In Stardew Valley's massive 1.5 update, a ton of new crafting recipes were added. Many of them are incredibly useful, including the Monster Musk. This strange potion does something that may seem counter-intuitive: it lures out monsters in the various mines.
However, this is a good way to level up the Combat skill, finish the Monster Eradication goals, farm materials, and more. Let's go over how to find the recipe, how to make it, and how Monster Musk works.
The Monster Musk Recipe
The recipe is pretty straightforward, but it'll be a little while before the player can learn it.
How to Learn the Recipe for Monster Musk
To find this recipe, simply complete the Special Order called "Prismatic Jelly," which is offered by the Wizard on the Special Orders board in town. These special quests are unlocked on Fall 2 in Year 1, so the Monster Musk recipe can't be learned in the first Spring or Summer of a save file.
The Special Orders posted are random. Once this quest is posted, grab it, which will activate it and add it to the Journal. For this quest, the Wizard is looking for a strange enemy drop called, fittingly, Prismatic Jelly. He allows seven days for completion of this request.
To find this jelly, the player will need to kill a Prismatic Slime. These special enemies are only around if this Special Order is active, meaning they won't show up otherwise. While the quest is active, there's a very, very small chance that any Slime in the Mines, Quarry Mine, or Skull Cavern will become a Prismatic Slime (about 1.2%, with some bonus or detriment from Daily Luck). When the player encounters one of these rare Slimes, they simply need to kill it. The Prismatic Jelly has a 100% drop rate.
Bringing the Prismastic Jelly to the Wizard will reward the player with the Monster Musk recipe and 5,000g.
The Recipe
The recipe for Monster Musk only uses two ingredients:
- 30x Slime
- 30x Bat Wing
Slime is dropped by, well, Slimes. These enemies appear on basically any floor of the Mines or Skull Cavern and throughout the Quarry Mine. They can also be found in the Secret Woods, near the Ginger Island Farm, and of course, inside Slime Hutches. Other sources of Slime include the Slime Balls produced in a Slime Hutch, the Traveling Cart, Krobus's shop on Mondays, and a Slimejack Fish Pond with a population of nine or more.
Bat Wings are less ubiquitous, but still pretty easy to find. These wings are dropped by, unsurprisingly, bats. Any kind of bat, except Iridium Bats, can drop Bat Wings. They can also be purchased from Krobus on Sundays.
Once the player has the required ingredients, it's as simple as navigating to the crafting menu, scrolling down to the Monster Musk icon, and making it!
How To Use Monster Musk
To use Monster Musk, just select it in the inventory and "consume" it like food. A buff icon will show up in the top right corner of the screen indicating that the Monster Musk Buff is active. Hovering the cursor over the icon will indicate how much time is left on the buff.
Monster Musk effectively doubles the number of monsters that appear on each new floor entered by the player. It will not increase the number of monsters on the floor on which it is used. The buff has a total duration of ten minutes.
Here are some useful ways to make the most of Monster Musk:
- Finishing Monster Eradication Goals
- Leveling up the Combat skill
- Farming enemy drops
- Increasing the game's difficulty
- Luring out more Pepper Rexes when trying to find a Dinosaur Egg
- Completing quests like "Slay Monsters" from the Help Wanted board, the "Cave Patrol" Special Order, the "Juicy Bugs Wanted!" Special Order, and more.
Additionally, Monster Musk can be used as a purple item when dyeing clothing, sold for 50g, or given to a villager to lose friendship points with them, as it's hated by everyone.