Character
Your progress goes into three places. The tech tree is paid for with tech points and decides which workbenches, buildings and recipes you have. Inspirations count what you do; buying a level, usually for Faith, gives talent experience, and talent points buy perks on each branch’s talent tree. Other perks are temporary buffs from sermons, food and potions.
The tree holds 236 technologies, 10 of them free nodes that open on reputation alone; 37 more stay hidden until something in the game reveals them. Faith only comes from sermons, at most one a week, and the story asks for some of it too, so decide which inspirations you want before spending it.