The HubReport

English：The Hub　·　Locations

The ruined town at the centre of the Border Zone. The Holy Nation and the Shek Kingdom fought over it repeatedly and then both walked away; today it is an outlaw den, and the first city almost every player ever sees.

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The Hub sits on a hill in the middle of the Border Zone — a ruin that has been burned, collapsed and abandoned by each of two great powers in turn. It is also the most-seen location in Kenshi: the Wanderer, Holy Sword and Son of a Captain starts all drop the player right here.

Position and role

The Border Zone is the arid no-man's-land between the Shek Kingdom and the Holy Nation: no regular patrols, no farms, no mines, only a great deal of high-quality iron and copper. That combination of abundant resources and zero policing is what produced the Dust Bandits and the Black Dragon Ninjas, and what leaves room for a half-abandoned settlement like the Hub to exist.

The region holds only two settlements that are still meaningfully alive: the Shek town of Squin, and the Hub. The former is the Kingdom's fortress on the frontier; the latter cannot even patch its own walls.

History: a town written in five letters

The Hub's full history is hidden in the one shack in town that has not collapsed, in five documents: the three Ludin's Reports, Priest Varloo's Note and Priest Tyluig's Note. The building is flagged as private property but has no occupant, so taking things from it is not a crime.

The broad shape of the story is told the same way across several lore videos: the Holy Nation lost the Hub during its long war with the Shek, only to find the enemy abandoning the town shortly afterwards in a hurry, setting the buildings alight on the way out^{[V1 0:08:01][V2 0:05:05]}; the Holy Nation sent scouts to assess resettlement, and members of that group including several priests claimed to be shadowed at night, after which soldiers began disappearing one by one; the scouts finally concluded the town was cursed by Narko and recommended never touching it again^{[V3 0:05:15][V4 0:06:43]}. Only after both great powers had pulled out did the Trade Ninjas move into the vacuum and open shop^{[V2 0:05:05][V1 0:08:01]}. The Shek offensive that took the Hub is generally placed during the all-out push under the previous king, Shager^{[V4 0:06:43]}.

The three Ludin's Reports lay out a finer chronology:

1. The Shek withdrew. High Paladin Ludin was ordered to survey the Hub and found the Shek army entirely gone, having looted and burned the place on the way out. His conclusion is the famous one — "retaking the Hub would be effortless but resettling it will prove most difficult". No bodies were found inside, which means the Shek had been garrisoned there a long time rather than raiding and leaving.
2. The shadows appeared. On a second patrol, the hound belonging to his comrade Lusac picked up "shadowy figures" on the hill, broke its leash, chased them into the ruins and was never seen again. The town was empty, but doors had been opened and items moved. Ludin judged them to be Shek scouts.
3. A man vanished. On the third visit they entered under cover of night and heard voices, male and female; the moment they passed the gate, the voices stopped. Mid-search, Sentinel Amphetio screamed and disappeared completely — no signs of a struggle, not a drop of blood. Ludin changed his account: these were not scouts but wraiths, and he demanded the Hub be torn down and scorched.

Two priests, two theologies

The two priests' notes explain the same events through two different theologies, which makes them an excellent sample of how the Holy Nation thinks internally.

• Varloo argues external cause: the Hub "cannot be held" because Narko's darkness has settled over the place, and even the earthquake that brought down the south wall was her work. His conclusion is to spend the effort destroying the dark goddess's minions.
• Tyluig argues internal cause: Narko's power has not grown; it is Okran's light that is weakening. The cause is social decay — wanton women, disobedient children, men who have forgotten their place. His conclusion is to purify yourselves first.

Both agree that the Hub cannot be held. Neither proposes the option of garrisoning it.

Present day: who actually lives here

Nominally the Hub belongs to the Holy Nation Outlaws — criminals who fled the Holy Nation, few in number and weak in a fight, outnumbered even by the Starving Bandits going hungry next door.

The composition of that group deserves a line of its own: the Holy Nation Outlaws around the Border Zone and the Hub consist of exiled believers and escaped slaves, and a good number of them still worship Okran — in their view it is Holy Lord Phoenix and the church that have soiled the religion^{[V5 0:06:19]}. In other words, a substantial share of the "heretics" in the Hub are against the clergy, not against the god.

Actual order is maintained by two outside organisations:

The Rebel Base a short way outside town is a black-market bar run by the same Trade Ninjas, selling crossbows, blueprints and building materials — and it buys stolen goods from any faction other than its own.

On top of that, the Pacifier of the Hounds, the largest gang in the Swamp, is stationed permanently in the Hub, and is the only channel for repairing relations with that gang.

What it means for the player

The Hub is the best place for a new player to settle, and the reason is not safety but price.

