Forge
| Forge | |
|---|---|
| Type | Mechanic |
The Forge is the anvil standing on the tenth floor of the Volcano Dungeon, and it is where a farm's gear stops being what the shops sold and becomes something built to order. It does four separate jobs: it works gems into melee weapons to change their stats, it burns Prismatic Shards and Dragon Teeth into random enchantments on weapons and tools, it fuses two rings into one, and it swaps one weapon's appearance for another's. Cinder Shards pay for all of it, and they come from the same magma monsters and rock nodes on the way down, so a single trip funds the work waiting at the bottom. Claiming Combat Mastery allows a Mini-Forge to be crafted and placed anywhere, which moves the whole workshop onto the farm.
Overview
Reaching the anvil means working down the Volcano Dungeon on Ginger Island. The floors there connect through doors rather than ladders, and the monsters on the way drop the Cinder Shards the Forge charges in, which makes the descent and the crafting a single errand rather than two.
Gem forging is the simplest of the four jobs and the most useful. A melee weapon, meaning a sword, a dagger or a hammer, can be put on the anvil three times, each time with one gem and a handful of Cinder Shards that grows with each previous forge. Ruby raises both the floor and the ceiling of the weapon's damage. Jade raises critical hit damage, Aquamarine raises critical hit chance, Emerald adds swing speed, Topaz adds Defense and Amethyst adds knockback. Levels are counted per gem rather than per weapon, so a blade forged with a Ruby, then an Emerald, then an Amethyst ends up with one level of each rather than three of anything. A Diamond does something different: it fills every remaining slot with random upgrades at once and only charges the smallest shard price, which makes it the lazy option for a weapon nobody has strong plans for.
Enchanting is the gamble. One Prismatic Shard and a larger pile of Cinder Shards buy a single random enchantment on any melee weapon or tool, with the scythes and the Trash Can left out. The item sits in the left slot with the shard beside it and the Cinder Shards below, and the hammer button does the rest. Only one enchantment sits on an item at a time, and paying again replaces whatever was there. Tools remember the last two enchantments they carried and refuse to roll them again, which narrows the odds on a second or third attempt. The roll is decided by how many times anything has been enchanted in that save, which means reloading a day and enchanting a different tool first produces a different result on the one that matters. Upgrading a tool at the Blacksmith afterwards keeps whatever enchantment it carried.
The weapon enchantments are a short list with one standout. Crusader adds half again to damage against mummies, ghosts, skeletons and void spirits, and it lets mummies be finished off without a bomb, which is why most farmers keep rolling until they get it. Bug Killer doubles damage against the insect family and makes armoured bugs killable at all. Vampiric returns health on a kill, scaled to the monster's own size rather than to the weapon's damage. Artful halves the cooldown on special moves and stacks with the Acrobat profession for an even shorter wait. Haymaker is the odd one out, pulling extra fibre and hay out of cut weeds instead of helping in a fight.
Tool enchantments are where most of the Prismatic Shards go. Bottomless gives a Watering Can endless water and Efficient makes any tool cost no energy, and between them they rewrite a farming day. Reaching widens the charged-up area of a Hoe or Watering Can, and Swift speeds up swinging and charging by a third. Powerful adds a level of strength to an Axe or Pickaxe. On a fishing rod, Master adds a fishing level while it is held, Auto-Hook sets the minigame going by itself, and Preserving often saves the bait and tackle from being used up. A Hoe can roll Archaeologist for double the chance of an artifact or Generous for a chance of a second item from every dig, and a pan has its own versions of both. Shaving pulls extra wood from a tree and, depending on the tree, a Red Mushroom or a Fiddlehead Fern instead.
Innate enchantments are a separate system with its own currency. A Dragon Tooth and some Cinder Shards add them, and only a lower-level melee weapon qualifies, which rules out Galaxy and Infinity weapons entirely. They come in two sets and a weapon can hold one from each. The first set is not guaranteed and offers extra Defense, reduced Weight for less knockback, or Slime Gatherer for more slime from slimes. The second set always lands and offers Slime Slayer, a large chunk of Crit. Power, a multiplier on Crit. Chance, extra Attack, or extra Speed. That second set is the reason a modest sword is sometimes worth keeping and tuning rather than replacing.
Two more jobs round the anvil out. A Galaxy weapon fed three Galaxy Souls, with Cinder Shards each time, becomes its Infinity form: the Infinity Blade, the Infinity Dagger or the Infinity Gavel. One or two souls show on the weapon without changing anything, so the upgrade only pays when it is finished. Infinity weapons keep their enchantments and gem forgings but take the Infinity look whatever appearance they had before. Appearance swapping is the other job: two weapons of the same type can be merged, the one on the left keeping every stat and the one on the right lending its look and being destroyed in the process.
Rings are combined here too. Two different rings become a single ring carrying both effects, which frees a finger for something else, and that is how a serious build ends up wearing four effects. Two copies of the same ring cannot be joined, although two different rings with the same effect can, and they stack exactly as they would if both were worn. A combined ring is final: it cannot be folded into a third.
Nothing is permanent. Unforging costs nothing and splits a combined ring back into its two rings, or strips a weapon of its gem upgrades and its borrowed appearance while leaving its enchantment alone. Only some of the Cinder Shards come back, so it is a way to change a mind rather than a way to recycle.
Notes
The Forge floor is also the only place in the Volcano Dungeon where a rod works, and it is one of only two places in the game that hold Lava Eels. Crab pots are useless down there, but the water occasionally gives up a present containing the painting called 'Physics 101', and that comes up only once per farmer per save.
The room keeps a few secrets. The plaque above the anvil carries a message written in a cipher. An Ancient Doll thrown into the lava produces something strange in return. And once Perfection has been reached, a red monkey appears who can be spoken to for a hat that exists nowhere else.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
