Weather
| Weather | |
|---|---|
| Type | Mechanic |
Weather is decided a day at a time, and it settles far more than how the valley looks. Every television carries a Weather Report, and the broadcast describes tomorrow rather than today, so the evening check is what makes a plan possible. A wet morning waters every planted crop for nothing and wakes up fish that ignore a sunny line, which hands back the whole day for the Mines or the river. Storms go further and drop lightning on the farm, which can tear a hole in a field or charge a Lightning Rod into a Battery Pack. Snow takes over once Winter arrives, Spring and Fall mix in breezy days thick with pollen, and one Summer morning each year the rain comes down green.
Overview
Rain is the weather most farms hope for. Every planted crop drinks overnight, so the can stays in the chest and the morning opens up for something else. The trade is that swinging a tool outdoors in the wet burns more energy, which makes a rainy day a poor choice for clearing land. Fishing improves sharply instead. Catfish only run the town and forest rivers while it rains, several other fish carry the same condition, and that narrow window is what keeps the harder fishing bundles open for months.
A storm is rain with lightning laid on top. Everything a wet day allows still works, the rain-only fish included, and on top of that bolts come down on the farm through the day. A strike lands on a random tile, and crops and trees are the usual casualties. A fruit tree that takes a hit survives but sulks, dropping coal instead of fruit for a few days before it recovers. Crafted paths and flooring are only knocked out of position, so they can be picked up and laid again. Chests left outdoors are never struck, which makes them the safe place for anything that matters.
A Lightning Rod is the answer to all of that. Placement makes no difference, because a rod standing anywhere on the farm has a chance of pulling a bolt out of the sky, and the one it catches becomes a Battery Pack. A rod that is already holding a pack sits out the rest of the storm, so a farm that wants both cover and power keeps several of them up. Battery Packs feed Iridium Sprinklers, Crystalariums, Mini-Jukeboxes and Farm Computers, and the only patient alternative is a Solar Panel waiting out a week of sunshine. Two Summer days carry a guaranteed storm every year, which makes them the ones to have the rods ready for.
Snow is Winter's version of rain, and it looks the part without doing the work. Winter Seeds and Powdermelon still want the watering can each morning, which catches out anyone who assumes that falling weather counts. Rain stops arriving on its own once the snow starts, so the fish that need a downpour drop off the list until a totem brings one back.
Green rain is the strangest day on the calendar and comes once each Summer, always on one of a short list of dates. The forecast gives it away the evening before, when the presenter stumbles over "some kind of... anomalous reading..." and admits he has no idea what it means. The day itself tints the world a dark green, indoors as much as out. Wild trees and weeds sprout across the whole valley apart from the Beach and the Calico Desert, young saplings jump forward several stages at once, and most grown Oak Trees and Maple Trees turn into mossy Green Rain Trees for the day. Working through them is the point. Shaking and chopping gives Moss, Mossy Seeds, Wood and Sap, and the vine-like ones also drop Fiddlehead Ferns. Green rain is the best day to stock up on Moss for Speed-Gro, a Mushroom Log, Deluxe Bait and Moss Soup, and five of it buys Broccoli Seeds from the Raccoon's wife. The oversized green weeds pay Foraging experience on the way down.
Most of the change is gone by morning. Spawned trees and weeds disappear, transformed Oaks and Maples go back to their old shape, and whatever grew in Pelican Town is tidied away. The farm is where a mark is left: a few Green Rain Trees stay standing there, and a temporary one can leave a seedling beside it that is worth a Mossy Seed. Electronics sulk while the rain falls, with every television channel showing green static, the jukebox in the Stardrop Saloon and the Mini-Jukebox silent, and the Telephone refusing to dial. In a first year most villagers stay behind closed doors, Demetrius, Leah and Linus excepted, and a good crowd shelters in the Stardrop Saloon, which turns an idle day into an easy round of conversation. Doors that are normally shut swing open too, some bedrooms among them.
Windy days belong to Spring and Fall. The Spring version is cloudy with pollen on the breeze and the Fall one is gusty, and both behave as dry days for everything that depends on the sky. That matters for the scenes villagers trigger, because those only tell a dry day from a wet one. A windy or snowy day counts as dry, while a storm or a green rain day counts as wet, so a scene that waits for sunshine will not fire in a thunderstorm.
A Rain Totem is the way to argue with the forecast. Using one sets rain for the following day in the region where it was activated, and the totem is consumed doing it. A festival day and the first day of a season both ignore it. The real use comes in Winter, when nothing is falling as water: a totem is what puts Catfish, Walleye and Red Snapper back within reach of a bundle or a quest that is still open.
Notes
Weather moves the town as well as the farm. Routines change when it rains, umbrellas come out, and the lines villagers offer shift with the sky, so a wet afternoon is a different walk through Pelican Town than a bright one.
The forecast before a festival always promises the same thing: "It's going to be clear and sunny tomorrow... perfect weather for the Festival!" Nothing a farmer does changes that, which is why the totems get saved for ordinary days.
For a fisherman the forecast doubles as a timetable, since a good part of the list only bites in the wet. Magic Bait is the way round it, because a line cast with it ignores weather, hour and season alike, and that is what finally takes the guesswork out of chasing a single missing fish.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
