How Alchemy Actually Works

There are no recipes in Graveyard Keeper 2’s alchemy. Each ingredient has a set number of red, green and blue runes, each product has a rune target, and the laboratory produces whichever product your ingredients’ runes total up to. Below you’ll find that rule and everything built around it: the setup you need before brewing, how a brew plays out, how products become known, all 29 products with their easiest ingredients, and the things the game leaves unsaid. It’s all taken from the game’s code and data tables; anything that follows from the code but hasn’t been tested in play is flagged Unconfirmed.

The full ingredient and rune tables live on the Alchemy page. This one explains how the parts fit together.

Runes are added up

A Laboratory I takes up to two ingredients and a Laboratory II up to three. The game totals the red, green and blue runes separately. When all three totals are an exact match for a product, you can brew it. When they aren’t, the result slot is blank and the brew can’t start.

Product	Ingredients	Runes
Dream Dust (1 1)	Peat	1 1
Dream Dust (1 1)	Water + Blood	1 + 1
Healing Potion (2)	Stone	2
Healing Potion II (4)	Stone + Stone	2 + 2
Philosopher Stone (3 3 3)	Marble + Alcohol + Pumpkin	3 + 3 + 3

The consequences:

• You can’t botch a brew. Mixes that don’t add up can’t be started, so you never lose ingredients to one.
• Slot order is irrelevant, and one ingredient can fill several slots, counting again each time.
• Quality leaves runes alone. Onion is always 2 green and Pumpkin always 3 green, whatever the quality.
• No colour can go above 5. The ingredient picker hides anything that would take a colour over 5.
• Runes never go down. There are no negative runes, so adding an ingredient only ever increases the totals.

Setting up

You need	Details
A laboratory	The base’s tower lab already has a Laboratory I, plus a Study Table, a Flask shelf and the Folio.
Studied ingredients	Anything not yet studied at the Study Table is simply missing from the laboratory’s picker.
Flasks	One per brew, stored in the lab room.
The ingredients	In your backpack or any shared storage in the same room.

The bigger laboratory. Laboratory II, with three slots, is unlocked by the Laboratory II technology (20 40). It hangs off Battle Potions I, and that one is hidden in the tree until Herbert prepares you for the first battle (First… Sludge?).

Studying. The game never explains why an unstudied ingredient is missing from the picker. A study costs science, sometimes faith as well, pays out tech points, and leaves the item in your hands. Its result window shows you the item’s runes. The 19 Alchemic Powders are the exception: they count as studied from the beginning.

Flasks. Each brew consumes one flask. You get flasks by loading empty bottles into the Flask shelf: an Alchemy Flasks I turns into 5, an Alchemy Flasks II into 10. The laboratory only sees flasks kept in the room itself, whether on the shelf or in another shared container; it ignores your backpack.

A first brew from the tower chest

The chest in the tower lab holds everything needed for the Dream Dust that Albert wants:

Chest contents	Use
1 Science Kit I, 1 Clean Paper	31 science (30 + 1) once decomposed at the Study Table
3 Water, 3 Blood	Water is 1 and Blood is 1, so one of each makes Dream Dust
3 Alchemy Flasks I	Load onto the shelf for 15 flasks

1. At the Study Table, decompose the Science Kit and the paper.
2. Run a study on Water (1 science; 5 5) then on Blood (1 science; 5 10).
3. Put all three Flasks I on the Flask shelf.
4. Put Water and Blood in the laboratory’s two slots and brew.

The chest is good for three Dream Dust, and Sweet Dreams only wants one. Dream Dust is also the one product you know from the outset, revealed by Alchemy, Basic, which the quest hands you free.

