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Vampire Crawlers Village: The 8 Buildings and When to Visit

The Village, called Gorton in-game, is the hub you return to between runs, and it holds 8 buildings: Town Hall, Settings, Inn, Fortune Teller, World Map, Blacksmith, Museum and Shop. Three open when you finish the tutorial, and the other five are gated behind a floor clear, two relics, two dungeon visits or 250 coins. Everything you buy, equip or respec happens here, which is why the order you open them in decides how fast the first ten hours go.

Two corrections before the list, because both come up in search. The Jeweller is not a separate building: it is the second counter inside the Blacksmith's Workshop, unlocked by a different relic. The Outhouse is not in the Village at all: it is a dungeon event you knock on mid-run.

Every building, what it does, and what opens it

Building What it does Unlocked by What it gates
Town Hall Lists every Unlock in the game Completing the tutorial Nothing: it is the checklist
Settings (Graveyard) Options menu Completing the tutorial Nothing
World Map Stage select, mode toggles Completing the tutorial Every dungeon
Inn Buy and equip Crawlers Completing floor 1 of Mad Forest The Crawler roster
Fortune Teller Equip one Arcana per run Obtaining Polentír Arcana
Blacksmith Add gem slots to cards Obtaining Stardust Anvil Gem sockets
Museum Lists relics; toggles relic effects Playing two dungeons Relic and mode toggles
Shop Buy and upgrade Power Ups Collecting 250 coins Power Ups

The three tutorial buildings are the ones you can click before your first fight. The Inn is the first real unlock and it arrives early: clearing floor 1 of Mad Forest is enough, and the same clear makes Imelda purchasable for 10 gold.

The first 30 minutes, in click order

A new save has no reason to wander. This route clears the tutorial gates in the order the game expects.

Step What you do What it opens
1 Finish the tutorial and take the Pancakes The Combo Stack relic, plus Town Hall, Settings and World Map
2 Open the Town Hall once The full Unlocks list, which is your checklist for the rest of the game
3 Enter Mad Forest and clear floor 1 The Inn, and Imelda becomes purchasable
4 Buy a Crawler at the Inn A second card in every run's starter deck
5 Collect 250 coins in the forest The Shop, which means Power Ups
6 Buy Reroll at the Shop The cheapest fix for a bad level-up offer
7 Play a second dungeon The Museum

Step 5 is the one that changes the pace. Coins drop from light sources, chests and dungeon completion, and 250 is roughly a first clear of Mad Forest if you break everything on the way (coin routes). The Shop's first purchase should be Reroll at 200: a rerolled level-up is worth more than a small stat bump, and the habit carries into every later run (Power Up order).

Inn: when to buy, and when to wait

The Inn sells Crawlers for gold, and each purchase adds exactly one attack or spell card to the party. That is the whole value: a second Crawler is a second card in the opening hand and a second colour trigger, not a stat bonus (how parties work).

Buy when the price is small relative to a clear. The 300-gold tier (Mortaccio is the example everyone cites) pays for itself in the first dungeon because two extra projectiles change what a turn can do. Wait when the price is a five-figure sum and your deck still stalls at combo 5: gold spent on Power Ups improves every Crawler, while gold spent on a Crawler improves one slot.

The Inn also equips your party. Patch 1.5 renamed the button from "Equip" to Add, which is a fair description of what it does: you are adding a card, not swapping a character class.

Blacksmith and Jeweller: one building, two relics

The Blacksmith's Workshop is the only building in the Village with two shops inside it, and they unlock separately.

  • Blacksmith counter: needs the Stardust Anvil relic from Teeny Bridge. It adds gem slots to cards, which is how a card carries two or three gem effects at once.
  • Jeweller counter: needs the Lapidary Loupe relic from Gallo Tower. It moves gems up or down through the five rarity tiers (Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, Ultra Rare) and seals gems you never want to see again.

The Jeweller's prices climb with every use and are capped at 50,000 coins. That cap is the reason to plan: pushing one gem to the top of the ladder late costs more than spreading the same coins across three cards early. Patch 1.5 also removed the old grind, so sealing is instant and the UI shows which chests can contain a gem (gem list and rarities).

