Graveyard Keeper 2 Herbert Quest Line — All 15 Quests

Who is Herbert in Graveyard Keeper 2?

Herbert is the Head of the Guards, and his 15 quests are the spine of the town campaign. He first stands at the Crossroads, then moves permanently to the Barracks after Swords and Bell. His quests cover the first burial paperwork, the first town battle, the election and the late-game armour hand-in.

He matters more than his quest count suggests for two reasons. His first two quests hand out exactly 20 reputation, which unlocks the barricade technology his own fourth quest requires, and his fifth quest gates the first town battle — the fight that many players never start because the button will not light up. His 90 reputation requirement also appears in the main quest order and ending requirements, so nothing in his line is optional.

What are Herbert’s first five quests?

Certificate, Please starts it by showing him the Burial Certificate from your first burial — he does not take it. Grave Expectations follows with a graveyard quality of 10. Fighting Spirit Required costs 3 Faith. Swords and Bell wants Barracks quality 12 plus a Magic bell.

#	Quest	Requirement	Reward	Where players stall
1	Certificate, Please	Show the Burial Certificate from your first burial (he does not keep it)	+10 Herbert reputation; opens the village; the donkey starts regular deliveries	Doing it at the Barracks instead of the Crossroads, or going to the village before him and being turned away by the gate guards
2	Grave Expectations	Raise graveyard quality to 10, then report back	+10 Herbert reputation	The quality number comes from graveyard decoration and is easy to misread; nothing is consumed
3	Fighting Spirit Required	Hand over 3 Faith (consumed)	2 Town Gratitude, 1 Story, Barracks opens	Faith comes only from sermons, so the church has to be open first
4	Swords and Bell	Barracks quality 12 and one Magic bell, in either order	Town Gratitude per objective; Pilgrim’s Clothes for the bell	Barracks quality depends on barricades and paid mercenaries, which the game never explains
5	First… Sludge?	Meet Herbert at the Barracks gate and accept the first battle under the red banner	Red Banner, 2 Healing Potions	Start stays greyed out unless a sword or bow is on your hotbar

Battle availability follows the calendar: fights happen on Sloth day only, which is one more reason the six-day week dictates your schedule rather than the other way round.

Why can’t you start Herbert’s first battle?

Two conditions, and the game only warns about one. You need 12 defence power, and you must have a sword or a bow sitting in your hotbar — without a weapon equipped there, the Start button stays greyed out with no explanation at all, which is the single most common bug report about Herbert.

The weapon rule is the one that catches everyone, because nothing in the interface mentions it. The unit you brought to the fight is irrelevant if the character’s own hotbar is empty; the panel simply refuses to enable the button and looks broken. Community reports describe the same small checklist for the power requirement: deploy barricades so the quality total reaches 12, and pay the mercenaries their 5 silver for the first battle. Winning pays 1 Defender’s Emblem, 6 Zombie goo and 4 Town Gratitude.

The fight itself is capture-the-flag, not a kill count. You carry the red Banner to move your squad and drop it to make them hold position, and you win by taking and keeping the enemy banner — the more of your soldiers standing near it, the faster it flips. You lose if your own base is taken or your character’s health reaches zero, so parking your whole squad on the offensive is how a winnable battle becomes a loss.

How do you reach Barracks quality 12?

Barracks quality comes from two sources only. Each barricade — Barricade I, Spiked Barricade I or Fortified Barricade I — adds 2 quality, and barricades can only be placed inside the Barracks. Each of the four mercenaries you pay adds another 2 quality.

That produces one clean piece of arithmetic. Pay all four mercenaries and you have 8 quality from them, so 2 barricades finish the job. Pay none and you need 6 barricades. Partially paid crews sit in between, with every unpaid mercenary contributing zero — so counting on a mercenary you have not paid is the mistake that leaves you stuck at 10.

The trap underneath the trap is that barricades are not decoration you can scatter around the world. They only count inside the Barracks, which is why the gate looks unreachable if you already built a defensive line somewhere else.

How do you unlock the barricade technology?

Simple Barricades sits behind Reinforced Plank, and Reinforced Plank is a reputation technology requiring 20 Herbert reputation. His first two quests hand out exactly 10 each, so the node appears the next time you open the tech tree — reputation technologies unlock automatically once their threshold is met, and you do not buy them.

This is the answer to the most common form of the stuck-player question, which is “I have no barricades and no way to get them.” There is nothing on the tree to purchase back. Finish Certificate, Please and Grave Expectations, then reopen the tree and the node will be sitting there unlocked. If you have already burned every tech point elsewhere, that is fine — the reputation node costs nothing. The broader habit is worth keeping: tech points are cheap compared with the reputation gates, so never assume a missing node means a missing currency. The tech tree overview lays out which categories hold reputation unlocks like this one.

How do you craft the Magic bell?

At an anvil, from 1 Blood and 1 Bronze Ingot. The recipe has to be unlocked before the option appears, and Blood comes from your own production line rather than a shop, so plan the bell before Swords and Bell demands it.

The bell is the second half of Herbert’s fourth quest and can be delivered in either order relative to the Barracks quality target, which means you can hand it in while still short of 12 quality and keep the quest alive. Handing it over also awards Pilgrim’s Clothes alongside the Town Gratitude. If you are still assembling the anvil chain and the ingots, the crafting stations list is the fastest way to see what feeds what.

What happens after the first battle?

Herbert moves to the Barracks for good, and the rest of his line runs through the election and the port. The first victory pays 1 Defender’s Emblem, 6 Zombie goo and 4 Town Gratitude, and the battle itself follows capture-the-flag rules rather than a kill count.

Because battles only open on Sloth day, a lost fight can cost you a full six-day wait before you can retry — which is the real argument for fixing your hotbar and your barricade count before you walk to the gate, not after. Keep 2 Healing Potions spare, since the boss of the field is your own health bar rather than any single enemy.

What are Herbert’s later quests?

After the election his line moves into the port and the palace: Herbert and?, The Nun Also Reads, Safe zone, Security Checkpoint: Democracy, Reader for a Warrior, Not in Shining Armor Yet, Water Locked, Steamy Royal, Dirt Rights and Still Standing on Stilts, with Sad Captain, No Action opening that stretch.

Two of those deserve a warning. Herbert and? requires a Romance Novel obtained from the mysterious figure at the Dockside Club, which itself comes out of the Wharf Rats quest; bringing it back to the Barracks pays +10 Herbert reputation and 2 Town Gratitude and opens The Nun Also Reads. Not in Shining Armor Yet asks for 5 Steel Armor, and steel equipment sits behind the Steel Equipment technology, unlocked after Steel Instruments II at 160 red and 10 blue points. Each piece is made at a Steel Anvil and needs Smithing mastery 12 plus 4 Steel Ingot, 4 Steel Detail and 4 Fabric — twenty of each for the full set, so start alloying long before the quest appears. The iron guide covers the upstream chain.