Oat Corn

Oat corn is the staple grain of the Realm. It was bred by The Ancestor Civilization to feed their booming population. It grows even in the poorest of soils, and is nutritionally complete when cooked with milk.

Appearance and Use

Oat corn grows on pale yellow stalks. The grains are small, round, and pale yellow. The grain can be milled into a coarse flour, although milling is very labor-intensive as it must be done by hand. Oat corn meal can be baked into bread. More commonly, the grains are soaked and cooked with milk to make porridge.

Space for agriculture is very limited in the Realm, and villages generally do not have enough space to rotate crops. For this reason, oat corn is best grown alongside Grape Squash, a nitrogen fixer which is also used as animal feed.

History

Oat corn was bred by The Ancestor Civilization to feed their rapidly growing population with limited space for agriculture. Several breeds survived into the modern day, and the average Gachnif's diet consists of mostly of porridge made from oat corn and milk.

Significance

Without a food source that can be grown in limited space and still keep a village fed through the winter, humans would not be able to survive in the modern era. A village is extremely reliant on its oat corn supply, as supplemental foods such as vegetables and meat are usually not produced in large enough quantities to feed everyone.

Corruption

Like other plants, oat corn can carry plague and spread it to other plants and animals. Infected plants can be identified by their dark color and overly sweet smell. Infected fields, if detected, are burned and left fallow for several years. An infected crop can destroy a village, as many of the residents will leave for a village with a stable food supply when there is an oat corn infection.

Humans and animals can catch the plague from oat corn only by eating it. Cooking the grain does not remove the infection. Humans who have eaten infected food show the usual progression of corruption. Crops usually become infected through a curse of Yon, God of Air, or Haama, Goddess of Earth.

Item type

Consumable, Food / Drink

Creation Date

50-30 BP

Related ethnicities

• The Ancestor Civilization
• The Gachnif People

Related Condition

Corruption

Rarity

Very Common