Flax

Flax is the raw end of every piece of cloth in Graveyard Keeper 2. Thread comes from it, fabric comes from thread, and armor, clothes, bows, fishing rods and candles all come from one of those two.

You buy a Flax Seed once and grow it after that, because a bed hands back seed along with the crop. There is no technology to research before you can plant it.

The thing to get right is Fabric, because the game gives you two ways to make it and one of them burns four times the flax.

Buy the seed once, then never buy it again

Three merchants stock Flax Seed. The Tailor shop carries it at every tier and also sells raw flax outright, Herm carries the seed from his second tier, and the Trademaster has it from the start.

Plant it in a Garden Bed and the harvest returns Flax, more Flax Seed and two Leaf. That seed return is why one purchase is the whole investment, and it is the same twelve second growth every crop in the game uses.

The Spinning Wheel is where flax starts being useful

Raw flax does almost nothing on its own. The Spinning Wheel is three Wooden Plank, eight Stick and twelve Bronze Nails, built in the Yard, and it turns four flax into four Flax Thread in four seconds.

It needs Farming mastery three to work and the Flax Thread technology to exist, which is 45 and sits four nodes into Farming for 90 all in.

Four in, four out is the best conversion rate in the chain, and the Tailor perk pushes it to six. Everything downstream is measured in thread, so the wheel is the bench you want running.

The wheel and the recipe land together, so the node that lets you make thread is the same one that lets you build the thing that makes it.

Two ways to make Fabric, and one wastes four times the flax

The Weaving Loom is four Wooden Plank, two Polished Bronze and eight Bronze Nails, also in the Yard. It takes four Flax Thread and gives one Fabric, which works out at four flax per fabric once you trace it back through the wheel.

The factory has its own fabric recipe that skips both benches and takes raw flax straight to cloth. It takes sixteen.

What all that thread and cloth is for

Flax Thread is in fourteen recipes. Every bow in the game needs it, from the Simple Bow at two up to the Heavy Bow at eight, and so does every fishing rod, from the Basic Rod at two up to the Pro Rod at sixteen.

It is also one of the three ingredients in a Simple Candle and the only ingredient in Lace, which is eight thread at a Sewing Table. The Tailor Shop II building wants forty of it in one go.

Fabric goes into armor. Bronze Armor takes one, Iron two, Steel four and Master Armor six, and the clothes supplies the factory makes take twelve and sixteen. Raw flax also makes a Carpet at twelve, and paper glop at twelve, which is where the book line starts.

The fishing line the Twin Brothers keep asking about

One questline wants thread rather than cloth. The Twin Brothers on their land in the Village have a story about a catfish, and it does not end the way they would like.

We almost caught such a huge catfish! / It was the biggest catfish ever! / … almost? / Yeah, we even saw his mustache and stuff! / I think what he means is — we didn’t catch him.

Jeffry and Heffry, getting there eventually

The fix is a stronger line, which is Flax Thread, and they pay in knowledge rather than coin.

But only because we didn’t have a strong enough fishing line! / I could get you a stronger line. / And in exchange, we could teach you to make new bait for fishing.

The deal, struck

That makes a few spare thread worth holding early, because the bait recipes are gated behind handing one over and the walk back to the Spinning Wheel is a long one.