Frank

First appearance: Coriander Society, Fate of the Faithful Part 1 (A Crossover) · watch it on YouTube

Frank is the resident chef of the Faithful, the resistance that stayed loyal to the Grandmaster. He is a large orc in furs who has turned one of the forges in their smithy hideout into a stove. Guests are warned: don’t eat Frank’s food. Nobody can quite avoid it, and over a handful of appearances his cooking became one of the resistance’s most dependable running jokes, alongside a giant wooden spoon meant to replace his axe.

Story

Fate of the Faithful

Frank first came up before anyone had met him. In Coriander Society, Fate of the Faithful Part 1 (A Crossover), Lyrus, the reluctant leader of the resistance, gave the visiting heroes some advice: “Whatever you do, don’t eat Jeff’s food. Sorry, Frank’s food.” Jeff, it turned out, was the previous cook. He had been fired for embezzlement because “He was stealing the potatoes,” and the story went that they cut off his hands for it. The visiting John replied that this was “a very good severance package.”

The heroes then entered the Faithful’s base, a huge old smithy where dozens of smiths had once worked and which now served as an encampment. Two giant forges threw off heat while people hammered at anvils. One forge belonged to Frank, who was stirring a cauldron of stew over it. He tasted it and approved. Somewhere nearby, someone was retching from the last batch. Baptiste, an elf with silvery hair, practiced knife tricks in the corner beside him. John, who had decided to recruit the big orc into “the wonderful world of Shadow Warfare,” promised to get Frank “away from the stews and… out into the marketplaces.” When the heroes settled in to rest, John said he’d try a spoon but not the stew.

Breakfast in Coriander Society - Fate of the Faithful Part 2 (A Crossover) showed why. The smithy smelled of pungent leather “like a baseball glove,” because Frank was stirring bits of tanned hide into the cauldron “for their nutritional value. It’s high in fiber.” The stew also held beans, whatever meat he had found at the market, possibly a rat that had “scurried too close,” and pineapple. The dish was promptly named “pineapple boots,” or “the Hawaiian boot.” John used a bit of minor magic to make his bowl taste like steak and offered the same to Asena. She had a cast-iron stomach and said, “I think this tastes great.” Lyrus, defeated and “dead inside,” shoveled his bowl down without a word and went back for seconds. He admitted he had warned them, but “you gotta eat,” and guests could not leave to find food unless Baptiste went with them. John kept his breakfast down, at least for the moment (“We’ll check back with you in like eight to 12 hours”). Lawrence Booker Green looked a little pale afterward.

John spent the rest of the meal staring daggers at Frank. Later, when Lyrus listed what he could offer his guests, the choices were a visit to The Seer, sparring, his maps, or a second helping of Frank’s cooking, which he “wouldn’t recommend.” Asena picked the spars and the maps.

Fate of the Arbiter: The Hall of Fates

Frank was still at his post in S2E17 — Fate of the Arbiter - The Hall of Fates — Toddleheim, Locket and Flynry reach the Grandmaster. When Toddleheim, Locket and Flynry returned to the base, he had quietly sat through a commotion, and Flynry apologized: “Sorry about all that, Frank.” Frank gave his verdict on a man from the commotion. If he were taking odds, “he’s not gonna live more than three or four days.” He also suggested that “the knife was his penis.” Toddleheim agreed that the man “was nothing but subtle.”

This time the heroes got a full tour of Frank’s menu: “un-gutted small rodents and stews of whatever he’s found on the ground… and maybe some oats.” His pride was the raccoon taco, whose famous crunch was “the family secret.” That secret was pulverized bones. He stirred his cauldron with his dirty battle axe, tasted the result, and whistled as he sprinkled in dirt “for some texture seasoning.” Lyrus asked if the heroes had brought back any food, “because Frank’s cooking dinner again.” Flynry said the ground beef wouldn’t have kept in the sun, and Lyrus decided it “sounds like a classic taco job.”

