Darkest Dungeon Curios Cheat Sheet: All Items & Effects

Use the right provision on a curio and you get gold, trinkets, quirk removals, or healing. Use the wrong one — or nothing at all — and your party eats a bleed, a disease, or 25 stress. This guide covers all 80+ curios across every dungeon location, organized by area, with exact provisions, success effects, and failure percentages. Open this alongside the game and stop wasting gold on trial and error.

Quick tip before anything else: pressing Ctrl+F to search for a curio name is faster than scrolling. Also, dismissing a curio prompt without using an item counts as using nothing — the failure table still applies.

How Curios Work: Rewards vs. Risks

Every curio gives you a choice, even when it doesn’t feel like one. You can use a provision from your inventory, or you can walk away (which the game treats identically to using no item). Most curios have two outcome tables: one for the cleansed result, one for everything else.

Here’s the part people miss: “cleansed” doesn’t always mean a guaranteed reward. Some curios — like the Eldritch Altar — still have a chance to do nothing even when you use the right item. Others, like the Altar of Light, practically guarantee a damage buff whether you cleanse it or not. Knowing which curios are worth burning provisions on, and which you can safely skip, is where the real gold savings happen.

Diseases are the worst-case outcome from most curios. Unlike bleed or blight, diseases persist between rooms and require Medicinal Herbs or a Plague Doctor to remove. If a curio has a 12.5% chance of inflicting The Black Plague, that’s a risk worth respecting — especially on longer dungeon runs.

One more thing: some curios are completely passive, like the Suit of Armor in the Ruins or the Bone Altar in the Warrens. These resolve automatically without requiring any item, so don’t waste provisions trying to cleanse them.

Master Provisions Checklist by Location

Before you set out, buy provisions based on where you’re going. This table tells you exactly which supplies cover the most curios per dungeon — so you’re not hauling a full shop inventory into every run.

Curios Found in All Dungeons

These appear in every location — Ruins, Warrens, Weald, and Cove. Memorize these first since you’ll encounter them on every single run.

The Shambler’s Altar deserves a special callout. Using a torch on it deliberately summons a boss — the Shambler — who drops two high-tier trinkets if you kill him. Only do this if your party is built for it. The uncleansed outcome (doing nothing) gives you absolutely nothing either way, so the altar is either a fight or a skip.

Stack of Books is similarly weird. Burning it with a torch deals 100 stress to one hero — which sounds terrible until you realize the uncleansed table has a 22.2% chance of 25 stress anyway, and only a 66.67% chance of a positive quirk. Skip this curio entirely unless you’re specifically hunting quirks or journal entries.

Location-Specific Curios: Ruins

The Ruins skews heavily toward Holy Water as the primary provision. Eight of the eleven unique curios either require or benefit from it. Load up before heading in.

One non-obvious trap here: the Decorative Urn with a Shovel gives you the Guilty Conscience negative quirk, not a reward. The shovel option exists, but Holy Water is strictly better. The Locked Display Cabinet and Locked Sarcophagus are pure bleed/blight if uncleansed — always use a provision on those.

Location-Specific Curios: Warrens

Medicinal Herbs are the workhorse item in the Warrens. Four curios use them, and the uncleansed outcomes here trend toward blight and disease — which fits the location’s disease-heavy enemy roster. The Warrens also has the best quirk-removal curios of any dungeon.

The Occult Scrawlings cleansing result looks wrong — Holy Water gives you Dodge -20%? Yes. That’s actually the curio removing a curse that would’ve applied at full force without intervention. The uncleansed table has a 33.3% shot at a positive quirk, but also 25% stress. Use Holy Water.

Location-Specific Curios: Weald & Cove

The Weald rewards loot-focused runs. Bandage and Antivenom each cover multiple curios, and several of the best outcomes here scale especially well with an Antiquarian in the party — her passive increases loot yield from curios. The Cove leans on Antivenom and Shovel, with more heal and resistance effects than other dungeons.

