86 the Basilisk — cheat sheet

Two minutes of reading, then go run a restaurant with a body count.

The premise

You run a dungeon-to-table restaurant, named for the beast that ate its founder. Your staff do two jobs with one roster: by day they raid the dungeon for ingredients, and at night they cook those ingredients for a demanding little town. People will die. The menu will be worth it.

The loop, in five tabs

1. Dungeon — post crew to sites. Each site shows hazard chips (like Deep Damp 0/1); your crew's skills cover them. Covered hazards = safe, steady hauls. Uncovered hazards = stress, absurd mishaps, and the occasional lawn ornament. Ingredients arrive in random little finds — the green pops. Site dangers reshuffle between expeditions, so keep re-reading the chips.
2. Tavern — hire. The audit at the top shows what your crew covers; red pills are holes. On candidates, a solid chip plugs a hole, an outlined one is backup. Everyone bills wages daily — a big roster can bankrupt you faster than any monster.
3. Kitchen — the Test Kitchen. Put 2–4 ingredients in the pot, pick a cooking method, and burn a trial plate to learn what it's worth. Good ones bank in the Grimoire; flag them On the Menu. Crucially: ingredient chemistry is unique to YOUR world. Mint and slime might be magic in your game and a disaster in your friend's. There is no wiki. Trials are how you learn.
4. Service — reservations bank while you prep. When you have a night's worth, pick your line of cooks (match their chips to the menu's risk chips), then either Ring the Bell — play the rush yourself, make the calls, inspect suspicious plates at the pass — or Trust the Brigade for an instant, safe, unremarkable night (they take a cut). Attended nights have higher highs and better stories.
5. Ledger — your reputation, the town factions who love or tolerate you, the event log, and the memorial wall for the fallen.

Money, or: why you're broke

• Wages come due every day. The countdown is in the top bar.
• Quality is the business. Mediocre plates barely pay; great plates pay well; legendary plates make your name.
• Watch Word on the Street on the Service tab — the town's tastes shift like weather. Cooking what's craved pays extra. (Post someone at the Market Square to hear forecasts.)
• Standing Orders are faction contracts: serve N matching plates by a deadline for a fat fee. Ignoring one is allowed and only mildly insulting.
• Menu breadth: as your reputation grows, the town expects a real menu — more distinct dishes, made from more distinct ingredients, by more methods. One great dish carries a nobody; a famous house serving the same old thing pays for it.

Things nobody tells you

• Tap any chip or icon — everything explains itself on tap.
• Use the speed buttons! 60× is comfortable cruising; 1000× devours the waiting. Speed drops back to 1× when you leave, so you can't accidentally ruin yourself.
• Stress ruins cooks and corpses can't work. Recall shaky people; idle crew calm down at home.
• At the pass, a plate "taking notes" or looking wrong can be bounced for a recook. Trust tells on recipes you've trialed 3+ times.
• Authority is your Gordon Ramsay meter: spend it mid-rush to take the pan or address the line. Earn it back with covered paydays and great nights.
• The Unmapped Deep finds new dungeon sites forever. Guarded ones must be assaulted before they can be harvested.
• One day a thin man will eat at your restaurant and say nothing. Worry.

Your first ten minutes

1. Send your three founders to the starter site — check their chips cover its hazards.
2. Crank speed, let ingredients pile up, hit the Kitchen and trial a couple of 2-ingredient combos. Flag the best On the Menu.
3. When reservations fill a night, pick your line and Ring the Bell. Play it out. 86 anything on fire.
4. Hire your first recruit to plug a red pill. Mind the wage line.
5. Repeat until solvent, famous, or fondly remembered.