Challenge and Harrow Modifiers

A designer-facing reference for how much harder each optional run modifier makes a run: the six built-in Challenges and the twelve dials of the Artificer's Harrow, with exact effect magnitudes.

In plain terms

Challenges are opt-in burdens a player picks before starting a run. The Artificer's Harrow is a seventh card that lets a player build a custom challenge by turning individual dials. Both are pure difficulty modifiers. Every effect makes the run harder, never easier.

Unlike almost everything else in these docs, none of these magnitudes live in a data/*.json file. They're hardcoded constants in two scripts:

So retuning any number on this page is a code change, not a data edit. It needs a developer, and it doesn't go through the JSON validator. Treat this page as a read-only reference for the current numbers, so you can balance around them. For the code-level design detail, see the Developer page The Artificer's Harrow.

A note on terms:

The six built-in Challenges

A Challenge is either free (selectable the moment the system unlocks, after three Rituals) or earned (unlocked by meeting an endurance condition in a prior Challenge run). The unlock condition is listed for context; it has no effect on difficulty once the Challenge is active.

Challenge Tier Unlock condition What changes (exact magnitudes)
The Lone Villager free — Population starts at 1. Starting supplies cut to 10 food, 10 water, no stored buffer. Gathering bell rings 2× slower (bell_interval_mult = 2.0). Berries pick 1 at a time (vs the usual random handful). The pond starts near dry (10 water) and seeps back at 0.25× rate (pond_regen_mult = 0.25 — about 4/day against a 14.4/day drain).
Brittle World free — Tool durability ×0.5 (tool_durability_mult). Wall HP ×0.5 (wall_hp_mult).
Eye of the Storm earned Survive 15 days in a Challenge run Rain gap ×0.1 (near-constant rain) and storm gap ×0.2 (frequent storms). Storms speed the Maw ×1.75 (maw_storm_mult, only while a storm actually rages). Shelter fuel burns ×2 (shelter_fuel_mult, across 3 consumer sites).
The Ravenous Maw earned Survive 20 days, or grow a lineage of 3 Grace period cut 360s → 60s. Maw learns materials ×3 faster (maw_learning_mult). Pressure escalation ×3 faster (pressure_growth_mult). Each Ritual feeds ×2 permanent chew (ritual_chew_mult).
The Black Rot earned Survive 14 days with 2+ Challenges active Every villager needs 1 strange root per day or they die. Compensations: a starting buffer of population × 2 strange root, plus a boosted root gold-trade (5 root for 25 gold) that only appears under this Challenge.
Two Fronts earned Survive 25 days, or perform 3 Rituals in a Challenge run A second Maw grinds in from the west, with its own outskirt wall line and breach. Shares the escalation state of the eastern Maw.

How Challenge effects stack with the world

Several of these multipliers don't act alone. They multiply on top of the Maw's normal escalation:

So a single earned Challenge can move effective difficulty far more than its headline number suggests, because it's multiplying an already-growing curve.

The Artificer's Harrow — twelve dials

The Harrow is the seventh Challenge card, unlocked once a player owns all six Challenge mastery trophies. It lets a player set a severity t (from just above 0 up to 1) on any of twelve dials. t = 0 is baseline (the dial is omitted); t = 1 is the "worst" value in the table below. Every dial is harder-only by construction; turning one can never help the player.

Each dial's concrete value at a given severity is a linear blend between base and worst. The Hunger at t = 0.5, for instance, sits halfway between ×1.00 and ×4.00, i.e. ×2.50.

Dial (in-game name) Type Base → worst What it adjusts
The Waking (grace) seconds 360 s → 30 s How long the Maw sleeps before it first stirs. Lower = it wakes sooner.
The Hunger (hunger) multiplier ×1.00 → ×4.00 How fast the Maw's long-term pressure grows day over day. At full turn it also raises the pressure ceiling (up to +2 on top of the pressure_max of 5).
The Learning (learning) multiplier ×1.00 → ×3.00 How quickly the Maw learns the taste of materials you raise against it (adaptation speed).
The Reckoning (ritual_fury) multiplier ×1.00 → ×2.50 How much each Ritual feeds the Maw's permanent appetite.
The Frenzy (surges) composite +0% → +100% Light surges come oftener (mean interval down to ×0.3) and hit harder (boost up to ×1.667, i.e. surge boost 1.5 → 2.5 total).
The Sky Turns (sky) composite +0% → +100% Near-constant rain (gap to ×0.1), frequent storms (gap to ×0.2), and the Maw emboldened during storms (up to ×1.75).
Green Iron (tools) multiplier ×1.00 → ×0.40 Tool durability. Lower = tools fail faster.
Bad Mortar (walls) multiplier ×1.00 → ×0.40 Wall HP. Lower = walls fall faster.
The Few (souls) headcount 47 souls → 1 soul How many villagers remain at the start; starting stores thin in proportion.
The Appetite (appetite) multiplier ×1.00 → ×2.00 Food and water drain, both together.
The Cold (cold) multiplier ×1.00 → ×2.00 How fast the shelter fires burn fuel.
Meager Earth (meager) composite +0% → +100% The gathering bell tolls slower (up to ×2), berry handfuls shrink toward 1, and the pond seeps back thinner (down to ×0.25).

Where the Harrow and Challenges overlap

Several Harrow dials govern the same lever as a built-in Challenge (Green Iron and Brittle World both scale tool durability, for one). When a Challenge and a matching Harrow dial ride the same run, the effects multiply, and ChallengeManager applies floors and caps so a stacked config stays punishing but never degenerate (durability floored at ×0.2, learning capped at ×6, pressure growth capped at ×6, and so on). A harrowed run won't crash, but it isn't promised to be balanced. Extreme dial stacks are meant to be brutal.

Safe to change / handle with care