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This guide lists the stats and abilities of all the cursed items in the game in every state (cursed, uncursed, and purified) so you can decide whether you want to uncurse them or not.
Introduction
This guide will tell you all of the cursed items in the game which can be uncursed, and what they do in all of their stages of cursed (the state you find them in), uncursed (curse stored in the machine), and purified (curse completely broken). The purpose is so to help you judge whether you think it’s worth purifying or keeping the items as they are.
Note 1: This is NOT a comprehensive guide to the entire shadow taint mechanic. For that, I recommend checking out Shadow Taint Guide.
Note 2: There are some other things you can do with the uncursing machine, such as removing as geas if you should receive one, but this guide isn’t about that either.
Cursed Fedora
It’s a cursed hat. You wear it on your head. You’ll get it as part of the story, toward the end of the prologue. Jessica will insist that you should purify it immediately before you go to bed, but you don’t have to do so.
Note: Even if you do want to purify it, you might wait until day 2 anyway, as Tony Fiasco (the hat photographer at the boardwalk) pays separately for a pictures of each of its three stages.
Cursed: Allows special “dark speech” dialogue options.
Uncursed: +1 to your class’s main stat.
Purified: +1 to your class’s main stat, +5 to Max HP.
Thoughts: The dark speech options allow you to bypass certain stat checks and even combats by clouding peoples’ minds with cursed speech. The tradeoff is that the cursed fedora has NO other stats or bonuses, though you can give it some by using things like the tentacleskin hatband, comfy hat lining, etc.
In all the only real reason to leave it cursed is for the flavor if you’re running an evil character. Otherwise, the purified hat is generally more useful.
Cursed Pocketwatch
An offhand equip item with the power to hypnotize people. Retrieving it is the primary goal of Chapter 1: Ocean City.
Cursed: Reduces the target’s M stats (Muscle, Mysticality, Moxie) by 13.
Uncursed: Reduces the target’s stats by 3.
Purified: Reduces the target’s stats by 5.
Thoughts: As you can see, the uncursed version is literally the exact same thing except worse. There’s no real reason to uncurse it except if you’re going for the good ending. Otherwise, it’s far more useful in its cursed state.
Cursed Compass
An equippable accessory, it leads its owner into dangerous and evil places. It will be found as part of the story, and recovering it is the primary focus of Chapter 2: Crystaldream Lake.
Cursed: Will give special “evil” encounters while traveling on the map with it equipped.
Uncursed: Gives +10% to meat and item drops.
Purified: Gives +25% to meat and item drops.
Thoughts: Traveling on the map (including using the Wander option) will occasionally give special creepy encounters. Usually these encounters will get you shadow consumables, but not always. Encounters in Ocean City in particular tend to give regular items and meat instead.
As with the fedora, the cursed version is only really useful if you’re specifically going for an evil character. In that case, you’ll enjoy the flavor of these creepy encounters, and the shadow consumables will likely be your main source of raising your Shadow Taint level.
If you don’t want to be tainted, then the cursed compass won’t do much for you except waste your accessory slot. That said, purifying it won’t do a heck of a lot either. +25% to meat and item drops isn’t all that useful, especially compared to other things you could use your accessory slot for.
Librum Umbra Malum Ovilla
A cursed book of dark magic, which translates as “Shadow Book of Evil’s Sheep”. Uncursing butchers it into 101 Mutton Recipes and purifying adds 10 more making it 111 Mutton Recipes. You’ll get it as part of the story, as the final goal of Chapter 3: Seaside Institute of Technology.
Cursed: Teaches special shadow spells and perks. Requires 3 shadow taint.
Uncursed: Gives a perk for +30% meat drops.
Purified: Perk can now be continuously upgraded, adding +10% each time.
