CatunReport

English：Catun　·　Locations

The plateau fortress at the centre of a Bonefields valley, home to the only smithing outfit on the continent still mass-producing weapons — and the only United Cities town that can be eaten whole by Fishmen.

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Catun is a major United Cities town in the south, sitting on a raised plateau at the centre of a valley in the Bonefields and ringed by aggressively hostile wildlife. It is fairly isolated: the player can only find it by exploring, or by using the Map of the United Cities (Extended Territories).

It does not have the ostentation of the Empire's other cities. It looks more like a medieval fortress, with a large number of Outpost s-III structures pressed into service as wall towers.

Lord Shiro: a Shek in the Noble Circle

Catun's seat belongs to Lord Shiro, a member of the Noble Circle. He holds a very rare distinction: he is Shek.

In an empire that publicly regards the Shek as "unruly savages" (the diplomat Kohn's own words), a Shek seated in the Noble Circle is itself a footnote on imperial politics — what this system truly discriminates against is not race but poverty.

Lord Shiro lives in a Noble House with 4 Hooded Empire Noble Guards. He carries a Nodachi and an Eagle's Cross, and his personality is set to Fearful. His inventory holds Luxury Goods, Hashish, and a copy of The Red Rebellion — the latter a noble's own account of the Empire's bloody famine uprising.

Catun Scrapmasters

Catun's real calling card is the Catun Scrapmasters — a weapon-manufacturing outfit, and the town's dedicated weapon shop.

The Catun Scrapmasters are probably the only major smithing group still mass-producing weapons in modern times. Their blades are of decent quality and are used across the continent. — in-game manufacturer description

That line carries more weight than it looks. In a world where most of the good gear is dug out of ancient ruins or left behind by Skeleton smiths, Catun is one of the very few places that still genuinely produces.

Numbers and trade-offs

Grades run Catun No.1, No.2 and No.3.

The practical conclusion is clear: Catun weapons suit a blunt build, not a pure cutting build. The +20% blunt is a real gain on the Iron Stick, Jitte and Heavy Jitte; but on cutting-focused weapons like the Katana, Wakizashi and Ninja Blade the brand offers almost nothing while still charging you 20% more weight and 20% more money. The added weight also raises the weapon's Strength requirement threshold.

These weapons show up frequently on tough enemies such as United Cities officers and Hundred Guardians. Among the three great powers only the Holy Nation essentially never uses them — High Inquisitor Seta being the conspicuous exception.

The shop and its owner

Stock caps at 100 items and restocks every 24 hours. The shop sells only its own brand and offers a large range of weapon blueprints (Wakizashi, Ninja Blade, Ringed Sabre, Sabre, Holed Sabre, Desert Sabre, Foreign Sabre, Naginata, Katana, Nodachi, Polearms, Longsword, Jitte and Topper).

The proprietor is an elderly Greenlander woman known simply as the Scrapmaster. She is not modest about her products:

The nobles' personal guards use nothing but our blades! You buy cheap, expect to fight cheap. The Catun Scrapmasters have passed the craft down through generations — the oldest and highest-quality smiths in the land.

She will even claim that Skeleton smiths' work is not fit to compete with hers — although in the game's data Catun ranks clearly below the Skeleton brands. She is hard of hearing, which is why she never catches her own smiths calling her "old hag" and "old bag of grey" behind her back.

What is in town

• Catun Scrapmasters (weapon shop)
• Bar, Empire Bar
• General Shop, Mechanical Shop, Ranger Shop
• Noble House, Police Station, Power Station, Ore Processor
• Shinobi Thieves Watchtower

Buildings for sale include several "collapsed" versions at markedly lower prices: Longhouse (Collapsed) 7,200 Cats, Small Shack x2 (Collapsed) at 1,500 Cats each, Storm House (Collapsed) 4,800 Cats, Storm House x2 at 12,800 Cats each, Outpost s-III 32,000 Cats.

Outside the walls: the beasts are the main threat

The Bonefields around Catun are famous for the bones littering the ground: thin on people, thick with animals. Skin Spiders, Boneyard Wolves, Garrus and Beak Things are common outside the walls, and they will charge into the town proper.

Empire samurai are equipped with polearms here as the standard answer, and it works rather well. Humanoid troublemakers are by contrast scarce — usually just one or two Band of Bones characters wandering by, and against the samurai's numbers and skill they stand no chance at all.

World state: the Fishmen take over

Catun has only one world state, but it is among the most thorough in the game.

If Lord Shiro is killed or imprisoned, Catun is taken over wholesale by the Fishmen, and every single building in the town is destroyed.

What replaces it is 3 damaged town gates plus 15 Gurgler squads (each 1 Alpha Gurgler + 3–6 Gurglers). The original town, its shops, its smiths and that hard-of-hearing old woman all disappear.

Trivia

• In the Alpha's old world, Catun was the largest city in the game, sat at the far western edge of the map, and belonged to the "Dead Cat" faction.
• It was originally called Capital, then changed to Catan; in version 0.64 it became Capan over concerns about clashing with the board game of the same name (Settlers of Catan), before finally settling on Catun. The original Capital still survives in the game's gamedata.base.
• Catun is the only city in the south not interlocked with the other south-western towns — its world state hangs on Lord Shiro alone and is entirely independent of whether Emperor Tengu lives or dies.

