/CORE RULE
Food in Valeune comes from land, water, labor, preservation, transport, trade, and household work.
It does not appear automatically because the setting contains magic.
Regional climate, class, season, race-specific medical needs, religion, trade routes, and wealth shape what people eat.
Do not assign diets through simplistic animal assumptions.
A Felid person is not required to eat like a cat.
A Bovari person is not naturally vegetarian.
A Tideborn person does not live on raw fish.
Diet is cultural, personal, economic, and medical unless an exact race page establishes a bodily requirement.
/REGIONAL DIETS
Frostbreak relies heavily on preserved food, hardy grains, roots, dairy, fish, meat, mountain herbs, and imports during long winters.
Northwood diets may use grains, forest plants, mushrooms, berries, game, honey, freshwater fish, dairy, and traded goods.
The northeastern coasts rely on fishing, salt, hardy coastal crops, grazing, sea trade, and preserved provisions.
Western uplands use drought-resistant grains, herd products, oil, wine, fruit, herbs, and irrigated gardens where water permits.
The Golden Plains produce grain, vegetables, fruit, livestock, dairy, fiber crops, and much of the food transported to cities.
Eastvale supports mixed farming, orchards, vineyards, livestock, grain, and valley specialties.
The southeastern wetlands provide fish, shellfish, water-tolerant crops, reeds, herbs, seasonal produce, and river trade.
Suncoast cuisine uses warm-climate crops, fruit, vegetables, grain, wine, oil, fish, herbs, and imported luxury ingredients.
The Duskborn inland hills use valley crops, orchards, mushrooms, forest goods, grazing, preserved food, and trade-route ingredients.
Stoneward and Emberhold depend on valley or terrace agriculture, herd products, mineral routes, preserved food, and imports to mining or craft settlements.
/AGRICULTURE
Agriculture requires:
Land.
Water.
Seed.
Tools.
Animals where used.
Labor.
Soil care.
Storage.
Transport.
Weather knowledge.
Farmers and laborers plant, weed, irrigate, harvest, thresh, preserve, and repair.
A productive region remains vulnerable to drought, flood, fire, pests, crop disease, war, exhausted soil, labor loss, and damaged roads.
/CROPS
Use crops appropriate to climate and established technology.
Common categories may include:
Grains.
Roots.
Beans and pulses.
Leafy vegetables.
Orchard fruit.
Vine fruit.
Oil-producing crops.
Herbs.
Fiber plants.
Water-tolerant crops.
Do not invent magical plants that provide complete meals, cure all disease, glow for decoration, or grow instantly unless creator-approved canon establishes them.
/LIVESTOCK AND NON-PERSON ANIMALS
Valeune may use non-person animals for food, milk, eggs where appropriate, wool, leather, transport, and farm labor.
The fourteen genus peoples are never livestock.
Do not use race-associated animal terms to blur this distinction.
Animal care requires feed, water, shelter, breeding management, medicine, and labor.
Disease among livestock can create regional crisis.
/FISHING AND GATHERING
Fishing, shellfish gathering, hunting, forest gathering, herb collection, and wetland harvesting supplement farming.
These activities are regulated through property, custom, season, and resource rights.
Overharvesting can damage future supply.
/PRESERVATION
Preservation determines whether communities survive winter, travel, siege, flood, or failed harvest.
Methods may include:
Drying.
Smoking.
Salting.
Pickling.
Fermenting.
Cold storage.
Oil or fat preservation.
Sealed pottery.
Cellars.
Granaries.
Preservation requires fuel, containers, salt, time, cleanliness, and knowledge.
Spoiled food can cause illness.
Magic may assist only through an exact spell and does not replace sanitation.
/STORAGE
Food is stored in households, barns, granaries, warehouses, ships, markets, temples, military depots, and faction facilities.
Who controls storage controls survival during scarcity.
A region may produce enough food while poor households starve because grain is taxed, exported, hoarded, spoiled, or priced beyond reach.
@The Common Scale may become involved in fair measure, market access, or relief distribution according to exact faction canon.
/HOUSEHOLD FOOD
Ordinary households plan meals around cost, season, fuel, storage, time, and available labor.
Staple meals may use grain, bread, porridge, soup, beans, vegetables, preserved food, dairy, fish, or local equivalents.
Households reuse leftovers and preserve scraps.
Cooking fuel can cost as much concern as ingredients.
A working family may prepare one main pot shared across the household. Do not fill poor tables with constant variety merely to make a scene cozy.
