Surviving in the medieval era could be dirty business - whether you’re traveling, picking herbs, exploring or working the forge, you’re liable to get covered in sweat, dirt, grime and other unpleasantness. Even more drastically, if you end up in combat you’re also liable to end up awash in blood - hopefully not your own - but whatever the source, good Christian folk tend to look down on one covered in bodily fluids. Dunking your head in a trough will be good enough to achieve at least a crude level of cleanliness, but if you want to be truly clean you can always visit a bathhouse. Your gear, however, is less willing to let go of sanguine substances, and this page will discuss how to clean dirt and blood off gear in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

• How to Remove Blood and Dirt from Clothing and Armor: To fully clean clothes and armor you will need soap, which can be purchased from various merchants or crafted if you have the recipe. Once you have some soap in your inventory, find a laundry spot and wash your gear - the amount of soap required various on the size and number of clothes/armor you’re washing.

Page Breakdown¶

Cleanliness and Charisma¶

Going extended durations without a bath leads to a gradual decline in hygiene - moreso if you’re engaged in any sort of labor - and if you get dirty enough you’ll start to stink. A certain amount of body odor is to be expected during a time period where running water wasn’t widely available, but even in the medieval era excessive putrescence can still offend the olfactory senses. Simply put, over time you and your equipment will get dirty, and if you end up in combat, they’ll also get bloody. This has a negative effect on your Charisma, a derived stat which is determined in large part by the quality and cleanliness of your clothes and/or armor. If your Charisma drops low due to neglect you may provoke negative reactions from others, including penalties to Speech checks and haggling efficacy; if your odor is pungent enough you may even be literally sniffed out by animals and enemies who otherwise wouldn’t be able to detect you.

Washing Henry¶

Cleanliness is next to godliness, Henry! If Henry himself is dirty, it’s a comparatively simple matter to wash up. Find a laundry spot at a pond or even a humble trough and you’ll be able to wash off some of the filth festering about you. Needless to say, these won’t get you fully clean, but it’s better than nothing. For a deeper clean, visit a bathhouse - this will get you cleaner than a laundry spot, and sometimes the extra Charisma will prove helpful if you, say, have an important social function ahead.

Cleaning Clothes and Armor¶

Clothes and armor are a bit more complicated than ol’ Henry himself. Pretty much every bit of gear you can wear has a Charisma rating, represented by numbers showing their current and maximum values. For example, an Embroidered Shirt may have a 10/10 Charisma rating. The higher the Charisma rating, the more you’ll enjoy the benefits of having high Charisma - less Conspicuousness, better reactions from NPCs, easier Speech checks, better prices when haggling, etc. Plus the dirt and blood just looks unseemly during conversations!

Unfortunately clothes and armor have a nasty habit of getting dirty. If you’re just roaming about, picking herbs and travelling between towns, this likely isn’t going to be too much of a problem. Unfortunately there are some people who have decided that violence is an acceptable way to enrich themselves and/or advance their political ideologies, and when swords and maces start swinging, bloodshed is soon to follow. Even if you’re a flawless warrior, you may just want to help yourself to some of your opponent’s clothing and armor after the fight - after all, they’re not going to need it anymore! - and such gear will almost certainly be fouled by blood and dirt.

If you equip this dirty gear and use a trough or laundry spot, you can usually remove the blood and some of the dirt, but heavily fouled gear needs more thorough cleaning. If you visit a bathhouse you can pay extra to have your clothes laundered (but only what you have equipped!), but failing that you can always get some soap and use some good old fashioned elbow grease to fully clean dirty or bloody garments.

Soap can be crafted if you have the recipe (this can be bought from alchemists - there’s one in Troskowitz who will sell you one) or you can just buy soap from various merchants, including bathhouse owners. Visit a laundry spot with soap in your inventory and you’ll get an option to wash your clothes, whereupon you’ll be able to select offending garments from an inventory list. Larger, dirtier objects require more soap, so if you just slaughtered several bandits and want to make their equipment presentable, you may need to bring a pound or two of soap. On the plus side, washing gear doesn’t take any time.