The SwampReport

English：The Swamp　·　Locations

The low-visibility wetland of the south, with the highest water and fertility values on the map and the only source of hemp and hashish. Five gangs rule it jointly, and order rests on nobody wanting to swing first.

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There used to be a big port city around here… gone now, of course. These days people call it the "Old Empire". — Skeleton player character

The Swamp lies across the south of the map, bordered by the Border Zone to the north, the South Wetlands to the south, the Spider Plains to the west and the Burning Forest to the east. Fog plus dense vegetation keeps visibility below that of most regions — which is both a breeding ground for ambushes and the physical basis on which smuggling routes exist.

The richest soil on the map

Water at 200% means enormous well output, and fertility at 100% lets hemp and riceweed grow without effort. Copper and iron nodes at 100% quality are scattered throughout; only stone is capped at 50 — but the Swamp's other yields more than make up for it. Protein comes from the region's own Swamp Turtles, which are docile and drop a startling amount of meat for one corpse. Beyond farming, there is enough water here to fish, so food pressure is far lower than in other regions^{[V1 0:00:55]}.

That said, "100% fertility" is easily misread as "anything grows". Testing says the opposite: even on a spot with maximum fertility, greenfruit, wheat and vegetables all perform badly, and the only crop that reliably mass-produces is hemp (hops also works)^{[V2 0:25:36]}. This is the mechanical reason the hashish industry concentrates in the Swamp — not that swampers are especially keen to grow drugs, but that this land will only grow that.

Another easily overlooked limit is wind: the Swamp has terrible wind values, so wind power is nearly unusable and electricity has to come from fuel generators plus batteries^{[V2 0:25:36]}.

In other words: this is rich land, and the reason it never became a kingdom is that everyone who fled here did so to get away from kingdoms. There are no nobles and no clergy here to skim the product of labour, so the people mainstream society has cast out — criminals, exiles, adventurers — would rather carry the environmental risk than live anywhere else^{[V1 0:00:14]}.

I can hardly believe it. This place is real. Here, what you put in is what you get out. No nobles born lucky who then come round with their hands out for tax. No priests who claim to have it all worked out and steal from people's ignorance. The only law here is natural law: the strongest takes everything… — letter from a swamp resident

The five gangs

The Swampers themselves are a loose collection with no central organisation: exiles, criminals, the banished. They are a decentralised, individualist faction, and the only holdings in their name are the region's single city Shark, Mud Town, and two small villages^{[V1 0:00:14]}. With no government and no standing army, the way they keep order is to negotiate directly with the five strongest gangs in the region: share the turf, run your own business, keep out of each other's way, and keep Shark neutral toward everyone^{[V1 0:01:30][V3 0:08:20]}.

The whole arrangement rests on calculations of money and power, with nothing institutional holding it up — one bar brawl or one private grudge is enough to drag the entire region into war^{[V3 0:08:20]}.

Real power lies with five gangs, each led by a "Big", with clearly divided turf and trade.

The Hounds head the five for a simple reason: they are the continent's principal hemp growers, and hemp is the only raw material for hashish. The Blackshifters are made up of Hive ronin; the wiki notes they are smaller than the Hounds but larger than the Grayflayers, and besides running a casino each in Shark and Mud Town along with lending and extortion, they also keep their own secret drug workshop^{[V1 0:02:41]}. The Grayflayers are said to hold to a rule about "only robbing those who deserve it", and their income comes from raiding, theft and mercenary contracts^{[V1 0:02:41]}.

The Stone Rats are described by barkeepers as a pack of thugs, and they do whatever the Hounds tell them — their leader Big Al is a Shek warrior, and the gang sits lowest in the pecking order with protection money as its main line of work. Their most troublesome habit is picking fights with passing travellers in the streets of Shark, and in a neutral city shared by five gangs, one provocation escalates into a city-wide brawl very easily^{[V1 0:02:41]}. The Twinblades are a Scorchlander gang, smallest of the five and holding no settlement at all, with only a small foothold in Mud Town — but they have the worst reputation of the lot: anyone who cannot pay the ransom gets killed and their organs sold to the highest bidder, and they even extort doctors and surgeons to keep stock coming^{[V1 0:03:51]}.

