Manual wooden mortar

[JAGIELSKI]

Talking about something like this:

   It would only be able to grind one item at a time (not stack, a singular item), would be fully manual and would be much slower even than a manual quern, but it would be a nice, realistic, lower-tier quern you can get early game (from boards) to get bare minimum of flour or flint powder for fire clay.

Edited December 30, 2024 by JAGIELSKI

[Steel General]

I've often wanted something similar.  I like the idea of it being a knapping recipe for a loose boulder.

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, JAGIELSKI said:

It would only be able to grind one item at a time (not stack, a singular item), would be fully manual and would be much slower even than a manual quern, but it would be a nice, realistic, lower-tier quern you can get early game (from boards) to get bare minimum of flour or flint powder for fire clay.

I do like the idea, but requiring boards doesn't make the most sense, not the least of which is that if you can craft boards, you also have access to the stuff that allow you to craft a quern.

Probably better to allow a mortar/pestle to be crafted from sticks and rocks. Stone is more durable than wood, plus it allows access to flour/mineral powders prior to accessing the tools required for a quern. Now I'm not sure why you would go to this trouble given that you still need an oven to do anything with flour, which will require a lot of fire clay, but the option would be there for those that desire it.

[JAGIELSKI]

When you consider the 1.20, it's very useful considering you need powdered flint to craft fire clay.

[Zadlo14]

On 12/30/2024 at 12:52 PM, JAGIELSKI said:

Talking about something like this:

   It would only be able to grind one item at a time (not stack, a singular item), would be fully manual and would be much slower even than a manual quern, but it would be a nice, realistic, lower-tier quern you can get early game (from boards) to get bare minimum of flour or flint powder for fire clay.

Clay (not the wooden) mortar would be more useful here. 

[Thorfinn]

I'd think  I'd just go with a mano, which is sort of @Steel Generals answer. Knap the corners off a stone to get something that feels/looks like it would fit in your hand, (historically, it would look something like an oversized hoe head from the game) then go with the "immersive" process of putting what you want ground on the top face of a stone block and right-click on the item with the mano in hand. You could probably limit it to one item at a time, but I think I'd probably go with 4, since that could be done with the current ground placing. 

[traugdor]

a stone bowl and rock with a stick attached would be a great mortar and pestle idea. But why stop with making it a portable quern? I think it would be great if we also needed it to mash the horsetails before they can be combined to make bandages

[Thorfinn]

39 minutes ago, traugdor said:

But why stop with making it a portable quern?

??? Querns are portable. Essential for those games where I have to source lime from shells.

Querns are now locked behind full Copper Age. While I don't know the reason for it, I'm guessing there was one. Maybe to slow down the oven, and encourage more pot cooking? Maybe to slow down leather armor, thereby giving a reason to build lamellar? Whatever the reason, what's the point of unwinding an obviously conscious change in progression?

But if you want something to fill that niche, I agree that bruising horsetails has an appeal to it. So long as the stone bowl was something relatively easy for a n00b to do on day 1.

Edited January 11 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

49 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Querns are now locked behind full Copper Age. While I don't know the reason for it, I'm guessing there was one. Maybe to slow down the oven, and encourage more pot cooking? Maybe to slow down leather armor, thereby giving a reason to build lamellar?

I'm thinking it was a change both to help smooth out the tech progression, and to make a more believable recipe in that you're now "shaping" the stone blocks into the quern shape, instead of just having crafting grid magic happen.

1 hour ago, traugdor said:

I think it would be great if we also needed it to mash the horsetails before they can be combined to make bandages

I do like that idea.

[traugdor]

7 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

But if you want something to fill that niche, I agree that bruising horsetails has an appeal to it. So long as the stone bowl was something relatively easy for a n00b to do on day 1.

If it's easy for a new player to do on day 1, then it definitely would need limitations:

1. Using a Mortar and Pestle (M&P) should take significantly more time to process the same material. This is to account for the fact that a M&P in real life cannot grind a lot of material efficiently nor quickly.
2. If used to grind grains, the M&P should grind them them into a "rough" flour instead that would have less food value than a finer-ground flour from the quern. This is to account for the inconsistency of grinding things by hand.
3. Using the M&P should consume a fair bit of hunger due to the physical exertion required to use one in real life.

It should also be necessary to mash the horsetails to make poultices with a M&P but it should be a quick mash, just to get the goodies out of them and wipe the shmoo on the bandage before applying it.