The Sunrise Kingdom

A land of eternal optimism, bustling markets, and a frankly alarming number of frogs. The sun always seems to be shining here, reflecting brightly off the gold coins being exchanged in every transaction. The kingdom's philosophy is that there's no problem that can't be solved with a bit of cheerful haggling, a well-timed festival, or by unleashing small, weaponized children made of fruit and root vegetables.

King Ricardo the Reasonably Cheerful:

A monarch who believes in laissez-faire economics and a good, hearty laugh. He sees his subjects' endless quest for profit as a delightful game. He is a patron of the arts, particularly comedy, and is known to pay jesters handsomely for jokes that make him snort tea out of his nose.

Tales of the Pepper Kingdom

The Amphibious Absurdity of King Ricardo

The sun, a relentless, celestial optimist, rose over the Sunrise Kingdom, its light glinting off the habanero-jewel-encrusted crown of King Ricardo the Reasonably Cheerful. But the morning’s glory was marred. It was marred by the sound.

A percussive, rhythmic, and distressingly gelatinous splat. Followed by another. And another.

For the third consecutive Tuesday, it was raining frogs.

The pristine, golden-tiled courtyards were a Jackson Pollock of verdant viscera. The air, normally sweet with pineapple and carrot blossoms, was thick with a low-country miasma. King Ricardo, a man whose 5’8” frame contained an ocean of laissez-faire economics, sighed, his white-furred, yellow-orange robes ruffling with the exhalation.

“This,” he announced to his throne room, “is proving suboptimal for market day. The haggling is being interrupted by amphibian impacts. What,” he asked of his council, “is to be done?”

At his left stood Sir Chicken and Egg, a knight bifurcated by his own consciousness. His armor, a cobbled, strange, and odd assembly of kitchenware and plate mail, rattled as he shifted.

“We must charge them!” clucked Sir Chicken, his eyes wild and manic. He brandished the giant, two-handed spork that was his ancestral weapon. “It is an aerial assault by a foe unknown! We shall meet them in the sky! We shall jab them mid-descent! Huzzah!”

“Conversely,” murmured Sir Egg, the knight’s expression shifting to one of cautious, philosophical dread, “are they truly falling? Or are they merely arriving? Perhaps this is not an invasion, but a migration. To interfere would be to disrupt their pre-ordained existential journey. What, after all, is a frog, if not the universe’s attempt to ponder the very concept of ‘greenness’ and ‘jumping’?”

“It’s a mess,” snapped Sir Chicken, “and I’ll not have it! Which came first, the frog or the puddle it creates? It matters not! Both must be sporked!”

Before the King could intervene in the knight's internal schism, a new voice cut through the debate—a voice vibrating with an almost painful intensity.

“Nonsense! Both of you!” Sigmund the Pepper Lover strode forward, his satchel rattling. He was a man whose passion for capsaicin radiated a literal, shimmering heat. “We do not fight the frogs, Your Majesty! We enlighten them!”

He produced from his bag a Ghost Pepper, its skin wrinkled like the flesh of a spiteful, shriveled star.

“A tincture!” he proclaimed, his eyes gleaming with a near-messianic fervor. “We aerosolize this glorious, 800,000-Scoville marvel! We spray it into the firmament! The frogs, breathing this... this fire... will be seized by such potent existential agony that they will achieve transcendence! They will evolve wings mid-fall! They will ascend back to the heavens, weeping tears of pure, spiritual understanding!” He paused, his smile becoming ecstatic. “Oh, to see their tiny, pained faces as the Scoville units ignite their very souls! It would be... inspirational.”

King Ricardo blinked. “Inspirational. Yes. But perhaps... sticky. And what of the, well, the remains?”

“Ah!” A new figure drifted into the council, enveloped in a cloud of tarragon, garlic, and dramatic intent. It was Lionel the Fishy Frenchman, a culinary genius whose accent was a fortress of beautiful, impenetrable vowels. “Zee remains,” he sniffed, "are not zee problème. Zay are zee opportunity.”

He was a man of sauces. He believed all conflict, all philosophy, all existence, was merely a base ingredient waiting to be réduit.

“We do not fight zee pluie de grenouilles,” he whispered, miming a gentle whisking motion. “We do not inspire zem. We simmer zem. A sauce, Your Majesty! A sauce of such profound complexity... a Beurre Blanc des Cieux... that it will make zee very heavens weep. But with flavor.”

A commotion at the door interrupted the Frenchman’s reverie. A gaggle of small, alarming figures burst into the throne room. It was the Pineapple and Carrot Kids, that sentient, spicy, and adorable public menace born of the kingdom's agricultural experiments. Their pineapple-frond hair was sharp and jaunty; their carrot-skin complexions alarmingly vibrant.

They were carrying buckets. Buckets filled with frogs.

“Your Cheerfulness!” shouted the lead Pineapple Kid. “We’ll take the courtyard contract! Three coppers per bucket, and we get to keep any that are still twitching!”

“Four coppers!” yelled a Carrot Kid, “but you guarantee us exclusive haggling rights for all amphibians falling on the south tower!”

“Haggling!” boomed Sir Chicken. “An act of commerce! Of will!”

“Or,” countered Sir Egg, “a desperate attempt to assign finite value to an infinite supply, thus rendering the very concept of economics moot, and—”

“Mon Dieu!” The Fishy Frenchman recoiled from the buckets, his face a mask of culinary horror. “Zay are... au naturel! Zay are not even... crunchy.”

The throne room fell silent. The percussive splat-splat-splat from outside was the only sound.

King Ricardo’s eyes, which had been glazed over by the existential debate, suddenly focused. A slow, beatific smile spread across his face.

“Crunchy...?” he repeated.

Lionel’s eyes widened, seeing the King had grasped the thread. “Oui, Your Majesty. Crunchy Frogs. A delicacy! Lightly battered, perhaps in... poivre...”

“...and dusted with a 50,000-Scoville Habanero-Paprika blend!” Sigmund the Pepper Lover was visibly vibrating, tears of joy welling. “The sensation! The glorious, agonizing burn cleansing the palate of all amphibian mediocrity! The inspiration!”

“Huzzah!” cried King Ricardo, leaping from his throne. “This isn't a plague! It's a catering event! A festival! Sir Chicken, you shall not fight the frogs, you shall harvest them!”

“I shall charge them!” agreed Sir Chicken. “A reasonable market price for their capture!”

“But if the supply is infinite,” Sir Egg began, looking pale, “does that not mean the labor is the only commodity of value, and if the labor is us, are we not, in effect, paying ourselves to consume that which has no...?”

“Sigmund!” the King declared, ignoring his knight. “You shall oversee the Spicing! Frenchman! You, the Crunch! And the Children!” Ricardo beamed at the vegetable urchins. “You shall have all the frogs you can haggle for! Go! Make the Sunrise Kingdom delicious!”

And so the great Frog-Fall of the Sunrise Kingdom ceased to be a crisis and became, instead, a booming culinary enterprise. The miasma of the marshes was swiftly overpowered by the sacred, complex aromas of garlic butter, tarragon, and aerosolized capsaicin.

The sun, that great, golden habanero in the sky, beamed with approval, its light reflecting brightly off the King’s crown, the greasy chins of the peasantry, and the glistening, tear-filled eyes of Sigmund, who wept. Not from pain, but from pure, spicy, and profitable joy.

You have made it this far.

If you are interested in procuring our fine potions, please go see the Royal Apothecary known as Friar Frijole Charros. Or you can go visit another Kingdom.