I don't even know.

posted by Falconier111 Original SA post

Bieeardo posted:

Ooh, please do this. Adventures in the Mad Lands is like Ehdrigohr's bitter, even more obscure mirror.

Your wish is granted! Presenting; GURPS: MADLANDS!



Asparagus is an ancient and storied vegetable, its cultivation dating back to Ancient Egypt in ~5000 BC. Asparagus is distantly related to lilies, onions, and garlic, and once it was considered closely related to those plants. However, today it sits in its own genus – the unintuitively-named, unguessable Asparagaceae. Asparagaceae Officinalis (presumably common asparagus) is native to the Mediterranean region and much of the rest of Europe, where it was apparently sacrificed to the gods in ancient times.



Asparagus does best in cool and wet climates, but if you can get it to grow, it’ll grow well in most circumstances. Cooking it isn’t particularly difficult; the average shmoe has maybe a 95% chance of getting it right, though he might overcook it if he’s unlucky or – gasp! – ruin it on a crit fail. At this point, the supplement introduces a new item to the GURPS vault; an Asparagus Cooker, worth about . And you should probably get it, because our favorite plant might be useful for more than making dick jokes nutrition! According to this thing, Greek, Roman, and Islamic texts talk about the plant in medicinal terms, and the GM has the option to apply its supposed properties to in-game use. What properties, you ask?



Also, you can play as asparagus. I wouldn’t, though. For comparison, the point value of an average human weighs in at 100.



Finally, the supplement presents its own themed world for Infinite Worlds (GURPS’s canned setting, in which players hop from alternate timeline to alternate timeline to stop English Meritocrat Nazis and enforce the Prime Directive). Asparagus-1 is covered in asparagus and nothing else; no complex organism except for asparagus grows there. However, the plant is densest where Earth cities are today. Upon realizing this, the forward scouts promptly sealed up the timeline and never came back. Scary!

And that’s that. Next time; GURPS: Mustelids!

e: I'm still going to do real Madlands, just had to get this out of my system