Faith

Faith is the church’s currency, and it has exactly one source. Nothing crafts it, no vendor stocks it, no corpse carries it and no quest hands it over. You preach for it, and everything else in the game spends it.

That makes the question of how to get more of it a question about which sermon you are preaching, because the roster pays at wildly different rates and the difference is not small.

The prayer named after faith, rung by rung

A sermon pays per attendee rather than per sermon, so the number that matters is the rate multiplied by the crowd. The Basic prayer pays 0.25 a head and asks for four listeners, which is one Faith for a full congregation.

The Faith Prayer comes in three grades and each one raises both halves. The first wants seven parishioners at 0.3 a head, the second twenty at 0.4, and the third fifty at 0.5, so the ladder runs 2, 8 and 25 Faith a sermon against the Basic prayer’s 1.

Above all of them sits Prayer for Old God, which pays a full point a head to a hundred and eighty listeners. That is 180 Faith from one sermon, more than seven times the best Faith Prayer, and it pays fifty coins a head on top.

Working against all of it is the dislike debuff, which subtracts from the same rate and costs you more on the better prayers. It takes two tenths off the Basic prayer and nine tenths off Prayer for Old God, which is nearly the whole of what the Priest perk gives back.

Getting the Faith Prayer in the first place

The Faith Prayer is not something you start with. It arrives with Religious Writing I, a technology that also grants the Money Prayer, and it sits behind both Writing Basic and a church bench upgrade rather than behind one parent.

The blue cost is the part to plan for. Writing Basic is 5 and 5, and Religious Writing I asks another 5, 5 and 20 on top, which is a lot of blue for a church that has not started paying yet.

Every prayer is then written at the Writing Desk from a Story, an Ink and paper. The Story itself costs three Faith, two Clean Paper and an Ink, which is the loop the church runs on: you spend Faith to write the thing that earns Faith back.

What spends it, and what it is worth

The largest drain is the Study Table. Thirty-eight studies want Faith alongside their Science, fourteen of them one, fifteen two, seven three, and Beeswax and Honey five apiece, which are the two dearest in the game.

Zombie collars are the other serious cost and they climb steeply. A Bronze Zombie Collar is three Faith, a Steel Zombie Collar ten, and each also wants a Blue Crystal and an ingot at the Jewelry Table.

After that the costs are small and scattered. Carved Stone and Carved Marble take one each, every potion scroll takes one, and charging a hypnosis device takes one.

The game knows what you are doing

Faith is also something you can be asked for. Goddess in the Swamp is a delivery, and the character asking is under no illusions about where a priest’s Faith comes from.

It took me some time to gather all of this. / Oh, don’t be modest. I know you produce faith on an industrial scale.

Goddess in the Swamp

The full roster of fifty-eight sermons, what each blessing does and how the congregation is built lives on the prayers and sermons guide. This one answers the narrower question of where the number comes from and what drains it.