Pickups

Pickups are miscellaneous items which are not gear items, stat upgrade scrolls, runes, or blueprints. Pickups can be collected using the Interact key while the player is close enough to do so.

There are three main categories of pickups: gems, which give varying amounts of gold; foods, which heal the player; and keys, which allow the player to unlock specific doors.

Gems
Gems give a significant amount of gold when collected.

The table below lists all gems in order from least valuable to most valuable. Generally, gems will be more valuable when they appear in harder biomes, and their values increase multiplicatively by 40% (rounded to the nearest multiple of 5) with each loot level increment.

Food
Food regenerates a fixed percentage of health when eaten. There are two different functional types of food, each with five different appearances depending on the selected diet.

Minor Foods
Minor foods, encompassing Kebabs, Carrots, Guts, Cherries and Cakes (Carnivore, Vegetarian, Monster, Fruitarian and Castlevaniesque, respectively), restore 15% of the player's maximum health by default (30% with the Gastronomy Mutation). Enemies and wall runes may drop them, or they might be found on the ground at the end of a branch or for sale in a food shop.

Major Foods
Major foods, encompassing Chicken, Big Ol' Radishes, Monsters' Eyes, Watermelon and Turkey (Carnivore, Vegetarian, Monster, Fruitarian and Castevaniesque, respectively), are very effective at healing the player, healing 50% of the player's maximum health by default (100% with the Gastronomy Mutation). Major foods, though they do drop rarely from enemies and wall runes, are most reliably obtained by purchasing them in food shops.

Keys
Unlike most other pickups, keys are not used immediately when they are picked up. Instead, they are added to the player's inventory so they can be consumed later to open doors requiring them. All unused keys are dropped upon the player's death (or the occurrence of any event that returns the player to the Prisoners' Cells). Keys will remain in the player's inventory for the rest of the run if not used within the appropriate level.

Gardener Key
Only found in The Promenade of the Condemned, three Gardener Keys are required to open doors to obtain the Explosive Crossbow blueprint. One of the keys require the Belier's Rune, one needs The Spider's Rune and the third can be obtained by stomping a hidden flower in the ground three times. Once the Explosive Crossbow blueprint has been collected, there will be Malachite or Amethyst in its place on subsequent runs. In a later level there might appear a small secret room that can only be reached by traversing a well-hidden passage. A glimpse of the room may hint at its location. Inside the room is a door that requires the key to open and a pickup resembling another, different flower-themed key.

Village Key
Only found in the Fog Fjord in special key rooms, two Village Keys are used to open doors blocking further progress through the level. The mid-stage door can be bypassed if the player possesses the Spider's Rune, but the doors blocking access to the Clock Tower and the Forgotten Sepulchre cannot be bypassed. A secret area in the biome requires a Village Key to unlock access to its prize, the blueprint for the Counter Shield.

Watchmaker's Key
Only found in a specific room in the Clock Tower, the Watchmaker's Key is required to open the door blocking access to the biome's exit, a door to the Clock Room.

Clock Tower Key
Only found when the Clock Tower's bells are rung in ascending order of the volume of their ring, the Clock Tower Key is required to open the door blocking access to the blueprint for Punishment.

Crypt Key
"'It seems to be very old.'"Only found in the Forgotten Sepulchre, four Crypt Keys are required to open several doors blocking further progress through the level. Two lie beyond teleportation tombs, and the other two are dropped by the two Elite The Trackers at the end of the biome.

Graveyard Key
"'Open the gates of Hell...'"Only found in the Graveyard in one of the minor tombs, the Graveyard Key is required to open the door leading down into the underground portion of the main biome.

Architect's Key
Only found in the Graveyard in a wall rune, the Architect's Key is required to open the door blocking access to the blueprints for Merchandise Categories and Parting Gift.