Brine-Apples
Description: Brine-Apples are, despite their name, vine-growing vegetables created through alchemical hybridization. They are teardrop-shaped, about 5-6" in diameter at their base when fully grown, and range from a pale blue shading to darker blue-green when ripe. They are extremely nutritious, packed with vitamins (especially vitamin C) and high in calories, and the juicy flesh of a single apple provides adequate food and drink for a full meal for an adult human.
Brine-apple seeds grow only when planted in soil that is submerged in at least one foot of seawater, with the seaweed-like vines sprouting to float in tangled mats near or on the surface. The quality of the soil is unimportant (sand will do nicely) but the water must be fresh so if growing brine-apples in an enclosed space (for example, on board ship) regular addition of water will be needed. Sunlight or its equivalent is also required, so growing these plants in the Underdark requires magical assistance.
A 30-gallon barrel or tub dedicated to growing brine-apples will produce enough vegetables to sustain a dozen men indefinitely. Plucked brine-apples do not keep well, and dissolve into nothing but a papery skin within a day. Their juice is little better, turning to undrinkable brine in about the same period.
Uses: These plants are a quartermaster's best friend. A nearly infinite supply of healthy food (and drinkable juice) in exchange for a few buckets of seawater a day is a godsend compared to hardtack and salted meat, and all you trade off is using hauling capacity for the hydroponics in place of the fresh water you'd need to carry otherwise. Some captains even make a point of throwing spare brine-apples overboard to seed the seabed with the plant for future trips, although they don't seem to take well to growing in the wild except in fairly shallow waters (under 80 feet or so). Because of this, it's not uncommon to encounter mats of brine-apple vine near well-travelled coastlines.
Complications: Anyone who subsists wholly on brine-apples for more than a week will develop a strong urge to live on or near the sea and travel the waves to distant lands whenever possible. This "Call of the Sea" is a psychological addiction but requires tests of willpower to resist and long periods (months or even years) going Cold Turkey (avoiding both brine-apples and the sea) to break completely.
Anyone who's been using brine-apple juice exclusively for their drinking needs for a week or more will find that fresh water tastes horrible for the same period of time, requiring tests of fortitude and willpower just to swallow or keep down afterward. This quirk only applies to fairly pure water, so "apple tars" who find themselves ashore will tend to order teas, coffee, and particularly alcoholic drinks to quench their thirsts.
Design Commentary: If you're planning a realistically awful nautical campaign these things are probably way too much of an easy button. If you'd prefer to emphasize the swashbuckling, derring-do, and exploratory themes instead, a ship carrying brine-apples can realistically ignore the worst of the provisioning issues real-world ships suffered from historically.
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