The Shadow Manipulator is the tier 2 Magic station which unlocks all of the Magic Tab recipes. It requires a Prestihatitator to prototype and costs 3 Living Logs, 1 Purple Gem, and 7 Nightmare Fuel to craft. Prototyping an item using the Shadow Manipulator will increase Sanity by 15, like any other station.
See also: Crafting
Shadow Manipulator allows the prototyping of any following items and structures. Once prototyped, the craftables become unlocked on the Magic Tab, Refine Tab and will no longer require the player to be next to the Shadow Manipulator to craft. As the Second Tier Magic structure, all craftables offered by Prestihatitator can also be accessed and prototyped from a Shadow Manipulator. Some character exclusive items also need to be prototyped using a Prestihatitator or a Shadow Manipulator.
Chopping down a Totally Normal Tree and digging up its stump yields enough Living Logs to craft a Shadow Manipulator without the need to kill a Treeguard. However, making other items such as Dark Swords would require Living Logs.
Bugs
In Winter, snow on top of the device disappears with the rising and falling animations (when the player is near).
A Shadow Manipulator can be found in the Miner's Camp set piece.
The Shadow Manipulator was the tier 3 Science research lab before Science and Magic research were separated into different categories.
In Don't Starve Together, the Clean Sweeper also used to require a Shadow Manipulator to be prototyped until March 2022 Quality of Life update where it was moved to Science Tier 2 and its recipe was changed from 6 Dark Petals and 3 Living Logs to 4 Petals and 1 Twig.
Gallery
Researchlab 4.gif
The Shadow Manipulator's animation when the player is nearby.
Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/DLC/function/tags of these Things. Some of them are not even.
Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/DLC/function/tags of these Things. Some of them are not even.
Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/DLC/function/tags of these Things. Some of them are not even.
Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/DLC/function/tags of these Things. Some of them are not even Structures.