GarruReport
English：Garru · Creatures
A herbivore found all over the map, ridiculous to look at and absurdly hard to put down; it will not start a fight, but move around near one and it will wipe out an entire bandit squad.
Just stand still for a while and they'll leave you alone. — in-game dialogue
The Garru is the most widely distributed large animal in Kenshi, migrating in herds with their pups across deserts, hills and wastelands alike. Its design looks deliberately comical: floppy long ears, a hollow tail, a camel-like hump, wrinkled hide and an exaggerated set of buck teeth.
Which is precisely why it is one of the most underestimated animals in the game.
Defensive: stand still
The Garru is not territorial and it is not a predator. It is defensive — neutral by default, but provokable.
The trigger is "getting too close while still moving". A wild Garru will growl a warning first; at that point stopping everything (turn off job assignments, press R to halt) will settle it down again. Simply keeping your distance works just as well.
A squad member with the "Smart" personality will tell you to stand still at exactly that moment — and he is right. Conversely, a "Maniacal" or "Dumb" character may taunt them and drag the whole herd into combat. Any other squad that picks a fight with a Garru will also pull the entire herd in.
They hit hard when they do fight
Once provoked, a Garru is a genuinely difficult opponent. They routinely wipe out entire squads of hungry bandits who came for the meat, and can occasionally drive off a small group of Beak Things.
It feels exactly the same from the player's side. In one stream HeroInHisHead took his best fighters out specifically to hunt Garru, could not even bring down a pup, got trampled by the herd instead, and came away with nothing after two days[V1 0:04:22]. Those 10 units of raw meat look like the best early food source available; in reality they are meant for a squad that can already fight.
The reason is not damage output but durability and combat resolution:
- Thick torso health: head, chest and stomach are 87–266.25 each. The front legs, by contrast, are only 35–106.5 — an obvious weak point.
- Heal rate 2, far above the average animal.
- Cannot be staggered. Like all animals, they cannot be stumbled or locked down by combos.
- But low blood: 101–154. A Garru dies of bleeding, not of absorbing damage.
Its damage profile is worth noting because it is completely unlike most animals:
| Variant | Cut | Blunt |
|---|---|---|
| Variant 1 | 9.2 + 0.35875×(Martial Arts + Dexterity) | 13 + Martial Arts(0.0234) + Strength(0.0702) |
| Variant 2 | 9.2 + 0.3659×(Martial Arts + Dexterity) | 13 + Martial Arts(0.0312) + Strength(0.0936) |
| Variant 3 | 9.2 + 0.37305×(Martial Arts + Dexterity) | 13 + Martial Arts(0.039) + Strength(0.117) |
Those 13 points of blunt are a flat value, unaffected by stats. The same "9.2 cut plus a flat 13 blunt" profile is listed for the Domesticated Bull, while the Gorillo gets "5.2 cut plus a flat 13 blunt".
The real gap is in the pierce multiplier. The vast majority of an animal's damage actually comes from that multiplier, and the Domesticated Bull / Pack Beast line sits at just 0.4 — the lowest entry in the comparison table in the Guide to Animals (Wild Bulls, Pack Bulls and Crabs are 1.0; Goats and Bonedogs 0.5). A Garru's damage ceiling is therefore far below a Beak Thing's or a spider's, and it is unremarkable as a combat pet.
Pack Beast: the domesticated Garru
The domesticated Garru has its own entry name in game: the Pack Beast, with base stats of 22. They are the transport backbone of the Traders Guild, the nomads and the Western Hive caravans, and they double as escorts — they will actively join in when a caravan is attacked.
Garru Backpack:
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Weight | 6 kg |
| Price | around 2,000 Cats |
| Encumbrance reduction | −90% |
| Combat skill | −4 |
| Athletics effect | 1.00x |
| Combat speed | 0.80x |
| Trade goods stacks | 6 stacks |
It can be bought at the adventure shops in World's End and the Shek Kingdom, and from animal or farm traders in most towns.
The trade-off against the Bull Backpack is clear-cut: the Garru Backpack holds 6 stacks against the bull's 5 at the same volume, so it is more efficient to load; but the Garru Backpack has a lamp attached that cannot be switched off short of removing the whole pack, which badly compromises night-time stealth. That lamp is arguably a small plus for a night-fighting crossbow user.
Other practical differences:
- A domesticated Pack Beast eats anything, including foul raw meat.
- But its appetite is enormous, with a hunger rate of 2.1 — "one of them eats for two people".
- A Garru has no charge attack like the bull, so it performs slightly worse in combat; both, however, are hard-wearing escorts.
- Buying one likewise costs it 75% of its Toughness, attack, defence, Dodge, Martial Arts, Athletics, Swimming and Stealth.
Spawns and distribution
Wild Garru appear almost everywhere on the map: Bonefields, Border Zone, Flats Lagoon, Forbidden Isle, Heng, High Bonefields, Leviathan Coast, Purple Sands, Shem, Shun, The Great Desert, The Hook, The Unwanted Zone and Vain.
Two spawn formations:
- Garru Family: 1–3 adults + 1–3 pups
- Garru Herd: 4–15 adults + 2–6 pups
Related entries
Creatures overview, Beak Thing, Bonedog, Traders Guild, Items overview