Grand stele

A grand stele is a purely decorative Miscellaneous structure. A stele provides less beauty than most sculptures and require more resources, but have no quality.

They are the larger, more beautiful version of the large stele.

Acquisition[edit]

Grand steles can be constructed, each requiring 250 Stuff (Stony) and 16,000 ticks (4.44 mins) of work modified by the construction speed of the builder and the work to build factor and offset of the material.

Steles may also be found in ruins throughout the map.

Summary[edit]

Grand steles add beauty to its surroundings. The beauty rating is added to the single, bottom-left-most tile a pawn can see. They are the larger, more beautiful version of the large stele. Despite their size, they do not count as a wall.

Grand steles can also be used as an Artistic meditation focus. Meditation Focus Strength of +18% psyfocus/day. It appears that no other modifiers exist for steles as they do for other foci.^{[Fact Check Needed]}

You may need to build steles for a Momument quest, in which they act as a time and resource sink.

Analysis[edit]

Steles are less beautiful when compared to sculptures, even of the same material, with the only redeeming aspect being their higher HP and lack of quality.

For the same cost as a single grand stele, you can construct 5 small sculptures. Small sculptures have 25 beauty at Poor quality, and even a pawn with Artistic Skill 0 will average 1.8 Poor quality or better sculptures with the same resource investment. At even modest Artistic levels, sculptures are more efficient in terms of time, stone blocks, and space.

Compared to large steles, grand steles provide twice the amount of beauty and health, for twice the material and work. The grand stele is slightly less efficient than large steles for space, as a grand stele requires 9 tiles of space while 2 large steles of equal beauty require only 8.

While the examples that naturally spawn in ruins can be built around to benefit from their beauty, the beauty bonus is small enough for this to rarely be relevant. Instead, they are often better used by deconstructing them for their resources.

As a construction[edit]

Steles have some merit in training the construction skill. Have a pawn work on the stele, and right before it finishes, cancel the construction. You will get 75% of the resources back, and your pawn will have spent a lot of time constructing. In order to maximize training, slow your pawn as much as possible, such as by putting them in darkness.

Stats table

Grand stele	Beauty	Work to Build	HP	Flammability	Market Value
Material	Beauty	Work to Build	HP	Flammability	Market Value
Granite blocks	30	096,140 ticks (26.71 mins)	680	0%	570
Limestone blocks	30	096,140 ticks (26.71 mins)	620	0%	570
Marble blocks	41	088,140 ticks (24.48 mins)	480	0%	540
Sandstone blocks	33	080,140 ticks (22.26 mins)	560	0%	515
Slate blocks	33	096,140 ticks (26.71 mins)	520	0%	570
Jade	85	080,000 ticks (22.22 mins)	200	0%	1,540