The hashish economy

Hemp → Hashish: one Hemp Processor consumes 5 hemp to produce 1 hashish. Hashish has a base value of about 150 Cats and a markup of 104%, but it is contraband in most cities, and being caught with it means prison. The Traders Guild will not touch the stuff; border towns enforce the law more loosely and are the main outlet. The other major channel is the Shinobi Thieves' thief fence, through which it flows into the United Cities.

Worth noting is that this supply chain has both a legal and an illegal exit: the illegal one runs through the Shinobi Thieves into the United Cities, while the legal one is selling straight to the Tech Hunters — the same cargo carries a different charge depending on who buys it^{[V1 0:00:55]}. As for the price, the swampers have to live year-round alongside vicious predatory spiders and the Swamp Raptors that will strip a field bare^{[V1 0:00:55]}.

Players can build their own Hemp Processor too, but it is an illegal structure and will draw the attention of nearby anti-drug factions.

Joining the Hounds: build a base in the Swamp and the Hounds will send someone to say that if you want protection you should go find Ears. Ignoring that demand has no consequences whatsoever — you neither pay "Big Grim's cut" nor get raided over it. If you do want in, find Ears in the Dancing Skeleton bar in Shark and pay about 2,000 Cats for the right to speak to Big Grim. You do not actually need a base in the Swamp to go down this route.

Two armed groups outside the pact

The Red Sabres and the Swamp Ninjas are mortal enemies who fight on sight. The Red Sabres' hideout is in the south-west of the Swamp; the Swamp Ninjas' base is in fact next door in the South Wetlands. The spawn strength of both is tied to world states:

• Red Sabre boss alive → squads of 7–11; boss dead → down to 2–6
• Swamp Ninja leader Shade alive and the Red Sabre boss already dead → the ninjas switch to a reinforced composition (a Jonin plus several Chunin)

In other words, kill the boss of one side and the other grows. This is one of the few power structures in the Swamp that player action rewrites.

The Red Sabres operate out of the Red Sabre hideout in the south-west of the Swamp and specialise in robbing travellers; the Swamp Ninjas' leader Shade is a Scorchlander woman, and their base is actually outside the zone to the south in the South Wetlands^{[V1 0:04:25]}.

The Band of Bones, made up of Shek exiles, plus wandering assassins, also drift in. The Band of Bones is based in the Stenn Desert to the north-west and led by Tora the Fearless; they hold strictly to Shek culture's endless war, sending patrols into neighbouring regions on a regular schedule to attack anyone they meet. Robbery is incidental — what they actually want is the fight^{[V1 0:04:25]}.

Ecology

• Blood Spider — the real cause of death in the Swamp. Individually fragile but they move in packs, deal very high damage, and can walk along the bottom of the water. Being driven into a lake will not shake them off; it only adds drowning to your problems. They are vulnerable to bleed damage but heal extremely fast; grabbing the teeth off one right after knocking it down will finish it for good.
• Swamp Raptor — a docile reptile that wanders in groups. It will not attack on its own but strips crops bare, making it the number one pest in the swampers' hemp fields.
• Swamp Turtle — entirely passive unless you strike first. Drops a large amount of raw meat.

The hidden cost of building a base

The Swamp is often listed among the worst regions in the game for a base, but the real reason is neither the gangs nor the Blood Spiders — it is the engine: vegetation and object density here are far higher than in other regions, so performance suffers, loading is very slow, and after a save-and-reload you get vegetation vanishing and growing back, misaligned building nodes, and outright crashes^{[V2 0:01:39]}.

