Woody's Secret
| Woody's Secret | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Book |
| Location | Trees; Bookseller |
| Sell Price | 500g |
Woody's Secret falls out of a tree. Chopping brings it down eventually, and reading it gives every felled tree a one in twenty chance of dropping twice the wood it should have. Wood is the resource a farm never has enough of, since every fence, every building Robin puts up and most of the crafting recipes in the game ask for it, so a twentieth more trees paying double adds up quietly over years. The chance of finding the book improves with every tree cut, so a farmer who clears the woodline regularly will meet it without hunting. It also stacks with the Forester profession, which lifts what wood is worth, and later copies pay out foraging experience on top.
The in-game description reads: Felled trees have a 5% chance to yield double the wood.
Overview
The drop is deliberately slow to arrive. A tree gives up the book only very rarely at first, nothing can happen at all until a few dozen trees have come down, and then each felling nudges the odds up a sliver until the book finally appears. After that the rate settles at a low fixed figure, since a second copy is only worth experience. In practice it tends to show up during the first serious clearing of the farm, or during a winter spent stockpiling for a building project.
The power applies to the wood a felled tree drops, so it rewards the swing that brings the trunk down rather than the chips along the way. Five per cent is the sort of number that only shows itself in bulk, and bulk is exactly how wood is gathered: a hundred trees cleared across a season means several extra piles for nothing. It also works alongside Forester, the profession that raises the price of wood, though not alongside Lumberjack, the branch that makes ordinary trees drop Hardwood instead. A farmer who took Lumberjack gets the doubling from the book and nothing extra from the profession on top of it.
There is a good reason to want more wood late on as well. Robin's building prices run into hundreds of pieces at a time, Hardwood projects eat into it, and the Wood needed for a crafted Crab Pot, Keg or Preserves Jar never stops. Farms that plant their own groves and tap them for syrup end up felling and replanting constantly, which is where the five per cent earns its place.
From the third year the Bookseller lists the book on about one table in ten at a flat twenty thousand, which is an expensive way to buy a small percentage and exists mainly as a safety net for the Well-Read achievement. Most farmers get it for the price of an afternoon with an axe.
The trade is tidier than the purchase. Once the power has been claimed, handing a spare copy across the Bookseller's counter brings back twenty Hardwood, which is the material a farm is always short of and which otherwise comes only from stumps and old logs. Reading that spare instead gives a hundred points of foraging experience.
Gifts
These villagers love receiving Woody's Secret as a gift.
| Villager | Image |
|---|---|
| Robin | 
|
Notes
Robin loves being given this one, which is exactly right for the valley's carpenter, and Penny loves it as she loves every book. Elliott likes it and Alex dislikes it.
The dye pots at 2 Willow Lane read the book as orange, while the Sewing Machine spool treats it as brown when a dyeable garment sits in the feed.
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 |