Not sure if I’m doing this right. I’d like Milo to take five days to gain level 3. But I’d also like him to also approach Pip Goodbarrel to propose a plan for mushroom farming. Does Pip know how to grow mushrooms? If not, does he know someone who does? Then, using the samples I picked on the island, along with the soil samples and dead wood, I’d like to use some downtime to get a small garden set up, if only as a proof of concept.
After that is set up, Milo would like to arrange a second exploration mission to Tasty Chicken island with certain specific goals in mind. Can the axe beaks be tamed or bred as domestic animals? Can the frog people coexist with us peaceably? Find more mushroom samples, both edible and “medicinal” (wink, wink). And assay any other possible resources.
@CTDDND
Downtime with mushrooms (COMPLETE)
-
SorrySariputra
- Posts: 59
- Joined: Fri May 01, 2026 3:05 am
Downtime with mushrooms (COMPLETE)
-Eric
Jaroslav Prokulpnik, 4th level elf cleric
Milo Meadowlark, 3rd level halfling sorcerer
Jaroslav Prokulpnik, 4th level elf cleric
Milo Meadowlark, 3rd level halfling sorcerer
Re: Downtime with mushrooms
Milo, Pip, and the Mushroom Garden
Milo came to the Limping Biscuit with mud on his boots and the look of a man who had discovered either treasure or trouble.
In his hands he carried three humble things: a clutch of pale local mushrooms, a bundle of damp wood, and a bit of dark soil scraped from the island.
Pip looked at the mushrooms. Then at the soil. Then at Milo.
“Well,” the halfling said, wiping his hands on a flour-dusted cloth, “that’s either supper, poison, or the beginning of a business.”
Milo explained his thought plainly enough. If the mushrooms could be grown, then the Bay might have food that did not need to come from ship stores, hunted meat, or whatever miserable roots the provisioners managed to drag from the earth. Mushrooms did not need open fields. They liked dark, damp places. The lower city had no shortage of either. Pip listened. He listened the way he always did, with a smile at the corners of his mouth and tiredness behind his eyes. He turned the mushrooms over in his fingers, sniffed the wood, crumbled the soil, and saw the sense in it at once.
"A garden? Not a pretty thing of flowers and idle nobles, but a real garden: boxes, beds, damp cellars, rotting wood, watched humidity, careful harvests? A place that could turn ruin into food. It is a good idea."
That was the trouble. "I already had one good idea consuming me whole."
Around them, the Limping Biscuit groaned in the wind. It was still more pavilion than pub: canvas snapping, barrels serving as tables, planks laid where proper floors ought to be, a cooking fire that smoked like an angry spirit, and settlers crowding close because even a poor hearth was better than the dark. Every night more people came. Sailors, guards, masons, adventurers, teamsters, and frightened folk who did not want to admit they were frightened.
They needed food, yes. But they also needed a place to sit. A place to speak. A place to remember they were not merely beasts with tools, huddled on stolen stone until the wilderness chose to eat them. Pip set the mushroom down gently.
“Milo,” he said, “I can help. And I will. That soil’s good. The wood’s right. These little pale devils may be the start of something useful.” Then he glanced around the Biscuit — at the sagging canvas, the crowded benches, the cold creeping under every gap.
“But not yet.”
There was no cruelty in it. No dismissal. Just the hard arithmetic of the frontier.
"A garden would need its own place, its own work, its own attention. A proper growing room. A schedule of tending and harvesting. It was not the sort of thing done between pouring drinks and keeping stew from burning. If I commit to it now, I would do it badly, and bad work in the Bay has a way of becoming dead work."
“The pub comes first,” he said. “Not because mushrooms don’t matter. Because people do.”
He pushed the bundle of damp wood back toward Milo, but not as a rejection.
“Keep gathering. Watch where they grow. Bring me more samples. Mark the spots. If you find mushrooms thriving where nothing else does, that matters. If they grow near old stone, old bones, old water — that matters more.”
Pip tapped the side of his nose.
“When the Biscuit has walls, a roof, and a hearth that doesn’t try to murder us with smoke, then we talk garden. A real one. Something worth building.”
In time, the Limping Biscuit might have more than ale, stew, and stories. It might have a mushroom garden below or behind it, fed by local soil, dead wood, and the stubborn patience of people trying to make food from a ruined world.
But not this week. This week, Pip Goodbarrel worked the pub. Because before Prima Statio could learn to harvest the dark, it needed a light for people to come home to.
Rules Stuff
There's no rule for this in Xanathar's Guide to Everything's downtime rules. Gardening and Harvesting are part of the Bastion rules. So we go with the Bastion path. This can be part of Milo working on his own Bastion - or Milo can help Pip get there faster.
Thoughts?
Milo came to the Limping Biscuit with mud on his boots and the look of a man who had discovered either treasure or trouble.
In his hands he carried three humble things: a clutch of pale local mushrooms, a bundle of damp wood, and a bit of dark soil scraped from the island.
Pip looked at the mushrooms. Then at the soil. Then at Milo.
“Well,” the halfling said, wiping his hands on a flour-dusted cloth, “that’s either supper, poison, or the beginning of a business.”
Milo explained his thought plainly enough. If the mushrooms could be grown, then the Bay might have food that did not need to come from ship stores, hunted meat, or whatever miserable roots the provisioners managed to drag from the earth. Mushrooms did not need open fields. They liked dark, damp places. The lower city had no shortage of either. Pip listened. He listened the way he always did, with a smile at the corners of his mouth and tiredness behind his eyes. He turned the mushrooms over in his fingers, sniffed the wood, crumbled the soil, and saw the sense in it at once.
