Stardew Valley Forge Guide: Enchantments & Forging Explained

The Forge is the only place in Stardew Valley that turns a good tool into a definitive one. It sits at the heart of the volcano crater, on Ginger Island, and provides four distinct services: enchanting tools and weapons, forging melee weapons with gems, combining two rings into one, and copying the appearance of one weapon onto another.

The problem is that the game explains nothing. Enchantments drop at random, the fees change depending on the operation, and many farmers burn their Prismatic Shards on tools they never take out of the chest. Here's the complete rundown of the system, backed by figures from the French-language wiki, and above all the order in which to spend your resources.

Calendar note: as of August 10, 2026, the stable version remains 1.6.15. Version 1.7 is confirmed to be in development, with no announced date, and none of what follows depends on it.

Getting there, then never having to go back

The Forge is located inside the Volcano Dungeon. This dungeon has no ladder and no instant exit: each floor has an entrance door and an exit door that must be found, and to get back out you have to retrace your steps, unless you use a Warp Totem or the Return Scepter. Passing out at 2:00 AM on the spot wakes you up the next day on the Ginger Island farm, minus 2,500g.

The good news is that this trip becomes optional. Once you've obtained Combat Mastery, you can craft a Mini-Forge, strictly identical to the Forge, and place it wherever you want: in the house, in the shed, next to the furnace. That's the best argument for completing the Combat Mastery track first.

In the meantime, two shortcuts to the island exist: the Warp Totem: Island (5 Hardwood, 1 Dragon Tooth, 1 Ginger; recipe sold for 10,000g by the Volcano Dwarf) and, for already wealthy farms, the Island Obelisk, at 1,000,000g plus 10 Iridium Bars, 10 Dragon Teeth, and 10 Bananas.

The Forge's three currencies

Everything done here is paid for in one of these three resources.

• Cinder Shard: the common currency. It's mined from cinder shard deposits in the Volcano Dungeon, and drops from Magma Sprites, Magma Sparkers, Lava Lurkers, and False Magma Caps. An often-forgotten passive source: a fish pond stocked with more than 7 stingrays produces them on its own. Sale value, 50g: safe to say they're never sold.
• Prismatic Shard: the bottleneck, since each enchantment consumes one. The best rates come from far in the Mystic Stones, found at level 100 and beyond in the Mines, the Skull Cavern, and the Quarry: 25%. Next come the Iridium Nodes in the Skull Cavern, the Quarry, and the Volcano Dungeon, as well as treasure rooms in the Skull Cavern, at 4% each. Omni Geodes only give 0.4%, Serpents and Mummies 0.1%, Shadow Brutes and Shadow Shamans 0.05%. Finally, a pond with at least 9 Rainbow Trout has a 0.09% chance per day of producing one.
• Dragon Tooth: reserved for innate enchantments. It's picked up off the ground near the dragon skeleton in the Volcano Dungeon, and drops from Lava Lurkers with a 15% chance.

Practical corollary: if you're running low on Prismatic Shards, it's not the volcano you should head to, but the Skull Cavern, with bombs and an iridium pickaxe, to break Mystic Stones.

The full price list, operation by operation

Forging a weapon: which gem for which use

A dagger, hammer, or sword can be forged three times, and nothing forces you to use the same gem all three times. Here's what each one brings, per forging level.

The Diamond deserves a closer look. It only costs 10 Cinder Shards and maxes out the weapon immediately, at the cost of control: the three levels land randomly. On a transitional weapon, it's the best time-to-result ratio in the game. On the one you plan to keep until the end, take the time to choose: three Rubies, or two Aquamarines plus one Jade on a dagger.

Tool enchantments: the real hierarchy

A Prismatic Shard and 20 Cinder Shards apply a random enchantment. You don't choose, but the game also won't give you the same thing twice in a row: on a given tool, the last two enchantments obtained are excluded from the next draw. Rerolling costs one more shard, but the pool empties out.

Two details change everything. First, upgrading a tool keeps its enchantment: there's no need to wait for the iridium version, an enchanted gold pickaxe will stay enchanted after going through Clint's. Second, the Scythe, the Golden Scythe, the Iridium Scythe, and the Trash Cans cannot be enchanted — so the scythe given by the Masteries will remain unenchanted.

