AshlandsReport

English：Ashlands　·　Locations

The peninsula of death in the south-eastern corner of the map, and the ruined capital of the Second Empire. Water and fertility are both zero, iron and copper output is tripled, the surface is ruled by the Skeleton Legion and clouds of poison gas, and deep inside sits the mad last emperor, Cat-Lon.

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The Ashlands are officially considered "unsurvivable". Every expedition on record has been a total loss. It is advised that prospecting stop at the outskirts; there are already decent returns to be had there. — Iyo, Tech Hunter Notes: The Ashlands

The Ashlands are the peninsula in Kenshi's south-eastern corner, and the site of the Second Empire's capital. Today it is a colourless expanse of ash-grey ground: the ashfall never stops all year, and half-buried colossal structures lie scattered across the surface. There are no towns here, no nests, no camps — only patrols.

Why it ended up like this

Cat-Lon and his fellow Skeletons founded the Second Empire in the continent's south-east, with the capital where the Ashlands are today; the distinctive architectural remains found throughout the zone show that it was once a highly industrialised metropolis. One commentator notes a coincidence in passing: this is the very same land Stobe gave his life to buy for human survival^{[V1 0:05:31]}. The empire's end was not a breach but a rot — in his later years Cat-Lon fell into paranoia and turned every skeleton who opposed him into a thrall, and a great famine crushed what order was left.

Cat-Lon did not leave. He stayed on his throne, surrounded by the mindless thralls he had made, watching the structures fall and the ashfall from the nearby volcanoes bury the ground layer by layer until the land was unrecognisable.

Worth noting: the ash may not be what this land originally looked like. One account holds that the layer of ash only accumulated after Cat-Lon went fully mad and maintenance of the capital stopped; if that holds, the earlier-set prequel Kenshi 2 would have the opportunity to show the same land before the ash covered it^{[V2 0:07:11]}.

Who built those colossal structures

The half-buried structures on the Ashlands' surface are extreme in scale: hundreds or even thousands of feet tall, with a squad standing beside them looking like ants^{[V2 0:06:37]}. Are they all Second Empire work? One reading says no.

The criterion is material and scale. Structures of that grade only appear in areas the First Empire once controlled (Floodlands, the Deadlands, and so on), while the Second Empire, however big it built, used sandstone, cement and scrap metal. On this inference, Cat-Lon built his capital on top of First Empire rubble in order to salvage ready-made technology close at hand^{[V3 0:18:12]}.

The same line of thought gets applied to the domes: their shape has been described as very much like drop pods lowered from orbit — containers used during colonisation to deliver supplies or people. Supporting evidence comes from their distribution: apart from the one hugging the Ashlands' border, there is no other building of the same type anywhere on the continent; if Cat-Lon had really built them himself, something that useful could not possibly exist only here^{[V3 0:19:16]}.

At least one thing, however, has been promoted from guesswork to observation: after a free camera was officially added, the first thing one author did was fly up the Ashlands' colossal structure to film it, and the shot stayed connected all the way up — it really is a complete space elevator, not the suspended wreck players could previously only crane their necks at halfway^{[V4 0:29:28]}.

Environment

The Ashlands' environmental figures are unique on the map: Water 0%, Fertility 0%, Arid / Green / Swamp all 0%, Stone 0, but Iron and Copper at 300% each. Nothing will grow and no water can be drawn, yet industrial raw material is triple the rest of the map — that set of numbers is a footnote on its origins: a city never meant to feed anyone, only to produce things.

The season code is Ashland Basic, with only two weather types: ashfall and poison gas.

Poison gas

The Ashlands' gas clouds are large and white (the Black Desert's are small and black), and inflict stun damage to the chest.

• A full-health Greenlander walking in hits zero in roughly 20 game minutes; the Black Desert's clouds are more toxic and need only about 14.
• Only three head items give 100% protection: the Fog Mask, the Mask MkIII and the Swamp Ninja Mask. Skeletons and animals are immune.
• Indoors is completely immune, and standing on the top floor of a building (including the domes themselves) is immune too.

Who is here

The Ashlands have no major town and spawn no nests or camps; everything active on the surface is a patrol, belonging to one of three powers:

• The Skeleton Legion — the wreckage of the Second Empire's military apparatus. Un-thralled "Legionaries" and "Legion Scouts" form the backbone; the most numerous are Legion Thralls, mostly victims of the mass thralling of that era. A thrall unit is 1 Legionary leading 18–35 thralls. Only a tiny minority today retain self-awareness and loyalty to Cat-Lon; all the rest are shells stripped of consciousness^{[V5 0:07:10]}.
• Old Machines — packs of Iron Spiders (4–18 per squad), plus the leviathan-sized Cleanser Unit: enormous health but mediocre stats, and the only renewable source of AI Cores in the game.
• The Second Empire and its exiles — holding the four domes and the interior of Cat-Lon's Exile; they do not patrol outside.

The outside world has long forgotten where these patrols came from and covers them with one vague label — "Second Empire Exiles"^{[V6 0:04:24]}.

The four domes

The four Ashland Domes are controlled by the "Second Empire" faction and share the same structure: multiple floors, two entrances, and a spiral staircase at the centre. Each houses one named holdout:

General Jang commanded the Hydraulic Knights and led his forces on the front line against Cannibals and pirates; Hat-12 was the empire's police chief and, under orders, suppressed the cult that later became the Holy Nation — the two figures who pushed the empire towards collapse are still guarding their own domes today. There are also two "Ashland Dome Wreck" sites, which are purely scenery markers.

