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One of our quirks as a species is that we think our food is bland if it doesn't have enough poison in it.
(lemmy.today)
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2026
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Imagining a fantasy setting where elves, dwarves, orcs and whatnot are just continually baffled by humans eating the most vile toxic things.
Salsa? You mean a mix of a hemolytic poison (onions), a cardiotoxin (tomatoes), and a nerve agent (chili peppers)? Eaten with corn chips dusted with a lethal amount of salt, and washed down with a cup full of neurotoxin (iced tea)?
Stay the fuck away from me because clearly you are the vile spawn of some incomprehensible eldritch god
The best settings are where everyone is morbidly fascinated by each other.
Humans are effectively viewed as stereotypical frenchmen, constantly smoking and drinking and eating violently stinky food.
Dwarves think asbestos has a wonderful crunchy texture that goes great with a tall glass of mercury.
Elves cannot comprehend why you wouldn't simply drink raw magic like a civilized person (you gotta try some Yith'Illian merlinot, they age it for two hundred years in silverwood caskets which gives it a gorgeous silky texture).
Orcs consider most human food to be ultraprocessed slop for babies, but have become borderline addicted to our hard candy and have formed a deep friendship with dwarves over sharing bones to gnaw on.
In D&D dwarves have resistance to poison damage and advantage on saving throws against poison, so they would be the ones with food no one else could eat safely.
To everyone else, dwarf food seems bland. Since the dwarf cooking it couldn't add any of there normal spices. "Can humans eat rocks? I don't think so, better skip them." (Then skips the salt)
Fun fact; you shouldn't swallow pebbles. You can digest them, but they are rich in toxic minerals, to the point that your kidney gets overwhelmed.
I’m so glad I learned that I could digest rocks as an adult. I don’t think the second part of that warning would have been enough to deter me as a kid.
oh btw there's these clay eating people all around the world.
detoxing is not real lol, unless you're eating activated charcoal.
We have organs that specifically exist to remove toxins from the body, if foods have positive health effects it's not due to "detoxing".
Structure of the clay: maybe beneficial
Toxicity: small amounts
What about boulders?
If it fits, it shits?
Somehow that has me imagining Japanese dwarves being especially fond of that one pufferfish dish that's toxic unless cooked just right.
afaik it's not exactly the science it's always made out to be, you just remove the poison gland, you know, the part with all the poison
Fugu.
When the dwarves invite you over for dinner, steer clear of the mushroom stew.
If they're gully dwarves its be best to just pass on it entirely.
HumanityFuckYeah is a genre that is basically this, although it's most often in a scifi setting.
Usually depicting humans reaching the wider universe and baffling/overcoming large more advanced galactic empires due to Earth effectively being a death world where everything is trying to kill us.
I'd be chill with that, but my experience with r/HFY was mostly humans being more amazing than aliens in every way for no apparent good reason. Just so weird.
idk about weird, most fiction is at least somewhat based in power fantasy, especially in times like these where basically everyone feels fucking miserable and helpless.
Tbf dwarven religions are like "my ancestors carved these rules with their hands to guide us forward" and elven religions are like "my ancestors got intimate with a fae, starting our race. Also their firstborn is still alive."
Meanwhile human religions are like "here is a horse that's made out of all living beings, with a woman's face too. Mortals who mount it can go to heaven for 5 seconds."
Mythology Reference.
let's not forget that a lot of human religion is also just "thank u sun for making us not freeze to death, very cool. You too, water: big fan of watering my crops."
Which is probably my favourite HFY concept: humans being ludicrously diverse while everyone else has like maybe 5 different cultures.
Even better there's one non-human species that's also super diverse and we both go