If we had to rank them: Bottomless on the watering can is the only enchantment that purely and simply removes a daily chore, and it has no rival since it can only ever appear on that tool. Efficient on the pickaxe comes right after, because it changes the very nature of runs through the Skull Cavern: no more energy bar to watch, just the clock. Powerful on the axe, worth two tool levels, is the best metal-saving trick in the game. Pan enchantments, meanwhile, are only worth it if you're still hunting artifacts for the museum.

Weapons: combat enchantment and innate enchantment

On a melee weapon, the two systems stack: a regular enchantment and an innate enchantment can coexist on the same blade.

On the combat enchantments side, there are five options, reserved for melee weapons — slingshots aren't eligible:

• Haymaker: reduces the special attack's cooldown by 50%, stacking with the Acrobat profession for 75% total.
• Bug Killer: doubles damage against bugs, grubs, flies, spiders and rock crabs, and above all lets you kill armored bugs.
• Crusader: +50% against mummies, ghosts, skeletons and shadow spirits, and spares you from having to blow up mummies. This is the Skull Cavern enchantment.
• Vampiric: 9% chance to recover health on every kill, between 9% and roughly 10.67% of the monster's maximum health. The healing doesn't depend on the weapon's damage, which makes it fearsome on a fast dagger.
• Crops-mower: 50% chance for fiber when cutting weeds and 33% extra hay. Useless in dungeons, very handy on the farm.

As for innate enchantments, they cost one Dragon Tooth and 10 Cinder Shards, only apply to melee weapons below level 15, and never to galaxy weapons or infinity weapons. They're split into two pools. The first, not guaranteed, contains Defense +1-2, Weight -1-5 and Slime Collector. The second always triggers: Slime Killer, Crit. Power +25/50/75, Crit. Chance +1-3, Attack +1-5 or Speed. In other words, a Dragon Tooth spent on a weapon with no innate enchantment is never fully wasted.

Merging two rings

For 20 Cinder Shards, two different rings become a single ring that combines both effects. This frees up a slot, and that's the whole point: wearing four effects instead of two. There are two restrictions, but they're strict. You can't combine two copies of the same ring, nor combine a ring that's already been combined. However, two distinct rings with identical effects do work — the Small Glow Ring and the Glow Ring, for example, whose light radii stack.

The classic pairing combines an offensive effect with a survival effect: the Warrior Ring with the Vampire Ring, or the Yoba Ring with the Savage Ring. And if you make a mistake, undoing the combination gives you back both original rings, for free.

The Anvil: reforging your trinkets until you get the right roll

The Anvil, also unlocked by Combat Mastery, reforges a Trinket for 3 Iridium Bars and 10 minutes of gameplay. It doesn't change the trinket, only its stats. Two exceptions: the Basilisk Paw and the Magic Hair Gel don't get reforged.

What can be re-rolled, and at what actual cost:

• Fairy Box: the fairy's level, from 1 to 5. Watch out for the trap — level 5 only appears 2.44% of the time. On average, that means about forty reforges, or roughly 123 Iridium Bars. At that price, a level 4 (5.16%) is a very good place to stop.
• Golden Spur: the duration of the speed bonus, from 5 to 10 seconds, with six equally likely values. Six attempts on average, 18 bars: this is the most cost-effective reforge of the bunch.
• Ice Rod: the projectile frequency (3 to 5 seconds) and the freeze duration (2 to 4 seconds), rolled independently down to the millisecond. You'll never hit the perfect value; just aim for better than what you have.
• Mystic Quiver: the variant — normal, perfect, quick, or heavy.
• Parrot Egg and Frog Egg: the parrot's level, up to 4, and the frog's color, which is purely cosmetic. The prismatic frog only appears 1.6% of the time, while the green one comes up on its own 41.3% of the time.

Where to start if you only have three shards

The right order to spend them isn't the most intuitive one. Put the first shard on the watering can, hoping for Bottomless: it's the only enchantment that gives you back real time every morning. The second on the pickaxe, where Efficient and Swift are both good results. The third on the axe, where Powerful and Shaving get you extra wood with every chop.

Save your Dragon Teeth for the weapon you actually use below level 15, and the Diamond for transitional weapons you'll be replacing. Finally, place the Mini-Forge as soon as Combat Mastery drops: the real cost of the Forge isn't the shard, it's the round trip to the volcano.