Food generator for a starved town

[HoboKnight]

My players did well. They destroyed a hag coven and a servant of an arch-devil, who were ravaging a medium sized town. Curses are lifted, but there is no food left due to a prolonged siege(now lifted) and crops failing.

Heroes who managed these deeds are mostly paladins(Liira, Tempus, Helm, Kelemvor). However, all of their efforts will be in vain(and I crushed party's hopes and dreams enough so far), if town does not get food rapidly - community will disintegrate and most of the survivig inhabitants will flee. It would take weeks to cart food from other towns, none are nearby.

So, gods decided to give them a hand. Gods can't intervene directly, so I'm thinking of coming up with a plan of town being fed via a tid bit of divine help. How could this be done?

One idea I had was party being directed by a god to a high level druid and him blessing the fields. Other was party being directed toward the Horn of plenty in a massive dungeon under town.

Any other ideas?

Thanks

[Bohandas]

Some kind of magic cook pot like in Sweet Porridge pergaps

[HoboKnight]

Some kind of magic cook pot like in Sweet Porridge pergaps

Absolutely. I'd just use some more help with HOW it is delivered or how they find it.

[King of Nowhere]

Cattle stampede incoming on the town.
Rain of fish.
A basement wall collapses, revealing an ancient grain storage.

Of course there are also a lot of magic items to make food, but if you allow those to exhist without limitations then you have to explain why your campaign world doesn't use those to feed every major city.

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

What's the population of the town? You could have the group be directed by a sign from the gods (Contacted in a dream, maybe) to travel to a cloister of Clerics that are high enough level to cast Create Food and Water that would be willing to help if the players solve some kind of problem for them like an undead infestation, or maybe just if the town pledges themselves to the service of that god.

[Trask]

If you really want to ensure the town is fed, why not simply have a band of traveling clerics or inquisitors arrive on the scene to help cast create food and water? Perhaps to investigate the hag coven, or perhaps they received divine instruction in the form of a dream. This would also make the PCs feel like the gods are watching over them, which I'm sure many PCs would enjoy.

They arrived too late to help with the hag coven, but they can still help feed the town. This could help the PCs feel like they aren't alone and could even serve as a hook to further adventure depending on what the clerics know. Also certainly the PCs and the Clerics will have each other's gratitude; IME it sometimes feels good as a PC to just have NPCs help you, no strings attached, and it sounds like you'd prefer this to not be a plot point anyways.

EDIT: Also, if you do that, make sure to have the clerics question the PCs as to what occurred, and on hearing a description of events, have one of them make a comment to the effect that they could not have defeated the hag coven on their own. This is important so the PCs don't feel like their help was unnecessary because if they didn't help, the clerics would have just solved it anyways.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Assuming the paladins can't prepare and cast enough Create Food and Water...

Swarm of crickets/grasshoppers.

Sudden freeze knocks migratory and edible birds out of sky.

Inexplicable rapid growth of edible mushrooms.

Cauldron of Plenty disguised as a common soup ladle, transforms back to Cauldron when (???). Reverts back to soup ladle when (crisis ends or ???) and remains a soup ladle for 100 years (or whatever).

One time boon of a magic basket that feeds five thousand and more with leftovers.

[Zuras]

I mean, they took out a hag coven, right? Hags have all sorts of crazy cookware. I’d say they found a magically everfull cauldron, but it has to be purified/re-tasked from whatever foulness the hags were using it for. Make it a fetch quest or just a ritual they have to perform. If you want to make it a combat encounter, during the purification ritual they get attacked by demonic manifestations of hunger (maw demons, wendigo, etc.) before they can complete it.

[LibraryOgre]

Heroes who managed these deeds are mostly paladins(Liira, Tempus, Helm, Kelemvor). However, all of their efforts will be in vain(and I crushed party's hopes and dreams enough so far), if town does not get food rapidly - community will disintegrate and most of the survivig inhabitants will flee. It would take weeks to cart food from other towns, none are nearby.

So, gods decided to give them a hand. Gods can't intervene directly, so I'm thinking of coming up with a plan of town being fed via a tid bit of divine help. How could this be done?

One idea I had was party being directed by a god to a high level druid and him blessing the fields. Other was party being directed toward the Horn of plenty in a massive dungeon under town.

Edition and system can matter a lot here. I'll address 5e, but will dive into other editions or games if you ask and I know them.