Brewing, step by step

1. Open the window. The laboratory only shows it when nothing is brewing. While a brew is running, using the laboratory works on that brew.
2. Add ingredients. The flask graphic fills up with the current rune totals.
3. Check the result slot. Blank: no product matches. Question mark: a product you haven’t learned, which you can still brew. Icon: a product you know.
4. Pick the count at the end. Anywhere from 1 to 999 brews can be queued, but touching any ingredient sets the count back to 1.
5. Hit Mix. Ingredients and flasks for the entire batch are removed straight away, and then you work the laboratory by hand, as with any workbench.

Speed and mastery

A brew is 3 progress cells long. Each hit advances it by your blue mastery, with a floor of 1 and a ceiling of 3, so blue mastery 3 finishes a brew in one hit. Blue mastery comes from your blue talent plus two hotbar tools, one of each kind:

Kit	Grades and bonus
Alchemist’s kit	Starter +1, Alchemist’s +2, Good +4
Surgeon’s kit	Butcher’s +1, Surgeon’s +2, Master Surgeon’s +4

Low mastery never blocks a brew; the window always lists the requirement as 0.

Finished potions land on the floor beside the laboratory, along with their tech points. The data gives mixing no energy cost (Unconfirmed in play).

Learning products

Either of two things makes a product “known”, with identical results:

• Brewing it once. A question-mark brew reveals the product, and from then on it has an icon in the laboratory and an entry in the Folio.
• Buying the technology that reveals it, listed in the second table below.

Knowing a product isn’t required to brew it. Before starting, the laboratory only checks that the runes match a product, that the ingredients are there, and that you have enough flasks. So on the day you get the laboratory, a Stone already brews a Healing Potion, well before Battle Potions I. The real value of the technologies is the target runes: they tell you what to aim for. (From the code; Unconfirmed in play.)

Four products have no technology at all: Healing Potion III, Damage Potion III, Zombie Motivator Potion III and Berserker Potion III. Brewing them is the only way to learn them.

The Folio splits into two kinds of page. Product pages show each known product and its target runes, without ingredients. The red, green and blue pages show each ingredient you’ve studied and its runes; powders are left out, since they count as studied without a study. Together they let you work out a mix without hovering over every item.

The 29 products

“Slots” is the smallest number of ingredients that makes the product using the listed ingredients. Anything needing 3 is Laboratory II only. Alchemic Powders, sold by the Apothecary, can make every product as well.

Product	Slots	Simplest ingredients	Runes
Dream Dust	1	Peat or Ash; Water + Blood	1 1
Paint	1	Flour, Onion or Swamp mushroom; Water + Water	2
Lacquer	1	Minced Meat, Night flower or Zombie goo; Blood + Blood	2
Healing Potion	1	Stone or Red Mushroom; Clay + Sand	2
Healing Potion II	2	Stone + Stone	4
Healing Potion III	2	Stone + Iron Ore or Marble	5
Damage Potion	1	Flax or Tooth	1 1
Damage Potion II	2	Stone + Flour; Flax + Flax	2 2
Damage Potion III	2	Marble + Pumpkin; Coal + Copper Nugget	3 3
Zombie Motivator Potion	2	Clay + Blood	1 1
Zombie Motivator Potion II	2	Clay + Night flower	1 2
Zombie Motivator Potion III	2	Iron Ore + Alcohol	3 3
Berserker Potion	1	Salt or Cheese	1 1 1
Berserker Potion II	2	Stone + Peat; Salt + Clay	2 1 1
Berserker Potion III	3	Marble + Ash + Ash	3 2 2
Weak growth elixir	1	Coal or Beeswax	1 2
Rich growth elixir	2	Coal + Water	1 3
Miracle growth elixir	2	Coal + Pumpkin	1 5
Preservative	1	Pumpkin or Fragrance	3
Organ Improver (red skull)	2	Stone + Copper Nugget; Iron Ore + Flax	4 1
Organ Improver (white skull)	2	Flour + Flour	4
Explosive Dust	2	Stone + Night flower; Blood + Tin	2 2
Spices	2	Ash + Ash; Peat + Peat	2 2
Third Eye Salt	3	Alcohol + Clay + Night flower	1 5
Reanimation Liquid	3	Stone + Alcohol + Ash	2 1 4
Tannin Liquid	3	Marble + Ash + Flax	4 2 1
Alkali	3	Ash + Ash + Coal	1 4 2
Umami	3	Alcohol + Ash + Pumpkin	4 4
Philosopher Stone	3	Marble + Alcohol + Pumpkin	3 3 3

Fewer slots are enough for Third Eye Salt and Zombie Motivator Potions I and II if you use Alchemic Powders or top-grade hearts (1 red, 2 blue).

