Let’s talk about specialty coffee in Duskwall in a highly speculative way so we can mine this post for inspiration later.
I’ll start. Espresso is a violent and fucking insane process. You grind coffee really finely, press it down so hard it doesn’t come out when you flip its filter upside down, and then use an expensive machine (which, if not functioning properly, can hold such a high pressure it can actually turn into a bomb just like a pressure cooker can) to FORCE water through the tightly packed coffee grounds.
Now what would happen if instead of water, I used Thought Essences? Or told the coffee part to fuck off too and used Trance Powder?
Idk it’s 4 in the morning and my Thurs game is in a coffee shop.
I’m more curious as to how coffee is farmed and how it gets to the city. Would the drink be replaced by something else for the common folk who can’t afford the vice?
Some thieves like to tell newbies that Excelsior Beans, grown in the Dagger Isles, are worth their weight in gold. Joke is that the things are naturally buoyant in air. Coffee’s amazing (if a pain to make) and you still pretty much name your price on the black market, but still. ‘Worth their weight in gold.” Never gets old.
Iruvian coffee is renowned for its ‘spice’ as it is grown in the fertile belly of giant sandworms that dwell in the fast moonlit deserts.
Poor people get coffee by catching the scrabbadatch rays. They’re like stingrays, but they are bottom feeders in the canals. If you take the grit from their stomach lining, which is rich and brown like fine earth or coffee grounds, you can mix it with a dash of spent coffee grounds and brew it in a kettle. You get something like coffee, but it also dulls your sense of smell, makes it VERY difficult to sleep, and tastes like a rat voided down your throat.
It’s an acquired taste.
Adam Brimmer There’s probably like an invasively common cobblestone weed and you have to dig up the roots, roast those, and grind them up.
In our game, coffee is very specifically an Iruvian thing. The vast majority of the locals in Duskwall are tea drinkers (much to the chagrin of Kamali and Gloves).