In Graveyard Keeper, you can own a tavern proposed by a talking skull and supervised by a ghost-possessed dummy. It may sound ludicrous, but this is the norm in this cemetery management sim game.
The Talking Skull tavern is the main feature of the game’s second DLC, Stranger Sins. The tavern is where you can earn money by serving food and alcoholic beverages to customers. You can also hold events and smarten up the place with upgrades and decorations to increase its reputation.
What’s interesting about this is just a cover to utilize an Archaeological Time Machine buried underneath where you can build the establishment. However, like all businesses, several negotiations between people must ensue before you can spend resources and sink your money into it. Read on to learn more about building and running a tavern in this game.
Let’s Get Down to Business
The quest will begin with Gerry asking you for a bottle of Cognac. He’ll tell you that he recalls the previous Graveyard Keeper had a stash of Cognac buried somewhere in the village. Below are the steps on what you should do next:
- Head to the village and keep walking until you reach the path going to the lighthouse. Look for a mound of grass with a few rocks around it. Dig a few of them until you come across one where you see a cutscene with Gerry finding an ancient machine that the previous keeper had concealed underground.
- Krezvoid will warn you not to dig around a property that is not yours. Go back to your Workyard and talk to Gerry about the machine. The skull will then hatch a plan to buy land and build a tavern in the exact location where the machine is unearthed. You’ll be instructed to talk to Horadric from the Dead Horse about buying a lot.
- Horadric will advise you to buy land from someone poor and unhinged. Someone like poor old Dig. To find Dig, go back to the road that leads to the lighthouse and look for a homeless-looking man. Try to ask Dig about buying land under his name, but he’ll be too off his rocker to pay attention to you. Go back to Horadric, and he’ll offer a lot worth 30 Silver.
- Walk northwest from the Dead Horse tavern to get to Cory. Walk northwest from the Dead Horse tavern to get to Cory. Go to Cory and hire him to build a tavern for you. Since Cory has pending work to do for the Council, he’ll not agree unless you choose to pay him 2 Gold or become his supplier. The better option would be to become his supplier considering he’ll only require you 12 Nails, 12 Wooden Planks, and 12 Simple Iron Parts for this request.
- Return to Cory the next day, and he will ask for 50 Silver to build a tavern. 50 Silver may be an amount too steep for beginners. But you’ll eventually get there if you continue selling Burial Certificates and Flesh to Horadric and performing Sermons in your Church.
- Go back to your Workyard and let a day pass by sleeping. It is important to remember that you’re required to go to sleep and not just meditate. Otherwise, you will not be able to see a tavern built on your newly-bought land.
Hiring a Barman
Gerry will persuade you to hire Yorick as a barman because he was an expert bartender before he kicked the bucket. The Barman essentially runs the Talking Skull tavern. And since this is Graveyard Keeper, you will be tasked to create a Barman Doll for the ghost Yorick to possess. Not to mention, Yorick will also work for you for free.
You may only craft the Barman Doll once in the Carpenter’s Bench II. The materials needed to make the doll are 4 Wooden Plank, 4 Complex Iron Parts, and 2 Wooden beams. After creating the doll, you can place it behind the bar counter. Now you can start selling food and drinks in your own tavern and rake in all the money you can procure.
Running a Tavern
An important reminder when managing a tavern is to continuously stack it with alcohol and food to keep customers happy.
Food and drinks go in the Barman’s inventory, but you can also store your alcoholic beverages in the Tavern Cellar’s Box rack. To save you from all the time-consuming backtracking, you may also command your Zombies to transport drinks from your brewery and vineyard to the tavern.
Non-alcoholic drinks like juice are generally frowned upon in medieval bars. And that’s why the only drinks you can sell in the tavern are Beer, Wine, Mead, and Booze. You can also cook the food you serve in the cellar’s professional kitchen and oven.
Sprucing Things Up
Owning an establishment means you have to do your part in upgrading it from time to time. The tavern’s quality and reputation rank every time you add furniture and upgrades. More importantly, you must collect and display artifacts in your cabinet. Each artifact you display will give you reputation points, and some may unlock tavern events.
You can rack up tons of silvers while your guests spend their time in a tavern with a good reputation, even more so when you entertain them with standup shows or rate races.
Artifacts also have a significant role in uncovering the Stranger Sins’ main plot. Find all the artifacts to discover more about the village’s history and its residents’ secrets. The artifacts you gather from various NPCs will play clips of past happenings using the machine hidden in the cellar. You will also get a glimpse of what kind of person Gerry had been before he became a talking skull.
