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Holiday-Themed Constructs
Look, maybe you want to run a fantasy ttRPG with giant animated fruitcake warriors… and maybe you’ll just get a giggle out of my actually taking this topic seriously. But if you want to reskin some class iron, clay, and stone constructs (or any construct-type creature) into holiday-themed materials, here are some options for powers to add based on the holiday material used.
Figgy Pudding/Fruitcake: Take half damage from bludgeoning attacks. Are sticky, so they gain a climb speed.
Gingerbread: As almost 2-d, flexible creatures, they can get through spaces a creature 2 size classes smaller could, without taking any penalties. Any fire damage sets them on fire, both damaging them and causing their attacks to do fire damage.
Holly: Anyone hit by the construct, or adjacent to it for a full round, must make a mental save or move towards the person present they would be most interested in kissing (though once they take that move, all compulsion stops).
Hot Cocoa: Gains all the powers of both a fire elemental and a water elemental of the same threat level. takes double damage from bite attacks.
Peppermint: These constructs are “curiously strong.” Tracking them by scent is easy, but they cover all other scents, and after being in an enclosed space for a minute, scent can no longer pinpoint their exact location with that space.
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Mountain Dew Cake and Mountain Dew Pie
Look, I’m not in charge of the Mountain Dew-to-Gamers connection, but I do like playing with it. People specifically asked for these recipes when I noted I had made them, so…
Mountain Dew CAKE
1 box Duncan Hines Orange Supreme cake mix
1 box Jello instant pudding mix – lemon
4 eggs
1 teaspoon lime flavoring (or extract, I refer flavoring)
green food Coloring if desired, to your preferred neon hue
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup Mountain Dew (fresh and fizzy)
GLAZE
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 cup Mountain Dew
Preheat oven to 325
Liberally coat bunt pan with nonstick spray
Add all cake ingredients together and beat for 2 minutes
Pour into pan and bake 50-60 minutes at 325
About 5 minutes before cake is done, make the glaze
Add all glaze ingredients together in a sauce pan and boil for 2-3 minutes
Once cake comes out, pour glaze slowly over cake
Leave in pan for 20-30 minutes to let glaze soak in, or up to 24 hours in fridge
Remove. Color will be much darker on the outside than within each slice.
Enjoy
Mountain Dew PIE
This is NOT a cheesecake, but an effort at pure Mtn Dew as a pie filling.
1 frozen pie crust, in pan
2 liters Mountain Dew (to make 12 oz. Mountain Dew Reduction)
2/3 cup sugar
8 tbsp flour
6 tbsp butter, diced
To make a Mtn Dew reduction, simmer 2 liters of Mtn Dew over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 hours. You should reduce the volume by at least half, and up to 65% or so. It doesn’t matter if the Mtn Dew is fresh, since you’ll lose all the carbonation anyway.
Preheat oven to 395
Pour 12 oz of Mtn Dew reduction in the pie crust, while the crust is still frozen
Mix the sugar and flour, then sprinkle the mix evenly over the surface of the Mtn Dew reduction. Yes, it’s powder on syrup.
As best you can, scatter the diced butter evenly over the flour/sugar mix.
Cover edges of crust with foil.
Carefully move into over. Bake for 30 min.
Reduce temp to 340, then bake for another 30 min.
Remove from oven, and take off foil. Pie filling is now a hot sticky plasma, so be careful. Fully cool, preferably on a stone or tile countertop.
Once fully cooled, chill covered in fridge for 6-24 hours.
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BEHOLD THE MIGHTY CAPIEKIE!
So, we took a capiekie to the 4th of July gathering we went to.
That’s a cake, stuffed with a pie, stuffed with cookies.
It seems complicated, but making one isn’t that difficult.
The first step is always to pick complementary flavors. In this case, it’s a rum-glazed yellow cake, stuffed with a cherry pie, that is itself stuffed with chocolate cookies. Cream pies don’t work well for this. Sometimes, to see if it’s a good three-way match, I ask myself if there’s one flavor of ice cream or sauce that would go with all three dessert elements.
So, construction is in steps.
First, bake your cookies. It’s okay if they are only lightly done. Then bake the pie crust by itself, without filling, in a pie pan. Then make the cake batter, and pour about 1/3 of it into a springform pan. Then lift the crust out of its pie pan, and settle it into the batter. Then a layer of pie filling goes into the pie crust, then a layer of the cookies (just one layer—you can set the rest aside for a second capiekie if you want), then the rest of the pie filling. Then the top crust of the pie (just set it on, no need to crimp it or anything), and then the rest of the cake batter, which should cover the pie crust.
Then, cook as directed for a square cake, though realistically you’ll need to check doneness with a toothpick at the edge (since the center is gooey pie when the cake is solid).
In this case we went with a rum glaze, but you could frost it. Just… only frost the top. A capiekie’s sides don’t have a lot of structural support.
Then cool in the fridge overnight, and remove from springform pan after a good 12 hours of cooling.
Make sure you are taking this thing to a party. It’s not a leave-it-on-the-house-to-snack-on kind of dessert.
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Owen K.C. Stephens 