Food and drink
Food and drink are consumable items. Most food items will decay over a period of time, although pickling them will stop this.
Contents
Syntax
With food, you can consume it with "eat <item>". This will have you take a bite--or eat the entire thing, if the item is only one bite. Alternatively, if the food is on a plate or other dish, you can "eat from <dish>".
Drinkable items are always in a container. You can consume them like so:
drink <fraction> {of|from} <object>
drink [from] <object>
Often, vessels are clear, and you may have something like "a tankard of ale". In this case, you can "drink ale" (or whatever it's filled with). There are, however, other commands you can use to drink things.
quaff <fraction> {of|from} <object>
quaff [from] <object>
sip <object>
taste <object>
Typically, if you just "drink <object>" or "quaff <object>", you will drink the entire thing or perhaps leave behind a very small amount. "Sip", on the other hand, will cause you to drink a smaller amount--from about an ounce to a couple of ounces. And "taste" will cause you to drink an even smaller amount--from a couple of teaspoons to about an ounce.
Fighting
When fighting, your opponents will automatically try to smash the vessel out of your hands when you (try to) drink from it in front of them.
- Your active skill below fighting.defence (dodge/parry/block) protects you against this and can allow you to drink safely.
- You can leave the room and queue your drinking command to avoid getting the vessel smashed even if your opponents delay pursue, but not if they pursue and succeed in pursuing you.
Effects
The majority of food has no particular effect when eaten--aside from showing a message--making it largely there for roleplaying purposes or flavour. However, some specific items can do things such as make you nauseated, poison you, give you a sugar high or warm chocolately feeling, or even heal you.
Likewise, drinks may do nothing, or they may make you drunk (the most common beverage-related effect by far!), knurd, and so on. Potions and poisons can be drunk for specific effects.
Giant fruitbats must be fed fruit to stop them from disappearing--the only instance in the MUD where eating or drinking is really necessary.
Other edibles
Some things may be edible despite not obviously being food. These include:
- Fluff from the Summon Fluff ritual
- Paper, including scrolls
- Corpse parts that do not contain bones
