Bast (Zone)

Bast (Zone)
Neighboring Zones	The Great Desert, Sinkuun, Northern Coast, Okran's Valley, Skimsands, Arm of Okran

“	I've heard of this place, a whole city wiped out in a single day by the Holy Nation.	”
–Player characters

Bast is a zone named after a now abandoned town of the United Cities in the northeast region of the map. It is one of the two border regions between The Holy Nation and United Cities, with the other one being Skimsands. The region is under jurisdiction as part of United Cities core but is in practice a weakly held conflict zone along the frontiers of The Holy Nation.

It was once a developing region dotted with 9 hamlets and 3 settlements until The Holy Nation smashed through the United Cities defenses, executed the head noble, razed the region and pushed the frontlines back from Okran's Valley's borders to this area. This place has been in perpetual conflict ever since with HN sending patrols to periodically pummel this area and UC struggling at pushing them back.

A significant amount of Rebel Farmers (from Sinkuun) and Cannibals (from Northern Coast) spill into this territory and may find themselves embroiled in the fight with one another too.

Both sides have a noticable patrol presence in this region, so it's best to keep an eye out if you are either a non-human or a poor and starving person, as The Holy Nation and United Cities have a tendency to target these types of wanderers, respectively.

While the city itself has almost no loot, the surrounding area witnesses many skirmishing scenes between patrols.

Inhabitants

There are no Major Towns in Bast. This zone does not spawn Camps.

Minor Outposts

These locations are typically small towns, villages, or faction bases.

• Drin

Ancient Locations

These are places which do not have competent inhabitants. Ancient Locations are usually lost outposts or ruins. Beware: sometimes these locations contain territorial protectors such as Security Spiders.

• Bast
• Endin
• Guard Outpost

Aesthetic Ruins

These locations show up on the map, although the player cannot interact with anything at this location.

• Ravaged Hamlet

Nests

Nests are temporary locations which can spawn randomly and typically belong to Animals. This zone has a maximum number of 4 nests. The numbers in closed brackets are the weight of nests.

• Wolf Den {100}

Homeless Spawns

These are squads which spawn without being tied to a location, camp, or nest. This list is in order of likelihood. (1.6x multiplier) The numbers in closed brackets are the weight of homeless spawns.

• United Cities
  • Empire Army Force Weak (3 ~ 6 Samurais, 1 ~ 3 Samurai Scouts, 10 ~ 20 Samurai Conscripts) (Inaba alive) {15}
  • Empire Army (1 Samurai Sergeant, 5 ~ 8 Samurais, 1 ~ 3 Samurai Scouts, 1 ~ 4 Samurai Conscripts) (Tengu alive) {4}
• The Holy Nation
  • Holy Army Force (3 ~ 5 Paladins, 6 ~ 8 Holy Sentinels, 30 ~ 45 Holy Chosen) (Valtena alive) {15}
  • Holy Army Patrol (1 High Paladin, 4 ~ 6 Paladins, 6 ~ 10 Holy Servants) (Valtena alive) {2}
  • Holy Army Patrol (1 High Paladin, 4 ~ 6 Paladins, 6 ~ 10 Holy Servants) (Phoenix alive) {2}
• Rebel Farmers
  • Empire Rebel Farmers Small (1 Outlaw Swordsman, 3 ~ 6 Outlaw Farmers) (Tengu alive) {4}
  • Empire Rebel Farmers Heavy (1 Outlaw Swordsman Captain, 0 ~ 3 Outlaw Swordsmen, 3 ~ 7 Outlaw Heavies) (Simion and Tengu alive, Yabuta dead) {4}
• Slaves
  • Empire Slave Escapees (1 ~ 5 Escaped Slaves) {5}
• Cannibals
  • Cannibal Raid 1 (6 ~ 25 Cannibals) {4}
• Wolves
  • Lone Wolf (1 Bonedog aged 70) {2}
• Skimmers
  • Skimmer Hunter Solo 24hr (1 Skimmer aged 100) {1}
• No Faction
  • Lost Drone (1 Lost Drone) {1}
• Drifters
  • Traveler (1 Traveler) {1}

These squads can potentially spawn in this zone if certain World States have been reached.

• Rebel Farmers
  • Empire Rebel Farmers Heavy (1 Outlaw Swordsman Captain, 0 ~ 3 Outlaw Swordsman, 3 ~ 11 Outlaw Heavies, 0 ~ 2 Bonedogs aged 70) (Inaba dead, Tengu alive) {4}
• Yabuta Outlaws
  • Yabuta Outlaw Roaming (5 ~ 9 Yabuta Outlaws) (Yabuta alive) {4}
• United Cities
  • Empire Guard Bandits (diaspora) (4 ~ 13 Samurai Rogues) (Tengu alive, Ren and Haga dead) (Malnourished) {2}
• The Holy Nation
  • Holy Army Bandits (diaspora) (4 ~ 10 Strayed Paladins) (Phoenix, Seta and Valtena dead). {2}

Environment

Bast (Zone)
These are the modifiers which are linked to this zone on FCS.
Water	50%		Fertility	100%
Environment			Resources
Arid	100%		Stone	100
Green	10%		Iron	100
Swamp	0%		Copper	80
Before building an outpost, players should find information about specific areas through Prospecting.

