Every hero in this magazine runs out of stamina halfway through the dungeon. The chef is the reason they don't, and the reason they come home for dinner afterwards.
Cooking is the fastest skill in this magazine to take to Grandmaster, and that is not an insult — it means you can be genuinely, titled-ly excellent at something before the weekend is over. Flour, dough, a pie, an oven: the loop is cheap, quick and endlessly repeatable, and the ingredients are lying around every town in the realm.
The reason it matters mechanically is hunger. A hungry character regenerates stamina badly, and a fighter with no stamina barely lands a hit. Keeping the family fed is a real, measurable combat buff that none of them will notice until it stops. Beyond plain food, the better recipes produce dishes that hand out genuine temporary bonuses — which is where the super-strength pie on the cover comes from.
The other half of the job is supply, and it's why this sheet looks like a farm. You want flour from wheat, meat from the ranch, fish from the dock and herbs from the garden. A chef who buys everything from shopkeepers is fine. A chef who grew and caught it all is the centre of the household, and considerably cheaper to run.
You get 700 skill points in total, which is seven skills at 100 (Grandmaster). Here is a sheet that works, and why each line is on it. You can load this exact spread on the hero sheet in the magazine and slide the numbers around.
| Skill | Points | Why it's here |
|---|---|---|
| Cooking | 100 | The craft. Fast to train, cheap to run, and the only source of the dishes that actually buff the people eating them. |
| Fishing | 100 | The dock half of the pantry. Endless free protein, plus the occasional message in a bottle and a genuinely relaxing evening. |
| Alchemy | 100 | Potions for the household and for the garden's medicine cabinet. The natural second trade for anybody who already owns a mortar and pestle. |
| Herding | 100 | Move the cows, sheep and pigs to where you need them instead of chasing them across three screens. Unglamorous; transforms the ranch. |
| Carpentry | 100 | The kitchen: ovens, tables, barrels, the whole room. Also the loom, if the household's tailor hasn't got one yet. |
| Tinkering | 100 | Knives, scissors, pots and tools on demand. Every homestead wants one tinker, and the kitchen gets through blades. |
| Taste Identification | 100 | Spots poison in food and drink before you swallow it. Pure flavour on most days — swap it for Magery if you'd rather travel than be careful. |
| Total | 700 | of 700 |
It does one thing: detects poison. On a family shard that may never come up once. It's on the sheet because it's the chef's skill and it's funny, but if you want those 100 points back, take Magery for Mark and Recall and never regret it.
It is genuinely the quickest Grandmaster title available. If somebody in the family wants to feel properly good at something quickly — a younger player, or anybody who's bounced off a combat grind — this is the profession to hand them.
Skills go up by using them, and they go up fastest on a task that is just barely hard for you. Climb the rungs in order — each one stops paying off, and that's your cue to move up.
Any NPC cook or baker trains you to 30 and sells ingredients over the same counter. Flour and dough are close to free, which sets the tone for the whole climb.
Gains come from attempts and attempts cost pennies. Stand at an oven with a pile of flour and dough and make the simplest baked item over and over. This is the cheapest grind in the magazine by a wide margin.
Move to whatever's just hard enough to fail sometimes. Meanwhile get Fishing going at any dock — fish steaks are both training material and dinner, and the two skills climb together comfortably.
Now you're producing food worth carrying: proper meals, fish steaks in bulk, and the recipes that hand out bonuses. Start keeping a stocked food chest by the door for whoever's heading out.
The last stretch is short. Once you're Grandmaster the interesting part isn't the skill number, it's the recipes — the enchanted and buffing dishes. This shard runs the full ruleset, so they're all in: the enchanted apple at 60 skill is the one to try first.
A chef's startup is pocket change, and most of it is ingredients you'll replace from your own farm within a fortnight. The oven is the only thing here worth spending properly on.
| What | Where | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| A knife or cleaver | Provisioner | Butchering, filleting, and cutting almost everything. Keep a spare; this is the tool you'll use most. |
| Flour, dough and sacks of ingredients | Baker or provisioner | Training fuel. Buy far more than looks sensible — it's the cheapest material in the game and you'll go through it fast. |
| A fishing pole, or three | Provisioner, or any dock | They break. Carry spares, and keep one on every character who ever stands near water. |
| An oven and a stove | House add-on deeds, or use a town one | Public ovens work fine to start. Your own kitchen removes the walk, and the walk is the only slow part of this profession. |
| A mortar and pestle plus reagents | Alchemist | For the Alchemy half — potions for the household, and medicine for the garden. |
| A big food chest by the front door | Carpenter or provisioner | Where the family grabs supplies on the way out. Sounds trivial; it's the single most appreciated thing a chef does. |
The right room makes training three times faster. These are the spots worth a rune.
Bakers, provisioners, a mill, the biggest bank and more foot traffic than anywhere else. The easiest town to run a kitchen out of.
Free fish, forever, with essentially no risk. Vesper and the Britain docks are the traditional spots and the company is good.
Cows, sheep and pigs for meat, and wheat in the fields. The farms around Britain and Trinsic are a short walk from a mill.
Oven, stove, food chest and ingredient barrels in one room. Turns a profession with a lot of walking into one with none.
A hungry fighter regenerates stamina badly and a fighter with no stamina misses constantly. Hand the family food before a dungeon and they will swing noticeably harder, whether or not they understand why.
If anybody in the family is discouraged by how long skills take, put them in a kitchen. Cooking to 100 is an evening's work and the title is just as real as a knight's.
You can cook in the field on a campfire, which is excellent on a long trip. The full menu wants a proper oven and stove, so don't judge the profession by what you can manage in a dungeon.
Checked against our shard: the enchanted apple is a genuine recipe at 60 skill — one apple plus one greater heal potion. That's the pattern for the fancy food: the magic comes from an alchemist's bottle stirred into it, not from the cooking alone. Befriend whoever brews.
Britannia runs on favours. These are the people you want in your party and on your friends list.