Kenshi.zoneWorld Encyclopedia

Mercenary GuildReport

English:Mercenary Guild · Factions

Professional sellswords working the ground between the Holy Nation and the United Cities. They are cheap and they will fight — the only problem is how bad their gear is.

The Mercenary Guild is one of the few organisations in the wasteland that lives purely by selling muscle. They hold no territory, push no ideology, and have no special relation with any faction — pay them and they fight for you.

NoteThe faction's name needs the word "Guild" in it. On its own, "Mercenary" is both a job description and the name of one of this faction's own character types, so dropping the word makes it impossible to tell the organisation from the individual.

Where they operate

Their main range is the stretch between the two great powers, The Holy Nation and the United Cities, with members moving from town to town.

Mercenary Camps are randomly spawning holdings that can appear in The Hook and Watcher's Rim. A camp's standard squad is 1 Mercenary Captain, 2–4 Mercenaries and 2–4 Mercenary Heavies; talk to the captain to hire. The Camp Beds that spawn there are free for the player to use.

Bar squads appear in Black Scratch, Flats Lagoon, Heng, Mongrel, Shark, Smugglers Bar, The Hub, Waystation and World's End, plus any United Cities town and many settlements rewritten by World States.

What a squad costs

ServiceRate
Bodyguard, following you2,000 Cats per day
Guarding your outpost1,000 Cats per day

When a contract runs out, speaking to that squad's leader again renews it — no need to go hunting for a new crew.

Their fighting ability is rated as competent. Their gear quality is terrible. That is the Guild's most consistent trait: decent soldiers wearing junk.

TipBecause they are cheap and renewable, they are worth the most to a squad whose skills have not come up yet. Paying 1,000 Cats to have a crew absorb the first wave of bandits while you haul goods or raise an outpost usually beats trying to hold the line yourself.

Members

TypeGear
Mercenary CaptainWakizashi / Katana, Samurai Armour, Chain Shirt
Mercenary HeavyNodachi, Hachigane
MercenaryHoled Sabre, Hachigane
Human MercenaryHoled Sabre, Tricorn Hat

By race, Greenlanders carry a relative weight of 100 and Shek 60. Members have a colour scheme attached, so their armour and clothing are dyed to a common palette.

NoteThe strings in the map drawer for human mercenary squads, human mercenaries and captains are all member types inside this one Guild, not three separate outfits.

Two ironies

First, they do not wear Mercenary Plate. The game contains a piece of armour literally called Mercenary Plate, whose description claims it has become standard among their kind — and no member of the Mercenary Guild wears it.

Second, this "guild" is tiny. In homeless spawn counts they are drastically outnumbered by bandit groups. The name sounds like a cross-regional institution; the actual organisation is smaller than most gangs.

Overlap with the Manhunters

The wiki notes that Manhunter work is essentially a form of mercenary work, and the two do overlap — once the Slave Market Master and Slave Mistress Grace are both dead, Manhunter Base is taken over by the Mercenary Guild.

The base keeps its original Empire Southwest Trade Culture after the override, which means goods like hashish still sell there at the raised price. Inside are two unique shops — Mercenary Travel Gear and the Mercenary Smithy — a Mercenary Captain in the barracks, and property for sale, two Swamp Houses at 16,000 Cats and a collapsed Small Shack at 1,500 Cats.

For the player this is a World State that turns a slavers' compound into a mercenary market, and clears the local slave-taking problem as a side effect.

See also

Manhunters, Manhunter Base, United Cities, The Holy Nation, Factions