How Alchemy Actually Works

Alchemy in Graveyard Keeper 2 has no recipe list to follow. Every ingredient carries a fixed number of red, green and blue runes, every product has a target, and the laboratory makes whatever product the runes you put in add up to. This guide covers that rule and everything around it: what you need before your first mix, how a mix runs, how products are learned, all 29 products with the simplest ingredients for each, and the parts the game never explains. Everything here is read from the game’s code and data tables. Where something follows from the code but has not been checked in play, it says Unconfirmed.

For the tables of every ingredient and its runes, see Alchemy. This page is about how the pieces work together.

The one rule: runes add up

Put up to two ingredients into a Laboratory I, or up to three into a Laboratory II. The game adds their red, green and blue runes colour by colour. If the three totals exactly match a product, you can brew it. If they don’t, the result slot stays empty and nothing can be made.

A few examples:

Ingredients	Runes	Product
Peat	1 1	Dream Dust (1 1)
Water + Blood	1 + 1	Dream Dust (1 1)
Stone	2	Healing Potion (2)
Stone + Stone	2 + 2	Healing Potion II (4)
Marble + Alcohol + Pumpkin	3 + 3 + 3	Philosopher Stone (3 3 3)

What follows from this:

• There are no failed brews. A mix that doesn’t add up can’t be started, so nothing is wasted on it.
• Order doesn’t matter, and the same ingredient can go into several slots. Each copy counts again.
• Quality doesn’t change runes. An Onion is 2 green at every quality, and a Pumpkin is 3 green at every quality.
• Each colour is capped at 5. When you pick an ingredient, the list leaves out anything that would push a colour past 5.
• Nothing ever subtracts. No ingredient has negative runes, so every ingredient you add can only raise the totals.

What you need before the first mix

A laboratory. A Laboratory I already stands in the tower lab at the base, next to a Study Table, a Flask shelf and the Folio. The 3-slot Laboratory II comes from the technology Laboratory II (20 40), which sits behind Battle Potions I. Battle Potions I stays hidden in the tree until Herbert readies you for the first battle (First… Sludge?).

Studied ingredients. An ingredient you have not studied at the Study Table does not appear in the laboratory’s picker at all, and the game does not say why. Studying costs science and sometimes faith, gives tech points, and does not use up the item. The study result window shows the item’s runes. The only exceptions are the 19 Alchemic Powders, which count as studied from the start.

Flasks on the shelf. Every brew uses one flask. Flasks are made by putting empty bottles into the Flask shelf: one Alchemy Flasks I becomes 5 flasks, one Alchemy Flasks II becomes 10. The laboratory only counts flasks stored in the room: on the shelf or in other shared storage there. Flasks in your backpack don’t count.

The ingredients themselves can be in your backpack or in any shared storage in the same room.

Your first mix: the chest in the tower

The chest in the tower lab is a ready-made kit for the Dream Dust that Albert asks for:

In the chest	What it is for
1 Science Kit I, 1 Clean Paper	Decompose them at the Study Table for 30 + 1 science
3 Water, 3 Blood	Water is 1 and Blood is 1: together they are Dream Dust
3 Alchemy Flasks I	15 flasks on the shelf

1. Decompose the Science Kit and the paper at the Study Table.
2. Study Water (1 science; 5 5) and Blood (1 science; 5 10).
3. Put the three Flasks I into the Flask shelf.
4. At the laboratory, put Water in one slot and Blood in the other, and brew.

That is three Dream Dust from what the chest holds, and the quest Sweet Dreams needs one. Dream Dust is also the only product you know from the start: Alchemy, Basic, which the quest gives you for free, reveals it.

How a mix runs

1. Open the laboratory. It only opens its window when no mix is in progress; while one is running, using it works on that mix instead.
2. Fill the slots. The flask picture fills with the running rune totals.
3. Read the result slot. Empty means the runes match no product. A question mark means they match a product you haven’t learned yet, and you can still brew it. An icon means a product you already know.
4. Set the number last. You can queue 1 to 999 brews at once, but changing any ingredient resets the number to 1.
5. Press Mix. The ingredients and flasks for the whole batch are taken at once. Then work the laboratory by hand like any other workbench.

