Church, Sermons and Faith: The Complete Wrath-Day Playbook

The church is the one business on your books that runs on a congregation instead of corpses, and its sermons are your only Faith mine for the whole game. Faith pays for Stories, zombie collars, PR runs, milestones and above all inspirations, so a lazy church slows every other system. Here is how to run it like the gravedigger-accountant you are.

How to restore the church (Holy Moly!)

The Nun only arrives after Jack’s boat sails at the end of Jack in a Boat. She then waits in the Village Tavern. Meeting her starts Holy Moly! and hands you the free Church Cleaning technology; the quest also opens the Theology tab.

The church starts about 33 points in the red: 13 broken pots and 4 Blockages at -2 each, softened only by the Donation box’s +1. Holy Moly! asks for Church quality 10.

At quality 10 the Nun decides you should preach yourself, so you hold the first service. This introductory sermon can happen on any day; every later one waits for Wrath. Holy Moly! pays out the Basic Prayer, 2 Town Gratitude, a bronze Story, the Priest’s Clothes, +10 Nun reputation and the Words of Faith achievement.

How sermons work: attendance, success and payout

Go to the lectern on Wrath, choose Pray and pick a prayer carried in your backpack. Prayers left in a chest do not appear in the list. On any other day the Keeper just tells you the ceremony is available on Wrath.

Attendance is the lower number, not the sum

Parishioners equal the lower of your Likes and your Church quality. The tooltip draws the two values with a “+” sign, which fools a lot of players, but the second tutorial page states it plainly: the smaller number wins. Everyone who can come does come, and each parishioner spends one Like. You cannot hold Likes back for next week.

The success roll

Every prayer has two thresholds: Need to start (the minimum crowd) and Guaranteed success. Your success chance is parishioners divided by the guaranteed number, capped at 100%, and the roll happens the moment you press Start.

What a sermon pays

• Always: parishioners × base Faith (rounded to nearest, halves up) and parishioners × base coins.
• On success: parishioners × success Faith, plus your Graveyard quality × success coins, plus the prayer’s blessing if it has one.

A failed sermon still pays the base part. Graveyard quality only feeds the success coin bonus: it never adds a single parishioner or a single point of Faith. The Faith drops on the floor in front of the lectern, and the coins go into the Donation box. Prayers are never consumed, so one copy lasts the whole game.

Three worked examples, all past the sure-success mark: the Basic Prayer at 10 parishioners pays 3 + 3 = 6 Faith; at 20 it pays 5 + 6 = 11; a bronze Faith Prayer at 20 pays 6 + 8 = 14.

How to get more Likes (the cap you will actually hit)

Likes never decay: sermons are the only thing that drains them. They are capped by Town quality, and anything you earn above the cap simply vanishes. The cap is 10 after Certificate, Please, 20 once the Port opens, then +1 per Green Scroll that Linda turns into new residents on Lust, up to 200 (10 + 10 + 180). Restoring Town houses is therefore the single biggest Faith upgrade in the game, even though it never touches the church.

Likes themselves come from Town Gratitude items (+5 each, from battle wins, quests and Januarius), Town orders (10 to 75 each, accepted on Pride), Likes-icon goods sold to traders and Burial Certificates. Patch 1.008 raised most of these payouts.

Town Gratitude is the only way to store Likes: keep the stack in your backpack and use it on Wrath morning, up to the cap, because using it on a full counter throws the surplus away. Every source, every number and Linda’s reputation gates are in the Town Gratitude and Likes guide; the crates behind orders are in the orders guide.

Best prayer for Faith at every attendance

Faith Prayer and Money Prayer both come with Religious Writing I (5 red, 5 green, 20 blue). From 15 parishioners up, the Faith Prayer pays more Faith than any other prayer you can write; the only question is which grade.

“Expected” means the average once the success roll is factored in. With Priest and Performer, a bronze Faith Prayer already edges out the Basic Prayer on average from 7 parishioners.

Keep one copy of each grade

This is the classic mid-game sermon trap. A prayer’s grade is rolled from your Book writing mastery when you write it (plus a few head-start steps), not chosen, and once you meet the requirement (8 for the Faith Prayer) every step succeeds and the prayer always comes out gold. A gold Faith Prayer needs 50 parishioners just to start, so a high-mastery Keeper with 30 Likes ends up holding a beautiful prayer nobody can attend.

