Status effects run in the background of almost everything you do in Welcome to Elderfield. Blessings push a single stat or attribute up, curses drag one down, and both can pile onto you fast once you start mining, fighting, or skipping bedtime. Knowing which effect does what makes it much easier to decide when to keep fighting and when to head home for a bath.
Quick answer: Most blessings and curses adjust a stat by 10% per stack and cap at five stacks. Bathing at home or a Soul Moon clears the common ones, but sleep-deprivation curses only lift once you actually sleep.
How stacking works
Effects build up in stacks. Each stack of a standard blessing or curse shifts the relevant stat by 10%, and most of them stop at a maximum of five stacks, for a total swing of 50%. A few special effects behave differently and only hold a single stack, which the tables below call out.
These modifiers layer on top of your base stats, equipment, and food, so a full five stacks of Brutalism and a five-stack Sickness curse can cancel each other out. The stat categories they touch include Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, Agility, Luck, and Hit Rate.
All blessings and where they come from
Blessings mostly arrive from interacting with a God Shrine, casting player spells, or good outcomes during sleep events. The moon rising can also grant a couple of them. The stacking buffs below all add 10% per stack up to five stacks.
| Blessing | Effect | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Brutalism | Attack +10% per stack | God Shrine, player spells, sleep events |
| Stubbornness | Defense +10% per stack | Moon rising, God Shrine, player events |
| Zealotry | Magic Attack +10% per stack | God Shrine, player spells, sleep events |
| Skepticism | Magic Defense +10% per stack | Combat, player spells, sleep events |
| Daring | Agility +10% per stack | Moon rising, God Shrine, player events |
| Panic | Hit Rate +10% per stack | God Shrine, player spells |
| Greed | Luck +10% per stack | God Shrine, player spells, sleep events |
A handful of blessings sit outside the standard stacking system. These cap at a single stack and often come from very specific triggers.
| Blessing | Effect | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cat’s Mystery | +5% evasion for 2 days | Talk to the Mysterious Cat from a news report |
| Angler’s Luck | Fish +15% (max 1 stack) | Angler’s Potion |
| Plenty | +25% chance of good rolls when sleeping (max 1 stack) | Paying taxes |
| Tax Boon | Defense and Magic Defense +10% (max 1 stack) | Paying taxes |
| Burgeoning | Crop quality +5% (max 1 stack) | Paying taxes |
| Growth | Crop quantity +5% (max 1 stack) | Paying taxes |
Cat’s Mystery is not removed by bathing, so its +5% evasion sticks around for its full two-day window even if you clean off everything else.
All curses and where they come from
The mines are the most reliable way to collect curses, but enemy attacks, the moon rising, and sleep events can all land them on you too. Each of the debuffs below reduces its stat by 10% per stack, up to five stacks.
| Curse | Effect | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Sickness | Attack -10% per stack | Mining, enemy attacks, sleep events |
| Weakness | Defense -10% per stack | Mining, enemy attacks, sleep events |
| Chaos | Magic Attack -10% per stack | Mining, enemy attacks, moon rising, God Shrine |
| Hex | Magic Defense -10% per stack | Mining, enemy attacks, sleep events |
| Dread | Agility -10% per stack | Mining, enemy attacks, sleep events |
| Fear | Hit Rate -10% per stack | Mining, enemy attacks, sleep events |
| Doom | Luck -10% per stack | Mining, enemy attacks, sleep events |
Chaos cannot be cured. It stays on you for one full day no matter what you do, so plan around the reduced Magic Attack rather than trying to wash it off.
Tax-related curses
Skipping the Tax Man’s demands has its own consequences. These curses land randomly when you fail to pay, hold a single stack, and last until the Tax Man returns rather than clearing with a bath.
| Curse | Effect | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Carrion | Crows eat 10% more crops (max 1 stack) | Until the Tax Man returns |
| Blight | Crop quality/quantity reduced by 10% (max 1 stack) | Until the Tax Man returns |
| Tax Plague | Attack and Magic Attack reduced by 10% (max 1 stack) | Until the Tax Man returns |
Staying awake and sleep-deprivation curses
Sleep is technically optional, but staying awake for two or more days triggers a running set of effects tied to each moonrise. They do not stack, and they all stay until you finally sleep. The mix is not entirely bad, since a few of them raise your damage, crit rate, or lower your MP costs.
| Effect | Result | Triggers on day |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy Eyelids | EXP Rate reduced to 85% | Two |
| Slow Reflexes | Agility reduced by 15% | Three |
| Deeper Insight | MP cost reduced by 30% | Four |
| Sleep Deprivation | Food Effect reduced by 15% | Four |
| Awakened Senses | Damage increased by 15% | Five |
| Mind Rot | Hit Rate reduced by 15% | Five |
| Fully Awake | Critical Rate increased by 10% | Six |
On night six, staying awake summons the Demigod Sleep, a floating mass of eyes that one-shots you. It won’t reappear after you respawn at home on the same night, but the initial hit is unavoidable.
Insomnia is a separate sleep-event curse that reduces all healing effects by 25% for two full days. Like Heavy Eyelids, it is tied to your sleep behavior rather than combat.
The Gift of Whispers effect
One effect sits in its own category. The Gift of Whispers comes from a random event with the Black Goat and holds a single stack. It bundles Crit Rate +5%, EXP gain +10%, and MP +50% together with a steep Luck -100% penalty, so it heavily reshapes your die rolls while it’s active.
How to remove curses and clear status effects
The fastest and cheapest way to wipe curses is to bathe at home. A bath fully restores your HP and MP and clears most blessings and curses at once. The trade-off is that it also removes your blessings, and it regenerates the monsters and mysteries on the map, so you’ll be facing enemies again afterward.
A Soul Moon does the same cleanup automatically. When one appears during the midnight transition, your HP and MP are fully restored and your blessings and curses are removed without any action from you.
Some effects ignore the bath entirely. Curses from staying awake cannot be removed by bathing and only lift when you sleep, Chaos runs its full one-day timer, and Cat’s Mystery persists through a bath as well. You’ll know a bath worked when your HP and MP fill back up and the effect icons clear from your status display; if a debuff remains, it belongs to one of these bath-proof categories.
