Graveyard
The graveyard is where you bury the bodies the donkey brings. Every grave has a quality, set by the body’s skulls and by the gravestone and fence you put on it. The graveyard’s quality is the total of everything inside its Grave Areas. Graveyard quality raises the money a successful sermon pays, and Grave Expectations asks for 10 of it.
Burying a body
- At the graveyard’s blueprint table, place an Empty Grave. It costs nothing, but it can only go on a grave spot inside a Grave Area.
- Dig it out with a shovel.
- Carry the body over your head to the pit and interact with it to lay the body in.
- Fill the grave with the shovel. The body’s Burial Certificate drops next to the grave.
- Open the grave to add a gravestone (top slot) and a fence (bottom slot) from your backpack.
Digging and filling each drop 2 red tech points, and every filled grave counts toward the inspiration Last Respects.
Grave quality
Every body carries white skulls (good) and red skulls (bad), added up from its organs and the items in its pockets. For a grave:
- Decorations add quality: the gravestone’s and the fence’s quality together.
- Each red skull takes one point off. A grave can go below zero.
- White skulls are the ceiling. However good the decorations, a grave never scores more than the body’s white skulls.
Exact formula
Grave quality = the lower of (gravestone + fence − red skulls) and white skulls.
Example: a body with 3 red and 3 white skulls, under a Wooden Cross I (2) and a Wooden Fence I (1), scores 2 + 1 − 3 = 0. Take the fat and blood out of its pockets first (1 red skull each) and the same grave scores 2.
To raise a grave’s score, lower the body’s red skulls on the autopsy table before burying it. Pocket items are the easy part: Fat and Blood carry a red skull each, while Flesh carries a white one, so leave the flesh in.
In the demo you can only make three decorations: the Wooden Sign (1), the Wooden Cross I (2) and the Wooden Fence I (1). A demo grave therefore scores 3 at most. The sign is given to you by the story; the cross and fence need the technology Wooden Gravestones I.
Graveyard quality
Only what stands inside a Grave Area counts. You start with one Grave Area already built, which cannot be removed, and you can build a second one. Within an area:
- Each grave adds its quality.
- An open pit or a grave with an unfilled body counts −3.
- Exterior benches go on the bench spots of a Grave Area. Exterior Bench I adds 3.
Each time graveyard quality reaches a new high, the gain counts toward the inspiration for graveyard quality. Tearing things down and rebuilding them does not count twice.
Other ways to get rid of a body
| Burial Certificate | Tech points | Also gives | Graveyard quality | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burial | Yes | 2 red for digging, 2 for filling | Last Respects progress | The grave’s quality |
| Crematorium I | Yes | 1 red, 2 blue | 5 Ash, 1 Salt | None |
| Throwing it in the river | No | None | Nothing | None |
The crematorium comes from the technology Body Places I and stands in the morgue. Everything still inside the body burns with it. The river only takes bodies at two fixed spots near the graveyard.
A body left lying on the ground disappears by itself after 75 minutes of real time spent off screen, about 10 in-game days. You get nothing for it.
Exhuming
To dig a body back up, remove the gravestone and the fence first, then use Exhume in the grave window. It uses up an Exhumation Certificate, which Januarius sells.
Notes
- Fill graves promptly. An open pit and an unfilled grave each cost 3 graveyard quality until you finish them.
- Better bodies are not easier to bury. Higher-tier bodies carry more white skulls, but also more red ones.
- Cremation does not count as a burial for the achievement for burying 50 bodies, and it adds nothing to the graveyard.
- Putting on a gravestone or fence is Building work. Wooden ones need Building mastery 1, so keep an axe or pickaxe on your toolbar (see Mastery).
- A filled grave cannot be removed. Only an empty pit can be taken down again.