The fix:

• Write a bronze and a silver Faith Prayer early, while your mastery is still low, and keep all three grades in your backpack.
• Below the requirement, each step succeeds with odds of about mastery ÷ requirement. The Faith Prayer has 14 steps and needs 2, 8 and 12 successes for bronze, silver and gold. Fewer than 2 and the craft fails, taking the Story with it.
• Take off mastery tools and jewelry before writing a low grade, use bronze materials (a silver ingredient adds 1 free step, a gold one 2), and write your low copies before taking Scribe, Voice of Faith (+4 mastery each) or Sermon writer (+2 free steps).
• There is no grade selector, and a zombie writer is not a reliable workaround.

Each extra copy costs about 3 Faith plus paper and ink, once. Plan the materials with the crafting calculator.

Writing prayers at the Writing Desk

• The Writing Desk needs Writing Basic (5 red, 5 green). Place it from the Writing Room Blueprint Desk in the Writing Basement for 4 Wooden Plank, 6 Bronze Nails and 1 Polished Bronze.
• Every prayer costs 1 Story, 1 Ink and paper: 3 Clean Paper for the Faith and Money Prayers, a Blank Softcover Notebook for most others, a Blank Hardcover Notebook for the Hypno Prayer.
• A Story costs 3 Faith, 2 Clean Paper and 1 Ink (Books I, Book writing 6).
• Book writing requirement (at or above it, every step succeeds): Faith, Money, Storms and Repose 8; Combo, Combat and Harvest 10; Excellence 14; Hypno 16.

The full text of every prayer and sermon lives in the prayers list.

Prayer for Storms and the other blessing prayers

Some prayers trade a little Faith for a timed blessing. Blessings last 45 minutes at bronze, 90 at silver and 99:59 at gold (shown as “100 min” in game). The game does not make clear whether that timer counts game time or real time, so cash in a blessing right after the sermon.

Religious Writing II sits behind the Newspaper tech, which needs 20 reputation with Gunter even though the tree label says 30.

Prayer for Storms: the Necromancer’s shortcut

Normally the Resurrection device works only on Envy, with one charge a week. A successful Prayer for Storms sermon grants God of the storms for 90 minutes, and during that window the device works on any day, any number of times. That turns one Wrath into a second resurrection day.

• Unlock: Reanimation stays hidden until you repair the Resurrection device. The same tech also gives the Bronze Zombie Collar and Resurrection Table I.
• Write it: 1 Story, 1 Blank Softcover Notebook, 1 Ink, Book writing 8. It has a single grade, so the gold-only trap does not apply.
• Crowd: 20 to start, 40 for a sure success. At 20 the blessing is a coin flip.
• Price: at 40 parishioners it pays 16 + 12 = 28 Faith, against 36 for a silver Faith Prayer, so each Storms week costs you about 8 Faith. The gap grows with the crowd: at 100 it pays 70 against 110 for a gold Faith Prayer. It pays better in coins (20 bronze per head, plus 30 per graveyard quality point on success, against 5 and 10 for the silver Faith Prayer).
• Prepare before Wrath: bodies on the tables, collars crafted, Reanimation Liquid ready. Preach, pick up your Faith, then go straight to the lab.

A Storms sermon still counts as a sermon, so Shepherd of Souls and Necromancer advance on the same Wrath. Just remember that every new zombie pushes you toward the limit (see Excessive zombies below). For resurrection details, see the zombies guide.

Hypno Prayer: the panic button

A successful Hypno Prayer switches the Excessive zombies penalty off at once, and it stays off even after the blessing ends: it only returns once a check clears the debuff and a later one applies it again. The blessing lands after the payout, so the Hypno sermon itself is still taxed; the gain shows from the next Wrath. The catch is the crowd: 60 parishioners just to start a bronze copy, 120 for a sure one. Until you get there, the PR Machine does this job. Mind the gold-only trap here too: at Book writing 16 every copy comes out gold, which needs 160 to start and 220 for a sure success, and Likes never reach 220.

The rest of the blessings

The Prayer for Excellence gives +1 mastery in Building, Smithing, Farming, Book writing and Anatomy, so line up a crafting session right after it. Repose and Harvest pay off only if corpses or crops are actually due during the blessing. Treat the Combat Prayer with suspicion for Sloth battles: most Town battles are fought on Sloth, sermons happen on Wrath, and nobody has confirmed the blessing survives that gap. The fights that still run on any day by then (Sewer Brawl I and II, the Sewerena and Break Through to the Bathhouse Basement) are the exception: start one right after the sermon while God’s fury is fresh (see the battles guide).

