TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Selling Bodies for Krowns
- Eating Bodies with Cannibalism
- Human Leather
- Feeding Wildlife
- Storing Bodies in Stash Houses
- Respawning Loot
- Winning Friends and Influencing People
- University Research
- Mix It In a Mincer and Pretend It's Beef
This article was written under Wartales v.1.0.39316.
I am happy to make any corrections if more accurate information is discovered. If you have any comments, you can either post here or e-mail me at: byzantinekitty@gmail.com
All of the screenshots in this post were taken by me.
1. INTRODUCTION
Nothing demonstrates undying love like a dowry chest full of dead bodies....
In Wartales, after combat with human enemies you will usually find some dead bodies:
At first, they might seem useless. In fact, the "Loot All" button takes everything except the bodies. If you want the bodies, you have to manually take them:
In RPG's, I have a tendency to hoard like a packrat. I tend to stockpile consumables instead of using them and even save items that are meant to be sold (i.e. trinket/luxury-type goods). Thus, in Wartales it wasn't that big of a stretch to "horde" an army of the dead....
This facetious guide is going to explore the various uses that dead bodies have in Wartales - krowns, food, leather, keeping containers available, influence, and mystery soup. After reading this guide, you will be able to unlock your inner Dexter and will be ready to stash bodies all across the provinces!
2. SELLING BODIES FOR KROWNS
Interestingly enough, merchants seem to be willing to buy bodies. Sure, they'll only give you 1 krown, which is inefficient since bodies weight 10 units but if you plan to head to town and have the spare carrying capacity, you might as well get a few extra krowns by towing along the bodies after a battle.
As for what the merchants do with the bodies, your guess is as good as mine - anatomical studies, fertilizer for those strange tubers, feed for the crocswine, or the mystery meat in seedy taverns (Chef's Platter at the Traveller's Feast)?
3. EATING BODIES WITH CANNIBALISM
Normally you cannot eat human bodies (though animal carcasses are fair game). However, there is a one point knowledge that unlocks the ability to consume bodies for food:
Keep in mind that bodies are extremely inefficient as a food source. They only provide 1 food yet they weigh 10 units, making them among the worst (if not the worst) in terms of food to weight ratio:
I would not recommend lugging around bodies just to eat. However, fighting usually incurs a lot of fatigue so you usually have to rest shortly after a battle. Thus, you can just devour all the bodies by camping after a fight. Thematically, you can envision your mercenaries as invoking certain warrior traditions involving eating the hearts of your vanquished enemies!
Also, once you discover the cultural delicacies of Cannibalism, you also have the ability to unlock the knowledge to make leather from your defeated human enemies as well!
#4. HUMAN LEATHER
Once you have unlocked the knowledge of Cannibalism and you have built a Tanning Rack, you can then spend 2 knowledge points to learn the secrets of Miscellaneous Tanning.
The Tanning Rack is a piece of production camp equipment that lets you make leather. The blueprint can be acquired at the Trackers' Camp in Arthes Province:
Once you have unlocked Miscellaneous Tanning, you can start converting excess bodies into human leather:
Soon enough you'll have enough leather to rebind the Necronomicon!
5. FEEDING WILDLIFE
When you encounter human enemies, you can usually try to negotiate with them to avoid combat. This requires expending influence and paying them krowns.
While you can't negotiate with animals, you can often avoid combat by distracting them with food and for these purposes, human bodies count even if you have not unlocked Cannibalism.
If there are animals in the area or after battle you are camping in the wilderness and are worried about getting attacked by animals, then you may want to take all of the bodies and feed any potential wildlife you may encounter.
In fact, you may even want to take all the bodies even if this exceeds your carrying capacity. After camping, when the coast is clear, you can discard the excess bodies to get your weight down so you can move again.
6. STORING BODIES IN STASH HOUSES
In Wartales, most locations have various objects you can interact with.