Out in the city’s cobblestone district, among roast ducks hanging in windows and busy fruit markets, Flynry wondered aloud why Frank couldn’t shop there instead of “cooking up rats underneath the forge.” He then made an intervention of his own. He paid a bored teenage stall worker a silver to carry a giant wooden spoon to “a man named Frank” at the forge, along with a message: this was what he should use to make the food from now on, not his axe. The teenager trudged off, and from down the road the heroes heard: “Yeah, who the fuck wants the spoon?”

The spoon arrived, and Frank was impressed. He tried it out, then rubbed it in the ground “to season it.” “Not bad quality. Fine craftsmanship. I like the handle,” he said, while the teenager leaned in the doorway, unmoved.

Into the Mirror

Frank himself did not appear in Into the Mirror 7–9 - Claws of Sand, Shifting Sands, Hourglass (session 2), but his spoon did. Flynry, far from home, knelt and pulled a wooden spoon out of the sand. It recalled the one he had bought for Frank, the disgruntled chef back at home base who had made the heroes’ food with bones and sticks, before their final departure. Flynry handed it to Toddleheim with a reminder: “Your experience here is what your mind makes it.”

Sugar Hills

By S7E10 — Thea’s Adventure, Frank was running a candied hot dog stand in Sugar Hills, stirring a pot of boiling sugar with a giant wooden spoon and smoking over it. “You can candy anything, my guy.” When the warforged Theo grabbed a kobold and asked him to candy it, Frank had standards, of a sort: “Like, morally, I like… Well, it depends. Are you rich?” Theo said he was rich in spirit and in character. “Oh, you’re just another bum. Get out of here!” Frank candied Theo’s hand-drawn poster instead, plunging his own hands into the sugar (“Don’t ever let it be said that Frank couldn’t candy everything”), and pointed him toward the gummy worms. A little later Thea’s runaway car hit him: “Oh, my knee.”

Personality and Abilities

Frank is a big orc who dresses in furs and works over a cauldron set on an old forge. He seems perfectly content with his cooking. He tastes his stews, likes them, and whistles while he adds the dirt. His ingredients come from markets, from the ground, and from anything that wanders too close. He considers leather a source of fiber and pulverized bones a family secret.

His speech is blunt, deadpan judgment, whether he is giving odds on a man’s life expectancy or praising a spoon’s handle. His one known tool of war is his battle axe, which he mainly uses to stir soup. After Flynry’s gift he also owns a giant wooden spoon, which he immediately “seasoned” in the dirt.

“I make a mean raccoon taco.” — Frank

Relationships

• Lyrus: Leader of the resistance Frank cooks for. He warns guests away from Frank’s food, then eats it anyway, seconds included.
• Flynry: Bought Frank a proper wooden spoon so he would stop cooking with his axe, and later remembered him far from home.
• Asena: The rare diner who honestly enjoyed Frank’s “Hawaiian boot” stew.
• Lawrence Booker Green: Went a little pale after a bowl of Frank’s breakfast.

Memorable Quotes

• “If I was gonna take odds, he’s not gonna live more than three or four days.” (S2E17, The Hall of Fates)
• “I make a mean raccoon taco.” (S2E17, The Hall of Fates)
• “Not bad quality. Fine craftsmanship. I like the handle.” (S2E17, The Hall of Fates)
• Lyrus: “Whatever you do, don’t eat Jeff’s food. Sorry, Frank’s food.” (Fate of the Faithful Part 1)
• Lyrus: “Did you bring me any back? Because Frank’s cooking dinner again.” (S2E17, The Hall of Fates)

Appearances

• S2E17 — Fate of the Arbiter - The Hall of Fates — Toddleheim, Locket and Flynry reach the Grandmaster
• Coriander Society, Fate of the Faithful Part 1 (A Crossover)
• Coriander Society - Fate of the Faithful Part 2 (A Crossover)
• Into the Mirror 7–9 - Claws of Sand, Shifting Sands, Hourglass (session 2)
• S7E10 — Thea’s Adventure (Thea’s Revenge, a one-shot)