Each brew takes 3 progress cells. Every hit moves it forward by your blue mastery, at least 1 and at most 3, so with blue mastery 3 each brew takes one hit. Blue mastery is your blue talent plus two tools on your hotbar: an alchemist’s kit (Starter +1, Alchemist’s +2, Good +4) and a surgeon’s kit (Butcher’s +1, Surgeon’s +2, Master Surgeon’s +4). The hotbar holds only one kit of each kind. Mastery never locks you out of a mix: the requirement shown in the window is always 0.

Each finished potion drops on the floor next to the laboratory, together with its tech points. Mixing has no energy cost in the data (Unconfirmed in play).

How products are learned

A product becomes “known” in two ways, and both lead to the same result:

• Brew it once. Brewing a question-mark result reveals the product: from then on the laboratory shows its icon and the Folio lists it.
• Buy a technology that reveals it. The table below lists which one.

The technology does not gate the brew. The laboratory checks three things before it lets you start: that the runes match a product, that you have the ingredients, and that there are enough flasks. Whether you know the product does not matter. So a Stone brews a Healing Potion the day you get the laboratory, long before Battle Potions I. What the technologies really give you is the target runes, so you know what to aim for. (Read from the game’s code; Unconfirmed in play.)

The four grade III battle potions (Healing, Damage, Zombie Motivator and Berserker Potion III) are revealed by no technology at all. The only way to learn them is to brew them.

The Folio has two kinds of pages. The product pages list each known product with its target runes, but not the ingredients. The red, green and blue pages list every ingredient you have studied with its runes. Powders never appear there, because they count as studied without being studied. Between the two, you can plan a mix without hovering over items.

All 29 products

“Slots” is the fewest ingredients the product can be made from with the ingredients listed. Products that need 3 can only be made in a Laboratory II. Every product can also be made from Alchemic Powders, which the Apothecary sells.

Product	Runes	Slots	Simplest ingredients
Dream Dust	1 1	1	Peat or Ash; Water + Blood
Paint	2	1	Flour, Onion or Swamp mushroom; Water + Water
Lacquer	2	1	Minced Meat, Night flower or Zombie goo; Blood + Blood
Healing Potion	2	1	Stone or Red Mushroom; Clay + Sand
Healing Potion II	4	2	Stone + Stone
Healing Potion III	5	2	Stone + Iron Ore or Marble
Damage Potion	1 1	1	Flax or Tooth
Damage Potion II	2 2	2	Stone + Flour; Flax + Flax
Damage Potion III	3 3	2	Marble + Pumpkin; Coal + Copper Nugget
Zombie Motivator Potion	1 1	2	Clay + Blood
Zombie Motivator Potion II	1 2	2	Clay + Night flower
Zombie Motivator Potion III	3 3	2	Iron Ore + Alcohol
Berserker Potion	1 1 1	1	Salt or Cheese
Berserker Potion II	2 1 1	2	Stone + Peat; Salt + Clay
Berserker Potion III	3 2 2	3	Marble + Ash + Ash
Weak growth elixir	1 2	1	Coal or Beeswax
Rich growth elixir	1 3	2	Coal + Water
Miracle growth elixir	1 5	2	Coal + Pumpkin
Preservative	3	1	Pumpkin or Fragrance
Organ Improver (red skull)	4 1	2	Stone + Copper Nugget; Iron Ore + Flax
Organ Improver (white skull)	4	2	Flour + Flour
Explosive Dust	2 2	2	Stone + Night flower; Blood + Tin
Spices	2 2	2	Ash + Ash; Peat + Peat
Third Eye Salt	1 5	3	Alcohol + Clay + Night flower
Reanimation Liquid	2 1 4	3	Stone + Alcohol + Ash
Tannin Liquid	4 2 1	3	Marble + Ash + Flax
Alkali	1 4 2	3	Ash + Ash + Coal
Umami	4 4	3	Alcohol + Ash + Pumpkin
Philosopher Stone	3 3 3	3	Marble + Alcohol + Pumpkin

Third Eye Salt and the first two Zombie Motivator Potions need fewer slots if you use Alchemic Powders or top-grade hearts, which carry 1 red and 2 blue.

