Miasma

Miasma fog in front of Pearl Canyon with the player in front of it from the meadow path point of view.

### Effects

Poisons the player unless wearing a mask, the mask doesn't stop it, it slows it from reachig the player's lungs.

### Source

Cavities in the earth called "scars"

> *The air is pure poison, and the things that live in there...* — Huckleberry
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The **Miasma** is a shroud of poisonous air outside of Homestead Arcana. It appears as a blackish-purple fog, which Huckleberry describes as "pure poison."

> *The people and creatures that managed to survive in the miasma became warped, mysterious, twisted, and dangerous.* — Zhenghua Yang (Founder & Executive Director, Serenity Forge)
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Without protection, humans ingest poisonous fog while in Miasma-infested areas and can faint, die, or worse if they do not promptly exit the fog.

To traverse the Miasma for longer, the player gets a recipe for a Mask with a filter to slow the Miasma's effects. Huckleberry refers to areas cleared of Miasma as "The Empty," which is potential foreshadowing of his relationship with the Miasma and areas outside it.

When the player clears the Pearl Canyon and finds a sickly Hopper, they are given two options in response to Huckleberry's comment that the Hopper is in pain: To save or kill it. If "Kill" is selected, Huckleberry remarks that doing so may cause the Miasma to "bloom" (or explode again).

## Origin

The Miasma appeared via explosion almost two millennia before the player's story. An Academy orientation manual found in the wild states that the explosion is estimated to have occurred 1800 years ago at the time the manual was published (see *Journals*). It has since spread and consumed most life, with only a few thousand humans and a handful of towns still standing today.

While the true cause of the explosion is unknown, three theories exist, according to Huckleberry:

1. Solarists believe that it was divine punishment for the sins of mankind.
2. Another group speculates that Miasma is a "weapon of war" that backfired on its creators.
3. A third group believes that it was an underground experiment gone wrong.

## Clearing the Miasma

To remove Miasma from each of three key areas, the player finds a jar of special fertilizer from which a base Cauldron-based Scar Fertilizer recipe can be learned.

Miasma is cleared in each area in three stages, each requiring a new crop harvested from seedlings found in the Miasma. Every stage is marked by a Scar resembling a crack in the ground with a seemingly wilted sapling planted on top.

Once a Scar is discovered, it appears on the game map in two stages, one for a Scar yet to be healed and one for a Scar that has been healed.

### Mechanism

After the player retrieves the jar of fertilizer from Aunt Tilly's Homestead and frees it from Miasma, Huckleberry explains how it works:

> *"[...] according to the Academy journals, deep inside those scars are — just like the one on your homestead, only stunted.*
> *So in theory, you pour this fertilizer into the scar, and the dust-eater instantly grows full-size... soaking up the surrounding Miasma."*
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## Scar Fertilizer Recipes by Location

*(see Recipes for exact ingredient count)*

### Pearl Canyon

1. Scar 1: Huck tells you it's a scar fertilizer he and Aunt Tilly created, once found on Aunt Tilly's Homestead
2. Scar 2: Leftover first fertilizer + Cotton Boll
3. Scar 3: Cotton Boll + Tomato

### Petrified Forest

1. Scar 1: Pumpkin
2. Scar 2: Pumpkin + Pepper
3. Scar 3: Pumpkin + Pepper + Soybean

### Ancient Swamp

1. Scar 1: Hemp
2. Scar 2: Hemp + Blackberry
3. Scar 3: Hemp + Blackberry + Artichoke

### The City

1. Scar 1: Eggplant
2. Scar 2: Eggplant + Gardenia
3. Scar 3: Eggplant + Gardenia + Watermelon