A Druid will have both Plant Growth and Goodberry. Goodberry, used a bit tactically, can help really stretch a food supply... I am a 5th level druid, so I can cast Goodberry 4 times per day if I spend all my 1st level spell slots. Therefore, I can feed 40 people a day. However, starvation takes some time, so if I feed 40 people today, I can feed a different 40 people tomorrow, and so on, really stretching my supplies. If everyone is on half rations, most people of moderate health (+0 Constitution) will only need 1 Goodberry every 6 days to avoid starvation (since a full day of food resets the Starvation timer). Since Goodberry is a 1st level spell, you might have a couple Druid Magic Initiates keeping things going. The 8-hour Plant Growth is pretty straightforward in how it's going to work. Without big divine intervention, you might even just say "There was a druid in town who was keeping people alive, but they're an 80 year old farmer, so they weren't going to go fight a bunch of hags by themselves."

Also, if they're at least 9th level (they beat a Hag Coven), note that "Create Food and Water" is a Paladin spell. With four 9th level Paladins putting all their 3rd level slots into Create Food and Water, you're looking at 360 pounds of food a day (45 per casting, 2 castings per day, 4 casters). They'll also do 240 gallons of water; on half rations, you've got 480 people fed and watered (or 3/4 rations; half for everyone, plus extra to keep the weaker from succumbing, gets you 300). Throw in a cleric or druid, and you've got a LOT of food, if you need it, though it lessens your ability to respond to other threats (because you used up all your spell slots). Purify Food and Drink is also a Paladin spell, and a ritual, meaning a low-level Cleric, Druid, or Ritual Magician can spend all day making nasty food and water at least edible.

Two other spells that will be useful are Create Water and Detect Poison and Disease.

If you combine these strategies, you get a fair amount of food and water, especially if people are willing to have a bit of hardship (i.e. less than full rations). A druid initiate using Goodberry every day means you can keep 30 people from actually starving (assuming they all have +0 Constitution modifier, they each get a berry once every 3 days). If you can manage half-rations for everyone, this extends to 60 people. If you've got someone who can cast Purify Food and Drink as a ritual, you can keep 360 people at full rations so long as you don't need any 3rd level spell slots for your Paladins.
With just a few low-level spells, you can do a lot to keep a large number of people fed for quite a while.

None of these involve any divine intervention beyond "My divine casters get spells and I poke them to know which ones they need."

[Ionathus]

I'd go either the "horn of plenty rumored to be in the dungeon 1 day to the east" approach, or the "druid can cast goodberry and blowing all slots on that for three weeks is enough to sustain the town" approach.

The first one is interesting all on its own as a fun quest hook. If the second, I would introduce a problem or have the PCs be attacked at least once when the druid has already spent all their spellslots on goodberries for that day, or have there be some other tradeoff that the Druid wants their spells for. Make the choice mean something to them.

[icefractal]

This would somewhat depend on how things went with the hags and devils, but I like the idea of purifying an evil item into a solution.

In addition to the cauldron mentioned, what about a standing stone that allows divine casters to prepare twice as many slots up to 3rd level, if they do their preparation there? That could be enough to make Create Food and Water by the PCs sufficient. Probably something that predated the hags but they'd been using.

Of course the gods could also just provide extra spells/day for this purpose, but then it'd raise the question why they don't do that at other times.

[gbaji]

Also, if they're at least 9th level (they beat a Hag Coven), note that "Create Food and Water" is a Paladin spell. With four 9th level Paladins putting all their 3rd level slots into Create Food and Water, you're looking at 360 pounds of food a day (45 per casting, 2 castings per day, 4 casters). They'll also do 240 gallons of water; on half rations, you've got 480 people fed and watered (or 3/4 rations; half for everyone, plus extra to keep the weaker from succumbing, gets you 300). Throw in a cleric or druid, and you've got a LOT of food, if you need it, though it lessens your ability to respond to other threats (because you used up all your spell slots). Purify Food and Drink is also a Paladin spell, and a ritual, meaning a low-level Cleric, Druid, or Ritual Magician can spend all day making nasty food and water at least edible.

Two other spells that will be useful are Create Water and Detect Poison and Disease.

If you combine these strategies, you get a fair amount of food and water, especially if people are willing to have a bit of hardship (i.e. less than full rations). A druid initiate using Goodberry every day means you can keep 30 people from actually starving (assuming they all have +0 Constitution modifier, they each get a berry once every 3 days). If you can manage half-rations for everyone, this extends to 60 people. If you've got someone who can cast Purify Food and Drink as a ritual, you can keep 360 people at full rations so long as you don't need any 3rd level spell slots for your Paladins.
With just a few low-level spells, you can do a lot to keep a large number of people fed for quite a while.

