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Saturday, November 1, 2014

Durian - Fruit or Sci-Fi Alien Seed?


So, our new neighbors gave us the above fruit. It's about the size on a medium pumpkin or a large squash. Did I mention our neighbor's don't speak much English? Yep, tonight was an adventure.

So, I cut into the fucker and this is what I saw. I think they used this shit in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.


Apparently what they gave us was "over ripe."


A little Google-Fu revealed the nature of the beast. It's a Thai fruit called Durian. I think I just found the name of my half-elven bard for tonight's AD&D game.


I wish I had had this last night, as it would have made an excellent prop for Halloween.

All this got me thinking - since bizarre looking fruits exist in real life, just how bizarre could we make fruits in our fantasy and sci-fi RPGs? Have you ever added some bizarre yet beneficial fruit in your campaigns. Heck, have you introduced real life fruits like Durian into your games?

10 comments:

  1. Notorious as the smelliest fruit on the planet. In many asian countries they are actually banned from being taken on the bus.

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  2. Dragonfruit are pretty alien-looking too.

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  3. They're native to Malaysia, and I have to deal with them all the time when I fly to the manufacturing facility in Penang, in the northwest of that country.

    I have never eaten durian. I never will. Gah. The stench.

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  4. Durian are delicious fresh. I ate lots of them in Singapore.

    Usually weird fruit is a bad idea to eat in game because I am overly-influenced by Jim Ward and Gamma World.

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  5. Yes, as I understand it, in, say, Malaysia people either love them or hate them. And due to the smell, there's a lot of controversy over the, so to speak, air rights involved. It seems to me to be almost like chewing tobacco--an utterly disgusting habit if seen from the outside, but beloved by those that engage in it.

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  6. you open the fruit wrongly man... you destroyed the seeds

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  7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmitvXIamFc

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  8. Durian was just about the first thing I ate in Thailand. My (future) father-in-law insisted we stop by a food stall on our way to dinner and got some for me. I don't remember the smell, but it tasted fine. I think I knew what I was eating.

    Then we went to TGIFridays. In Bangkok. Which was surreal.

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  9. Sort of relevant- in one campaign I'm DMing, I've needed to make up improvised weapon stats for some coconuts the PCWORLD found.

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