Kenshi.zoneWorld Encyclopedia

HoundsReport

English：Hounds　·　Factions

First among the five gangs of the Swamp, and the continent's principal hemp growers and hashish smugglers. Their leader Big Grim took the run of the Swamp with one letter and one ambush.

Contents
  1. From Hash to Big Grim
  2. Turf and personnel
  3. Joining the Hounds
  4. Faction events
  5. World states
  6. Unimplemented content
  7. See also
The Hounds are the top dogs here, they run this stretch. They actually got hemp to grow in the swamp… whether they prayed to Narko or were just born with green fingers, who the hell knows. Either way it's got them standing firm in the smuggling trade, the strongest of all the gangs. And their boss Grim — she's as clever as she is mad. — a Swamp bartender

The Hounds are the strongest of the five major gangs of The Swamp. Their power base is neither numbers nor blades but agriculture: they are the continent's principal growers of hemp, and hemp is the sole ingredient of hashish — a drug outlawed inside all three of the great polities, The Holy Nation, the United Cities and the Shek Kingdom, and therefore staggeringly profitable.

From Hash to Big Grim

The Hounds were not always the ones in charge. Two book items scattered around the Swamp piece together how the regime changed hands.

Letter To Darkbrow was written before Big Grim's rise, addressed to Big Darkbrow, leader of the Blackshifters. In it Grim points out that Hash, the Swamp's ruling boss at the time, was growing increasingly volatile, and reports that her sources say Hash would move on the casinos — that is, on Big Darkbrow — first. She proposes that the two gangs trap him together, and her price is explicit: she wants the city (Shark). Sketched on the back of the paper is a stick man with a knife in the heart.

Memo From Big Grim is the notice sent to the Big Bosses after the deed was done: Hash is dead, the Stalker Clan is gone, the rules are hers to rewrite now, and anyone who crosses her will be fed to her hounds like Hash was.

Both documents are riddled with misspellings, from which the Wiki concludes that Big Grim is barely literate — yet the same text also displays a very clear negotiating structure: identify the threat, offer value, name the price, attach the menace. Her madness and her shrewdness are two sides of one thing.

Tip"Hash" is simultaneously the slang term for hashish and the name of this former ruling boss; the game text deliberately overlaps the two.

Turf and personnel

The Hounds' headquarters sits inside the neutral city of Shark. On paper Shark belongs to the Swampers; in practice the Hounds have the last word, and of the five gangs they hold the greatest influence over this neutral city[V1 0:02:04]. The HQ district holds roughly 44–47 Hounds plus Big Grim herself. Shark has six large hemp farms inside its walls. Their industrial profile is single-minded: grow hemp, make hashish, ship it out[V2 0:10:16].

The only settlement they control directly is the village of Rot, which has a Big Shop, a Swamp Lookout Tower, a Makeshift Gate and five riceweed farms, with one Swamp House listed at 16,000 Cats. Rot's gate guards wear Swamper colours but are owned by the Hounds; the location can be pinpointed directly with the Map of the Swamps.

Rank-and-file members are uniformly Greenlanders (40% chance of being female), carrying a Ringed Sabre and wearing a Tricorn Hat, Sleeveless Longcoat, Leather Vest and Drifter's Boots, with the Brave personality. Their attributes and weapon skills all land in the 45–55 band — quite high for gang rabble, roughly double the Red Sabres.

TipOne commentator has profiled the gang from an architectural angle: what should a hashish factory look like? His answer is that it needs towers and turrets, but the purpose of that firepower is less to keep enemies out than to keep the workers in — anyone who tries to run or steal gets cut down from the tower; the works themselves are pieced together from scavenged timber and sheet metal, functional rather than handsome, because the business is run by a gang and not a government[V3 0:24:29]. This is a player's roleplay-style reading, not in-game lore.

Joining the Hounds

The whole route boils down to "buy the ticket, then pass the audition": pay the gang's diplomat for an introduction, then have Big Grim herself test your loyalty and competence, and only then are you an ally[V2 0:10:16].

Step one: Ears. Ears is a Scorchlander with Diplomatic Status who appears in one of Shark's two bars (usually the Dancing Skeleton). Pay him around 2,000 Cats and he will "smooth things over" with Big Grim on the player's behalf[V1 0:02:04].

NoteIf the player is already allied with the Traders Guild, The Holy Nation, the United Cities or the Slave Traders, Ears refuses to talk, which seals the route off entirely; the reverse does not hold — joining the Hounds first will not block other factions. Break the alliance in question and he will speak to you again.

Step two: the smuggling job. Big Grim is inside another of the swamp domes beside the casino. She hands the player a batch of hashish and asks for it to be smuggled into the United Cities. The nearest target city is Clownsteady, where contraband has to be moved through the Shinobi Thieves' thief fence. In practice the player does not have to sell the goods at all, only come back and hand over the money — the options are paying the full 4,000 Cats or under-reporting at 3,000 Cats, the latter of which annoys Grim. Once paid, you are allied with the Hounds and Rot turns friendly on the map.

Step three: grow hemp. Speak to her again and Grim will ask the player to build a base in the Swamp and grow hemp, providing up to 19 units of building materials and 1 hashish as seed capital. The tone of the dialogue implies this is compulsory, but there is in fact no consequence for not doing it. Only if you actually build a base in the Swamp do the follow-up events become active.

Faction events

EventTriggerContent
Hound's WelcomeOutpost within 2,500 m of Rot, not yet allied to any major factionA six-person squad turns up to suggest you find Ears in Shark, then leaves
Hound Check InAllied, outpost within 4,500 m of RotTwo six-person squads come to collect "Big Grim's cut", 2,000 Cats; refusing, or ignoring them twice in a row, turns them hostile
Hound ReinforcementsAllied, and under attack by bandits or the Red SabresOne or two squads of 4–7 arrive to help, then patrol the base for a day
Revenge of the HoundsBig Grim killed or kidnapped, or a Check In squad driven offTwo 19-person siege forces attack the gates and free prisoners

All four events use Rot as the distance reference, and all require Big Grim to be alive and free (the revenge event excepted).

World states

In other words, moving on Big Grim is not merely killing a boss; it is handing ownership of the entire city of Shark to somebody else.

Unimplemented content

The FCS contains a character called Hound Skeleton — a Skeleton with a Ringed Sabre and assorted longcoats, with statistics far below an ordinary Hound. This character was never placed in the game; it was presumably intended as an alternative spawn option for the Hounds.

See also

Video citations

  1. History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | Gangs of the SwampCivilizationEx
  2. History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | DocumentaryCivilizationEx
  3. Kenshi Base Building - Hounds Hashish FarmHeroInHisHead
SourcesHounds、Hound、Big Grim、Ears、Rot、Shark、Swampers、Grayflayers、Stone Rats、Blackshifters、Red Sabres、Hashish、Hemp、Letter To Darkbrow、Memo From Big Grim、Letters From A Swamper、Hound's Welcome、Hound Check In、Hound Reinforcements、Revenge of the Hounds、Hound Skeleton、Video s7azrDnYnaE、Video Rbscv9o0-oc、Video 7jJesWo9iUA
Categories: FactionsSwamp GangsCriminal OrganisationsMinor Powers