None of these involve any divine intervention beyond "My divine casters get spells and I poke them to know which ones they need."

Yeah. My first thought as well. Create food and water is relatively common, and with enough clerics/paladins, should work as a stop gap until "real food" supplies can arrive. Then just need to get them on the right path to being able to grow their own food again. I'm not sure that create water is needed. Did the local streams that they normally use for water just dry up or something? Assuming not, then food is really the only issue, and you really just need to keep them fed until some nearby towns can help out. Not sure what sorts of infrastructure are nearby (or even "semi nearby"), but this can help establish that things in this game setting don't just exist in a vacuum.

How big the town is can also determine how much this can be helped via hunting as well. Not sure what's available in the area. Crops take a signifcant amount of time to grow, but there are often short term food sources around that can be used as well to fill in the gaps. People in non-modern societies have managed to move into new areas and survive without starving while plowing fields, planting, and waiting for harvests for a very long time. Again though, that's heavily dependent on the actual population we're looking at.

[Wintermoot]

You all keep suggesting magical spells to fix the problem. You can't depend on magic for everything! There's an easy rational solution at hand that doesn't involve magic at all. Cannibalism. The paladins can segment out the population, putting the weak and the well-seasoned... I mean elderly... into holding pens, then slaughter them for meat to feed the others. If they are careful about it, they can figure out the exact correct proportion of "unnecessary excess meat-people" to keep the rest of the population adequately fed.

Alternatively, if you object to that, they can always reverse the "town is raided by monster gangs" and go on a raid of the neighboring monster dens and tribes and take their food and supplies. Kind of a reversal of normal procedures. And, if you are pearl-clutching queasy about eating man-flesh, just remember that goblin-flesh and kobold-flesh aren't technically cannibalism.

[Jay R]

If they are so isolated that there are no towns within a few weeks travel, then the hunting and fishing should be really, really good, since no other people have been hunting and fishing there. Within a day's travel of the town, the forest may be hunted out -- by the townsfolk. But 2-4 days out, there should be plenty of game.

Also, there should be lots of edible plants for the same reason.

[LibraryOgre]

You all keep suggesting magical spells to fix the problem. You can't depend on magic for everything! There's an easy rational solution at hand that doesn't involve magic at all. Cannibalism. The paladins can segment out the population, putting the weak and the well-seasoned... I mean elderly... into holding pens, then slaughter them for meat to feed the others. If they are careful about it, they can figure out the exact correct proportion of "unnecessary excess meat-people" to keep the rest of the population adequately fed.

Alternatively, if you object to that, they can always reverse the "town is raided by monster gangs" and go on a raid of the neighboring monster dens and tribes and take their food and supplies. Kind of a reversal of normal procedures. And, if you are pearl-clutching queasy about eating man-flesh, just remember that goblin-flesh and kobold-flesh aren't technically cannibalism.

This seems to be a very modest proposal.

[Wintermoot]

This seems to be a very modest proposal.

like button. thumbs up emoji. golf clap. upvote.

[Kurt Kurageous]

This seems to be a very modest proposal.

And 'Swift'ly written, too.

[Bohandas]

I take it nobody has Stone to flesh? With that you coukd make a lot of steaks out of rock

So, gods decided to give them a hand. Gods can't intervene directly, so I'm thinking of coming up with a plan of town being fed via a tid bit of divine help. How could this be done?

One idea I had was party being directed by a god to a high level druid and him blessing the fields. Other was party being directed toward the Horn of plenty in a massive dungeon under town.

Any other ideas?

There's also the reverse of this idea, for the gods to send people directly to relieve the town rather than sending the PCs to fetch relief. This is admittedly less conducive to adventure however

[icefractal]

Something that would make sense in a not-direct-intervention way, is for the gods to send some of their other followers there (via visions), now that the PCs have made it safe to do so. These aren't high-level Clerics, they're mostly 1st-3rd and many of them don't even have Cleric levels. But what they do have is wagons of food. And it answers "why not send those guys from the start" - the hags or devils would have easily slain them.

[HoboKnight]

OMFG guys. Party gets a ping from gods to delve deep into the dungeon to find a room with... 1000 scrolls of Stone to Flesh XD

Town has about 2500 inhabitants(usually 5000,but a lot fled/died).

Splendid ideas all over!

