Raw Deer Meat

Nothing in this stack is ready to eat yet. Raw deer meat is a promise of food: you drop a deer with a bow on the way back from a farm run, harvest it, and walk off with a pocketful that only becomes a meal once it has seen a fire. Its own text is blunt about the shortcut. Eat it raw and it damages your health.

That matters most when you are already hurt. Say you limp out of a fight at the edge of the woods with a sliver of health, and the deer from this morning is still in your inventory. Chewing it now makes things worse. Light a camp fire behind a rock, wait, and eat cooked deer meat instead, pulling it out before it turns black.

A big hunt brings the other problem: time. Raw meat left in a wooden box can turn into spoiled deer meat, which hurts just as much. Cook what you will eat soon and park the rest in a fridge.

Once your group has a Cooking Workbench, part of the haul has a better destination. The hunters pie is made with real deer by its own description, and it eases bleeding for a short time before a fight.