Go to the Blacksmith when you have a card worth committing to, not when you have a gem burning a hole in the inventory. A slot on a card you will cut next run is coins you do not get back.

Fortune Teller: the Polentír gate

The Fortune Teller is where Arcana are equipped, one per run. It unlocks on Polentír, the relic in Furious Forest (Mad Forest's tier-2 variant), and acquiring it immediately grants two Arcana: Experimental Medicine and Shield Bash.

That makes Furious Forest the highest-value early stop on the map. Before Polentír you play with no Arcana at all; after it, every run starts with one of 16 effects, and the difference is larger than any single Power Up (all 16 Arcana). If you are choosing between "clear Berserk Wood" and "get Polentír", get Polentír.

Museum: relics, toggles, and the modes

The Museum opens after you have played two dungeons, and it does two jobs. It displays the relics you own as a grid, and it lets you switch individual relic effects off. That second job matters because some relics change the game in ways you may not want on a given run.

It is also where the Hurry and Endless toggles live, alongside the World Map, once you own Sorceress' Tears and the Seventh Trumpet. Same switches, two locations: use whichever is fewer clicks from where you are (Endless Mode).

One relic has no slot in that grid: the Deck Box. The wiki's museum layout lists 18 placements without it, so a full collection still looks one short inside the building.

Town Hall: the only checklist the game gives you

The Town Hall's Unlocks list is the closest thing Vampire Crawlers has to a completion tracker. It is ordered roughly by when a player meets each entry, and it covers Crawlers, cards, evolutions, relics, Arcana, stages, gems and Power Ups in one scroll.

Two habits make it useful. First, it names the exact condition ("Defeat the Giant Enemy Crab in Gallo Tower"), which is more precise than the map's silhouettes. Second, it is the authority when a guide and the map disagree: Death Parade's notes tell you to explore the world map for new dungeons, while the Town Hall lists Gallo Dungeons as unlocked by completing Cappella Ultima (stage unlocks).

Shop: Power Ups and the refund question

The Shop opens at 250 coins and sells the 19 permanent Power Ups. They improve every run regardless of Crawler or deck, which makes them the default sink once your roster is functional (which to buy first).

Refunds exist: third-party guides note that Power Ups can be refunded in the Village, and that the game does not autosave after one (Game Rant). The exact refund rate is not documented in any source used here, so a refund followed by a crash can leave you where you started. Buy with the assumption that the coins are committed.

What is not in the Village

The Outhouse is a dungeon event, not a building. Knock on the door during a run and you can recruit a random Crawler you have already unlocked or purchased, for somewhere between 100 and 500 gold, for the rest of that run. There is no cap on how many you can recruit this way, which makes a rich run a wide party (Crawler recruiting).

The Jeweller is a counter, not a door. If you are looking for the building on the Village map, look for the Blacksmith and walk to the second counter.

Combat does not happen here. The Village is menus, shops and toggles; every fight is behind the World Map.

Q: What does the Jeweller do?

It changes gem rarity and seals gems. Rarity decides how often a gem appears in chests and level-ups, and sealing removes a gem from the pools entirely. It sits inside the Blacksmith and needs the Lapidary Loupe from Gallo Tower.

Q: Where is the Outhouse?

In a dungeon, not the Village. It is a random event you knock on during a run, and it recruits a Crawler for that run only, for 100 to 500 gold.

Q: Do I have to go back to the Village between runs?

To buy, equip or respec, yes. A run starts from the World Map, which you reach from the Village; party changes happen at the Inn or at an Outhouse mid-run, and Arcana at the Fortune Teller.

Q: What opens the Town Hall?

Nothing beyond the tutorial. It is one of the three buildings available immediately, along with Settings and the World Map, and it never gates anything else.

Q: Can I respec Power Ups?

You can refund them in the Village, but the rate is not documented and the game does not autosave on a refund. Treat Power Up purchases as permanent when you plan a build.

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