[Jay R]

There's an easy rational solution at hand that doesn't involve magic at all. Cannibalism. The paladins can segment out the population, putting the weak and the well-seasoned... I mean elderly... into holding pens, then slaughter them for meat to feed the others. If they are careful about it, they can figure out the exact correct proportion of "unnecessary excess meat-people" to keep the rest of the population adequately fed.

Something that would make sense in a not-direct-intervention way, is for the gods to send some of their other followers there...

With all these followers coming to town, you wouldn't even have to segment the original population.

[Kane0]

Magic item: Bale of Plant growth.

Its a hay bale, whatever ground you roll it over is affected by a plant growth spell. Its good for [dice roll] number of miles worth of rolling

[Berenger]

Tempus sends a majestic twelve foot tall celestial bull to be slain in glorious battle. The carcass will feed the village for months.

[Bohandas]

Spam casting of Animal Messenger could be used to deliver rabbits or poultry

EDIT:
In addition to whatever else is chosen, the PCs could also be tempted with an alternate solution in the form of a nutritious, supernaturally fast-growing plant, possibly found in the hags' lair. If planted this plant, in addition to being a food source, will also act as a supernaturally fast-growing weed weed, wiping out all the normal plantlife in the region, desfroying the roads, and wrecking the foundations and first story walls of all the buildings in town. They're potentially also covered in razor sharp thorns

[HoboKnight]

Okay, splendid ideas all over. I'd like to go with prophetic dreams/voices in head with this and I'd like to upgrade this a bit with each quest being fluffed a bit to fit the god sending his/her covert help.

Defeating an epic bull is a great idea for Tempus. I have this on my list already.

What about Kelemvor, Helm and Liira? How would Protector of Community, god of Death and godess of Joy feed the populace? Lots of good ideas in upper posts, but I could really use some more fusing of these gods' portfolios with quests they issue to their followers. Maybe we can use some of already posted.

I'd like to involve my players a bit beyond raining fish or dragging low lvl clerics into town. Town is about 2500 inhabitants.

Ideas so far and future ones really appreciated.

[Sapphire Guard]

This is the one where the hags were poisoning the water, right?

The hags or/and the arch devil have secret caches for their own followers, a surviving follower has a dream from the gods and converts in exchange for safe passage and knowledge of their hidden caches.

The hags have an artefact that purges the poison from existing crops.

The god of the community appears to some of the people who fled and they come back with the herds they brought with them, but the party has to go rescue them from a mishap on the road. Wild herds come back from woods they had fled into

A mysterious giant school of fish suddenly appears from upriver, PCs have to help catch them

The locals throw a festival, for unknown reasons the foods served last much longer and stretch much further than they should.

[Bohandas]

the gods grant them more or higher level spells than usual, possibly with serious side-effects

[King of Nowhere]

They sleep and dream of a big merchsntile caravan/boat full of grain attacked by monsters and stuck somewhere close. a plot hook for the players.

A faerie creature living nearby can make some crops grow super fast, but doing it for so many people will hurt and weaken her; so she asks something in return

[LibraryOgre]

What about Kelemvor, Helm and Liira? How would Protector of Community, god of Death and godess of Joy feed the populace? Lots of good ideas in upper posts, but I could really use some more fusing of these gods' portfolios with quests they issue to their followers. Maybe we can use some of already posted.

Kelemvor might offer up animals whose deaths come easy... you have fewer beasts who get injured and run. Helm keeps away threats. Llira, of course, makes sure the ale doesn't spoil. ;-)

But you might also have Kelemvor take some of the people who are going to die a little early... the sick, elders holding on... people who take resources. It's a bit dark, but he is Lawful Neutral, not Good. Llira might direct some entertainers to the area, keep spirits up, sell some supplies. Helm might just order some of his monks (in the non-class sense of the word) to show up with supplies, or speed a letter asking for aid along its way by protecting the messenger.

[Wintermoot]

Kelemvor might offer up animals whose deaths come easy... you have fewer beasts who get injured and run. Helm keeps away threats. Llira, of course, makes sure the ale doesn't spoil. ;-)

But you might also have Kelemvor take some of the people who are going to die a little early... the sick, elders holding on... people who take resources. It's a bit dark, but he is Lawful Neutral, not Good.

Wasn't Kelembor a were-panther in his mortal life?

"Oh, great Kelemvor, save us from this plague of starvation!"

*In the night, panthers stalk into the village and kill all the sick, elderly and children*

"Not what we meant, oh dread lord!"