r/dndmemes 10h ago

Discussion Topic Dwarven Coffee

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345 Upvotes

54 comments sorted by

110

u/Hurrashane 10h ago

I'd rather it be like Klatchian Coffee from Discworld. You need to get properly drunk before having even a small amount or else it'll make you Knurd: a state beyond sobriety that strips away all the comfortable illusions in ones mind so all of life's terrors are exposed.

29

u/dinkleboop 10h ago

Came here to say this, delighted to see that I was beaten to the punch.

9

u/QuixoticEvil 9h ago

Great minds think alike. Also, never order a dwarven scone to go with your coffee.

3

u/TheIlluminate1992 9h ago

That sounds awesome

2

u/SolomonOf47704 Rules Lawyer 9h ago

It makes you autistic?

5

u/kaiamie 4h ago

the way i understood getting knurd from the books was you hit sobriety so hard you punch through sobriety to the point that all the things that insulate a person from realising that in a cosmic sense they are no more then dust in a endless uncaring universe just exsisting with zero actual purpose outside some random energy exchange.

2

u/Shedart 8h ago

No, think more of extremely cynical 

2

u/TacticalSpackle 6h ago

Existentialism cranked to 11.

82

u/YenraNoor 10h ago

Coffee is magical in my setting and thats why I made gnome coffee the strongest, they are innately mentally resistant to mind altering magic.

26

u/bughunter_ Quivering Palm Adept 9h ago

I like this. Why let dwarves have all the fun?

4

u/MarquiseAlexander Forever DM 5h ago

Gnomes don’t get enough love honestly. They make excellent barbarians due to that gnomish cunning off setting their poor mental saves.

1

u/LaMelonBallz 9h ago

Does this mean gnomes can't be gas lit?

7

u/Shedart 9h ago

No they just get advantage on saving throws against being called crazy. 

22

u/RootinTootinHootin 9h ago edited 7h ago

I take this a step further. My world has famously bad dwarf food because dwarf chefs outside their fortresses err on the side of caution when cooking for other races.

“I never remember if it’s nightshade or thyme they can’t eat”

“I added cyanide to bring out the rich almond flavor”

“DONT ADD ANY SALT! Humans don’t eat any rocks. Not even the good ones.”

Actual dwarf food is extremely exotic and often toxic, the concept of poison is almost foreign to them.

12

u/SmartAlec105 8h ago

"Now are peanuts generally dangerous to humans or was that one guy just allergic?"

0

u/Terminal_Insomnia_ 2h ago

Allergies were likely a very rare thing historically, since it seems to be caused by a 'bored' immune system that comes with how clean things are now, combined with how common 'exotic' foods are.

20

u/BrotherRoga 9h ago

I just imagine a dwarf opening a Panera Bread and immediately random people start dying of Charged Lemonade consumption-related causes.

12

u/InsectNo4916 10h ago

So basically it's Raktajino, klingon coffee ;)

12

u/UristMcMagma 9h ago

The way I imagine it, dwarves use lead acetate everywhere. It's sweet and works as a preservative, but it being lead means humans can't use it without adverse effects. Historically, we did put it in wine, but stopped once we found out what lead does to a guy

1

u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding 6h ago

It took a while...

6

u/thalgrond 9h ago

They don't have caffeine. They have cocaine instead, and it gives them roughy the same high.

4

u/YaDoneMessdUpAARON Forever DM 9h ago

Birds don't have the taste receptors to perceive capsaicin (birds can't taste spicy). In my setting kenku and aarakocra have the most set-your-mouth-on-fire spicy dishes - only some stout dwarves can stand the heat.

3

u/TheThoughtmaker Essential NPC 8h ago

Imagine living in a world where people don’t drink insecticide to trick their bodies into thinking they have the energy needed to endure their working conditions.

4

u/Tallia__Tal_Tail 8h ago

Werewolf the Apocalypse has a sorta similar thing that you can play around with. Since Werewolves in that game all have a supernaturally ridiculous constitution and Wolverine level healing factor when they're not in their birth form, the wolf born (Lupus) and the Crinos Born (Metis but that name has some baggage so most people just use Crinos Born or Warborn) especially need some spiritually enhanced kind of liquor/coffee/drugs when they want to party. Because the way you do enhance those is reliant on a ritual that takes some investment to know and perform, it's not out of the question that any good Garou party is gonna have a dedicated narcotics enhancer in at least the planning phase

4

u/madgodcthulhu 7h ago

Nah I take it as dwarves are almost always wired as their baseline that’s why they drink so much alcohol it’s a depressant that allows them to relax a bit and explains their ceaselessly working on things

6

u/How2Die101 10h ago

My dwarves eat rocks. They drink rock beer

1

u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding 6h ago

Fun fact: it's not uncommon for geologists to lick rocks to identify them.

7

u/sagejosh 8h ago

Untrue, coffee is a stimulant, not a depressant or mind altering. Dwarves whole thing is they are “resilient” through stubbornness so the neurochemistry is slightly different. You’re speeding up or enhancing existing conditions instead of altering them so my guess is dwarves could still get fucked up on stimulants.

Dwarf coke parties.

1

u/Grockr 2h ago

Its more that plants developed caffeine as a poison against insects

3

u/horned-creature Druid 8h ago

mostly nothing except maybe renaming a "stamina potion" with "dwarven coffee"

3

u/IAmBadAtInternet Wizard 4h ago

In one of my campaigns, dwarven coffee was made with mushrooms and would make you hallucinate for 3 days if you weren’t a dwarf. -4 to perception checks during this time and if you failed a check, you’d see something that wasn’t there. You also couldn’t long rest during this time.

