Pale Supper

The Pale Supper is a legendary alchemical formula, rumored to have been created by the notorious Lord Malkhorn while he was still a student at the University of Carbury. Malkhorn was famously obsessed with his health and appearance, and is said to have invented the formula to preserve his slender frame and razor-sharp features.

Universally acknowledged as a genius, Malkhorn was renowned both for his poetry and his mastery of thaumaturgy - but he also cultivated a reputation as a libertine and sexual deviant. He frequently appeared in women's clothing, and his promiscuity became a legend in its own right. Some claimed he had slept with every person at the University between the ages of sixteen and sixty - and at least half of those who remained.

As his reputation grew, so too did the legend of his Pale Supper. Many began to attribute his unnatural charisma, glamour, and magnetism to the mysterious alchemical dish. In the years since his death, countless have attempted to recreate the formula, and every so often, rumors swirl that some particularly radiant new student has succeeded.

Sex and Vinegar

Every student of Alchemy has, at some point, compiled their own list of possible ingredients for the Pale Supper. The only universally agreed-upon component is vinegar. Lord Malkhorn was famously vocal in extolling its virtues for both body and mind, and was known to make crude remarks about how much it enhanced his stamina and prowess as a lover.

It is generally agreed that the Pale Supper took the form of a strip of pallid flesh, often described as resembling a fillet of fish, poached in the remaining ingredients. A few darker rumors suggest that this flesh did not, in fact, come from a fish at all - but most dismiss the idea as beyond the pale, even for Malkhorn.

Still, whenever the University begins issuing injunctions against grave-robbing to the medical students, a few knowing voices can always be heard reviving the theory: that the central component of the Pale Supper was a sliver of flesh taken from the inner thigh of a virgin.

Beyond these items, the ingredient lists and proposed preparations vary wildly. Since the Pale Supper is understood to be an expression of Idiosyncratic Magic, anyone seeking to recreate it must identify a combination of ingredients that resonates with their own soul.

In his surviving papers, Malkhorn occasionally referred to a “Recipe for Scandal”, which many interpret as a veiled reference to the Pale Supper. At the University, students have adopted the term as a kind of alchemical challenge: to compile the items and procedures that would, if performed, utterly destroy their current reputation in Society - only to replace it with a new one, larger, infamous, and impossible to forget.

Mad, Bad, and Glamourous

The precise effects of the Pale Supper remain hotly debated. Many claim that it is the last meal a person will ever need - that all food thereafter is merely indulgence, with no impact on the body's nourishment or survival.

What all accounts agree on is that it alters the appearance of the one who consumes it, reshaping them into the most desirable, magnetic version of themselves. Lord Malkhorn himself was renowned for his startling physical beauty and is widely credited with sparking the fashion for the thin, pale, and consumptive aesthetic still considered alluring in certain circles today.

But Malkhorn himself claimed that the true effect was not beauty, but freedom - freedom from hunger, yes, but also from shame, constraint, and social inhibition. He lived his life out loud, without apology or moderation, and those who encountered him were drawn in like moths to a flame.

Even his detractors fell under his spell. In one especially notorious episode, Malkhorn was challenged to a duel. After defeating his opponent, he reportedly seduced the man, his wife, and the entire staff of their country manor into a week-long orgy that left the house in ruins and its inhabitants in disgrace.

Allegedly.

The Search Continues

Those who seek to reproduce the Pale Supper often believe that consuming it will allow them to live as Malkhorn did - uninhibited, extravagant, with the world falling helplessly at their feet. For them, the Supper is a shortcut to freedom: from shame, from appetite, from obscurity.

Others, however, insist that the dish was never more than a joke - an elaborate fiction Malkhorn used to seduce the gullible and amuse himself. According to this view, there is no Pale Supper. There never was. Malkhorn simply was who he was: brilliant, transgressive, magnetic - and in no need of a magical meal to liberate him from Society's rules.

Either way, the search for the Pale Supper continues to entertain and inspire. "Recipes for Scandal" are still traded among close friends, and some daring souls choose to emulate Malkhorn by rejecting the rules and living freely, publicly, without apology.

A few have even claimed to have met someone who consumed a sliver of pale flesh - and was transfigured by it. But none of them are ever able to introduce these people to their friends - they appear, and then vanish, leaving only memories and lovebites behind.