Calico Egg
| Calico Egg | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Collection |
| Location | Desert Festival |
| Sell Price | 0g |
The Calico Egg is the money of the Desert Festival, and it only has value while the festival is running. Almost everything in the tents is priced in eggs rather than gold, so the three days are really a scramble to collect them and then spend the lot. Races, fishing errands, monster-slaying challenges and a scholar's quiz all pay out in eggs, and the bin beside the egg merchant quietly holds one more every morning. Eggs stay in the bag or a chest from one festival day to the next, which allows a big purchase to be saved for the final day. The moment the festival closes they vanish wherever they are stored, so nothing carries over to next year.
Overview
The races are the engine of the whole economy. Critters run through the middle of the festival ground at intervals through the day, a bet can be placed on any runner while no race is under way, and picking the winner pays twenty eggs. Betting again is free, win or lose, right up to the final race late in the evening, which makes a patient afternoon at the track the largest single income in the desert. A suspicious man loitering near the Oasis will take one egg to make a chosen runner stumble, though the fix is not guaranteed and the bet still has to come in.
Errands pay in bigger lumps. Willy sets a fishing task, which may be as simple as recovering a lost Golden Bobber from the treasure chests in the desert pond, and pays thirty eggs for it. The Adventurer's Guild sets a fighting or diving task instead, such as putting down a run of serpents or getting deep into Skull Cavern. The scholar standing above the egg merchant asks a short set of questions about the valley and pays fifty eggs for a clean sweep, but only once a year, so the answers are worth remembering.
Gold can be converted straight into eggs as well. Pierre runs a stall that sells eggs by the handful at a fixed price, with a daily limit, which means a wealthy farm can simply buy its way to anything in the tents instead of gambling for it.
Spending is split between the egg merchant and the villagers. The merchant's shelf stays the same each year and holds a Mystery Box, Mega Bombs, Mixed Seeds, cooked dishes, a few pieces of desert furniture and two hats, the Mummy Mask being the expensive one. A Woodcutter's Weekly sits there for anyone still filling in the power books, and on the final day the merchant puts out Magic Rock Candy at a price that soaks up an entire festival's winnings.
The villager stalls rotate, so the line-up differs from one day to the next. Several of them sell a joke melee weapon at the same price, including Alex's Bat, Maru's Wrench, Penny's Fryer and Harvey's Mallet, and those are the reason many players save eggs rather than spend them on food. Demetrius offers the Periodic Table and a Nautilus Shell, Granny sells cheap seed packets and wallpaper, and Maru sometimes has Strawberry Seeds early enough in spring for them to still be worth planting.
Notes
A Calico Egg is not a real egg, whatever the picture suggests. It cannot go in an Incubator, it does not satisfy a recipe that asks for any egg, and no villager will accept one as a gift.
Eggs can be carried out of the desert and stored anywhere, so a chest at home is as safe as a pocket during the festival. Neither keeps them past the last day, which is why the usual advice is to walk out of the tents with nothing left to spend.
All Collections
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