• All 16 buildings for sale in town are in a collapsed state, so they are extremely cheap: Small Shack 1,500 Cats, Storm House 4,800 Cats, Longhouse 7,200 Cats, Bughouse and L-House 10,500 Cats, Snailhouse and Stationhouse 12,000 Cats. Repairs cost building materials, but once repaired you can set up a research bench inside the walls and push your tech level a long way without ever founding an outpost.
• There are several copper and iron nodes within walking distance of the gates. Buy a Small Shack, research ore storage, place a storage box, then Shift+click an ore vein to assign mining — characters will haul the ore back to the box on their own.
• The one intact shack holds two beds, which speeds up healing. But be careful going in: some NPCs will attack on sight.
• Dust Bandit camps often spawn nearby. Once allied with the Shinobi Thieves you can lure bandits to the foot of the thieves' tower and let the guards handle them; the corpses are free early armour.

Trivia

• "Hub" literally means a place where things gather. The name, combined with the Border Zone's lack of farms and mines, suggests this was originally the Holy Nation's logistics depot on the frontier, supporting the abandoned Holy Nation outposts and small settlements nearby.
• Video commentators have proposed another reading: the Trade Ninjas may have been quietly meddling for profit during the Holy Nation–Shek war, then moved into the Hub and opened shop once it was over. This is inference; the game text offers no direct evidence.
• The contrast case is Stack and Bad Teeth — as long as Seto lives, the Shek can never take either. The Holy Nation's investment in the Hub is simply not in the same class as what it puts into towns in its core territory.
• Modded players will meet a Hub-exclusive character: the Genesis mod adds an NPC, an exile named Clayton, who runs the most classic con on the player — a large sum of money tied up in legal proceedings, if only you would pay his tax for him first^{[V6 0:07:04]}. It is a piece of black humour a mod added to a vanilla town; the man does not exist in vanilla.

See also

• The Holy Nation
• Shek Kingdom
• Tech Hunters
• Locations of Kenshi

Buildings and shops

Bar, Thieves Guild, Small Shack (Residential)

Buildings for sale

Sells

Vendors here stock 77 items in total, grouped by category — every entry links.

Items

Armour Plating, Authentic Skeleton Repair Kit, Basic First Aid Kit, Bloodrum, Book, Chainmail Sheets, Copper Alloy Plates, Copper, Electrical Components, Fabrics, Fuel, Gears, Generator Core, Greenfruit, Grog, Hacksaw, Iron Plates, Leather, Sake, Skeleton Repair Kit, Spring Steel, Steel Bars, Tools, Water Jug, Water

Weapons

Combat Cleaver, Falling Sun, Guardless Katana, Heavy Polearm, Holed Sabre, Horse Chopper, Iron Club, Jitte, Katana, Naginata Katana, Naginata, Ninja Blade, Nodachi, Plank, Polearm, Ringed Sabre, Staff, Wakizashi

Crossbows

Bolts Heavies, Bolts Regulars, Bolts Toothpicks, Junkbow, Ranger, Spring Bat, Tooth Pick

Nutrition

Bread, Cooked Vegetables, Dried Fish, Dried Meat, Foodcube, Meatwrap, Ration Pack

Shirts

Black Cloth Shirt, Blackened Chain Hive Shirt, Blackened Chain Shirt, Blackened Chainmail, Dark Leather Shirt, Rusty Chain Shirt, Rusty Chainmail

Light Armour

Drifter's Boots, Drifters Leather Pants, Fog Mask, Ninja Mask, Ninja Rags, Swamp Ninja Mask

Medium Armour

Armoured Hood, Armoured Rags, Black Plate Jacket, Mercenary Leather Armour

Backpacks

Small Thieves Backpack, Thieves Backpack

Clothing

Black Rag Shirt

Vendors and stock here

Compiled automatically from the wiki's vendor data: shops that can appear in this settlement and what they may carry. Actual stock varies with world state and randomisation.

Black Market Bar

Armour Plating, Authentic Skeleton Repair Kit, Basic First Aid Kit, Bloodrum, Bolts Heavies, Bolts Regulars, Bolts Toothpicks, Book, Bread, Chainmail Sheets, Combat Cleaver, Cooked Vegetables, Copper, Copper Alloy Plates, Dried Fish, Dried Meat, Electrical Components, Fabrics, … (57 items in all at this shop)

Thieves Guild

Armoured Hood, Armoured Rags (black), Black Cloth Shirt, Black Plate Jacket, Black Rag Shirt, Blackened Chain Hive Shirt, Blackened Chain Shirt, Blackened Chainmail, Dark Leather Shirt, Drifter's Boots, Drifters Leather Pants, Fog Mask, Guardless Katana, Katana, Mercenary Leather Armour, Ninja Blade, Ninja Mask, Ninja Rags, … (25 items in all at this shop)

Books found here

Priest Tyluig's Note, Priest Varloo's Note

Video citations

1. Kenshi: History of the Holy NationCivilizationEx
2. History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | Factions (Deadcat, Mega City, Mongrel, Shinobi Thieves...)CivilizationEx
3. History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | DocumentaryCivilizationEx
4. Kenshi: History of the Shek KingdomCivilizationEx
5. Kenshi: Major Powers | United Cities and Holy NationCivilizationEx
6. Kenshi | WE ARE DWARVES!! | Let's Play Kenshi Genesis (Ep. 1)HeroInHisHead