Monster Compendium
| Monster Compendium | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Book |
| Location | Monsters; Bookseller |
| Sell Price | 2000g |
The Monster Compendium is the fighting farmer's loot book. Reading it gives every monster in the game a small chance to drop twice what it was going to drop, and that applies to ore, bars, slime, bat wings, essences and the rare items alike. It falls from monsters themselves, which makes it a reward for the work rather than for a shopping trip, and the chance improves steadily with the body count until the book finally appears. The bonus works on top of the Burglar's Ring, so a combat build can run both and see noticeably fuller pockets after a Skull Cavern run. Two spare copies also buy a Slime Egg-Press or a Slime Incubator from the Bookseller, which is an unusual and very practical trade.
The in-game description reads: Monsters have a small chance to drop double loot.
Overview
The drop rate on this one starts extremely low and climbs. Early kills are almost certain not to produce it, and nothing at all can drop until a double handful of monsters have died. After that, every kill nudges the odds up a fraction until the book appears, at which point the chance settles back to a low fixed rate because the game has no further use for a second copy. In practice that means it usually arrives somewhere in the middle of a long mine run rather than on a particular floor.
Three per cent of drops doubled sounds slight, and it is, but it compounds with how much a deep run kills. A Skull Cavern descent with Monster Musk burning and a Lava Katana in hand produces hundreds of drops, and a thirtieth of them coming through twice adds up over a season of iridium hunting. The effect was built to stack with the Burglar's Ring, which raises the chance of a drop happening at all, so the two solve different halves of the same problem: the ring decides whether a monster drops anything, and the book decides whether that something arrives in pairs.
There is one curiosity worth knowing. The power can produce two Prismatic Jelly from the same kill, which is a pleasing sight and no help at all to the Wizard, since his Special Order only ever wants the one.
From the third year the stall above JojaMart will sometimes have a copy, appearing on about one table in ten for a flat and heavy price. Most farmers who want it get it from a monster long before that, because fighting is unavoidable and the odds build on their own.
The trade is the standout. Handing two read copies over the counter brings back either a Slime Egg-Press, which crushes a hundred slime into a Slime Egg, or a Slime Incubator, which hatches those eggs into slimes of their own. Both are the backbone of a Slime Hutch operation, and the incubator in particular is otherwise a crafting project rather than a purchase. Later readings, for anyone who would rather keep the books, each hand over a hundred points of combat experience.
Gifts
These villagers love receiving Monster Compendium as a gift.
| Villager | Image |
|---|---|
| Abigail | 
|
| Krobus | 
|
Notes
This is the book the valley's outsiders warm to. Krobus, the shadow person living in the sewers, loves being given one, and so does Abigail, who has always been more interested in what lives underground than in her father's shop. Sebastian likes it, as does Elliott, and Penny loves it along with every other book. Alex dislikes it.
Through the spool of the Sewing Machine, with a dyeable garment in the feed, the compendium dyes cloth black.
All Books
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
| Name | Image | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Animal Catalogue | 
|
2000g |
| Bait And Bobber | 
|
500g |
| Book Of Stars | 
|
2500g |
| Book of Mysteries | 
|
3000g |
| Combat Quarterly | 
|
500g |
| Dwarvish Safety Manual | 
|
1000g |
| Friendship 101 | 
|
3000g |
| Horse: The Book | 
|
1000g |
| Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Thick | 
|
500g |
| Jewels Of The Sea | 
|
800g |
| Mapping Cave Systems | 
|
4000g |
| Mining Monthly | 
|
500g |
| Monster Compendium | 
|
2000g |
| Ol' Slitherlegs | 
|
1000g |
| Price Catalogue | 
|
1000g |
| Queen Of Sauce Cookbook | 
|
10000g |
| Raccoon Journal | 
|
1000g |
| Stardew Valley Almanac | 
|
500g |
| The Alleyway Buffet | 
|
3000g |
| The Art O' Crabbing | 
|
1000g |
| The Diamond Hunter | 
|
1000g |
| Treasure Appraisal Guide | 
|
500g |
| Way Of The Wind pt. 1 | 
|
5000g |
| Way Of The Wind pt. 2 | 
|
10000g |
| Woodcutter's Weekly | 
|
500g |
| Woody's Secret | 
|
500g |