ScorchlanderReport
English：Scorchlander · Races
Scorchlanders are the dark-skinned, glowing-eyed human subrace with the best recovery and the longest sight range — natural craftsmen and sneaks, and the least governable people in the whole wasteland.
Scorchlanders value personal freedom above all else. They have never got on with rules, laws or religion, and so carry a reputation as social outcasts... honest to a fault, contemptuous of manners, moderation and anything "respectable". They are loyal friends, passionate enemies, and the best drinking companions you will find. — in-game race description
Scorchlanders are the other subrace of Human. Anatomically they are almost identical to Greenlanders, but the visual differences are obvious: much darker skin, glowing eyes, frequently silver-white hair, and a slightly shorter build.
Physiology: the fastest-recovering organic race
| Attribute | Value | Relative to Greenlander |
|---|---|---|
| Hunger rate | 0.9 | Eats 10% less |
| Heal rate | 1.1 | 10% faster |
| Bleed rate | 0.9 | 10% slower |
| Sight multiplier | 1.25 | 25% further |
| Minimum move speed | 17.896 mph | 2.2 mph faster |
| Maximum move speed | 26.844 mph | Same |
| Per-part health | 100 | Same |
Scorchlanders are the fastest-healing of all playable organic races. Combined with a lower bleed rate and lower food consumption, their endurance on long marches and in wars of attrition is clearly better than a Greenlander's.
Move speed is an easily misread stat: the Scorchlander's floor is higher (17.896 against 15.659 mph), which means they run faster while Athletics is still low; but the two share the same ceiling, so once Athletics is trained to 100 there is no difference at all.
Another unique trait is that they can eat raw meat directly. This is enormously valuable in the wilds — no campfire needed, no kitchen needed, just skin the animal and eat.
Skill tendencies: craftsman and sneak
Scorchlanders are the most specialised human subrace in the game, with clear-cut bonuses and penalties.
Bonuses (+20%, Dexterity +10%): Weapon Smith, Armour Smith, Athletics, Dodge, Stealth, Dexterity
Penalties (−20%, Strength −10%): Cooking, Farming, Labouring, Strength
The picture these numbers sketch is unambiguous: someone deft with their hands, fast on their feet, hard to hit, but unable to carry heavy loads and useless at farming. In practice, Scorchlanders are the first choice of labour for a base smithy, and the melee characters best suited to a light-armour, high-Dodge build. The −10% Strength means their growth in heavy armour and heavy weapons will lag behind others, but it is not unworkable.
Were these numbers designed?
One line of inference reads the Scorchlander's combination of abilities directly as a Second Empire blueprint. The premise is that the Empire was expert in genetic engineering and did in fact modify humans: on this account, Greenlanders may have been designed at that time as the version with no weak points, slightly better at farming and at research and cooking, while Scorchlanders were tuned as the branch suited to exploration and craft — faster, more agile, better at sneaking, able to eat raw meat, healing quicker. Another batch was given a warrior temperament and became the Enforcer caste[V1 0:02:36].
The appeal of this reading is that it lines up almost item for item with the multiplier table above. But note the direction of the inference: the numbers came first, and this explanation came after — the game has never said Scorchlanders are engineered products. The full discussion of this thread is in Races and Human.
Distribution and culture
Scorchlander distribution corresponds almost perfectly to their race description — wherever the rules are not kept, there are Scorchlanders.
| Occupation type | Representative factions (Scorchlander share) |
|---|---|
| Ninjas / thieves | Shinobi Thieves 56%, Sand Ninjas 50%, Swamp Ninjas 45%, Black Desert Ninjas 44%, Flotsam Ninjas 33% |
| Bandits | Crab Raiders 100%, Grass Pirates 45%, Red Sabres 33%, Preacher Cult 25%, Reavers 20% |
| Guards / traders | Free Traders 42%, Traders Guild 43%, Tech Hunters 30%, United Cities 39% |
The Crab Raiders, the Twinblades and Emperor Tengu's personal retinue are the special cases that are entirely Scorchlander.
Within the Holy Nation, Scorchlanders are unusually scarce. This is not a legal matter — the Holy Nation's racial check uses the broad "Human" category label, and Greenlanders and Scorchlanders are entirely equivalent in their eyes. The scarcity is cultural: a people who place personal freedom above doctrine have a hard time settling into a theocratic agrarian society. Those Scorchlanders who do remain on Holy Nation land are mostly mercenaries or thieves, and a fair number simply defect to the Flotsam Ninjas.
The farming penalty matches the distribution closely too — Scorchlanders almost never turn up among rebel farmers or the Holy Nation's agricultural population, with Green Finger a rare exception.
Trivia
- The Scorchlander prototype very likely comes from Sun Demons, a modded race Chris Hunt made for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, with the tail removed. In the editor of early Kenshi builds, this race's internal name is in fact Sundemon.
- "Can eat raw meat" and "cooking penalty" are treated by players as mutually corroborating design: a people indifferent to the taste and quality of food would naturally not invest effort in culinary skill.
- Jewel is speculated to be at least half Greenlander, one of the few Scorchlanders who does not look like one.
- The Scorchlander sight multiplier of 1.25 matches that of Skeletons and is the highest tier in the game; most organic races sit at only 1. Using a Scorchlander as a scout lets you spot distant enemies earlier than anyone else.
See also
Video citations
- Kenshi: Major Powers | SkeletonsCivilizationEx