By contrast, what Cat-Lon himself directly controls is not these named holdouts but the headless Stormthralls, Screamer Units and Iron Spiders^{[V7 0:04:38]} — in other words, the empire's last chain of command has broken into several disconnected remnants, each guarding a dome of its own.

Cat-Lon's Exile

At the peninsula's southern tip is a vast sinkhole, and in that pit stand two intact domes — Cat-Lon's Exile, controlled by the "Second Empire Exiles".

• There is only one way in or out: a large earthen ramp on the western side.
• The first dome houses up to 120 Stormthralls; the second dome is where Mad Cat-Lon himself sits.
• Cat-Lon delivers a monologue before attacking, and when the last word lands, all 120 thralls in the neighbouring dome pour in. Clear the thralls before triggering him and he fights alone.
• Guaranteed drops: 5× AI Core, an Edgewalker-grade Nodachi, and Cat-Lon's own Meitou-grade Falling Sun and Ancient Samurai Armour. It is also the source of blueprints for the Ashlander Hat, Ashlander Stormgoggles, Dustcoat, Fog Mask and Advanced Outpost designs.

Directly above the pit floats a large mass of wreckage, which from a distance looks like a fragment of a space elevator. One account holds that the sinkhole itself was gouged out by its impact, and that the structure may belong to the same series as the ring satellites at The Eye and Wend.

Returns and routes

The Ashlands have the highest density of research artifacts in the game, and are also a rich source of Meitou- and Edgewalker-grade weapons. The wiki puts it bluntly: a character with good stealth can make one run and bring back several hundred thousand cats' worth of loot without much difficulty.

Three routes are common: Stobe's Gamble → Sniper Valley → around the Skinhouse, Cheaters Run → along the Sonorous Dark coast, or swimming in slightly east of the sniper tower — in the wiki's own words, you can get past safely "as long as you do not look at that tower".

The Ashlands and the ancient ruins on their fringe all use the "Ashland Trade Culture", which removes books from trader inventories entirely — do not expect to pick up an ordinary book anywhere in that area.

The Ashland Drifters

The game mentions in passing a group of "Ashland Drifters" — people said to have actually gone in and come back alive. The bartender at Flats Lagoon brings them up, and the Tech Hunter Iyo interviewed one of them. Their signature gear survives in the game: Ashlander Stormgoggles and an Ashlander Hat paired with a Dustcoat; the goggles weigh 1 kg, are worth around 120 Cats, and provide 100% sandstorm protection and +4 Perception. The bartender says "they are long gone" — where these people went, the game does not answer.

Related entries

Second Empire, Cat-Lon, Skeletons, Locations Overview, Zone Danger Levels, World Map

Building a base here

The channel's verdict: Recommended with caveats

• Stone　Across most of this region there is no stone to mine right from the outset.^{[V8 0:00:33]}
• Raids　Skin Bandits will not send raid parties into this part of the map, which is the single biggest advantage over a base in the Sonorous Dark.^{[V8 0:01:07]}
• Stone　Across most of this region there is no stone to mine right from the outset.^{[V8 0:00:33]}
• Distance to supplies　The nearest settlements are extremely far away, so produce as much of your supply as you possibly can yourself.^{[V8 0:01:40]}
• Stone　Across most of this region there is no stone to mine right from the outset.^{[V8 0:00:33]}
• Raids　Skin Bandits will not send raid parties into this part of the map, which is the single biggest advantage over a base in the Sonorous Dark.^{[V8 0:01:07]}
• Raids　Skin Bandits will not send raid parties into this part of the map, which is the single biggest advantage over a base in the Sonorous Dark.^{[V8 0:01:07]}
• Raids　Skin Bandits will not send raid parties into this part of the map, which is the single biggest advantage over a base in the Sonorous Dark.^{[V8 0:01:07]}
• Distance to supplies　The nearest settlements are extremely far away, so produce as much of your supply as you possibly can yourself.^{[V8 0:01:40]}
• Defensible terrain　There is plenty of room at the site; Paul Rogers went with a double-gate design to buy time to deal with the spiders.^{[V8 0:05:00]}
• Raids　Skin Bandits will not send raid parties into this part of the map, which is the single biggest advantage over a base in the Sonorous Dark.^{[V8 0:01:07]}
• Raids　Iron Spiders are very common nearby, and often turn up in large groups.^{[V8 0:04:26]}
• Raids　Iron Spiders are very common nearby, and often turn up in large groups.^{[V8 0:04:26]}
• Raids　The Skeleton Legion does not come often, because this location is still a long way from the centre of the Ashlands.^{[V8 0:05:33]}
• Distance to supplies　The nearest settlements are extremely far away, so produce as much of your supply as you possibly can yourself.^{[V8 0:01:40]}
• Distance to supplies　The nearest settlements are extremely far away, so produce as much of your supply as you possibly can yourself.^{[V8 0:01:40]}

Video citations

1. The Whole Story of The Second EmpireHeroInHisHead
2. 5 Things I Want To See In Kenshi 2HeroInHisHead
3. Kenshi Lore Master AMAHeroInHisHead
4. Kenshi 2 Just Got a New Update!HeroInHisHead
5. Kenshi: History of the SkeletonsCivilizationEx
6. Kenshi: Major Powers | SkeletonsCivilizationEx
7. What If Cat-Lon Tried To Take Back Kenshi?HeroInHisHead
8. Should You Settle the Ashlands? | Kenshi Location GuidePaul Rogers Gaming