A craft that feeds a community.

The pot needs your hand.

Cooking in Icesus is a craft you practise. Read a recipe card, gather its ingredients, choose the right fire and watch the dish through its stages. When the pot calls, answer in time: stir it, tend it or pull it off the heat.

A missed moment makes a poorer dish and may burn the ingredients. Clean cooking builds Cooking mastery. Experienced cooks have more time to respond and can turn out masterful dishes with better quality and longer life. show masteries shows your progress.

On the road

Everyday recipes use a cooking pot at any suitable fire. Raw meat and fish can also be cooked directly with cook .

In the village

Hearty, work, house and seasonal dishes use a food hall hearth or inn kitchen. Party recipes need a food hall; master recipes require a great food hall.

For the long table

Make a hunting party’s stew pot or a long table spread. Drinks use an inn kitchen fire, giving the inn and food hall different roles in village life.

Start with a card and a fire.

1. Get a card and read it. At a restored food hall, cook menu lists cards available to your standing and buy recipe <name> buys one. Inns sell drink cards. cook recipes lists cards you carry. read <name> recipe shows ingredients, the required cooking place and what the dish does.
2. Bring ingredients. Hunting, fishing, foraging and settlement supplies give you food to work with. The recipe draws first from your pot, then your pack and its bags; kept items are protected.
3. Cook and pay attention. cook recipe <name> makes a dish for you. Follow the exact prompt when a stage needs action, such as use stir the pot . Ingredients are used at the end.
4. Eat with a purpose. Dishes grant meal effects and drinks grant drink effects. You can have one of each at a time; a new meal replaces the previous meal. effects shows what is active.

Food with a place and a season.

The recipe book also includes spring greens soup, summer berry bowls, house dishes and inn drinks such as ale, berry wine and winter spiced wine. Ingredients and cooking locations give the menu roots in the world.

Become the cook people come back for.

At a food hall hearth or inn kitchen, cook <name> uses a recipe card’s exact name to make a batch for the building’s shelf. The settlement supplies the foods it stores; ingredients such as specific game meat come from your pack.

This work requires settlement standing, sufficient skill, available ingredients and shelf space. Each cook can make a shelf batch once per half hour. Better cooks make more servings. Finishing earns experience and standing; a serving sold earns you coin .

The food hall’s shelf takes dishes, while the inn’s takes drinks. You are supplying something another visitor can actually buy.

A good kitchen starts beyond its door.

Farmers bring in grain and roots. Pastures supply dairy, fisheries supply fish, and hunters sell catches to the food hall. Home gardens and traps give households further ways to contribute.

Fresh foods spoil at different rates, and seasons change both production and losses. Preserve meat and fish at a smokehouse and use specialised food storage to keep the winter larder useful.

Settlements can trade surplus in sealed crates, creating hauling work between villages. Supplying the winter goal helps earn the village a free feast; seasonal news recognises those who kept it fed.

Follow the village food economy →

Then everyone sits down together.

Once a season, the council can call a feast at the food hall. Players bring dishes they cooked for the contest and share the cheer at the table. Its effect lasts its allotted time even across leaving the game and returning.

Reaching the village’s winter goal earns a separate free feast. The council can call it when contributors are around; it is called automatically if left waiting. The people who supplied the stores hear when their work earns it.

Before you set out