Basknut

"You really found it...you really are a walking miracle!
I am speechless, thought I wouln't taste one of these ever again ... how?!
(...)
All that matters is that you can support my county with steady reserves ... these amounts are so much ... I have a most humble request.
How about an ongoing partnership to render my dream finally a reality.
I-I wish to open a restaurant to let everybody taste what I tasted all these years ago as a shrine servant of the Sisters.
(...)
Yes, master Opilio, I haven't forgotten my debt and I gladly sign one more, no 100 more times if that is what it takes!.
You have made yourself a permanent ally.
(...)
T-thank you! I agree to all conditions!
You made me the happiest man on Prius, thank you!"

Marchello Modelli (4985)

Properties

Material Characteristics

Unopened the Basknut looks like a reddish-grey melon-sized conch with two halfs sealing its tasty content away. The surface appears rough and oddly warm, looking a bit like molten rock. And it feeling is comparable to stone as well.


To open the nut, one needs advanved tools able to break granite at least. The nut is built that resillient to be able to survive in the harshness of the subterrain stone forests of Prius.


Managing to open the nut causes compressed smoke to escape is sealed prison. That smoke is salty and quite aromatic and can be used in multiple ways.
With the smoke dissipated the edible nut is finally unveiled. Looking like a red-glowing brain, the kernel covers most areas of the inner hull. The core is crunchy and very tasty, possessing a quite unique texture.

Geology & Geography

Found exclusively in subterrain stone forests, it was a miracle that Do'oshmi recieved a finite amount of them by chance.
After a volcano eruption roughly 1000 years ago a huge slate of a dying stone forest emerged out of the volcano sealing it up like a cork. After the location cooled down the avian country discovered the nut growing on the trees as well as a strange gigantic cocoon-like variant of it.
Bringing it to the sisters of the nest, they discovered not soon after the vision inducing properties of that strange smoke enhancing the omenseeking abilities of the sisters vastly. So much even, that the visions could be taken at that point onwards as granted, especially when used near the forest. Do'oshmi thrived utilizing the nuts to direct the bird country into an age of peace and wisdom.


But the reserves were finite, the trees couldn't grow on the surface. The omenseeking got in the past two centuries only used a couple of times per decade, asking the important questions, utilizing the last sealed away Basknuts. They went extinct in 4966, with the last nut used by the sisters and devoured by those present in an attempt to stop the war between Scorzosa and Nemthi in the south, seeking for a vision to make peace between the nations. But one nut wasn't enough and the sisters fell into darkness.


The Basknut was presumed extinct until in the year 4986 a restaurant opened in Etherium's capital city Scamall: The divine Basknut.

"You seriously are telling me the Basknut is back?
How? They came from the volcano, how can there exist more?
(...)
No matter ... my sisters?
We shall undergo a pilgrimage to Scamall.
The world needs our visions in these dire times... even more than usual.
and I am curious regarding who this Modelli might be."

Äala Onrust

Life & Expiration

If preserved correctly the Basknut is able to survive centuries without deteriorating.
The storeroom of the Sisters of the Nest was optimised for their preservation:


-No direct Sunlight
-Dry air
-Temperatures at all times at exactly 39,5°C


Keeping these prerequisites up at all times prevents the stone shell from eroding, which allowed Do'oshmi to store vasts amount harvesting all trees of the emerged forest storing precicely 3235 Basknut, which lasted for nearly a milennium of bi-yearly Omenseeking rituals.

"These nuts are very important for our oracle and country.
Nobody shall harvest the trees until our researchers found a secure way to conserve them.
Until then I shall let a division protect the stone forest until we can move the nuts.
They are a gift from below and shall not ever fall into the wrong hands!"

Do'oshmi general (3985)

Type

Organic

Value

Invaluable (3985 - 4986),
50.000 credits (4986-)

Rarity

Next to impossible to acquire

Odor

Can only be described as the embrace of the inner core of Prius. Overwhelming yet soothing

Taste

A hot and salty sweet taste similar to freshly glazed walnuts.

Color

Nut: Greyish red
Kernel: Brownish orange, glowing

Related Locations

• The divine Basknut

Rediscovery

The nut, which was presumed lost for all times after the last known exemplar got consumed 20 years ago, got rediscovered by non other than Marchello Modelli, an avian with the right connections.


Not much is known about his sources, where he had aquired a next to infinite amount of reserves to keep his restaurant running. But these shadow contracts are seemingly entrusting their knowledge only to this man and this man alone.


Modelli has since then created a thriving trade with his home-country to exchange a decent amount of nuts per year for an ad-campain rendering his restaurant to be known within Do'oshmi's borders by every citizen watching media.
Sir Marchello Modelli got knighted by the Sisters of the Nest and enjoys special protection from the Eternal Counsel, the gods of Etherium themselves, to keep this tourism magnet rolling at all costs.

---

The following is not publicly known!

The nut got rediscovered on an expedition made possible only through the unique abilities and intel of the expeditioners. Mr. Modelli recruited the Human Furor Opilio and his partner, the Dryad Videns, to find a way to bring back the Basknut, an artifact crucial for his country's current identity.
Following the traces given, the duo ventured deep underground through a sealed ancient mausoleum. They came across a crack in the earth by chance reaching many kilometers underground and managed to get to the bottom of the gaping hole and discovered an underground forest just like the one, that emerged through the volcano 1000 years ago. But this time in a living and thriving state.


Establishing an only for the duo advantagous way to enter and leave this secluded area, the partnership between the 'Acolytes' and Modelli got formed 4986.
Realizing the results outweigh by a huge margain the required amound for his country, the initial deal got altered and the idea for the restaurant 'The divine Basknut' was born through a humble wish of the contract.