Weald

Left Luggage has a weird inversion: the uncleansed 50% outcome of Loot ×4 is actually better than the Antivenom cleanse of Loot ×3. That said, a guaranteed Loot ×3 beats gambling on Loot ×4 or eating a 50% blight. Play it safe with Antivenom unless you’re deep in a short run.

Cove

The Bas-Relief is counterintuitive: using a Shovel on it deals 100 stress to a hero, which seems like a cleanse failure but is actually removing a curse mark. Leave it alone and you get a 66.7% chance at a positive quirk — one of the better passive outcomes in the Cove. The Fish Idol uncleansed results are brutal, though. Always use Holy Water there.

The Courtyard & Farmstead Curios

Both of these are DLC locations with fundamentally different resource economies. The Courtyard introduces The Blood as a unique provision, and several curios here can trigger the Crimson Curse — a persistent disease that turns heroes into vampires over time. The Farmstead, added with The Color of Madness DLC, replaces most of the curio system with shard collection mechanics.

Courtyard

The Damned Fountain is the most punishing curio in the Courtyard. Leaving it alone gives a 60% bleed and 20% Crimson Curse — always use Holy Water. Throbbing Cocoons is similarly dangerous: a 75% chance to spawn three enemies if uncleansed. Bring torches.

The Blood as a provision is specifically earned from killing vampire enemies or found as loot in the Courtyard — it doesn’t come from the Caretaker’s shop. Plan accordingly and hoard it for the Hooded Shrew and Wizened Shrew, which give the best trinket yields in the area.

Farmstead

The Farmstead strips down the curio system significantly. Most objects here resolve automatically and grant either healing or shards — the main resource for upgrading the Shrieker’s Shards mechanic. The Stockpile with a Skeleton Key is the only one worth spending a provision on, giving food ×12 which is enormous for longer endless runs. Mildred’s Locket must be brought on the first visit; after that she generates trinkets passively on repeat runs.

FAQ: Common Curio Mistakes

Does dismissing a curio prompt count as using no item?

Yes. Closing the prompt without selecting anything is mechanically identical to choosing “no provision.” The uncleansed outcome table applies. You’re not playing it safe — you’re gambling.

Can a hero interact with a curio automatically?

Yes, certain quirks cause automatic interactions. The Bookshelves in the Ruins are the dangerous example — heroes with specific quirks will interact before you can stop them. The outcomes aren’t always bad, but you lose control of the situation. Scout your party’s quirks before heading to the Ruins.

Is it worth carrying a Skeleton Key on every run?

Almost always yes. The Heirloom Chest appears in all dungeons and gives Heirlooms ×4 with a key versus ×2 without (and a 25% combined bleed/blight risk). Keys also unlock the Locked Display Cabinet and Locked Sarcophagus in the Ruins and Left Luggage in the Weald. One key covers three high-value curios.

What happens if I use the wrong provision on a curio?

Most curios simply ignore incorrect provisions and treat it as if you used nothing — the uncleansed table applies, and you’ve wasted the item. A few have provision-specific outcomes for “wrong” items (the Decorative Urn’s Shovel giving Guilty Conscience, for example), so this guide specifically flags those traps.

Should I always cleanse curios in the Farmstead?

Most Farmstead curios don’t need provisions at all — they auto-resolve with positive effects. The only one worth spending a provision on is the Stockpile (Skeleton Key). Save everything else for combat supplies, since the Farmstead’s endless mode punishes resource shortages harder than any other dungeon.

Can the Crimson Curse spread between heroes?

Community testing suggests the Crimson Curse can spread from an infected hero to healthy party members over time, similar to regular diseases. It’s not confirmed at what rate, but keeping a hero with the curse in your party on multiple runs dramatically increases exposure risk. Treat it aggressively with Medicinal Herbs or quarantine affected heroes until cleared.