/CLASS DIFFERENCES
The Crown, Dynasty, wealthy Gentry, and prosperous Mercantiles can purchase imported ingredients, fresh food out of season, skilled cooks, elaborate service, and large stores.
Professionals and successful Artisans may eat comfortably but still track cost.
Laborers depend on wages, employer meals, markets, and shared housing.
The Rural Poor may produce food while surrendering much of it through rent, tax, or debt.
The Dispossessed depend on charity, day work, shelters, public meals, informal markets, and mutual aid.
Luxury is visible through variety, freshness, refinement, waste, and the number of people employed to serve it.
/ROYAL AND ELITE DINING
A royal feast is political theater.
Seating, service, dishes, ingredients, tableware, musicians, and regional representation communicate status and diplomacy.
A feast requires cooks, servants, merchants, farmers, porters, fuel, cleaning, and security.
Do not describe endless courses without considering the labor and cost.
Elite excess during famine can become a political scandal.
/TAVERNS AND INNS
Taverns provide drink, food, warmth, information, entertainment, and social space.
Inns add lodging, stables, secure storage, and travel services.
Quality varies widely.
A neighborhood tavern differs from a merchant inn, roadside shelter, dockside drinking house, or elite wine room.
/DRINK
Common drinks may include water, boiled or treated water where needed, ale, beer, cider, wine, herbal infusions, milk, broth, and regional beverages.
Water quality varies.
Alcohol may be safer than contaminated water in some circumstances, but not universally.
Tea- or coffee-like imported drinks should not be introduced unless established.
Brewers, vintners, tavern workers, and household cooks require clean vessels and reliable ingredients.
/ALCOHOL
Alcohol is part of celebration, hospitality, trade, household life, and addiction.
Intoxication affects judgment, consent, health, work, and violence.
Do not treat drunkenness only as humor.
Different regions and faiths may regulate alcohol differently.
Children should not be treated as ordinary heavy drinkers.
/RELIGION AND FOOD
Faith may shape fasting, feast days, memorial meals, ritual sharing, hospitality, and food offered to the poor.
No universal dietary law governs all Valeune.
A household may avoid or favor foods through tradition without making that practice biologically necessary.
Shared meals may create Heart-centered symbolism without becoming magical automatically.
/RACE-AWARE FOOD
Some established races may require accommodations involving body size, metabolism, water, temperature, texture, allergy, or medical need.
Use only exact established requirements.
Do not invent carnivore, herbivore, nectar, blood, carrion, or raw-meat requirements from the associated animal.
Food preference is not proof of instinct or morality.
/SCARCITY
Scarcity may arise from:
Failed harvest.
Drought.
Flood.
Fire.
Storm.
War.
Military requisition.
Elder Beast damage.
Road closure.
Piracy.
Hoarding.
Market manipulation.
Storage loss.
Scarcity raises prices, encourages substitution, increases theft, and intensifies political blame.
The wealthy pay more.
The poor eat less.
/FAMINE
Famine is prolonged failure of access to sufficient food.
It may occur even when food exists elsewhere.
Transport, price, war, land ownership, tax, and political decisions determine who receives supplies.
Famine causes migration, disease, child separation, labor unrest, crime, and long-term debt.
Do not use famine as brief scenery solved by one wagon of grain.
/RELIEF
Relief may include:
Public granaries.
Price controls.
Faction distribution.
Temple meals.
Royal purchase.
Tax suspension.
Road protection.
Imported grain.
Community kitchens.
Relief requires records, transport, security, honest measure, and staff.
It may be delayed, stolen, politicized, or distributed unfairly.
/FOOD CRIME
Food-related crime includes theft, adulteration, false weights, hoarding, smuggling, poisoned goods, spoiled food sold as safe, and diversion of relief.
Law should distinguish survival theft from large-scale market abuse.
/MAGIC
Magic may assist preservation, irrigation, transport, healing, or communal work through exact spells.
It does not create unlimited food, guarantee weather, restore every crop, or end famine instantly.
/GENERATION RULES
Base food on region, season, class, and trade.
Keep labor and fuel visible.
Do not assign animal diets to genus peoples.
Make preservation important.
Distinguish household meals from elite feasts.
Use scarcity through material causes.
Do not make taverns generic adventure lobbies.
Account for food after roads, ports, or harvests fail.
/FINAL RULE
Food is one of Valeune’s clearest measures of power.
It shows who owns land, who performs labor, who controls storage, who eats fresh food, who receives leftovers, and who goes hungry when the system fails.