Relax, enjoy death.
- Let's take a look at the world of Kenshi, shall we? You are dropped into a hot, largely barren world littered with the rusting remains of what was clearly a highly advanced, spacefaring civilization. What little civilization that exists takes the form of isolated villages and petty empires built from brick, mud and scrap metal. There is no justice, democracy or progress of any kind to be found, with the few existing governments ruled by either tyrannical nobles or psychopathic fundamentalists. Slaves are casually caught, bought and sold like cattle and roaming bandits will gladly beat you to death for a bowl of rice or a piece of dried meat. Or in some cases, your own flesh. Simply surviving is going to be a full-time job of yours.
- And it's heavily implied, if not outright stated, that this is the third time that civilization has collapsed. What happens if there is a fourth time?
- Then there's the local wildlife; almost all of which is ready to tear your throat out.
- Blood Spiders. Swarms of gigantic red spiders that will overpower you and your party with their Zerg Rush tactics if you're not careful in navigating Vain or The Swamp. And they won't leave you to bleed to death or fade into a recovery coma, either. No. They'll eat you alive and screaming.
- The dreaded Beak Things. Imagine a giant, beaked brontosaurus covered in chitinous plates that uses its razor-sharp bill to tear you and your friends apart before eating you alive. They are fast, attack in groups and are found almost everywhere on the map. And if that wasn't bad enough, there are Elder Beak Things that are tougher, meaner and can outrun even the fastest character. note
- They were even worse in the beta. They had the ability to speak, telling their prey to relax and enjoy death while they rip them to shreds. There also used to be a glitch where, due to a misplaced decimal, they would spawn into the game larger than mountains.
- Skin Spiders. Resembling giant Headcrabs, these beasts will gladly eat you alive, given the chance. Mercifully, they are relatively easy to bring down, but the mere sight of them scuttling across the hills towards you is sure to give you palpitations.
- Hivers, while generally unnerving with their vaguely crustacean/insectoid appearance, are usually a friendly sort. Sometimes a little too friendly. The same can't be said about their Southern Hiver cousins, who will gladly carry you off to be sacrificed to their kind.
- The Fogmen are a strain of Hivers so utterly divorced from their kin that they may as well be their own species. Inhabiting the Fog Islands where visibility is limited to twenty or fifty feet at the best of times, they will attack in massive swarms, beat you into submission and then carry you far away to be tied to a post and eaten alive while making ghastly screeching and crunching noises (in the form of text barks, mercifully) as they do so. All that is left of their victims are their chewed bones, which are repurposed as weapons and armor.
- The nearby town of Mongrel is relatively close to a Fogman camp, where you can "hear" them and the screams of their victims in the distance. Imagine having to hear that all day and all night as a resident, knowing that it's the fate that awaits you if you even try to leave.
- Slavery is portrayed as the nightmare it truly is in this game. Imagine going about your business, venturing to the next city to get supplies or simply roaming around in search of food. You get knocked out by a bunch of Starving Bandits. Painful and humiliating, but they just want your food. Soon, a group of armed men swarm you and start patching your wounds. It seems like a miracle for a few seconds until they slap the shackles on you and carry you back home to be worked to death, with only a tiny rusty cell to call a home. And it's so commonplace that most people will just accept it as a part of their society.
- Starting out as a slave in the Holy Empire simply adds to the pain. You are constantly starving, you get beaten unconscious for simply moving out of turn, and all while this is happening, your taskmasters berate you for being a "heretic" that needs to have the "sin" worked out of your system. And all of your work amounts to the construction of a gigantic statue of their God-Emperor.
- The Holy Empire. A brutal, bible-thumping theocracy that worships Okran, God of Light. Not only are they extremely xenophobic, declaring non-humans (especially Skeletons) to be agents of Narko, their equivalent of Satan, they are incredibly sexist as well, demanding that women be forced to repent for being "temptresses."
- And if you settle in their territory, they will come to your village every month to say a group prayer with you. And you can't say no (or worse, praise Narko), or else they'll kill you for your heresy. Even your characters will mutter about how irritating they are.
- The United Cities may seem like the most neutral or "okay" faction in the game, when they are really little better than the Holy Nation and are in some ways even worse. They own and trade slaves, but instead of making up some thin excuse for treating people like livestock, they practically flaunt it as a symbol of power and wealth. They treat wealth as a measure of morality to reinforce their aristocratic overlords and their nobles are ready and willing to hunt and kill random wanderers as a twisted form of sport.
- Out in the appropriately-titled Cannibal Plains, you come across a large, domed structure not unlike the ones sought out by the Tech Hunters for ancient knowledge. The whole place is empty...except for a suspicious trail of food, medicine and other expensive items leading up to the second floor. And what happens to be on the second floor, you ask? Why, a nest packed with Cannibals, of course! Hope you didn't make too much noise!
