If you’ve hit the point in Graveyard Keeper 2 where Davy the Dagger keeps asking for something called Keys for Looters and you have no idea where to find them, you’re not missing anything on the map. These keys don’t sit in chests or drop from random enemies — they’re earned through combat, bought from a specific shop, or picked up as rewards for pushing story progress. Here’s how to get them, how many you can realistically collect, and what to actually spend them on.
What Keys For Looters Actually Are
Think of Keys for Looters as a black-market currency. They exist for one purpose: paying Davy the Dagger, the leader of the looters, to deliver crates of goods to you. You can’t spend them in a normal shop or trade them to regular townsfolk. Everything about them is tied to Davy and the underground economy he runs from the Port Club — also called the Dockside Club — on the southeastern docks.
Your very first key isn’t even for a crate. During the Wharf Rats quest, Davy asks you to hand one over in exchange for a Love Novel, a book you need to progress Herbert’s questline. Completing that trade is also what unlocks the ordering system, so it’s worth prioritizing early.
The Fastest Way To Get Your First Keys: Sewer Brawl I
If you need keys right now, this is the route to take. Head to the central Town sewer entrance — you’ll find it near a fortified stone wall with a campfire beside it, and it’s marked on your map. A squad of NPCs stands guard outside. Talk to them, choose to start the battle, and you’ll be dropped into the first Sewer Brawl.
This fight is deliberately beginner-friendly. It only asks for around 8 total power to clear and lets you bring one squad. Since barricades and defensive towers aren’t available underground, your numbers come entirely from the troops you bring. That means gearing up your zombie squad properly before you go in — aim to have them kitted out to at least 8 Defense Power, and you should clear it without much trouble.
Winning rewards you with 3 Keys for Looters, plus 4 Zombie Goo and 3 Town Gratitude. It also unlocks the next fight in the sequence, so you can keep the momentum going.
Sewer Brawl II And Other Story Battles
Once the first brawl is done, Sewer Brawl II is the natural next step. The jump in difficulty is noticeable — it asks for around 24 military strength and allows two squads — so you’ll want to spend some time upgrading your gear and rounding out your team before attempting it. The reward is the same as the first fight: another 3 keys, more Zombie Goo, and more Town Gratitude.
Sewer Brawl II also kicks off a conversation with Davy about Sewerena, an optional arena mode we’ll cover shortly. Beyond the sewers, two other major story battles pay out keys: the bathhouse basement breakthrough and the Final Battle, each dropping another 3 keys. Those are one-time story rewards, so you can’t farm them repeatedly, but they’re worth remembering as part of your overall key budget.
Sewerena: The Optional Key Farm
If you want to build up a real stockpile of keys, Sewerena is where you should be spending your time. It’s a sequence of arena-style fights in the sewers, unlocked after you speak to Davy following Sewer Brawl II and select the option asking about more keys.
Unlike the story battles, Sewerena fights pay out a variable amount — anywhere from 4 to 10 keys per encounter depending on the fight. That’s a significantly better return than any single story battle. There’s also some early evidence from the community suggesting the final arena fight might be repeatable with no completion condition, potentially paying out 10 keys every single time — but that hasn’t been fully confirmed, so treat it as a possibility rather than a guarantee until more players verify it.
Buying Keys From The Jeweler
If combat isn’t your thing or you just want a steady supply without risking your squad, there’s a shopping route too. Once you’ve upgraded the Town Jeweler to Tier 2, the shop begins stocking Keys for Looters at 1 Silver each. Supply is limited at first — roughly 3 keys per week at Tier 2 — but that jumps to 10 per week once you upgrade the Jeweler to Tier 3.
Silver isn’t hard to come by once your town starts running smoothly, which makes this a genuinely solid passive option. If you’re the type of player who prefers building infrastructure over grinding fights, investing in the Jeweler early is one of the smartest ways to guarantee a consistent flow of keys without constantly sending your squad back underground.
How To Actually Spend Your Keys
Once you’ve got keys in hand, head to the Port Club on the southeastern docks and speak with Davy. There’s a catch: orders only open on Lust days — the scarlet days on the in-game calendar — so plan your visits accordingly rather than showing up on a random day and getting turned away.
You can place orders in three sizes:
- Small order: 1 key
- Medium order: 2 keys
- Big order: 4 keys
After you pay, the crate shows up in a chest behind Davy roughly one in-game day later, and a “Looters Order Ready” notice will pop up when it’s done. You can only have one order open at a time, so you can’t stack multiple purchases — you’ll need to collect the current crate before placing another one.
What’s Inside The Crates
Orders contain a mix of tech books, stories, valuables like gold, and seeds. Tech books are particularly worth paying attention to, since they feed directly into your research progression. Early on, you’ll receive random tech books, but once you win the battle titled “Closing the Eastern Floodgate: Part II,” the contents shift to Red, Green, and Blue Techbooks instead — a more structured and predictable reward tier.
Each book or story you receive can be studied once at the Study Table. Studying doesn’t consume the item, so you don’t need to worry about losing it after you extract its value. If you’ve taken the Scientist perk, you also get a 30% chance of earning a bonus Story when studying.
Which Route Should You Take?
The best strategy really depends on your playstyle. If you’re early in the game and need keys immediately for Wharf Rats, Sewer Brawl I is the obvious pick — it’s quick, low-risk, and gives you 3 keys right away. From there, working through Sewer Brawl II and the optional Sewerena fights will build a healthy stockpile if you enjoy the combat side of the game.
If you’d rather focus on building your town, upgrading the Jeweler to Tier 2 and eventually Tier 3 gives you a reliable weekly supply at a very cheap price. Most players will likely end up mixing both approaches: fighting for the big early payouts, then leaning on the Jeweler once the combat rewards dry up. Either way, keep an eye on that calendar — a large stockpile of keys does you no good if you keep missing Davy’s Lust-day window.