Where each product comes from and what it is for:

Product	Revealed by	Used for
Dream Dust	Alchemy, Basic	Albert’s quest; Fancy Incense, fertilizer, and summoning the fairy
Paint	Paint, given by Safe Harbor	That quest for Linda; Printed Money
Lacquer	Lacquer, given by Varnish Before You Fiddle	That quest for Albert; Live Bait
Healing Potion, Damage Potion	Battle Potions I	Fights
Healing Potion II, Zombie Motivator Potion, Berserker Potion	Battle Potions II	Fights
Damage Potion II, Zombie Motivator Potion II, Berserker Potion II	Battle Potions III	Fights
All four grade III battle potions	Nothing: brew them to learn them	Fights
Growth elixirs	Fertilizers II, III, IV	Fertilizers at the Formulation Bench
Preservative	Embalming I	The four embalming mixtures
Organ Improvers	Practical Potions	Turning an organ into its top-grade version
Explosive Dust	Dynamite	Dynamite
Spices, Third Eye Salt	Transmutation I	Spices raise a dish or drink from one star to two; Third Eye Salt is drunk
Umami, Philosopher Stone	Alchemy, Advanced	Umami raises two stars to three; one Philosopher Stone turns one Iron Ore into a Golden nugget, or one Iron Ingot into a Golden ingot
Reanimation Liquid	Reanimation Liquid	Raising a zombie
Tannin Liquid, Alkali	Crafting Potions	Steel armour and the steel sword

Tech points from brewing

Every brew pays tech points equal to the product’s runes: a Healing Potion gives 2, Dream Dust 1 1, a Philosopher Stone 3 3 3. The payout depends only on the product, not on what went into it, so the cheapest ingredients that reach a product earn the same points as the dearest.

The running cost is one flask per brew, and 2 Glass at a furnace make 2 Flasks I, which is 10 flasks. Two Blood make a Lacquer, which pays 2. Each brew at the laboratory also counts towards the Alchemist inspiration.

Drinking potions

The battle potions can only be drunk during a fight. Drinking one grade removes any other grade of the same potion from you.

Potion	Effect	I / II / III
Healing Potion	Restores health	20 / 40 / 100
Damage Potion	+3 damage per grade to your sword, bow and spear	30 seconds each
Berserker Potion	Sword and bow attacks cost no stamina	15 / 30 / 45 seconds
Zombie Motivator Potion	Your zombies in the fight attack twice as fast	15 / 30 / 60 seconds

The higher grades of the Berserker and Zombie Motivator Potions last longer but are no stronger: all three grades set the same effect. Third Eye Salt is the one product you can use at any time: +2 to all five talents for 450 seconds (7½ minutes). Every potion and salt you drink counts towards the Bottle Tester inspiration.

Buying and selling

• The Apothecary sells Alchemy Flasks I and nine of the Alchemic Powders at first tier, and all 19 powders plus Alcohol from its second tier. The powders cover every combination of up to three runes, so with enough of them you can brew anything without studying a single ingredient.
• The Alchemist sells finished products and science kits. The Astrologer also sells Reanimation Liquid.
• Selling potions for money runs into the Alchemist’s cash. A trade only goes through if the trader can pay the difference. The Alchemist starts with 100 copper and gains 20, 50 or 100 a day depending on its tier, while a single Philosopher Stone is worth up to 50 silver. Buy something from the same stall in the same trade and you only need to cover the difference.