How to Make Money Quickly in Darkest Dungeon

Your troubles start early in Darkest Dungeon after realizing you do not have much gold to spend. It is one of two currencies in the game (the other being heirlooms) that you spend on looking after your heroes. That covers several aspects, such as unlocking new skills, buying provisions, curing their diseases, reducing stress, and handling their quirks.

Without a steady supply of gold, you cannot expect your heroes to survive the monsters and creatures infesting the nearby lands. New players to Darkest Dungeon should especially be attentive about farming money because most tend to go bankrupt in the early game.

Here is everything you need to know to get stacks of gold as fast as possible in Darkest Dungeon.

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By Megan Smith

Add an Antiquarian to the Party

Darkest Dungeon - Antiquarian Crit — Antiquarian increases the amount of loot you can hold during a Darkest Dungeon run.

The Antiquarian is a rather odd class in Darkest Dungeon. Everything she can do, another class can do better. She is incredibly weak with low health, underwhelming support skills, and attacks that do next to no damage. The only reason to have an Antiquarian in a party is her unique passive ability that helps you farm a lot of gold in Darkest Dungeon.

Firstly, an Antiquarian allows you to carry larger stacks of gold during dungeon runs. The default limit is 1750 gold per stack, which the Antiquarian increases to 2500 gold per stack. Having another Antiquarian in the party will further increase the stack limits: up to 4750 gold per stack with a full party of four Antiquarians.

Secondly, the Antiquarian forces enemies and curios to drop Minor and Rare Antiques in Darkest Dungeon. These are unique loots that can be sold for gold. Having more Antiquarians in the party will increase the drop-chance of Rare Antiques, but your stack limits remain the same.

	Minor Antique	Rare Antique
Stack	20 antiques per stack	5 antiques per stack
Worth	500 gold per antique	1,250 gold per antique
Stack Value	10,000 gold per stack	6,250 gold per stack

Only the Antiquarian should interact with curios to loot Minor and Rare Antiques. They will not drop for other classes.

Since the Antiquarian is pretty weak, you do not want to endanger your higher-level (or upgraded) heroes. Instead, wait for the Stage Coach to bring in new heroes until you can create an Antiquarian party. The compositions below will get you started, but you can experiment with different heroes for new party compositions in Darkest Dungeon.

Antiquarian – Highway Man – Vestal – Crusader

Antiquarian uses Protect Me on Highwayman.
Highway Man uses Riposte.
Crusader and Vestal deal damage, stun, or heal as needed.

Houndmaster – Occultist/Vestal – Highwayman – Antiquarian

Antiquarian uses Protect Me on Highwayman.
Highwayman uses Riposte.
Occultist heals or targets the backlines.
Vestal stuns or heals as needed.
Houndmaster joins the party to finish the backlines.

Keep grinding easy dungeon runs with your Antiquarian party until they die or become overly stressed. Dismiss the dead-weights, and find fresh heroes from the Stage Coach to start again. This farming routine will give you a ton of gold to spend within a few weeks in Darkest Dungeon.

Rubies and Rare Antiques are worth the same amount of gold.

Do Torchless Dungeon Runs

Darkest Dungeon - No Torch — You find more loot and riches during Darkest Dungeon Torchless runs.

The torch does more than just illuminate the hallways. It grants you buffs and debuffs depending on your current light meter in Darkest Dungeon.

Most players instinctively keep the light levels at maximum to avoid the eldritch horrors. However, you find more loot at lower light levels. Snuffing out the torch to set the light levels at zero (Black as Pitch) will give you the following benefits:

75 percent chance of two additional items (gold and gems) on top of the normal loot after battles.
95 percent chance of one additional item (any) on top of the normal loot from chests.

You can use an Antiquarian party composition for a torchless run for even more riches in Darkest Dungeon. However, do note that low light levels make enemies a lot stronger. They have higher accuracy, do more damage, and have a higher chance of ambushing your party. In addition, your stress levels spike much faster.

When the light meter is at zero, every battle has a chance to pit you against the Shambler, one of the most difficult bosses in Darkest Dungeon.

Run Only Short or Medium Dungeons

Darkest Dungeon - Short and Medium Dungeons — Short and Medium Dungeons are the sweet spot for gold farming in Darkest Dungeon.

The long dungeons take much of your inventory space for provisions. They are also more difficult to complete, and the lengthy run piles up more stress than normal. You can obtain more loot from short and medium dungeons in roughly the same time it takes to complete a long dungeon.

Hence, short- and medium-length dungeons are the sweet spots for farming money. Use an Antiquarian party for torchless runs in either of the two to maximize your loot.

Sell Duplicate or Useless Trinkets

Darkest Dungeon - Duplicate Trinkets — Trinkets are a good source of income in Darkest Dungeon.

Some players might forget that trinkets can be sold for gold in Darkest Dungeon. You are not going to use all of them, and most are pretty underwhelming. You can also expect to find lots of duplicate trinkets throughout your progression. The solution? Start selling all the trinkets that are either duplicates, low rarity, or feature stats you do not plan to use.

There's no way to retrieve a trinket once sold. Hence, make sure you are not accidentally selling the best trinkets Darkest Dungeon has to offer.

Find the Secret Room

Darkest Dungeon - Ancient Artifacts — Secret Rooms contain riches beyond your comprehension.

Every medium-length dungeon has a 50 percent chance of spawning a secret room with riches. They appear on the map as a golden tile with a black star. Head over to the specific tile and press up to enter the secret room in Darkest Dungeon.

Open the Ancient Artifact with a Skeleton Key to loot gold and gems. This is also how you get Puzzling Trapezohedrons worth 3500 gold each.

The only way to discover a secret room is through scouting skills, which can be boosted with positive quirks and trinkets.

Build the Bank

Darkest Dungeon - Bank Building — The Bank pays you interest to finance your dungeon runs in Darkest Dungeon.

Plan to rush a Bank District if you have The Crimson Court expansion pack. The Bank pays you a weekly sum of 5 percent interest on the gold you have. In other words, the more gold you have, the more interest you get weekly. This is the best way to get stacks of gold in Darkest Dungeon. You can expect over 5,000 gold for every 100,000 gold saved.

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