#RPGaDay2026 - Day 27 - "Hunger"

Day 27 of #RPGaDay and I'm running on fumes.  

Perhaps I should have had my players order my rations for the week, to supplicant the "Hunger" I'm looking for.

For the RPG community, one of the most epic stories has always been "Eric and the Dread Gazebo."   Immortalized in print by Knights of the Dinner Table, the classic tale of players not knowing everything, whether its in the book or in real life, can be quite amusing.  

When I brought forth today's prompt to my Monday night players, the immediately went with "The Mead Story"

I don't know the source anymore, perhaps a wacky letter in Dragon Magazine but I know I'm not the originator of it, but it goes like this:  

New campaign, new characters, definitely new players, who might have cracked open a Player's Handbook truly for the first time.  With a lot of handwaving to encumbrance and basic equipment, there's always a moment for a DM to officially question if the party had 500' foot of rope between them, or or gallon bucket of bat guano, or eight 10-foot poles, and food is always the easiest to call out. 

For us, and many other, rations are a rolling commodity: if you bought two weeks of rations, we essentially say you resupply when necessary, unless we deal with some underground adventure, or lost at sea, or something similar where food will dwindle.   My friends who borrowed my campaign world kept the same liberal worldview.  

The gist of the story is, the party reaches some point where character sheet bookkeeping is required for some reason.  Every one in a while a character is caught off guard, and the others usually share. 

And then there's the one player:  Oh, I'm fine I brought 15 days worth.

Fifteen days? Fifteen days of what perchance? 

Mead.

You bought 15 days of mead?   Just mead? 

Yeah, I figured it was per day and I know we don't follow encumbrance, but it didn't seem to take up much space.

You're adventuring and surviving on 15 days worth of mead? 

Sure!  Is there something wrong?

Do you what mead is??? 

Gemini

**** There is a practical discussion as to what mead actually is.  The player is enlightened, a little embarrassed, and suddenly very worried.*****

Then.... we never made it here.  

What do you mean? 

You asked me to get feed for the horses... 

Oh no....

I've been feeding them nothing but mead for the last five days we've been in the mountains...

Gemini

I know there's a mention of the mead story back in the RPGaDay2016 posts, but nothing that's happened to me directly.  

Any guidance to the origin to the story would be appreciated.

Alternate Question:  What do you hunger for most from a session?