Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue

The Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue are an order of chefs, creators of meals most odd.

Background
"My oath to this order sits before you now, unspoken but beautifully prepared. The soup is rich with pumpkin and topped with a dollop of crème fraîche and a scattering of dream-a-drupe. The plate to its left contains the bones of a scarfish brined in its own salacious juices. The plate to the right cradles a strip of sweetened fox tongue, drizzled with a grappa reduction and paired with a modified Badam Kheer almond dessert drink. Enjoy."

A group of sensation-hungry gourmands, the Knights of the Knowledge of the Tongue march headlong into the kitchen with chef knife in hand, battling with the most hostile ingredients imaginable. These Knights constantly create more and more, seeking the “perfect dish”. Open to any Court, each one tends to bring something new to the table — take for example, a Winter courtier whose dishes force eaters to remember dead friends or ex-lovers.

Organization
The Knights lack a formalized organization, and each Knight tends to play both competitor and cooperator with one another, forming potent rivalries and alliances. The primary means of separation between the chefs is by school of cooking (e.g. a butcher, a saucier, or a sommelier). The only true rank is the Most Eminent Chef, the Knight with the highest Wyrd, who offers the services of his people to the Courts, providing for celebrations and ceremonies — particularly the entitlement’s own Horn of Amalthea, an experimental food and wine festival open to all changelings.

Joining and Membership
Prerequisites: Wyrd 3, Crafts 3 or Crafts 2 with a Specialty in Cooking Title: Knight de Cuisine (though some dismissive Lost refer to them by the rather twee name “The Gastrognomes”)

Learn to cook. The Knights test any changeling who cares to come through the door, first with mundane ingredients, then with wilder ingredients drawn from the Hedge. The subtler traits — refinement of the palate and handling the pressures of the kitchen — can be brought out in time. The basics are not something the order cares to teach.

Chefs of all stripes end up in this order, regardless of the leanings of their Traits, though many have the martial ability to march into the Hedge to gather useful ingredients. Almost universally, however, they were either in the food industry before being taken to Arcadia or were forced to cook by their Keepers.

Mien
The strangest change to the mien is the changing of the tongue. It is a unique change — one might gain a forked tongue while another will find her replaced by a tentacle. The other major change is a persistent aroma surrounding the Knight de Cuisine. It will change based on the person smelling it and his views of the Knight. If he likes her, she will bear a pleasant odor reminiscent of food he likes. A lukewarm opinion will yield an aroma of foods he neither cares for or particularly dislikes. Hated enemies will find she radiates a malodor of unpleasant food.

Privileges

 * Tracking Those Tenuous Tastes: If it has to do with taste, with finding an ingredient to fulfill a particular flavor in a dish, a Knight de Cuisine gains a +3 to any roll within the Hedge made to find a goblin fruit, track a hobgoblin, or search out some other element. This +3 bonus only applies if it relates to a dish she hopes to prepare. If the search is made without needing to apply it to an upcoming meal, the changeling is still better at sniffing out ingredients: rolls made to find goblin fruits not related to a dish (and only goblin fruits) gains a +1 bonus.