Long ago, when the nights in the workshop stretched thin and the candles burned low, the gnomes found themselves dozing over half-finished contraptions and cooling teapots. Productivity plummeted. Tempers flickered. And Fipple Gearwhistle, master tinkerer and notorious midnight yawner, declared:
“We need something stronger than tea — or these inventions will never get finished!”
So the Guild sent a small band of curious gnomes northward to seek help from their distant cousins, the Tomte of Scandinavia, keepers of the long winter night and sworn enemies of grogginess. The expedition included:
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Fipple Gearwhistle — restless tinkerer.
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Brunna Copperflask — engineer of temperature and tools.
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Sneed Pocketsprocket — note-taker, diagram hoarder, collector of interesting beans.
The Tomte welcomed them into snow-dusted workshops where iron kettles hummed and steam curled through timber rafters. There, the gnomes discovered a marvel: a dark, fragrant brew that tasted like thunder made gentle. The Tomte called it kaffi.
The gnomes were entranced. The Tomte brewed it slowly, deliberately, with a ritualistic precision that bordered on sacred craft. But being gnomes, they immediately began taking measurements, arguing about extraction curves, and inventing improvements before the first cup cooled.
They sketched.
They calibrated.
They took apart a Tomte kettle (with permission) and put it back together slightly differently (without permission).
By the end of their stay, their notebooks were overflowing with ideas: funnels and frames, spouts and stands — elegant devices that blended Tomte patience with gnomish ingenuity.
When they returned home, the workshop buzzed with excitement. Inspired by the Tomte and amused by their catalogs full of heroic-sounding product names, the gnomes christened their new creations Baunverk™ — “bean craft.”
Every piece they built served a purpose beyond brewing:
to elevate the ritual, honor the journey, and ensure no gnome ever fell asleep mid-invention again.
To this day, each Baunverk™ design (pronounced BOWN-verk) carries the legacy of that northern expedition — part homage, part improvement, and entirely powered by the pursuit of the perfect cup.