NomadsReport
English：Nomads · Factions
The most harmless people on the continent. They herd goats across everyone's territory, sell pack animals to anyone with money, and leave their camps open for passing travellers — behaviour which, on this map, is itself remarkable.
Need an animal, Townie? Y'need a good pack animal if you wanna survive the travelling life. — Nomad Animal Trader
The Nomads are a faction of human wanderers and animal herders. The Wiki defines them in a single line: neutral, and generally content to just tend to their animals.
On a map full of religious inquisitions, slave caravans and cannibal tribes, that line is the faction's defining feature.
Where they are
Their range splits roughly in two, separated by the whole width of Holy Nation and Shek Kingdom territory:
Southwest — Stenn Desert, Border Zone, Shem, Okran's Gulf, Dreg.
Northeast — Hidden Forest, Northern Coast, Darkfinger, Sinkuun, The Great Desert, Heng, Grey Desert.
Squads of Nomads or Merchant Nomads can also spawn around Flats Lagoon. They control no territory of their own; they simply pass through everyone else's.
Free camps
This is the Nomads' most direct value to the player.
They own several camps scattered across the wilderness that are free for the player to use. A camp typically has shelter from the rain, a campfire and a camp bed.
The Goat Herder's Camp in particular spawns randomly in the Border Zone, Darkfinger, Dreg, Hidden Forest, Northern Coast, Shem and Sinkuun. Each is run by a single Goat Herder with between four and sixteen goats, one or two of which are newborn.
What they sell
The Nomads are the game's most important animal traders.
Settled Nomads (Shem)
A village of five buildings — four residential and one Nomad Animal Shop. It stocks essentially every domesticated animal: Bonedogs, Pack Bulls, Garru Pack Beasts and Goats, usually pup-aged, plus Garru Backpacks and Bull Backpacks.
The village has no walls and no guards, and this region spawns Beak Things heavily. The Wiki's advice is blunt: finish your business and leave, or the whole settlement — animal shop included — may be wiped out.
Settled Nomad Village (Dreg)
Here lives the game's only unique goat, Cornelius. The animal shop asks 15,000 Cats, but finding his owner, the Goat Man, in a nearby hideout gets you a half-price voucher for about 7,500. His base stats are slightly above an ordinary goat's, but he matures nearly twice as slowly.
Members and livestock
Characters: Goat Man, Goat Herder, Nomad, Nomad Animal Trader.
A common Nomad has a 50% chance of being female and carries a Staff, a Tagelmust, rag or armoured-rag clothing, with a Basic First Aid Kit and Bread in the pack. They are not fighters.
Animals travelling with them: Goat, Pack Beast, Bonedog, Pack Bull, Wild Bull. On the move they bring a small pack of goats and a pack beast that gives off light — at night, one of the very few moving light sources in the wasteland.
Relations
| Faction | Standing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Band of Bones | Coexistence | No attacks |
| Dust Bandits | Coexistence | Bandits leave them alone |
| Western Hive | +50 | Explicitly friendly |
| Empire Peasants | +50 | Explicitly friendly |
| Berserkers, Swampers, Rebel Farmers, Holy Nation Outlaws | 0 | Neutral |
Note those two coexistences: even the Dust Bandits and the Band of Bones leave them be. Very few factions in Kenshi are let off by both the bandits and the empires.
One small detail
If your character is starving while inside an NPC town, Nomads will occasionally just hand you some Cooked Vegetables.
The trigger chance is low and the Wiki mentions it in a single line. But it is one of the game's very few moments of a stranger helping you for nothing — and it was given to the one faction that wants nothing in return.