The best weekly sermon schedule

The week has six days: Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Envy, Pride, Wrath. The church only holds services on the last one, but the other five decide how many people walk in. Full day-by-day planning lives in the weekly calendar guide.

Which prayer, which week: default to the Faith Prayer grade that fits your crowd. Swap to Prayer for Storms when you have several bodies and collars ready and at least 20 (ideally 40) parishioners. Swap to a bronze Hypno Prayer when Excessive zombies is active, the PR Machine cannot cover it and you can seat 60, accepting that this one sermon still pays the taxed rate. Everything else is a luxury.

Best church decoration build

Quality per piece

What each piece costs:

Build by stage

• Early: Candelabra I and Church Smells I give only +1 each, so they are the last pieces to buy. Build them later, or for inspiration progress.
• Mid game: Church Carpets needs 30 Nun reputation and opens Bench II. Bench II and Confession Booth II are the cheap jumps toward the 50 that See You in Church asks for.
• Late game: Church Illumination needs 50 Nun reputation. After it, Church Furniture III opens Confession Booth III (+15 each) and Church Smells III (+10 each), the biggest single upgrades. Once Improve the Church III is done, place the four extra shrines: they are the most commonly forgotten slots.
• Reaching 200: furniture alone stops at 189, so only a staffed Choir and Organ get you there. That matters for a sure gold Prayer for Excellence (200 parishioners) and for the last Sacred Interior level. Anything past 200 adds nobody, since Likes stop at 200, and a gold Hypno Prayer’s 220 stays out of reach either way.

Improve the Church upgrades

Carved Stone and Carved Marble each cost 1 Faith per batch of 4 at the Stonemason’s Workbench, so Improve the Church II and III need a single Faith each.

Choir and Organ

The Choir costs 4 Oiled Plank, 2 Bronze Detail and 4 Music Notes (2 Clean Paper and 1 Ink each, at the Writing Desk). It is worth 1 plus each of its up to five zombies. The Organ costs 4 Special Wood and 6 Steel Detail during Organic Music, and is worth 5 plus its one zombie.

A plain zombie counts 1. The Novice Musician, Skilled Musician and Maestro perks (10, 25 and 50 blue zombie tech points) raise that to 2, 4 and 7. Five Maestros in the Choir and one at the Organ add 36 + 12, which is how a church reaches 237. If Church Music I or II is missing from your tree, start The Nun Also Reads or Organic Music: the techs show up with their quests.

Candles and incense

Candles and incense are spent once, when you build the candelabra or burner. Nothing needs refilling. At the Formulation Bench (unlocked by Church Lighting I):

• Simple, Pretty and Magnificent Candles: 2, 3 and 4 Beeswax plus 1 Flax Thread.
• Simple Incense: Melted Fat and Fragrance. Fancy Incense adds Dream Dust.
• Fragrance: 2 Rhododendron, 2 Clay Urn and 20 Fuel at the Distillation Cube, 3 per batch.

Three Theology inspirations ride on the build: Sacred Interior (church quality records of 10, 20, 30, 60, 120 and 200; 49 Faith to claim it all), Church Builder (the three Improve the Church upgrades; 26 Faith) and Church Supplier (candles, incense, Music Notes and carpets; 23 Faith). The last Sacred Interior level is fussy: a player with church quality exactly 200 sat at 199 out of 200, so push past 200 with musician zombies in the Choir and Organ.

Excessive zombies: the hidden sermon tax

Your zombie limit equals the quality of the Resurrection Lab. It starts at 0, so the story zombies alone already put you over it. When the game checks and finds you above the limit, the per-head rates of every regular prayer shrink: base and success Faith lose up to 0.5 per parishioner, and coin rates lose 3 to 18 bronze.

• A silver Faith Prayer at 40 parishioners drops from 36 Faith to 8.
• A gold Faith Prayer at 100 drops from 110 to 30.

The check only happens when a PR run starts or ends, when God of delusions ends, and at two steps of Congregation Trouble. Resurrecting does not trigger it on its own.

Runs II to V need the PR Machine upgraded to that tier, which takes materials only, no technology. Each Charged hypno-device costs 1 Faith to charge. Runs are loaded on Gluttony and end at the end of Wrath. Patch 1.008 fixed runs that ended earlier than stated, but some players have since seen the calendar skip a Gluttony, so check your run is active before you preach. More in the zombies guide.

