The OutlandsReport
English：The Outlands · Locations
The broken frontier beyond United Cities control. Black Scratch, the Tech Hunter headquarters, stands inside it; outside the walls the land is split between Reavers, Grass Pirates and the Black Dog — and being knocked down here means being dragged off into slavery.
The Outlands lies in the south-east of the continent, at the point where United Cities power stops. The Stormgap Coast to the west is still an imperial frontier; past that border there is no state at all. This broken country, together with Stobe's Garden, Greenbeach and The Unwanted Zone to its south, makes up what the community calls the south-eastern "no-go zone": Reavers, Skeleton Bandits and Crab Raiders tear at each other here, and no one side can impose order.
Landscape and resources
By environmental data the Outlands is not barren at all: water 60%, fertility 90%, iron and stone 100, copper 60. On numbers alone it is better farmland than the Border Zone. Its problem was never the soil but who is on the roads.
The zone's season is labelled "Boneyard dry times". Compared with the rest of the south-east, it has no ancient locations and spawns no camps or animal nests — every point on the map here is a holding someone occupies.
Black Scratch: the exception inside the walls
Black Scratch is the Outlands' only major town, built on a hill and wrapped around an ancient structure of unknown origin. It is the Tech Hunters' faction headquarters, and its Great Library holds the most complete collection of blueprints and history books on the continent; Bo, an important member of the Anti-Slavers, is also stationed here.
For the player, Black Scratch is the only place in the entire south-east where you can resupply, fence goods and buy blueprints in peace. See the Black Scratch article for details.
The three powers outside the walls
Reavers are the region's undisputed protagonists. Their patrols carry a weight of 20 in the non-holding spawn table, more than every other faction combined — and as long as their leader Valamon is alive, those squads keep respawning. The standard composition is 1 Reaver Ironclad, 4–7 Blooded and 1–6 conscripted slaves. The Reaver Camp in the zone is one of their holdings here and the most likely destination for a captured player; the camp may hold 4 Ironclads, 11–17 Blooded, plus a batch of recruits and slaves.
Grass Pirates carry a weight of 10. Their core turf is around The Eye and the Stormgap Coast, with the Outlands as their eastward extension. They wear low-quality sleeveless dustcoats, are permanently hostile to the player, and have Martial Arts between 20 and 40 — unusually high for bandits, which makes them decent unarmed-training partners once disarmed.
The Grass Pirates have no single leader; they are a collection of independent squads, each led by a "Straw Lieutenant"[V1 0:04:24][V2 0:17:27]. They are open enemies of the United Cities, and the most common place to see them fighting is the Stormgap Coast to the west, against imperial patrols[V1 0:04:24]. That hostility has clear limits, though: the Preacher Cult on the eastern side of the same area has coexisted with them for a long time, and the two have never come to blows[V2 0:17:27].
Black Dog is a small protection-racket faction whose headquarters, Black Dog HQ, sits directly west of Black Scratch: one Snailhouse behind level-three walls and a gate, with Bonedogs kept for fighting. Their approach is a little more "civilised" than that of other bandits:
Since you're already benefiting from our presence, we'd ask you to chip in like everyone else. Pay a small fee and we'll keep your base safe, and deal with your pest problem while we're at it. — Black Dog guard
In most cases they will not attack travellers passing through; their income comes from charging protection money to anyone who settles on their turf. Player bases get "visited" too, and refusing to pay starts a fight.
There are also the Scavengers (as long as their leader Gutterhead is alive), and two squad types gated behind world states: scattered imperial bandits that appear once Tengu and several nobles are all dead, and the slave caravans that start passing through once Tinfist is dead while Longen still lives.
The Fishing Village
East of Black Scratch there is also a walled fishing village belonging to the Deadcat faction. The whole village has one bar and two fish shops, and lives under constant threat from Grass Pirates and Reavers. Unique characters including Green Finger, Hobbs, Horse and Soman can potentially be recruited here.
Rules for surviving
The danger of the Outlands is not how strong the enemies are but what failure costs.
A character knocked down by Reavers has a high chance of being dragged off into slavery with all carried gear confiscated — not death, but often more troublesome than death in terms of progress. Which means that in this zone, the ability to run matters more than the ability to fight:
- Watch your encumbrance percentage. Carry too much and you cannot run, and Reaver patrol density guarantees you will need to.
- Carry a Splint Kit. Reavers are good at breaking legs; a broken leg leaves you crawling, and a splint is the only way to get back on your feet.
- Do not take Black Scratch for granted. Inside the walls is the most complete blueprint library on the continent; outside them are slave hunters. One gate separates the two.
Video citations
- History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | Gangs and Bandit CrewsCivilizationEx
- History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | DocumentaryCivilizationEx