Talents and Inspirations: Which Perks to Buy and What They Cost in Faith

The short version

1. Claim every free level. 58 inspiration levels cost no Faith: level I of 52 inspirations plus level II of six of them. That is two to four talent points in each tree before you spend anything.
2. Pay the story first. Keep 3 Faith for Herbert’s Fighting Spirit Required, and bank 100 for Goddess in the Swamp later in the main story.
3. Open each tree with its first mastery node, then buy Priest (Book writing) and Researcher (Anatomy).
4. Buy cheap chains before expensive levels. Chill Guy and Older Scrolls finish for 4 Faith each; Steel Maker wants 775.
5. Raise mastery with tools before talents. A steel axe, pickaxe, hammer or shovel in the belt adds +6, more than all five mastery nodes of its tree combined.
6. Do not plan to finish the Farming tree. It has 21 nodes and the green inspirations only pay for 18 of them.

Talents vs technology: two trees, two currencies

Graveyard Keeper 2 runs two progression systems that look alike and take different money. The tech tree, in six tabs of the Character window, is paid with red, green and blue tech points from crafting, gathering, autopsies and the Study Table. It decides which recipes and blueprints exist for you. The five talent trees are paid with inspiration points, and they decide two things: your mastery in each craft and the perks that bend the rules (more ingots per smelt, cheaper studies, more Faith per sermon).

Why you need both

A normal recipe cannot be started below its mastery requirement, no matter how much technology you own. Star crafts (Stories, prayers, newspapers, embalming mixes) and autopsies can be attempted from mastery 1, with each tick succeeding at roughly your mastery divided by the requirement; too few successes and the craft fails.

Mastery also buys speed. Every tick moves the progress bar by your mastery divided by the requirement, rounded down and capped at 3. At double the requirement a craft takes half the ticks and half the energy; at triple, a third. Extra mastery therefore pays in steps: 1.5 times the requirement is no faster than exactly meeting it, and anything past triple adds nothing.

Technology unlocks inspirations

The link runs both ways: several inspirations stay hidden until a technology or quest opens them, so research feeds your talent bars.

For the order to research all of this, see the tech priorities guide.

How inspirations turn into talent points

Each inspiration counts one kind of action: beers drunk, bodies buried, steel items crafted, bridges crossed. When the counter reaches a level’s goal, open the Inspirations menu and claim it. The claim costs between 0 and 250 Faith and adds 1 notch to the bar of that colour, usually 2 for the last level of a chain. A full bar turns into 1 inspiration point for the tree of the same colour.

Goals are running totals that never reset. If you have already buried 25 bodies, Last Respects levels I to IV are all waiting for you at once, so you lose nothing by claiming later, when the Faith is there.

The first three points are cheap; after that every point costs a flat five notches. Claiming 150 levels earns the Stroke of Genius achievement, and the 150 cheapest levels in the game add up to only 129 Faith.

Faith cost of each talent tree

Every node in every tree costs exactly 1 point, so the real price of a tree is the Faith behind its inspirations. Our arithmetic from each inspiration’s level table:

What the table means in play:

• Smithing is the Faith sink. Steel Maker (775) and Undead Power (310) make up 1,085 of its 1,728 Faith. The 18th red node needs 84 of the 86 red notches, so the cheapest route skips only Steel Maker VI. On that route the 16th red point costs 125 Faith, the 17th 255 and the 18th 550.
• That cheap Smithing route counts on battle keys. It needs Key Collector VI, which asks for 65 battle keys, while the Bathhouse fight, both Sewer Brawls and all seven Sewerena rounds pay 51 between them. If those last keys never come, skip Key Collector VI and claim Steel Maker VI instead: the full red tree then costs 1,678 Faith.
• Farming can never be finished in 1.008. 87 green notches buy 18 points for 21 nodes, so three green perks stay locked for good. Pick them on purpose (see below).
• Book writing needs every yellow claim, including Holy Routine VI (100 sermons, which at one sermon per Wrath means about 100 in-game weeks) and Milestone Hunter VI (11 milestones, 64 Faith). Plan for 17 yellow points. It is also not settled that sermons advance Holy Routine at all; if they do not, the yellow tree stops at 16.
• Building and Anatomy have slack: 3 spare orange points and 5 spare blue ones (2 if you take the three hidden Anatomy perks).

Count Tool Upgrade I, II and III as three entries and you get 73 inspirations instead of 71; the levels and Faith are the same.

What to claim first when Faith is short

Early Faith is a trickle. A Basic Prayer at 10 parishioners pays 6 Faith a week, a bronze Faith Prayer at 20 parishioners 14, and the same Faith also buys Stories (3 each), zombie collars (3, 5 or 10) and charged hypno-devices (1 each). So spend in this order:

1. The 3 Faith for Fighting Spirit Required.
2. Every free level, in every tree.
3. The cheap full chains below.
4. Paid levels in the tree whose mastery you need right now.
5. Hold 100 Faith back for Goddess in the Swamp once the main story approaches it.

How to grow the weekly Faith income is covered in the church, sermons and Faith guide.

The cheapest full chains

Chill Guy pays you, in talent notches, for drinking twenty beers. The Keeper would like it noted that this counts as study.

Least Faith for your Nth point

Minimum Faith to reach a number of points in one tree, claiming the cheapest levels first. You still have to reach each goal; this is only the bill.

Chains to leave for later

Steel Maker charges 25 Faith for level I and 250 for level VI, over 110 Faith per notch, against 1 Faith per notch for Chill Guy. Leave it, Undead Power (310), the Researcher inspiration (181), Alchemist, Distiller and Formula Master (176 each), Milestone Hunter (126) and Iron Worker (110) until sermons pay well.

Best talents to unlock first

Our picks for each tree, from what every perk actually does in 1.008. The game calls the yellow tree Book writing; you will also see it called Theology, like the church tech tab.

Priest goes first in yellow because it adds base Faith to every sermon you preach with a Basic Prayer or a Faith Prayer, the prayers that pay the most Faith, for the rest of the game; with Priest and Performer a gold Faith Prayer at 200 parishioners pays 300 Faith instead of 220. Researcher makes the Study Table, your biggest supply of tech points, far cheaper in energy. Good fellow earns an early investment as soon as you keep around ten zombies, because the extra limit is permanent: count 3 points for it, since Book writing mastery nodes 1 and 2 stand in front.

Talent points needed for +5 mastery

Each tree holds five mastery nodes at +1 each, and they sit behind specific perks. To own all five you must buy these perks too:

The yellow fifth mastery node is the very last node of the tree, which is why Book writing mastery climbs so slowly from talents and leans on tools instead.

Combat talents

Every combat perk the Keeper can actually buy lives in Smithing. Sword Master adds +2 damage per sword hit (+3 with the Master Sword). War Engineer, right behind it, adds +4, +4 and +6 damage per arrow to Archer Towers I, II and III and +1, +2 and +3 retaliation to Spiked Barricades. War Supplier, behind the fifth Smithing mastery node, gives towers +50, +100 and +100 health and every barricade +10% health. Defense Architect (barricades and towers built) and Key Collector (battle keys picked up) are the two combat inspirations, both red. Squad and structure planning is in the battles and army guide.

Every way to raise mastery

Mastery is the sum of what you own, what you carry and what you just ate.

Tools count from the tool belt, not only in your hand, but only one tool of each kind does. That caps tools at two per mastery: axe and pickaxe, hammer and small tools, shovel and rod, book and talisman, kits for Anatomy. Upgrade those before chasing the deep mastery nodes: a single steel axe outweighs all five Building mastery nodes.

Mastery checkpoints worth planning for

The Smithing 15 for Masterwork Equipment adds up neatly: five Smithing mastery nodes (+5), a Steel Hammer (+6) and Steel tools (+4) make 15. Tempering Expert is not optional: it is the perk that unlocks Master Sword and Master Armor crafting, and its +2 on steel work then gives you margin. It sits behind Miner, Gold Digger and the fourth Smithing mastery node, so plan that path before the steel age.

Gold Wine has two roads. One player covered the last 2 Farming points of Farming 14 with Third Eye Salt; the other road needs only Farming 10, plus the alchemy for Spices and Umami. Make bronze Wine, then upgrade each bottle at the Kitchen Table with Spices (to silver) and Umami (to gold). The wine and alcohol guide has the grades and prices.

Keep a few blue points in reserve

The Anatomy tree holds three nodes you cannot see at the start, which is one reason to keep a small stock of blue points unspent in the late game.

Common mistakes

• Spending the quest Faith. Inspirations happily drain the 3 Faith Herbert needs or the 100 a later story step needs. Count those first.
• Claiming Steel Maker early. 775 Faith for 7 notches; the same Faith claims dozens of cheap levels elsewhere.
• Planning a full Farming tree. Only 18 of its 21 nodes can ever be bought. Choose the three to skip before you spend.
• Skipping a “useless” perk that guards a node. Artist and Son of a butcher seem to do nothing in 1.008, yet each stands in front of a mastery node.
• Ignoring tools. Tool belt bonuses dwarf the talent nodes: +6 from one steel axe, pickaxe, hammer or shovel against +5 from a whole tree.
• Buying a technology and expecting to use it. A normal recipe also needs its mastery; check the requirement before you spend the points.
• Writing your Faith Prayers after Scribe and Voice of Faith. Every Faith and Money Prayer then comes out gold, and a gold Faith Prayer needs 50 parishioners to start.
• Selling Faith to Homobonus (5 silver for 10 Faith) while inspiration levels still wait to be claimed.
• Forgetting that claims wait for you. Counters keep running after a claim, so there is no rush to claim the moment a level lights up when the Faith is needed elsewhere.