Faith budget: earning it and spending it

Your weekly income is the prayer table above: 6 Faith a week at the opening, 11 to 14 once the Port opens (14 with a bronze Faith Prayer), 36 with a silver Faith Prayer at 40 parishioners, 220 at the 200 cap (300 with Priest and Performer). Budget against that number.

Where Faith goes

Milestones and device charging only take Faith from your backpack, never from a chest, so carry what you plan to spend.

Spending order

• Early: keep 3 Faith for Herbert before you touch inspirations, then the 1-Faith milestones and the free first inspiration levels.
• Mid game: Faith becomes the bottleneck between collars, Stories, hypno-devices and studies. Claim the inspirations that unlock the mastery you need right now; level costs climb fast (one Steel Maker level costs 250).
• For Stroke of Genius: 150 of the 382 inspiration levels are enough, so spread Faith across cheap early levels rather than deep expensive ones.

Theology perks for preachers

• Priest first, on your first Theology point after the Mastery 1 node: +0.1 to +0.5 base Faith per head depending on the prayer (+0.2, +0.2 and +0.3 on the three Faith Prayer grades).
• Cardinal: about +20% base coins.
• Performer: +0.1 success Faith per head and +10 to 20% success coins. It needs the Mastery 3 node, which itself needs Priest and Cardinal.
• Good fellow: a permanent +10 zombie limit, worth an early point if you keep about 10 zombies. An active penalty only lifts at the next check, so run the PR Machine once after taking it. Happy supplier, right after it, adds Likes to every town order.

The Theology tree has 19 nodes but you only ever earn 18 points for it, so plan to skip one. See talents and inspirations and tech priorities for the full plan.

Church quests in order

1. Holy Moly!: Church quality 10, first sermon.
2. Nun of Your Business: 5 Clean Paper and 2 Ink for +10 Nun reputation. Added to Holy Moly!’s +10, that makes the 20 The Nun Also Reads asks for.
3. The Nun with the Hairy Ass: Graveyard quality 20 and a repaired Underground Well under the Crossroads manhole (2 Polished Bronze, 4 Polished Stone) to restore corpse deliveries. It pays another +10 Nun reputation.
4. Herbert and?, then The Nun Also Reads: 20 Nun reputation, build the Choir, preach on Wrath with a zombie in the Choir. The Choir needs Church Music I, which sits after Church Carpets and its Nun 30 gate, so finish The Nun with the Hairy Ass too. Reader for a Warrior follows.
5. Congregation Trouble: buy a Hypno-device, charge it with 1 Faith, return it, hold a test sermon on Wrath and receive the PR Machine. Handing in the device runs a zombie-limit check, which is usually when Excessive zombies first appears.
6. Notorious Nun, after the election, then See You in Church: Church quality 50.
7. Organic Music: fix Harold’s machine in the Stilt Houses (2 Building Kit I and 1 Iron Kit II), then build the Organ.
8. A Good Example is the Best Sermon: preach with a zombie at the Organ.

Stuck on any of these? The progression troubleshooting guide covers every gate.

Church achievements

• Words of Faith: your first sermon. About four players in five have it.
• Shepherd of Souls: 50 sermons, currently the rarest achievement in the game (fewer than 2 players in 100 have it). At one sermon a week it takes roughly 50 Wrath days, so start counting from your very first Wrath and never skip one. Blessing sermons such as Prayer for Storms count too.
• Necromancer: 50 resurrections, faster with Prayer for Storms weeks as long as you have the bodies.

Common mistakes

• Building a big church while Likes are capped at 10 or 20. Those seats stay empty.
• Reading the tooltip’s “+” as addition. Attendance is the lower value.
• Leaving the prayer, the Faith or the Town Gratitude in a chest. Sermons, milestones and charging only see the backpack.
• Walking off without the Faith on the floor or the coins in the Donation box.
• Using Town Gratitude on a full Likes counter. The surplus is gone for good.
• Writing only gold prayers. Keep a bronze and a silver Faith Prayer, written before your mastery perks.
• Building the Choir or the Organ but forgetting to put a zombie in it before the quest sermon.
• Missing a Wrath. There is no make-up sermon, and Shepherd of Souls slips by a full week.
• Letting the zombie count creep over the limit. The penalty lands at the next check (a PR run starting or ending), and one sermon can then lose half to about three quarters of its Faith.
• Selling Faith to Homobonus or buying Stories from the Captain. Both are terrible rates.
• Hunting for Votive Candle Stands. Nothing unlocks them in version 1.008.