Special Orders Board Guide — All Town and Mr. Qi Orders in Stardew Valley

Special Orders — Quick Reference

How Special Orders Work

The Special Orders board appears northeast of Pelican Town's plaza, next to Mayor Lewis's house. After completing the Community Center (or its Joja equivalent), the board activates and displays two Special Orders per week, rotating every Sunday morning at 6:00 AM. You can read both orders by interacting with the board, but you can only accept one at a time.

Each order has a 7-day deadline (some have shorter or longer windows for specific orders). Accepting an order adds it to the Quest Journal and tracks progress in real time. Completing an order before the deadline awards the order's unique reward + gold; failing simply removes the order with no penalty other than lost time. You can cancel an active order at any time from the Quest Journal, which resets the order so you can pick it up again on a future week.

Mr. Qi's Special Orders work the same way mechanically but are accessed from his Walnut Room on Ginger Island. The Walnut Room requires 100 Golden Walnuts (gathered across Ginger Island's content) to enter. Qi orders reward Qi Gems instead of items — Qi Gems are the currency for the Walnut Room's vendor (Mr. Qi himself), who sells exclusive items like the Heavy Furnace, Hopper, Quality Bobber, Pierre's Missing Stocklist, and the Treasure Appraisal Guide.

Completing every town Special Order at least once is required for Perfection Tracker completion. Completing every Mr. Qi Special Order is NOT required for Perfection, but the Qi Gems they award are needed for many Walnut Room purchases that ARE Perfection requirements (like the Pierre's Missing Stocklist).

All Town Special Orders — Givers and Rewards

All Mr. Qi Special Orders — Qi Gem Rewards

Town Order Priority — Best Order to Tackle First

Not all town orders are created equal. The most valuable rewards are clustered in a few orders that you should target whenever they appear: Auto-Petter (from Emily's 'Rock Rejuvenation' most reliably, occasionally Demetrius's 'Biome Balance'), Junimo Chest (Linus's 'Community Cleanup' is the only source — the chest stores items shared across all Junimo Chests on your farm), Hopper (Gunther's 'Fragments of the Past' — recipe lets you auto-fill machines like Kegs and Furnaces), and Garden Pot (Evelyn's 'Gifts for George' — sand-friendly planter ideal for Beach Farm).

Mid-priority orders: Special Lumber (Robin) for unique decorations, Pale Ale recipe (Pam) for keg diversity, Monster Musk recipe (Wizard) for monster-drop farming, and Pierre's Missing Stocklist (Pierre — rare drop) which permanently expands Pierre's shop stock.

Lower-priority orders: Crop Order (Lewis) is just gold with no unique reward, and many recipe rewards from minor givers are quality-of-life rather than essential. Cycle through these as they appear but don't worry if you skip a week.

Pro tip: the order rotation pool means each unique order will appear roughly every 8 weeks on average. Across two in-game years, you'll see every order multiple times — patience is rewarded.

Mr. Qi Special Orders — Qi Gem Economy

Qi Gems are the currency for the Walnut Room shop, which sells items not available anywhere else: Heavy Furnace (50 Qi Gems — smelts 5 ore at once, also a Mastery reward in 1.6), Hopper (50 Qi Gems — autofills machines), Quality Bobber (10 Qi Gems — improves fish quality), Pierre's Missing Stocklist (50 Qi Gems — permanently expands Pierre's shop), Treasure Appraisal Guide (35 Qi Gems — increases foraged-item value), and several decorative items.

Mr. Qi orders are significantly harder than town orders. 'Skull Cavern Invasion' requires reaching Floor 100 of the Dangerous Skull Cavern — a buffed Skull Cavern variant where monsters deal more damage and have more HP. 'Qi's Prismatic Grange' requires 100 items in a single color category in 7 days — color categorization is hidden, so planning requires the wiki.

Some Mr. Qi orders unlock unique mechanics: 'Qi's Crop' unlocks Qi Fruit, a special crop only growable on Ginger Island Farm. 'Extended Family' unlocks the Legendary II fish (harder variants of the original Legendaries with unique requirements). These mechanic-unlock orders are worth completing for content access regardless of Qi Gem rewards.

Qi Gem totals: a fully-completed Walnut Room shop costs roughly 230 Qi Gems for all the essential items. Across all Mr. Qi orders completed once (most are repeatable), you can earn 400+ Qi Gems. Repeat orders maintain steady Qi Gem income for ongoing purchases.

Top 5 Town Orders to Prioritize

1. Rock Rejuvenation (Emily) — Most reliable Auto-Petter source. Auto-Petter pets all animals in a building automatically, saving 5–10 minutes daily on a fully-staffed farm. Cost: 20 Ruby + 20 Topaz + 20 Emerald + 20 Jade + 20 Amethyst + 1 Fire Quartz. Easy if you have Crystalariums running.
2. Community Cleanup (Linus) — Only source for the Junimo Chest recipe. Junimo Chests share inventory across all Junimo Chests on your farm — revolutionary quality-of-life for farm-wide item access. Cost: 20 Trash items (collected from Crab Pots or trash spawns). Easy if you have a Crab Pot circuit.
3. Fragments of the Past (Gunther) — Hopper recipe. Hoppers autofill machines (Kegs, Furnaces, Preserves Jars) from chests above them, eliminating manual machine reloading. Cost: a series of monster drops. Moderate.
4. Gifts for George (Evelyn) — Garden Pot recipe. Garden Pots are essential for Beach Farm and Winter farming; they water themselves and grow any seed regardless of season. Cost: 1 Wool. Trivial.
5. Pierre's Prime Produce (Pierre) — Pierre's Missing Stocklist (rare drop). Permanently expands Pierre's shop with new seeds (Garlic, Bok Choy, Rhubarb seeds year-round). Cost: 1,000g worth of crops delivered. Moderate.

Top 5 Mr. Qi Orders to Prioritize

1. Qi's Prismatic Grange (100 Qi Gems) — Highest single Qi Gem reward in the game. Donate 100 items of any single category color to the basket. Use a renewable like Coffee Beans (brown), Diamond (white), or Fire Quartz (red) at scale.
2. Skull Cavern Invasion (40 Qi Gems) — Reach Floor 100 of the Dangerous Skull Cavern. Hard but rewarding. Stock Bombs, Staircases, Spicy Eel, and the Galaxy Sword.
3. Extended Family (40 Qi Gems) — Catch all 5 Legendary II fish. Unlocks the Legendary II content and is required for Master Angler perfection. Use Lava Bait and Mastery Rod.
4. Four Precious Stones (40 Qi Gems) — Deliver Cinder Shard, Bone Fragment, Solar Essence, Void Essence. Easy if you've been mining the Volcano Dungeon and farming the Skull Cavern.
5. Qi's Crop (35 Qi Gems) — Grow Qi Fruit on Ginger Island Farm. Unlocks Qi Fruit as a permanent crop option and pays out well.

Special Orders and Perfection

The Perfection Tracker (1.5+) requires completing every town Special Order at least once for full completion. There are 16 unique town orders in the rotation, and you must complete each one once on the same save file. Mr. Qi orders are NOT required for Perfection, but several Walnut Room items purchasable with Qi Gems ARE Perfection requirements — Pierre's Missing Stocklist permanently expands the seed shop, the Quality Bobber upgrade improves fishing perfection metrics, and others.

If you're pursuing Perfection, prioritize completing every town order as it appears in rotation rather than repeating the same favorite order. Tracking which orders you've completed is manual — keep a checklist or use the Perfection Tracker's hint UI on the Mountain (after unlocking it).

Across two in-game years of consistent Special Orders board engagement, most players naturally complete every town order. Year 3+ saves often have all orders completed and use the board purely for repeat unique rewards (multiple Auto-Petters, multiple Hoppers).