Kenshi.zoneWorld Encyclopedia

Deadcat (Cannibal Plains)Report

English:Deadcat · Locations

The neutral town the map calls Deadcat is a town that no longer exists. It was the only city the Deadcat people ever held; the Cannibals took it and made it their capital. The sign was left up on purpose, to draw the hunted in.

Deadcat was a town on the Cannibal Plains, and the only city the Deadcat faction ever held. In the game you play today it is called the Cannibal Capital. The wiki's Major Towns page sums it up in one line: the largest location owned by the Cannibals, and the fallen home of the Deadcat faction.

NoteThree different things share this name on this site. Deadcat the town is this article. Deadcat the faction is the refugees who are still alive. Cannibal Capital covers what lives in the place now — the garrison, the bounties and the loot.

The sign was never taken down

The single most important fact about Deadcat has nothing to do with its history and everything to do with your map.

ImportantThe town still appears on the map as the neutral town of Deadcat, and only reveals its real name once you get close enough. The wiki states the presumed intent outright: to lure players there, so that anyone being chased by cannibal hordes believes there is a safe haven ahead.

This is one of the very few places where Kenshi lies to you through the interface rather than through a character. The map is the only tool you have for deciding where it is safe to run, and this one name makes that tool wrong exactly once. A first-time squad crossing the Cannibal Plains, spotting a neutral marker to the north, will usually run straight at it. That is the design working.

Before it fell

Deadcat was the Deadcat people's city. The faction spawns mostly as Scorchlanders (weight 200), then Greenlanders (70), with the occasional Shek (10). That composition tells you what they were: a coastal people, not a military power.

Who they actually were is a blank the game never fills. The wiki quotes a forum post by a Lo-Fi developer describing the Deadcats as "Rebel Descendants" — without saying whose rebels. The usual reading works backwards from the name: "Deadcat" sounds like a public insult aimed at the Skeleton emperor Cat-Lon, which would make them descendants of humans who broke away from the Second Empire. They could equally have been rebels against the Holy Nation or the United Cities. The game does not say.

NoteThere is also a separate Dead Cat — a faction from the old Alpha build, long since removed, which once owned Catun, Heft and Bark. It is not this town and not the modern Deadcat faction.

The village next door went with it

There is a second ruin on the Cannibal Plains, Old Village (Deadcat), which the game data still assigns to the Deadcat faction. The wiki's reading is that it was most likely a village attached to the city of Deadcat, destroyed long ago by the Cannibals, with its inhabitants either devoured or driven north to the Northern Coast and south to Dreg.

It spawns no loot at all. Its only remaining function in the game is to leave the fact that people once lived here written on the ground.

What is inside now

A city of cannibals, in short.

Large numbers of Cannibals and Scrawny Cannibals, at least four Cannibal Chiefs (two of them bodyguarding the leader), and the head of the entire faction, the Cannibal Grand Wizard. The Captive's Journal Series sits in chests inside the Grand Wizard's hut.

For the full garrison, the bounty figures and the guaranteed artifact table, see Cannibal Capital.

Where the survivors ended up

The Deadcats were not wiped out, but the wiki's Minor Outposts page labels them plainly: a dying faction whose civilisation has been in decline ever since the Cannibal tribes started growing.

Four places are all that is left of them:

PlaceRegionCondition
Fishing VillageNorthern CoastThe only settlement in the region with its lights still on. A bar, a general store, a fishmonger, and four unique recruits
Ghost VillageNorthern CoastEmptied. The wiki implies a recent cannibal raid — the buildings stand, the goods are still there, the people are not
Gatherer VillageDregOne east, one west. The eastern one is home to the Suspicious Settler; the western one is fenced in behind a locked makeshift gate
Horrible RuinCheaters RunStill nominally Deadcat territory, actually inhabited entirely by Skin Bandits
TipSeen from a distance, the Horrible Ruin displays as "Nice Ruin" — you only find out otherwise up close. Both of the best-known locations on the Deadcat books draw people to the door with a false name.

How they describe the people who took it

The Deadcat Vendor in the Fishing Village on the Northern Coast gives the player a warning. This is a survivor of Deadcat describing the tribe that took his home:

Careful of the painted tribe, they roam outside the village and pick off any unfortunate travellers that stray too far from town... The goddamn monsters feed on their own kind, eat away at their victims piece by piece while keeping them prisoner in their lair. Be careful, if you see one, there'll be a hundred others following behind...

"Piece by piece" is not a figure of speech. The Captive's Journal, sitting in the Grand Wizard's hut in Cannibal Capital, gives the first-person version.

Is it worth the trip

The short answer: there is no such thing as visiting Deadcat. What you can visit is the Cannibal Capital, and that is a fight, not a resupply.

If you are heading for that marker anyway, the Cannibal Plains have to be crossed first:

ImportantDo not sleep on camp beds out in the open in this region. Cannibals will simply pick up a sleeping character, and a character who has been picked up cannot break free.

See also

Sells

Vendors here stock 13 items in total, grouped by category — every entry links.

Light Armour

Bandana, Black Bandana, Hachigane, Rattan Hat, Side-Angle Hachigane, Tagelmust, Tricorn Hat

Medium Armour

Armoured Hood, Iron Hat, Masked Helmet, Visored Helmet

Headgear

Sandogasa

Heavy Armour

Tin Can

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.

Headgear Shop

Armoured Hood, Bandana, Black Bandana, Hachigane, Iron Hat, Masked Helmet, Rattan Hat, Sandogasa, Side-Angle Hachigane, Tagelmust, Tin Can, Tricorn Hat, Visored Helmet