Reputation

Reputation is how much a character trusts you. Most important characters keep their own reputation with you. The people of the village share one village reputation: Januarius, Herm, the twins and the town’s traders all read the same number. You can see it on a character’s portrait, as a number with a bar that fills at 100.

You earn reputation with a character by finishing their quests, 10 at a time. Village reputation comes in smaller steps: 5 from each of three early quests, and 2 or 3 each time you build or upgrade one of the traders’ shops in the town. Reputation is never spent: everything that asks for it only checks the number.

What reputation unlocks

Reputation technologies

Some nodes on the tech tree show a character’s portrait and a number instead of a price. You do not buy these. They unlock by themselves once your reputation with that character reaches the number, and the technologies behind them become available to buy.

There is a catch: the game only checks these nodes when you open the tech tree (or buy something in it). Reaching the number gives no message, and nothing changes until you next open the tree.

Quests and answers

Many quests only let you continue once your reputation is high enough. The answer shows a lock icon until you reach it. The first ones come early: the twins in Jack in a Boat and Good Fellow both need 10 village reputation. Later checks ask for much more, up to 90 or 100 near the end of the story.

Reputation across the game

Character	Most you can get	Reputation technologies	Other things it opens
Village	101: 15 from quests, 86 from the twelve traders’ shops	none	10: the twins’ rowing and Good Fellow
Herbert	100	20: Reinforced Plank, Bronze Equipment	55 and 60: the election
Jack	100	40: Circular Saw; 50: Conveyors; 70: Steel Smithing	60: the PR Agreement, his calculations and asking for a fragment; 80: the fragment
Agatha, the Nun	100	25: Stone Gravestones I, Graveyard Decor I; 30: Church Carpets; 50: Church Illumination	10, 20, 30 and 40: her own quests, ending with second-tier corpses
Gunter	100	20: Writing Tools I, Newspaper, Reanimation Liquid	10: his zombies; 20 and 30: the Necronomicon; 45 and 50: the election
Albert, the Plague Doctor	100	10: Alchemy, Basic, given with his first quest	50: Linda’s visit
Linda	100	none	10 to 40: bringing new people to town; 55 and 60: the election

Gunter’s two nodes on the tree are named for 30 and 40, but both open at 20. Agatha’s reputation only rises in steps of 10, so her 25 node opens at 30. Village reputation above 10 is only a number on the portrait: nothing else checks it.

Before you reach the town, only three quests raise village reputation: Herm’s Planted and Delivered, the twins’ Two Peas in a Pod and opening the tower door for Albert. The first two are the ones you can reach before the twins, so do both to get them rowing.

The six at the end

Near the end of the story, Herbert, Jack, Agatha, Gunter, Albert and Linda each have to agree to help you, in Gluttony and Pride, Wrath and Sloth and Lust and Envy. What they ask for depends on what you did with the Old God’s red eye: 90 reputation with each of the six if you gave it back, 100 if you kept it.

Each of the six has ten quests that give reputation. Nine of them are on the normal story path, so 90 means doing every one of those. The tenth belongs to the dark path you take when you keep the eye, and it gives the last 10.