You can get an official Avowed fungus kit that lets you grow a piece of the Dreamscourge in your own home: ‘If you don’t do anything, eventually the mushrooms will find their way out… They’ll just burst out of the box’

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It’s likely that only a few video games feature officially licensed fungi, but it seems fitting for Avowed, a role-playing game in which your character spends 50 hours with mushrooms sprouting from their face. Thanks to North Spore, you can now possess your own slice of the Dreamscourge with DIY mushroom cultivation kits. These kits allow fungi to erupt from the chest cavity of an infected skeleton, and after growth, you can consume it!

Each kit costs $30, and it could contain blue, pink, or golden oyster mushroom fungi, all prepared for growing edible mushrooms. These boxes are quite spacious, and with appropriate attention, you should yield two harvests from a single box. You can also replant them to continue their growth post-harvest. North Spore generously sent me a kit for review, and although my mushrooms haven’t sprouted yet, the preparation and maintenance have been pleasantly straightforward – essentially, just open the front of the box, make an X incision into the plastic to expose the fungus to air, and then remember to mist them with water using the provided sprayer bottle a few times daily. In essence, mushrooms should sprout soon after following this process.

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The branding of Avowed appears superficial at first glance; it’s essentially a cardboard cover on top of North Spore’s usual grow kits. However, the artwork does lend an air of mystery to the entire venture. To further enhance its authenticity, you can download a free STL file that enables you to 3D print one of Avowed’s bears (which I can’t help but notice are everywhere). With time, mushrooms will sprout from the bear’s face, giving it that genuine Dreamscourge look. Isn’t that charming!

As a passionate advocate for home-grown mushrooms, I, Matt McInnis (co-founder of North Spore), wholeheartedly encourage more folks to join this rewarding pursuit! Mushrooms are surprisingly simple to cultivate, whether you’re setting them up on your countertop or adding them to an outdoor garden if you’re a green thumb. To help spread the knowledge and debunk mushroom myths, our team consistently generates a wealth of educational content.

If left untended, the mushrooms will inevitably break free from their container… They might just explode out of it! Nothing quite compares to a gardening project that seems determined to escape its packaging for a thrilling challenge.

As a game enthusiast, I find it somewhat surprising that I haven’t encountered something like this before, given how prevalent fungi are in video games. McInnis rightly notes that fungi have been an integral part of the gaming medium since Mario first consumed a mushroom to gain power. In more recent times, they’ve gained even more popularity, largely due to The Last of Us franchise’s success across both games and television. Particularly in fantasy and science fiction genres, they serve as powerful symbols of wonder and peculiarity in imaginary worlds.

McInnis expresses that mushrooms are organisms that have remained largely enigmatic to humans due to our limited understanding of them compared to plants or animals. Despite significant advancements in the last century, there is still much more to learn about these fascinating entities. This lack of knowledge combined with their unique properties has led to a recent cultural fascination with mushrooms, as they are used as powerful tools for medicine, yet can be highly toxic and mind-altering. Given their mysterious nature, it’s no surprise that they find a natural place in the fantasy genre.

So should we expect more videogame mushroom kits to come?

McInnis suggests, “If you have connections with the creators of The Last of Us, please pass this along. I genuinely believe it would be a blast to work together more. Mushrooms are not only intriguing to observe but also grow rapidly. I can envision Twitch streamers playing these games with mushrooms growing in the background during their live streams. I’d delight in more collaborations like that.

For now, I can describe the delightful experience of walking through the Living Lands with the earthy scent of growing mushrooms filling the air, a pleasant surprise during my journey. If I manage to find an edible meal from these mushrooms before concluding my adventures, that would be an added bonus. McInnis has also reassured me that the Dreamscourge is merely a myth and there’s no risk of the mushrooms affecting my brain or face—so don’t fret if my articles seem odd or incoherent at times; it’s just typical behavior and most likely not related to fungi.

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2025-02-26 20:17