Thoughts: Another item that’s only useful if you’ve already decided to be evil. It’s not that the shadow perks and spells aren’t good enough for you to want to dabble with them, you just don’t have the option. By the time you reach taint level 3, you’re already locked into receiving the evil ending, can no longer use the uncursing machine at all, and certain NPCs will no longer speak to you. You’re either all-in with this one, or you can’t even use it at all, and might as well purify it for the meat gains perk.
Cursed Key
A key with the power to open any lock. Starts as a quest item, becomes an equippable accessory after uncursing it. Finding it is the objective of Chapter 4: The Big Moist.
Cursed: Opens any and all locks, including the Black House gate.
Uncursed: Gives +30% to item drops.
Purified: Gives +50% to item drops.
Special: Partway through purification you’ll be given a “mysterious ring of the owl”. Wearing this ring allows you to use “Detective Mode” (a mechanic from the key’s dream sequence) on people in the real world, giving you special insight into their characters. It’s just flavor text, but can be fairly interesting. The only way to purify the key completely is to give up this ring.
Thoughts: Increased item drop rate isn’t really all that useful, especially not compared to being able to open any lock instantly, including bypassing the entire leadup to the final boss. Your character even pointedly complains about having to purify such a useful item.
Cursed Sickle
A weapon with a deadly curse, and the last cursed item that you’ll actually get as part of the story. Getting it is the objective of Chapter 5: Gray County.
Cursed: Deals 13 + your class’s main stat spooky damage.
Uncursed: Deals 6 + your class’s main stat physical damage +3 bleeding.
Purified: Deals 6 + Mysticality + 5 bleeding.
Special: There is actually no difference between the uncursed and purified sickle. After purifying it, you receive a lawnmower in the mail (it makes sense in context) that deals the purified damage.
Thoughts: What’s to say? It goes from the best weapon in the game to being just mediocre, as uncursing it cuts the damage in half and also changes the type to physical, which a whole lot of things have armor against. And the lawnmower further changes the damage stat to Mysticality, which could potentially screw you over.
Definitely better left cursed, especially considering how long and complicated the purification is with this one.
Cursed Fishing Rod
The fishing rod is an optional cursed item which can be gotten in Chapter 3: Seaside Institute of Technology. It’s found at the S.I.T. bridge, which can itself only be accessed one of two ways.
The first way is to major in Chemicals, as your teacher asks you to go throw some stuff off the bridge as part of your classwork.
The second, much more tedious way, is to find Rufus in the steam tunnels beneath the school and do his questline. After completing the first part of his questline (finding fishman eggs) he’ll send you to the S.I.T. bridge and you can pick up the rod.
Cursed: Deals 3 + Muscle spooky damage. Can sometimes fish up shadow objects.
Uncursed: Deals 2 + Muscle physical damage.
Purified: Deals 3 + Muscle physical damage. Can not be used to fish AT ALL.
Thoughts: Let me repeat that: the purified fishing rod CAN NOT BE USED FOR FISHING, AT ALL. It’s not even good as a weapon; 3 base damage with no special effects is crap by the time you can get this one, and it doesn’t even do a double-hit like other fishing rods. Useless.
That said, while the purified version might be utterly useless, the cursed fishing rod is only really useful if you’re specifically going for an evil character anyway. In that case, it’ll prove a useful source of shadow consumables to increase your taint level, without having to actually equip anything like with the compass.
Haunted Duck Call
The Haunted Duck Call is given to the player during the prologue. It can be cursed by throwing it into The H*** Hole in Chapter 5: Gray County, and can then be uncursed in the machine. It’s still haunted, though. (Just by spiders, instead of shadows.)
Original: Reduces the target’s M stats by 1.
Cursed: Deals spooky damage and bleeding to the target, equal to your Mysticality.
Uncursed: Same as original.
Purified: Reduces all enemies’ M stats by 1.
Thoughts: It’s basically just the cursed pocket watch but worse. Purifying it changes it from a single target debuff to an AoE debuff, but it’s still not that useful. The cursed version is a lot more useful. There’s really not a lot of reason to purify it if you went to the trouble of cursing it yourself in the first place.