Two claims that are easily confused

It is not the town where the Armour King set up shop. The Skeleton merchant Armour King says he opened his shop 937 years ago in a thriving Second Empire market town, and has stayed in the same spot for a full thousand years since — a line that is one of the most important dating anchors in the game^{[V1 0:09:40]}, and one also used to argue that Kenshi 2 must fall in the period when the Empire was still functioning and its economy still booming^{[V2 0:02:44]}. But that town's name is Catch, not Catun; today it lies at the bottom of the Wend, in the Drowned Ruins where the Armour King's shop stands. Because the two names sound alike, both Chinese and English lore write-ups regularly misattribute it to Catun. Be careful.

"Catun was once the United Cities capital" is speculation, not canon. A base-building commentator took it as a premise for a build concept: that Emperor Ansei ruled from Catun, making it the Empire's capital of the day, until Ansei died in the Red Rebellion and Emperor Tengu took over; his own aside was that Catun really does not look like a capital, so what he had originally wanted to build was "the true capital that was destroyed in the Red Rebellion, forcing the seat of government to move"^{[V3 0:00:09]}. It is an entertaining idea, but to be clear: the United Cities capital in the game's data is Heft, and the game says so little about Ansei that all that remains is one anonymous letter, The Marionette, which never places him at Catun. That copy of The Red Rebellion in Lord Shiro's pocket is probably the only real link between this town and that stretch of history.

Buildings and shops

Bar, Empire Bar, Catun Scrapmasters, General Shop, Mechanical Shop, Noble House, Ore Processor, Police Station, Power Station, Ranger Shop, Shinobi Thieves Watchtower

Buildings for sale

Sells

Vendors here stock 78 items in total, grouped by category — every entry links.

Items

Armour Plating, Authentic Skeleton Repair Kit, Basic First Aid Kit, Book, Cactus, Chainmail Sheets, Copper Alloy Plates, Copper, Electrical Components, Fabrics, Fuel, Gears, Generator Core, Grog, Hacksaw, Hemp, Iron Plates, Leather, Luxury Goods, Medical Supplies, Riceweed, Robotics Components, Simple Rug, Skeleton Repair Kit, Spring Steel, Steel Bars, Strawflour, Water, Wheatstraw

Weapons

Desert Sabre, Foreign Sabre, Guardless Katana, Heavy Jitte, Holed Sabre, Horse Chopper, Jitte, Katana, Longsword, Mercenary Club, Naginata Katana, Naginata, Ninja Blade, Nodachi, Plank, Ringed Sabre, Staff, Topper, Wakizashi

Crossbows

Bolts Heavies, Bolts Longs, Bolts Regulars, Bolts Toothpicks, Eagle's Cross, Oldworld Bow MkII, Oldworld Bow MkI, Ranger, Spring Bat, Tooth Pick

Shirts

Black Cloth Shirt, Blackened Chain Hive Shirt, Blackened Chain Shirt, Blackened Chainmail, Dark Leather Shirt, Rusty Chain Shirt, Rusty Chainmail

Light Armour

Drifter's Boots, Drifters Leather Pants, Fog Mask, Ninja Mask, Ninja Rags, Swamp Ninja Mask

Medium Armour

Armoured Hood, Armoured Rags, Black Plate Jacket, Mercenary Leather Armour

Backpacks

Small Thieves Backpack, Thieves Backpack

Clothing

Black Rag Shirt

Vendors and stock here

Compiled automatically from the wiki's vendor data: shops that can appear in this settlement and what they may carry. Actual stock varies with world state and randomisation.

Catun Scrapmasters

Desert Sabre, Foreign Sabre, Guardless Katana, Heavy Jitte, Holed Sabre, Horse Chopper, Jitte, Katana, Longsword, Mercenary Club, Naginata, Naginata Katana, Ninja Blade, Nodachi, Plank, Ringed Sabre, Staff, Topper, … (19 items in all at this shop)

Empire Mechanical Shop

Armour Plating, Authentic Skeleton Repair Kit, Book, Chainmail Sheets, Copper, Copper Alloy Plates, Electrical Components, Fabrics, Fuel, Gears, Generator Core, Hacksaw, Iron Plates, Leather, Skeleton Repair Kit, Spring Steel, Steel Bars

Empire Ranger Shop

Bolts Heavies, Bolts Longs, Bolts Regulars, Bolts Toothpicks, Eagle's Cross, Oldworld Bow MkI, Oldworld Bow MkII, Ranger, Spring Bat, Tooth Pick

General Shop

Armour Plating, Authentic Skeleton Repair Kit, Basic First Aid Kit, Book, Cactus, Chainmail Sheets, Copper, Copper Alloy Plates, Electrical Components, Fabrics, Fuel, Gears, Grog, Hacksaw, Hemp, Iron Plates, Leather, Luxury Goods, … (27 items in all at this shop)

Thieves Guild

Armoured Hood, Armoured Rags (black), Black Cloth Shirt, Black Plate Jacket, Black Rag Shirt, Blackened Chain Hive Shirt, Blackened Chain Shirt, Blackened Chainmail, Dark Leather Shirt, Drifter's Boots, Drifters Leather Pants, Fog Mask, Guardless Katana, Katana, Mercenary Leather Armour, Ninja Blade, Ninja Mask, Ninja Rags, … (25 items in all at this shop)

Video citations

1. The History of Kenshi | DocumentaryCivilizationEx
2. Kenshi 2 - What We Know So Far and What We Can ExpectHeroInHisHead
3. Kenshi Base Building - Anzai's VaultHeroInHisHead