What each product is for

Product	Used for	Revealed by
Dream Dust	Sweet Dreams for Albert; Fancy Incense, fertilizer, the fairy summoning	Alchemy, Basic
Paint	That quest for Linda; Printed Money	Paint, given by Safe Harbor
Lacquer	That quest for Albert; Live Bait	Lacquer, given by Varnish Before You Fiddle
Healing Potion, Damage Potion	Fights	Battle Potions I
Healing Potion II, Zombie Motivator Potion, Berserker Potion	Fights	Battle Potions II
Damage Potion II, Zombie Motivator Potion II, Berserker Potion II	Fights	Battle Potions III
All four grade III battle potions	Fights	Nothing: brew them to learn them
Growth elixirs	Fertilizers at the Formulation Bench	Fertilizers II, III, IV
Preservative	The four embalming mixtures	Embalming I
Organ Improvers	Upgrading an organ to top grade	Practical Potions
Explosive Dust	Dynamite	Dynamite
Spices, Third Eye Salt	Spices lift a dish or drink from one star to two; Third Eye Salt is for drinking	Transmutation I
Umami, Philosopher Stone	Umami lifts two stars to three; a Philosopher Stone converts one Iron Ore to a Golden nugget, or one Iron Ingot to a Golden ingot	Alchemy, Advanced
Reanimation Liquid	Raising a zombie	Reanimation Liquid
Tannin Liquid, Alkali	Steel armour and the steel sword	Crafting Potions

Tech points from brewing

Whatever you brew, you receive tech points matching its runes, for example 2, for Dream Dust 1 1, and for a Philosopher Stone 3 3 3. Only the product counts, never the ingredients, so reaching it the cheap way earns exactly as much as the expensive way.

Your ongoing cost is a flask per brew. At a furnace, 2 Glass give 2 Flasks I, or 10 flasks. A Lacquer takes two Blood and returns 2. Every laboratory brew also counts toward the Alchemist inspiration.

Using potions

You can only drink battle potions mid-fight. Taking one grade strips any other grade of the same potion off you.

Potion	Grades I / II / III	What it does
Healing Potion	20 / 40 / 100 health	Heals you
Damage Potion	30 seconds at every grade	Sword, bow and spear hit for +3 damage per grade
Berserker Potion	15 / 30 / 45 seconds	No stamina cost for sword and bow attacks
Zombie Motivator Potion	15 / 30 / 60 seconds	Zombies fighting on your side attack at double speed

For Berserker and Zombie Motivator Potions, a higher grade buys a longer effect, not a stronger one; every grade applies an identical effect. Only Third Eye Salt is product usable whenever you like, giving all five talents +2 for 450 seconds (7½ minutes). Each potion or salt you drink counts toward the Bottle Tester inspiration.

Trading

• The Apothecary has Alchemy Flasks I and 9 Alchemic Powders at tier one, then all 19 powders plus Alcohol from tier two. Between them, the powders give every rune combination up to three, so with enough of them you could brew everything without studying a single ingredient.
• The Alchemist sells finished products and science kits. Reanimation Liquid is also on sale from the Astrologer.
• The Alchemist runs out of money. If the trader can’t pay what’s owed, the sale won’t go through. The Alchemist starts on 100 copper and earns 20, 50 or 100 per day by tier, while one Philosopher Stone can be worth as much as 50 silver. Buy something from that stall in the same trade and it only has to cover the gap.