Observant people in Pech Attar will notice a small trickle of a valuable commodity coming in from the hinterlands. The commodity is a medium sized blood-red pepper called Devil's Tooth, and like saffron in our world, this spice is worth much more than it's weight in gold A single dried pepper is worth a silver chain; a string of twelve is worth a gold omen. If you can get the fresh peppers to the buyer before they spoil, the price of course goes up. Devil's tooth is the hottest pepper available in Uresia, and if properly prepared it's a powerful hallucinogen as well.
Despite (or because of) this, jaded gourmands and Food Gods all across Uresia clamor for it. In the dead of a Yemite winter, Necromancers grind the dried pods into their hearty stews. Celari bravos dare each other to eat the fresh peppers whole. Boru mages infuse oils and powders with Devil's Tooth, to inflame rages or lusts. At High Summertide, amidst great revelry, the Laochrian brewmeisters broach kegs of their strong, hoppy, and piquant Devil's Tooth Pale. Only the Rego Corunda can honestly say they don't feel the pepper's bite, tempered as they are by smoke and fire, but even they look a little uneasy if they "win" the Summerfest lottery and have to eat the pepper at the bottom of the keg. Dreed theoretical chefs speculate endlessly on the "quintessential" Devil's Tooth recipe, but they keep eating all their experimental pepper supply.
These peppers make up a very small, but disproportionately valuable part of the Attarese trade, as gourmet foodstuff and arcane adjunct. They are brought down out of the island's interior by a small and irregular caravan route and by groups of delvers. Occasionally a shipment will be carried into town by members of the strange society that grows these peppers in the one and only spot in Uresia where they can grow. Deep in the interior of Pech Attar there is an anomalous mesa of black granite. This mesa is the resting place of Hell's Kitchen.
That's what they call it, anyway. It seems clear that the so-called mesa is a fairly large segment of the celestial world, driven into the Attarese forest like a clove into a ham. And the "aspect" of the area is definitely culinary. But there seems to be an overlying flavor of evil as well, a hint of deviltry, a soupcon of horror. The inhabitants are either tainted by it, or have embraced it willingly. Either way, it makes them interesting company...
These inhabitants are the Bordanii, a small community of gleefully amoral warrior-cook monks. The Bordanii jeer and mock visitors until the newcomers can prove themselves as competent chefs or fighters; and even then only those skilled in both endeavors will be treated as equals. The Bordanii will eat anything, so long as it's prepared well - they're probably the only people in Uresia who've bothered coming up with a way to cook the oil-saturated Nunessi fish. Their preferred recipe manages to pull the "lighter fluid" taste down to a more agreeable "soaked in gin" flavor (it's still an acquired taste). They're even opportunist cannibals, and while they don't ambush people to eat them, rest assured that anyone who dies in a duel or a cook-off will be eaten, with gusto, the following night.
How do you die in a cooking competition? Well, usually you need a little help. In Hell's Kitchen, most cook-offs are handled like their normal sparring and tournament fighting. Some are for training, many are friendly competitions, and a few are nonlethal contests to gain prestige or settle a dispute. But occasionally, when the bad blood runs too deep, or if the prestige to be gained is leadership of one of the many fighting/cooking styles, the duel will be to the death. It's obvious to see how a knife-fight or bareknuckle combat can be lethal. But if the participants agree, the cooking contest will proceed as normal, save that at the end, when the judgement is passed down, the leader of the Bordanii will slit the loser's throat and butcher him or her like a pig. At that point everyone knows what will be on the menu tomorrow night. The winner cooks the loser; and the tradition is for both competitors to leave a note describing their preferred method of preparation with the judges. Last month, the challenger for the leadership of the ground-fighting/southern Kovali seafood sect was grilled in a salt crust, served with mixed greens and a herb wine reduction.
This all takes place in the courtyard of the Bordanii monastery. The top of the mesa is some of the most fertile land in all of Uresia. Even after the Fall of Heaven, the soil is a rich chocolate-colored loam, velvety to the touch, and almost brazenly eager to grow things. These few hundred acres were once the "kitchen garden" for a now-dead God, and while careful observers will note that herbs and flavorful vegetables and fruits do better than staple crops and grains, the Bordanii still grow more than enough food to sustain themselves and their livestock in a relatively tiny space. The ground is so wantonly fertile that they do so with a lack of effort that should infuriate any PC with a farming background. Amidst this lush backdrop, the iconoclasts, evil priests, apostates and disciplined hedonists who were the forbears of the Bordanii built a monastery where they could pursue the ideals of their dead lord with single-minded zeal.
The monastery is built in a haphazardly Gothic style, constructed from the blood-red rubble of the Celestial dwelling of the (comfortably deceased, of course) evil God of Cookery. Picture an European medieval monastery, covered with stone gargoyles portraying all 74 seductive and terrifying ritual postures of Evil Cookery (tm). The stones are all warm to the touch, like the top of a brick oven. This disturbing edifice squats at the top of a deep crevasse that leads into the center of the anomalous mesa, where many a delver (and some of the Bordanii, of course) search the twisted passages, demonic pantries, and wrecked stoves of Hell's Kitchen. Sometimes they die, of course - killed by rockslides, wild animals, marauding servitors (demonic - no, really demonic; undead; magical automata; etc) of the dead god, and the mutated survivors of Hell's food supply. Some of these roving horrors were celestial or infernal livestock, ready to be slaughtered and eaten fresh before Heaven fell. Others are the Hellish equivalent of rats, roaches and runaway mold (for any Game Master who wants to have Western fantasy-style Slimes to menace the cute anime-Slimes of Uresia!).
Obviously, not all the delvers perish. Some win their way free, returning to the surface world, occasionally even finding treasure to take with them. A good bit of this loot is valuable, but more of it is useful. And occasionally, someone finds something powerful. That's how the current leader of the Bordanii won his place, after all...
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