Weather

This zone has the Border Zone season. Seasons may cause harmful Weather Effects or be purely aesthetic.

• Sand steam (duststorm)
• Desert dust swirls
• Sand steam (no effect)
• Desert calm

Gallery

Bast (Zone) from Kenshi all in one map.PNG

Zone Info

• Weight in Bast when compared to adjacent regions:
  • 10x as dense as The Great Desert, as the adjacent Cannibal spawns increase in 10x weight frequency.
    • Same as Sinkuun, The Great Desert,
  • 0.25x as dense as Northern Coast, as the adjacent Cannibal spawns decrease by 4x weight frequency.
    • Same as Okran's Valley.

Tips

• Holy Nation sentinel and United City samurai gear, as well as Basic First Aid Kits, can be obtained in abundance here. Wearing faction armor works as a Disguise and may lead to being attacked by enemies of that faction or the faction itself if the disguise is blown. Faction armor also has their market value significantly reduced, making it less profitable than typical armors to sell.
  • This place can still be a very easy way to earn Raw Iron by smelting armour and weapons in an Item Furnace.
• This place can be great to train Field Medic skill given the large number of casualties from clashes here.
• To deal with the Holy Nation patrols it is suggested to bring one human male, preferably with a copy of The Holy Flame in order to pacify them. Do be aware they will attack on sight if there is a skeleton or person with prosthetics in the players Party.
• To deal with any United Cities patrols avoid being malnourished as it will attract their attention. If all else fails, several dialogue checks from them allow for bribery at the cost of cats.

Trivia

• Dialogue from Bard implies that Bast was colonized in relatively recent times, and may have started to prosper, before the Holy Nation's invasion.
• This place is very likely to be razed as a result of one or several large Holy Nation punitive expeditionary forces sent after UC enslaved a frontier farm village.
  • The intent clearly isn't conquest, as the forces withdrew from the region after razing it.
  • The intent likely isn’t wholescale slaughter, since the sources mention only the execution of the head noble, and not of anyone else.
    • The mention of youngsters getting sent to Rebirth would suggest that they valued taking captives instead.
    • There are visible displaced civilians inside Endin and Bast.
  • The intent likely isn't mass enslavement, as only youngsters are mentioned to be sent to Rebirth as opposed to every able-bodied civilian.
    • During the chaos, many children likely became displaced orphans who were unlikely to survive. They would have both moral and pragmatic reasons to take them in: children are easier to transport and assimilate, and it would be wasteful to let potentially valuable lives perish.
  • The intent is likely to terrorize and weaken United Cities through asserting dominance and retribution by executing their noble and destroying infrastructure in the region. By doing so they would create a suitable buffer state and push back the frontlines to a comfortable distance from their core region, with enough patrol presence in this region to serve as deterrence.
• History of Kenshi suggests that this place was a prosperous region with many farms and towns for trading.
  • Exactly how densely populated it was is unclear, as the farms here resemble more of scattered dots than well developed farming communities. And the defenses were easily overwhelmed by The Holy Nation's forces.
• The conflict intensity here could be presumed to be fairly limited, given that a combination of the various squads of Rebel Farmers, Slaves, Cannibals and other squads easily make up just as much of a presence as either The Holy Nation or United Cities. Suggesting that this place is in a state of limited, frozen conflict rather than a full-scale war.
  • This is further supported by the dialogue of Phoenix, as he doesn't see UC as a significant threat or problem relative to others.
    • HN can be considered to have already decisively won the engagement and achieved their objectives considering that they clearly dominated this region by successfully razing the entire region. Doing another large military campaign to wipe out the Empire forces in this area when UC's control in this region is in an obviously weakened state would likely be even easier.
    • HN's army can be considered to be quite reserved in their actions, as they only takeover Drin if both Inaba and Tengu are dead which scatters off the empire forces. Though Inaba's death alone shifts 4~5x the military patrol presence in HN's advantage, making overwhelming UC forces a very easy endeavor.
    • There are clearly large visible patrol groups in the neighboring Okran's Valley, including the elite Inquisitor squads which HN doesn't send to this front, even though it could quite easily swing the dominance in this region to HN's favor should they just care enough to send them to frontline combat.
    • The various pieces of evidence would suggest that they don't care that much about taking over this region or annihilating United Cities, and are merely just sending or stationing enough forces at the borders/frontiers for deterrence.
  • This is further supported by the dialogue of Tengu and Koin, who see The Holy Nation as a viable buffer between them and the various Shek raiders (i.e. the likes of Shek Kingdom and Kral's Chosen) from pillaging their nation.
    • Though they clearly care about Bast to a bigger extent than HN as they are still intent on capturing Okran's Shield and pushing HN back, rather than almost ignoring completely like Phoenix does.