Dwarven Feast, Fine Dwarven Feast

Now that I’m done with my (cough) “speedrun” revising The Monsters Know What They’re Doing for 2025, I’m undertaking the long-overdue task of straightening up my desk, which includes dealing with an outrageous number of unfiled papers.

Some of these papers, though, are too good not to share.

Here’s one from seven or eight years ago: my plan for a dwarven feast.

For context, when we were playing Rise of Tiamat, the linear but geographically scattered nature of the adventure made it easy to insert personal side quests for the PCs. The one I wrote for my spouse’s hill dwarf ranger took place in her home village, where she had once been the chief but didn’t think she was cut out for the job and passed the chieftaincy down to her younger sister. Since the laws of the chiefdom didn’t allow abdication of the chieftaincy, only inheritance upon death, her first and only act as chief had been to proclaim herself dead.

Upon hearing word of several disasters that had struck the village simultaneously, however, she returned to offer whatever help she could. The villagers were caste-bound and superstitious, and they treated her return with horror, as if she were a ghost. But the more open-minded head of the merchant caste stepped in and offered hospitality to the party, including a welcoming feast.

Which I prepared for my players.

Hill Dwarf Feast

Whole Grain Bread, Blue Cheese, Pear Soup, Tokány, Mushroom Pörkölt

Pear Soup

6 pears
3 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 Tbsp minced fresh sage leaves
½ c packed light brown sugar
Salt

Peel, halve and core pears. In a large bowl, toss pears with lemon juice. Melt butter in ovenproof skillet over medium-low heat and cook until butter begins to brown. Add sage to butter and allow to caramelize. Add brown sugar and a pinch of salt. Add pears to mixture, rolling them around to coat thoroughly.

Broil pears in skillet, stirring occasionally, until pears are light brown, about 15 minutes.

Puree pear and brown butter mixture in a blender until smooth. Pour into room temperature soup bowls and serve with bread and cheese.

Tokány

1 beef round steak, cut ½ in thick
6 slices bacon
2 large onions, sliced
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp marjoram
½ c water
2 c sour cream

Cut beef into ¾ in by 4 in strips; set aside.

Cook bacon in uncovered skillet with lid until crisp; remove and reserve. Pour off most of the drippings. Brown onions lightly in remaining drippings. Add beef and cook slowly over medium heat until browned.

Season with salt and marjoram. Add water, cover tightly and cook slowly for 1 hour, until beef is tender.

Add crumbled bacon and stir in sour cream. Heat through for about 5 minutes.

Mushroom Pörkölt

1 lb mixed mushrooms (definitely include porcini)
1 medium onion, chopped
1½  Tbsp oil
1 tsp paprika
1½ to 2 c water or vegetable stock
½ Tbsp marjoram
1 tsp salt
Black pepper to taste

Clean mushrooms with paper towel and chop into bite-size pieces (smaller mushrooms can be left whole). Heat oil over medium heat in heavy-bottomed pot and fry chopped onions gently, without browning, until soft and translucent. Turn off heat, sprinkle with paprika and mix well before adding mushrooms. Add water or vegetable stock to cover. Bring slowly to a boil, then simmer over low heat, with lid ajar, until mushrooms are cooked through (10 to 15 minutes).

Raise heat to high and keep cooking uncovered, stirring from time to time, until broth reduces to desired consistency (about 5 minutes). Season with marjoram, salt and pepper.

Cheat Sheet

Prep: Slice beef and onions for tokány. Chop onions for pörkölt. Peel, halve and core pears and toss with lemon juice.

T−90 minutes: Cook bacon

T−78 minutes: Brown onions for tokány

T−75 minutes: Brown beef for tokány

T−65 minutes: Season beef, add water, cover

T−55 minutes: Melt butter for pear soup, cook over medium-low heat until browned

T−50 minutes: Add sage to butter

T−45 minutes: Add brown sugar and salt to sage butter; broil pears

T−30 minutes: Puree pears

T−25 minutes: Reconstitute dry mushrooms and heat oil for pörkölt

T−20 minutes: Sauté onions for pörkölt

T−15 minutes: Turn off heat, add mushrooms, season

T−10 minutes: Simmer mushrooms

T−5 minutes: Add bacon and sour cream to tokány; raise heat under pörkölt

T−0 minutes: Season pörkölt

Serve soup, bread and cheese together as first course, then tokány and pörkölt together as second course; pair entrées with pale, brown or dark ale. Warn players that only elders’ stomachs can handle beef (an earnestly held belief among hill dwarf elders, which conveniently lets them consume all the beef themselves).

In The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, the essential tactics guide for Dungeon Masters, and its sequel, MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing, I reverse-engineered hundreds of fifth edition D&D monsters to help DMs prepare battle plans for combat encounters before their game sessions. Now, in Making Enemies: Monster Design Inspiration for Tabletop Roleplaying Games, I explore everything that goes into creating monsters from the ground up: size, number, and level of challenge; monster habitats; monster motivations; monsters as metaphors; monsters and magic; the monstrous anatomy possessed by real-world organisms; and how to customize monsters for your own tabletop roleplaying game adventuring party to confront. No longer limited to one game system, Making Enemies shows you how to build out your creations not just for D&D 5E but also for Pathfinder 2E, Shadowdark, the Cypher System, and Call of Cthulhu 7E. Including interviews with some of the most brilliant names in RPG and creature design, Making Enemies will give you the tools to surprise and delight your players—and terrify their characters—again and again.

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