Short answer
There is no hard cap on how many zombies you can raise, but owning more than your zombie limit gives the keeper the Excessive zombies debuff, which lowers the Faith and copper each parishioner brings to a sermon. Raise the limit for a few weeks by loading the PR Machine on Gluttony day with Charged Hypno-devices (and Newspapers for bigger runs), or permanently by +10 with the Good fellow talent.
The Town workshop
View full-size image ↗Official promotional screenshot · © Lazy Bear Games / tinyBuild · Official media kit · Material credits
What the zombie limit actually is
Community data from wikily.gg treats the zombie limit as the quality of your Resurrection Lab, and that number starts at 0.
In practice that means any zombie at all puts you over the limit, unless the PR Machine is running or the Good fellow talent covers them.
The check is not constant. The zombie count is compared with the limit each time a PR Machine program starts or ends, and when the God of delusions effect ends.
What Excessive zombies costs you
Above the limit, the keeper gets the Excessive zombies status. At or below it, the debuff is removed at the next check.
The penalty lands on sermons: most sermons bring in 0.1 to 0.9 less Faith and 3 to 36 less copper per parishioner.
Fextralife adds that low sermon attendance has two usual causes — Likes below your church quality, or this workforce debuff — so check both.
Nothing stops your zombies from working. The limit is a Faith and income problem, not a production one.
The church and graveyard in an official screenshot. The zombie limit penalty lands on sermon income; this image does not show the status icon.
View full-size image ↗Official promotional screenshot · © Lazy Bear Games / tinyBuild · Official media kit · Material credits
Raising the limit with the PR Machine
The PR Machine comes from the Congregation Trouble quest: charge a Hypno-device, return it to Gunter and hold a test sermon. The quest also gives 10 Gunter reputation.
On the Gluttony-symbol day, load the machine with Charged Hypno-devices and Newspapers. It shows the increase before you commit.
The +10, +20 and +30 programs take 2, 3 and 5 Charged Hypno-devices. Larger programs, up to +50 and +80, combine devices with Newspapers.
A run lasts one to five weeks, and the bonus disappears when it ends — so the machine is a weekly habit, not a one-off fix.
The permanent option: Good fellow
Good fellow is a talent on the yellow branch of the keeper's tree and adds +10 to the zombie limit for good.
For a small workforce that alone can be enough to skip the PR Machine entirely.
For a large factory it becomes a floor that the PR Machine builds on.
Charging Hypno-devices
Buy an uncharged Hypno-device from Gunter, then charge it at the Formulation Bench: 1 Hypno-device plus 1 Faith makes 1 Charged hypno-device.
The Formulation Bench unlocks through the Church Lighting I technology and sits in the Abandoned Tower.
Our Hypno-device page walks through the whole chain, including where Gunter is.
Planning a bigger workforce
Before raising another zombie, look at how far over the limit it puts you and whether the Faith you lose outweighs the work it does.
A zombie on the Carousel or a busy Assembly Bench usually earns its keep; an idle one only costs sermon income.
Time big resurrection pushes so they land just before a Gluttony day, when you can start a PR Machine run straight away.
Sources
- communitywikily.gg — Excessive zombies
- communitywikily.gg — Zombies
- communityFextralife — Zombie Limit and PR Machine
- communityFextralife — Hypno Device
- communitySteam discussions — Excessive Zombies? What?
