Marquet's Mushroom Farm

Past the peat bogs outside of Wansborne, just beyond the marshes but before reaching the Kalabasque plateau, discerning mushroom hunters can find the ideal growing environment for fungi. And that’s exactly what Marquet Maitake did, 37 years ago when he started his mushroom farm.

Originally from a nomadic family of traders, Marquet developed a fondness for mushrooms at a young age as he encountered new and interesting varieties wherever his family traveled. The Tharkinian Cloud, Callia Spore, and Dragons Blush Faire are notable favorites that sparked Marquet’s quiet obsession- as they should! All three of these mushrooms are approaching rarity, and difficult to find.

The Callia Spore, for instance, only grows on the underside of sea water-damp cliffs, out of direct sunlight and undisturbed. Marquet has many a tale of his youth spent exploring the cliffs of the Adaghast coast, all of three apples tall and still growing into his clawed feet, his family camping nearby.

While Scoria like Marquet are generally hardy creatures, resilient to airborne infection due largely to the cauterizing qualities of their lungs (useful, when you life is spent poking at potential toxins), Marquet admits to having been quite clumsy in his youth. He once spent an evening stuck at the bottom of a steep embankment in pursuit of a Hawthian Cap, and another up a tree when his search for a Declian Rose disturbed the nest of a brooding Owl Bear.

When scouring the families way-stations for curious fungi became routine for young Marquet, so to did the organization of a search party. This state of affairs lasted until Marquet’s aunt found it prudent to assign an older cousin to his heels. Rothland, while perhaps not as viscerally interested in wild toadstools as his cousin, applied himself to his role with great enthusiasm.

Thirty-six years later, and Rothland is still a part of the business, living and working comfortably on Marquet’s farm on the sunny side of the hill, along with the rest of those housed and living on the farm.

When Marquet and Rothland broke of from their inherited life of caravan trading to cultivate mushrooms full time, their goal was to find a patch that would allow Marquet to invest in his hobby. No longer content with simply finding his mushrooms, Marquet wanted to cultivate- and this would require space.

Finding the perfect piece of land took time, effort, and a good dose of luck. Marquet and Rothland spent months painstakingly scouring the landscape, visiting half-remembered campsites from their childhood, hunting down leads of the ideal growing environment. And then, one quiet summer evening, Rothland had the good fortune to take a wrong turn on his way to meet Marquet back and camp, and he found it.

What would become the cultivation field for Marquet’s mushrooms was a massive outcropping of rock stretching out to shade a moist bed of happily growing fungus. There was a meadow nearby, a small stream to supply water, and dense forest growth within easy hiking distance.

The pair spent the next several years developing their ideal growing environment: preparing the land, clearing fields, hauling in materials to build two small cottages side by side for them to work from. They grew slowly, but steadily, eventually taking on farmhands and operators as they expanded.

Marquet’s Marsh is largely a working farm these days, and though the operation itself is small, the square footage of the place is surprisingly vast. This is to accommodate the wide variety of growing environments for the multitude of mushrooms Marquet cultivates- some require an outdoor setting that exposes them to the elements, while a select few can be grown in a more controlled environment, such as the many barns and outbuildings Marquet has constructed for the purpose.

Due to recent discoveries in the application of fungi in potion making and spell casting, mycology and it’s cultivation is a rapidly expanding area of interest. As one of the largest operations on the continent, this means that the farm gets a good amount of academic attention. Marquet, while not academically inclined in the least, is has proven to be a great friend to the researchers and specialists that make their way to his farm in droves.

In fact, the farm has recently completed an outbuilding designed to house and support a small number of researchers for a certain portions of the year. Spots are made available and assigned in advance, and grouped around developmental cycles of the mushrooms of interest. To participate in the “Myconic Project”, reach out to the farm through their post box in Wansborne- letters to be address to Rothland.

Interested in spending a season working on the ranch? Room and board are provided to anyone willing to commit to a full season’s work. Send notification of interest to the farm’s box, care of Marquet.

Live from the Holler,

Eze Clearwater