"A garden? Not a pretty thing of flowers and idle nobles, but a real garden: boxes, beds, damp cellars, rotting wood, watched humidity, careful harvests? A place that could turn ruin into food. It is a good idea."
That was the trouble. "I already had one good idea consuming me whole."
Around them, the Limping Biscuit groaned in the wind. It was still more pavilion than pub: canvas snapping, barrels serving as tables, planks laid where proper floors ought to be, a cooking fire that smoked like an angry spirit, and settlers crowding close because even a poor hearth was better than the dark. Every night more people came. Sailors, guards, masons, adventurers, teamsters, and frightened folk who did not want to admit they were frightened.
They needed food, yes. But they also needed a place to sit. A place to speak. A place to remember they were not merely beasts with tools, huddled on stolen stone until the wilderness chose to eat them. Pip set the mushroom down gently.
“Milo,” he said, “I can help. And I will. That soil’s good. The wood’s right. These little pale devils may be the start of something useful.” Then he glanced around the Biscuit — at the sagging canvas, the crowded benches, the cold creeping under every gap.
“But not yet.”
There was no cruelty in it. No dismissal. Just the hard arithmetic of the frontier.
"A garden would need its own place, its own work, its own attention. A proper growing room. A schedule of tending and harvesting. It was not the sort of thing done between pouring drinks and keeping stew from burning. If I commit to it now, I would do it badly, and bad work in the Bay has a way of becoming dead work."
“The pub comes first,” he said. “Not because mushrooms don’t matter. Because people do.”
He pushed the bundle of damp wood back toward Milo, but not as a rejection.
“Keep gathering. Watch where they grow. Bring me more samples. Mark the spots. If you find mushrooms thriving where nothing else does, that matters. If they grow near old stone, old bones, old water — that matters more.”
Pip tapped the side of his nose.
“When the Biscuit has walls, a roof, and a hearth that doesn’t try to murder us with smoke, then we talk garden. A real one. Something worth building.”
In time, the Limping Biscuit might have more than ale, stew, and stories. It might have a mushroom garden below or behind it, fed by local soil, dead wood, and the stubborn patience of people trying to make food from a ruined world.
But not this week. This week, Pip Goodbarrel worked the pub. Because before Prima Statio could learn to harvest the dark, it needed a light for people to come home to.
Rules Stuff
There's no rule for this in Xanathar's Guide to Everything's downtime rules. Gardening and Harvesting are part of the Bastion rules. So we go with the Bastion path. This can be part of Milo working on his own Bastion - or Milo can help Pip get there faster.
Thoughts?
~ Craig
-
SorrySariputra
- Posts: 59
- Joined: Fri May 01, 2026 3:05 am
Re: Downtime with mushrooms
Sounds good. Milo has a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit (a survival tactic garnered by necessity after getting fired from every job he ever had), so I think the idea of having his own space to make a shroom startup is appealing, but it sounds like there are several obstacles to navigate before we can get a bastion set up.
“Yo, Mr Goodbar,” Milo says, “check it out: there’s hella trees on the TCI, and the gang wants to go back there soon. We were gonna drag some logs behind us on the last visit. I’ll make sure we do so this time, and I doubt I’d get any flak if I suggested we bring the lumber to you — you know, bypass Mrs V.”
“Yo, Mr Goodbar,” Milo says, “check it out: there’s hella trees on the TCI, and the gang wants to go back there soon. We were gonna drag some logs behind us on the last visit. I’ll make sure we do so this time, and I doubt I’d get any flak if I suggested we bring the lumber to you — you know, bypass Mrs V.”
-Eric
Jaroslav Prokulpnik, 4th level elf cleric
Milo Meadowlark, 3rd level halfling sorcerer
Jaroslav Prokulpnik, 4th level elf cleric
Milo Meadowlark, 3rd level halfling sorcerer
Re: Downtime with mushrooms
Pip’s eyes sharpened at the word lumber. For all his warmth, the halfling was no fool. In this new land, timber was not just wood. It was walls, roofs, tables, beds, doors, coffins, and the difference between a tavern and a tent with delusions.
He leaned in a little, lowering his voice.
“Milo, if you can bring me good lumber without Helena Voss counting every splinter before it touches my hands, I’ll owe you more than a drink.”
Then he glanced toward the bustle beyond the pavilion, where half the colony seemed to be measuring its future in boards and nails.
“But don’t get yourself gutted over planks. Bring what you can. Bring it clean. Bring it quiet if you must. And if anyone asks, you’re helping build a place where the Bay’s people can eat, drink, and remember they’re still human.”
A small smile tugged at his mouth.
“As for your mushroom venture? You get me wood, Milo, and I’ll remember who helped put a roof over the Biscuit. When the time comes for your shroom den, garden, cellar, or whatever cursed little empire you’re dreaming up, you’ll have a friend with walls.”
He leaned in a little, lowering his voice.
“Milo, if you can bring me good lumber without Helena Voss counting every splinter before it touches my hands, I’ll owe you more than a drink.”
Then he glanced toward the bustle beyond the pavilion, where half the colony seemed to be measuring its future in boards and nails.
“But don’t get yourself gutted over planks. Bring what you can. Bring it clean. Bring it quiet if you must. And if anyone asks, you’re helping build a place where the Bay’s people can eat, drink, and remember they’re still human.”
A small smile tugged at his mouth.
“As for your mushroom venture? You get me wood, Milo, and I’ll remember who helped put a roof over the Biscuit. When the time comes for your shroom den, garden, cellar, or whatever cursed little empire you’re dreaming up, you’ll have a friend with walls.”
~ Craig