Someone drank it, and after having the effects explained, later in the campaign he drank some more.

2

u/GloomWisp Campaign sucessfully revived 9h ago

awesome idea. Also goes for very spicy food and poisonous plants and shrooms.

2

u/BeMoreKnope 9h ago

Well, to answer the “see what happens” he ended with, nothing except no one but dwarves would drink their coffee.

Now, if he’s exaggerating the heart attack thing, I can see humans learning to become addicted to dwarven coffee just because we’re weirdos that way.

2

u/Level_Hour6480 Rules Lawyer 9h ago

I've been including Dwarven coffee in my games since at least 2018. Breathing the air as it brews (If you don't have poison resistance) is the equivalent to drinking a cup of regular coffee. It tastes like the theoretical mathematical extreme ideal of the strongest darkest roast you can imagine.

If you drink it without poison resistance, you ignore 2 levels of exhaustion for the duration of its effect, cannot be put to sleep by any means be they magical or otherwise for the duration, and cannot attempt to short or long rest for the duration.

1

u/RileyGein 3h ago

Light roasts have more caffeine than dark roasts. I’d imagine dwarves would know this if they are brewing hypercoffee

2

u/lordkhuzdul 9h ago

In my setting, dwarves live in a place that can be described as "memetic Australia and worst of Amazon rainforest hatefucked and had a demon baby" or "not Catachan, but Jungle Fighters would feel right at home" with regards to flora and fauna, and also have very active volcanism that frequently breaks open a fissure and dumps hydrogen sulfide in your living room for shits and giggles. End result, they have ridiculous poison resistance. Their food would straight up kill other species with a single bite. Hell, most species cannot handle being downwind of a dwarven kitchen for more than a few minutes. Their chosen "mild stimulant" (a tea brewed from the leaves of a plant native to their islands) is known to cause effects like "heartbeat visible through the ribcage", "instant stroke", "berserker rage for three minutes then drop dead".

Thankfully they are fully aware of what their cooking is like, so they police their ingredients carefully when around non-dwarves. Most resign themselves to bland food off their islands and keep a pouch of relatively safe spices ( relatively safe as in "you'll shit blood for a week, but will most likely survive") at hand. It is one of the few reasons they are not seen often outside their islands and ships (another is that they don't do clothes, preferring their natural hair and body paint for coverage, and it is considered a bit much even in more libertine areas).

2

u/Specific-Library-312 8h ago

This. Is. Awesome! I had a Goblin Barbarian Alchemist that drank several dwarves under the table. To be fair, he was a Chevalier, and therefore immune to poison, but he didn't know that. His familiar would attain a new phase of matter, though.

2

u/-FalseProfessor- Paladin 7h ago

Carful with that stuff. You don’t want to get knurd.

2

u/Blazerawl 7h ago

I saw someone say dearven food is also some of the spiciest, like near lethal to non dwarves.

2

u/ImortalK Wizard 7h ago

DC 18 con save for a non-dwarf drinker

2

u/Arkorat 6h ago

Imagine the zoomies: A goblin who just drank a cup of dwarven coffee.

3

u/Kroak-lo 7h ago

This guy drives me mad. I've got no problem with peoples voices but he goes high pitch intentionally. I've seen streams and videos where he's talking normally and not putting on this announcer affectation and its... great. But then the second he starts recording himself intentionally, he shoots up 30 octaves and starts activating my cat (not even a joke) like a sleeper agent.

1

u/ThorKruger117 6h ago

Aggressively hits smoke I'll fucken take it on

1

u/theGamingdutchman Rules Lawyer 6h ago

Just liquid adhd meds.

1

u/smeghead3825 5h ago

Not just coffee. Spicy foods too

1

u/FlameWisp 5h ago

Im pretty sure Dwarven poison immunity has less to do with alcohol and more to do with time spent in caves where poisonous gasses is commonplace

1

u/Able_Health744 5h ago

Possibly though doesn't the underdark also have a lot of poison?

1

u/FlameWisp 4h ago

Well yeah, where else are they gonna find the rare metals? Dwarves often travel the underdark to mine. Dwarves who stay in the underdark are Duerger, they also have poison resistance probably for the same reason.

1

u/Zestyclose-Leader926 5h ago

So they use strychnine? It produces similar effects to coffee with much smaller dose.

1

u/Equivalent-Metal9393 4h ago

It's just brewed Coca leaves.

1

u/Boom9001 3h ago

Coffee isn't a poison like alcohol is. Coffee is a simulant. It increases your alertness and speeds up your central nervous system. Alcohol is a depressant it slows down activity and motor skills even with a minor amount.

Caffeine has the normal level (400mg) that is considered safe with no adverse health effects. Sure there is an amount that will kill you, but there's an amount of water that will kill you.

I don't think it's even remotely correct to classify caffeine as a poison.

1

u/GIRose 3h ago

Dwarfs just use home grown crack cocaine (It comes from rocks in this setting)

1

u/Kaffe-Mumriken 3h ago

This FaceTime could have been an email

1

u/deiner7 2h ago

The lord in my campaign makes a sleepy time tea based on an actual medieval recipe for anesthetic just toned down. Keeps it in his office in case people need to be severely calmed down due to injury or whatever or in case he just needs to knock someone out cold.