Some clickable objects simply provide a renewable resource (mainly hemp) and cannot be used to store any items:
Some containers are owned by the NPC's. Taking anything in the container counts as stealing and generates suspicion. You cannot place any new objects in these owned containers:
And some containers are unowned and freely available to you. You can take anything in them without accumulating suspicion and you can also put new items in these containers:
Some containers start off as unowned. For some reason, locked containers are usually unowned once you open them. And there are a few cases where a container starts as owned (and taking the contents counts as stealing) but certain game events will cause those containers to become unowned so you can plunder them later on.
Barring a few exceptions, most unowned containers are only accessible as long as they hold at least one item. Once the last item is taken from them and you exit the container screen, you can no longer access the container. Thus if you want to retain access to those containers, you need to keep something in them. Hence, why stashing dead bodies in various locations across the realms is actually quite useful!
New players may think the Camp Chest serves a similar functionality but the Camp Chest only helps you organize your inventory better. You are still carrying items in your Camp Chest and they still contribute to your carrying capacity.
Midway through the game you will eventually unlock travel posts where you can store excess items. But it costs krowns to establish travel posts and there are various limitations, such as being geographically limited to only specific cities. Early on, the low budget alternative is to keep access to various locations as stash houses by storing bodies as placeholders.
You can store heavy items, components that you do not have uses for right now, and things you want to stockpile so you can batch things up.
Another use for stash houses across the realm is to store stolen items. Keep in mind that until you get a notice that you are no longer wanted, the Guard remembers items you have stolen even if you are not in possession of them (i.e. consumed them, fenced them, stashed them) so you may still need to pay a fine. However, stolen items in your direct possession may get confiscated by the guard so if you really want to keep the item, you can stash it in a location until your suspicion level goes back down.
7. RESPAWNING LOOT
I'm pretty sure this is a bug (rather than a feature) and will eventually get patched out - but right now, containers will occasionally respawn loot as long as they are not completely emptied.
This mainly applies to previously locked containers. If you take all of their valuable contents but leave a placeholder item, you will find that occasionally the container respawns with some new loot.
There does seem to be an RNG element involved. If you load a saved game you may sometimes find that the container has not respawned loot or that the container has spawned different loot.
Containers that have fixed loot often seem to respawn the same items. Some containers have random loot and I would surmise that when the containers respawn, they are randomly determined from the loot tables for that container.
The Sinister Cave is not so sinister! You can see that it keeps respawning the same sapphire and ruby:
8. WINNING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE
In the alternate world of Wartales, the book How to Make Friends and Influence People was actually written by Vlad the Impaler!
Midgame you will get access to the Impaling Stake, a piece of camp equipment that allows you to convert enemy bodies into influence.
The blueprints for the Impaling Stake can be found at the Small Tracker Camp in the Ludern region:
Once you buy (or steal) the blueprints, you will be able to build one:
When resting, you can automatically use a corpse to generate 2 influence. If you assign a companion to work the Impaling Stake, the influence is doubled:
There is also an improved version of the Impaling Stake. One star increases the amount of influence by one and there is a level even beyond that:
Now I wouldn't suggest lugging lots of bodies around just to fuel the Impaling Stake. However, since you will often be resting shortly after a battle, you can easily use up one of those bodies. Also, if you have stashed bodies around in various stash houses, you should always be within easy reach of new decorations for your Impaling Stake!
9. UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
In Grinmeer Province, there is a quest at the university where they need dead bodies for research. Think of the horrors if the medical students did not have sufficient practice with their trepanning. Gross anatomy indeed!
10. MIX IT IN A MINCER AND PRETEND IT'S BEEF
There is a way to consume human bodies even without the Cannibalism knowledge. There is a single food recipe that uses bodies as an ingredient.
In Drombach, the Abduction quest is centered around finding a group of bandits who turn out to be cannibals. They are holed up in a Gruesome Cave.
If you want to let the cannibals continue on with their meal, you can steal the recipe for Traveller's Soup though this incurs suspicion:
Alternatively, you can confront them and freely claim the recipe as part of the victor's spoils:
The recipe calls for combining the human remains with mushrooms and a little bit of milk. I guess whoever is eating the soup doesn't realize what is really in it. In the words of Monsieur Thénardier, I suppose they "mix it in a mincer and pretend it's beef." Considering that human bodies weigh a lot, it is optimal to do the cooking right after a battle....