To alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, so many problems at the game table. Despite a reputation for creating chaos and lack of focus for players and GM’s alike, there’s few things as fun as a few drinks with friends as you slay goblins around the dinner table. Thanks to the lineage of sci-fi and fantasy that flows through most TTRPG’s, alcohol is not an uncommon presence in-game either. If only there was a way to combine the two? Enter Düngeonmeister: The Deck of Many Drinks, released last month from Adams Media and the latest in their line of lifestyle books to help enhance games with real-world. Unlike their previous Düngeonmeister cocktail recipe book, The Deck of Many Drinks takes the form of classic item The Deck of Many Things, organizing its recipes into a deck of large recipe cards and adding in stats to allow you to use it as an in-game item.
The deck can be integrated with most fantasy-themed TTRPG’s (though it dovetails easiest with D&D or Pathfinder). Each drink in the deck can exist as its own magic item or the cards can be used to create the drinks, and each drink has a magical effect which, like the Deck of Many Things, vary from good, to bad, to just plain weird. They’ve also added a fun new element in the Düngeonmeister Tavern, a fully fleshed out watering hole that serves the deck’s drinks and allows for plenty of plot hooks and mischief for DM’s that wish to use it.
The cards themselves offer up a great deal of variety and humor in their ranks, though the drinkability of every drink can vary. Some like the Wight Russian or Slippery Grippli are simple spins on existing cocktails. Others are relatively benign original drinks, like the above Healing Surge which mixes tequila, apple liqueur, lime juice, simple syrup, and lemon-lime soda. Then there’s the TRULY bizarre drinks that feel straight out of fantasy, like the Breath Weapon (vodka, vermouth, garlic olive with juice, pickled garlic), Turn Undead (vodka, coffee liqueur, lemon juice), and the Barbarian Rage (spiced rim, amaretto, tequila, vodka , gin, blue curacao, light rum, coconut rum, black raspberry liqueur, melon liqueur, and a can of energy drink). Cocktail fans will find a lot of fun in here, but if you’re just a fantasy nerd wanting to get into cocktails this is an excellent entry point with plenty of options for making them a fun part of your next session.
Düngeonmeister: The Deck of Many Drinks is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your FLGS at an MSRP of $16.99.
Images via Adams Media
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