to which the infused spell belongs.  Rawer fruit that has not fully infused will appear tinged with burgeoning color, while over-ripe fruit will appear mottled and darkened.  A properly rip fruit, with the kelaguen fertilizer fully active, will appear as swirling motes of glowing energy, spinning and dancing around in the jelly-ish medium of the fruit.  The shape of these kelaguen and the pattern of their movement are individual to the culinist whom grew them, and often once the culinist has garnered enough renown then connoisseurs and gourmands can recognize the patterns and appreciate the beauty as they consume their meal. Fresh kelaguen appears like a glassy dust, glossy and lustrous, light shining through every grain with a brilliant gleam.  Once infused, that glassiness is richly glazed by the appropriate color, and when mixed into the soil of the acari plant gives the dirt around it a slight tint. These facts can be used to determine the spell infused within the kelaguen/acari.  A Spellcraft check can be used when the fruit was either not created by the culinist possessing it or when the culinist cannot remember on his own.  This process is exactly the same as identifying an unknown magical potion.

Poison Resistance: Through trial and error producing infused acari fruit, a culinist often times makes mistakes in cultivation and produces poisoned food incapable of being digested.  After repeated digestion over a long period of time, these “mistakes” help build up a tolerance in the culinist.  At 4th level, the culinist has by happenstance cultured a strain of kelaguen in his digestive track that gives a bonus to saves against poisons equal to his current level.

Bonus Feat: Culinists gain a bonus feat at 5th level and again 10th, 15th, and 20th level.

Extended Freshness: By using twice the normal doses of kelaguen in the fertilizing stage, a culinist can produce infused acari fruit that resist the putrification process.  These infused fruit maintain their potency for twice as long as normal (one week minus one day per spell level, multiplied by two, for a minimum of two days).  Cantrips so treated will last for two full weeks before becoming inedible.

Rapid Ripening: By using twice the normal doses of kelaguen in the fertilization stage, a culinist can produced infused acari fruit that ripen more quickly than normal, cutting the time needed before harvesting in half (one day per level of the spell, divided by two, minimum one day).  This class ability can stack with Extended Freshness, requiring a cumulative three times the doses of kelaguen as normal.

Succulent Flavor: By using twice the normal doses of kelaguen in the fertilization stage, a culinist can produced infused acari fruit that are more potent than their normal infusions.  These infused fruit are so potent that any variable in the spell description is maximized.  This class ability is stackable with Extended Freshness and Rapid Ripening, and increases the number of required kelaguen doses as expected.

Preserved Fruit: Used in conjunction with Extended Freshness, a culinist may spend three times the normal dose of kelaguen (normal dose, + extended dose, + preserved dose = x3) to change the number of days an infused fruit stays edible into the same number of weeks.  This class ability can stack with Rapid Ripening and Succulent Flavor, increasing the number of kelaguen doses required to up to x5 for all abilities.

Bountiful Harvest: At 19th level, the culinist has mastered every nuance of aquaculture and can coaxed the finest and most plentiful fruits from his orchards.  The culinist is no longer limited by the number of spells per level listed on the chart above, and can choose to exceed those limits when fertilizing.  However, he is still limited by the number of doses of kelaguen he can produce in a day.  For example, the culinist could produce nothing but six fruit, all infused with 5th-level spells, by substituting 5 doses of kelaguen that he would normally spend on 1st level spells (or any combination of 1st through 4th level spells) for each of the 5th level spells.

Alternately, he could choose to infuse more than one spell into a fruit.  For example, he could infuse five (different) 1st level spells into a single fruit.  There is no limit to the number of spells he can infuse into a single fruit except the number of spell levels infused cannot exceed the number of doses the culinist can generate.  The culinist needs enough time to infuse the kelaguen with all the required spells, essentially casting one after the other into the kelaguen.  The time needed to harvest these “multi-fruit” is determined by the total number of spell levels of all the involved spells.  The duration of the spell effects is determined by the spell with the shortest duration time.

“We thank you for the beauty and the bounty, the flavor and the favor,
the living and the life that will let us live for another day…”
– An Olyhydran grace