Put that together with the farming and power limits above and the true face of a Swamp base is clear: rich soil that only grows hemp; plenty of water but no wind; security resting on an unwritten agreement that could break any day; and on top of all that, a layer of purely technical stability risk. It is a high-return illegal industrial zone, not a liveable home. For general principles see Base Building.

Ruins and odds and ends

There are three ancient locations: the Infested Lab, the Lost Library Outpost and the Swamped Lab, plus one purely decorative Empty Ruin. The Map of the Swamps reveals every settlement in the region at once — it is extremely easy to get lost here, and worth the 500 Cats.

If the Western Hive Queen is dead, the region also gets nest-less Hive vagrants (Hive Bandits, Lost Hivers, Lost Princes); the wiki infers from this that Western Hive caravans have long used the Swamp as a corridor toward Flats Lagoon.

Building a base here

The channel's verdict: Recommended with caveats

• Stone　Stone is the one sticking point; Paul Rogers reckons that is the unavoidable price of the Swamp sitting far from the mountainous regions.^{[V4 0:06:08]}
• Hazards　Thick fog blankets the whole region; besides dragging down performance, things right in front of you vanish outright when you zoom the camera out.^{[V4 0:01:39]}
• Distance to supplies　Shark and several small villages sit inside the region for trade, and most of their traders also deal in Hashish.^{[V4 0:01:06]}
• Stone　Stone is the one sticking point; Paul Rogers reckons that is the unavoidable price of the Swamp sitting far from the mountainous regions.^{[V4 0:06:08]}
• Stone　Stone is the one sticking point; Paul Rogers reckons that is the unavoidable price of the Swamp sitting far from the mountainous regions.^{[V4 0:06:08]}
• Stone　Stone is the one sticking point; Paul Rogers reckons that is the unavoidable price of the Swamp sitting far from the mountainous regions.^{[V4 0:06:08]}
• Hazards　Thick fog blankets the whole region; besides dragging down performance, things right in front of you vanish outright when you zoom the camera out.^{[V4 0:01:39]}
• Hazards　Thick fog blankets the whole region; besides dragging down performance, things right in front of you vanish outright when you zoom the camera out.^{[V4 0:01:39]}
• Raids　All three of the big gangs — the Red Sabres, the Swamp Ninjas and the Band of Bones — will come knocking, and the Swamp Ninjas are the strongest and turn up in large groups.^{[V4 0:02:14]}
• Raids　Swamp Raptors come for your crops and will smash gates and break walls; the video suggests not farming at all until your defences are ready.^{[V4 0:03:55]}
• Raids　Blood Spiders have reach and damage that even tanky characters cannot absorb, and they move along the bottom of the water, where they are almost impossible to see.^{[V4 0:04:29]}
• Hazards　Thick fog blankets the whole region; besides dragging down performance, things right in front of you vanish outright when you zoom the camera out.^{[V4 0:01:39]}
• Distance to supplies　Shark and several small villages sit inside the region for trade, and most of their traders also deal in Hashish.^{[V4 0:01:06]}
• Distance to supplies　Running Hashish through Shem to Flats Lagoon is, in Paul Rogers' judgement, the most profitable trade route.^{[V4 0:07:46]}
• Other　Paul Rogers' top recommendation is to build right on the border, especially where the Swamp meets Shem: you get both swamp and arid fertility at once, and wind generators work properly on the Shem side, which patches the Swamp's lack of wind.^{[V4 0:06:40]}

See also

• Shark
• Hounds
• Shinobi Thieves
• Economy and Trade
• Creatures
• Locations of Kenshi

Books found here

Memo From Big Grim, Letters From A Swamper, Letters To Hash, Letter To Darkbrow, Note From Blue Eyes

Video citations

1. History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | Gangs of the SwampCivilizationEx
2. Kenshi Base Building - Hounds Hashish FarmHeroInHisHead
3. History of Kenshi: Minor Powers | DocumentaryCivilizationEx
4. Should You Settle the Swamp/Wetlands? | Kenshi Location GuidePaul Rogers Gaming