Sermons
Once a week, on Wrath day (the sixth day), you can hold a sermon at the lectern in the church. It converts happiness into Faith and money, and a successful one may also grant a buff or an item. The limit is one per week.
Getting the church running
The church becomes available through the storyline of Agatha, the Nun. Completing Holy Moly! hands you the Church Cleaning technology free of charge, and she asks for church quality 10. Report back and she gives you your first sermon, a Basic Prayer, and allows the first service on that same day, whichever weekday it is. From then on, Wrath-day rules apply.
At first the church is littered with rubble and broken pots, each worth −2 church quality, so it starts deep in negative numbers. Clear those out first: the rubble is a small craft needing a Bronze part and a board, and a pot breaks in one hit. Then add furniture, such as Interior Bench I at +3 apiece.
Running a service
- Go to the lectern on Wrath day and pick Pray. Any other day, your character just remarks that the ceremony happens on Wrath day.
- Choose the sermon from your backpack; sermons in a chest won’t be listed.
- Check the numbers. The window shows church quality, your happiness and the parishioners expected, which always equals the smaller of the first two.
- Press Start the sermon. That uses your weekly sermon and deducts happiness equal to the parishioner count. Success is decided at this moment, not during the cutscene afterwards.
- Collect. When the cutscene ends, the Faith is lying on the floor before the lectern for you to pick up, and the money sits in the church’s donation box; interact with it to take the coins.
Success and rewards
A sermon’s tooltip shows two thresholds:
| Threshold | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Need to start | The fewest parishioners that let you begin. |
| Guaranteed success | At or above this many, it can’t fail. Below it, the odds are parishioners ÷ guaranteed success: 5 people for a sermon needing 10 is a 50% chance. |
Every sermon, successful or not, pays a base amount per parishioner in Faith and money. Success adds a bonus:
- Extra Faith per parishioner.
- Extra money per point of graveyard quality; this is the single link between your graveyard and your sermons.
- The sermon’s reward, a buff or item, where it has one.
The formula
Let P be parishioners and G graveyard quality:
- Faith = round(P × base Faith) + round(P × success Faith), the second part only on success
- Money = P × base money + G × success money, the second part only on success
Rounding goes to the nearest integer, halves upward. Everything is computed when you press Start, so a buff expiring mid-cutscene makes no difference.
Worked example: a Basic Prayer needs 8 for guaranteed success, so with 10 parishioners and graveyard quality 20 it can’t fail. It pays round(2.5) + round(3.0) = 6 Faith and 10 × 5 + 20 × 10 = 250 copper. A failure would still have paid 3 Faith and 50 copper.
Happiness
Each sermon eats happiness, so topping it up is a constant job (Happiness and Town Quality covers it). Happiness is capped at town quality, and anything over the cap disappears. Town quality sits at 10 until the port opens, so no sermon before then can have more than 10 parishioners, no matter how fine the church.
| Source | Happiness |
|---|---|
| Town Gratitude, a common quest reward | +5 per use |
| Selling burial certificates to Januarius | The first five of each kind per week, within his weekly cap |
| Selling fish fillets and vegetables to Herm | Fractions per item, within his weekly cap |
The weekly limits reset every Pride day.
Every sermon 58
Money figures are copper; 100 copper make 1 silver. Where a perk alters a value, the base figure comes first, followed by what each perk adds.
Notes
- Sermon items aren’t consumed. Starting one only selects it, so you can reuse the same sermon every week.
- There’s no way to cap attendance. Everyone able to come will come, spending all of that happiness.
- Church quality only decides the number of seats; it doesn’t boost rewards itself.
- Starting a sermon makes you put down whatever you’re carrying over your head.
- A big zombie workforce costs you. The Excessive zombies debuff cuts the Faith and money from most sermons. If you already have it, the Hypno Prayer’s buff removes it (see The zombie limit).
- Unconfirmed: per the game files, the reward buff or item is given when the report window closes, failed sermon or not. Not yet checked in play.