1-2: City in the Sands

If you can't fight back against an enemy and you can't outrun them, there are only two ways out: Accept your fate and get your ass beat, or lead the enemy into something else that will distract them. Jam spots a herd of garru—large herbivores—nearby and runs through it, prompting their pursuers to switch focus and start attacking the garru instead. After all, Jam might have some food on them that the rebel farmers can take (they don't but the farmers don't know that) but garru are made of food. That's so much more potential food! The garru are also far stronger than the farmers and the farmers are going to get utterly wrecked, but no one in this world has great threat assessment instincts.

Beaten and bloody, Jam nonetheless soon makes it to the gates of Sho-Battai. The guard has nothing to say to them other than “Move along”, which makes Jam breathe a sigh of relief. They've heard that guards in the United Cities can arrest you for being poor and hungry, both of which they absolutely are right now. Jam has not a single Cat (the currency in Kenshi) to their name. This is a problem not only because of the guards' proclivities, but because they desperately need both food and first aid.

Jam needs to make some money and fast. They start by turning to the one rebel farmer who chased them past the garru all the way to Sho-Battai and got cut down by the guards. Perhaps she has some stuff Jam can steal and sell.

She doesn't have much. No surprise. The rebel farmers are pretty desperate after all.

Jam tries to see if they can fit on her vest before they sell them—more out of curiosity than anything else—but no can do. Hivers can't wear shirts made for humans. They won't fit right. You might also notice that the Head and Boots sections of Jam's inventory are red, and that's because they can't wear any items in those slots at all. No boots makes sense; you need feet to wear boots and hivers don't have those. As for the head slot, it's specifically hive soldiers who can't wear hats and helmets. Their heads are just shaped so differently from a human's that no headgear will fit them. That the hives themselves don't make helmets for hive soldiers I suppose speaks to how much the princes care about keeping any individual soldier alive.

Luckily, hive soldiers have pretty hard heads; their heads have 200 HP, while each other body part has 100 HP. Being unable to equip headgear is still going to be a significant disadvantage, though. Headgear can impart various types of weather protection that soldiers would really like to be able to have, and some of the tougher enemies in the game hit hard enough that even a 200 HP head can be pretty vulnerable without any protection whatsoever.

That's a distant worry, though. Jam has much more pressing issues. Like their open wounds.

Jam takes the rebel farmer's stuff and walks into the travel shop just inside Sho-Battai. It's not worth much but it's enough to buy a basic first aid kit.

Jam will be back to this travel shop a few times in the future. They sell backpacks to carry stuff in, healing supplies of all sorts, bedrolls to sleep in away from town, a few crossbow bolts, and research books for good measure. Maps, too, but Jam doesn't mind doing their own exploring.

Jam decides to keep the farmer's pants. They may not have shame around nudity in the way humans do, but wearing pants, they feel like a guard would be more likely to look at them and think “Ah, there goes a productive citizen of the United Cities!” rather than “There's a beggar. I should hit them with my sword.”

As Jam bandages their wounds, let's take this time to take a look at their stats.

If you were wondering “where was the part of character creation where you pick your starting stats”, there isn't any! You start without any skills whatsoever, the weakest of the weak. Every single one of Jam's stats was a 1 when we started. There's no skill point allocation, either. You learn by doing. Jam has a 2 in Field Medic now because they just spent some time bandaging their wounds. They have a 3 in Athletics because they've spent some time running around.

Most importantly, though, they have a 4 in Toughness because they just got beat up. Toughness affects your damage resistance, your ability to keep going when hurt, and your ability to survive when badly wounded. It's an incredibly important stat and you level it up by getting hurt, by losing fights, and by continuing to fight even after you've been knocked down. The fact Toughness levels up like this means any fight you can walk away from is a good one. Hell, any fight a friend can carry you away from is a good one. In this unforgiving world, the idea of only picking fights you know you can win is just not realistic. Not remotely. You're going to eat plenty of dirt and all you can do is live to spit it back in your enemy's face.

Alas, that rugged, bloody sort of glory is out of Jam's reach for the moment. If they try to fight most things around here, they will probably die. For now, they scavenge. A couple more things have attacked the city gates and borne the price: This time, a couple of large, dangerous desert insects called skimmers.

Getting to scavenge some skimmers is quite lucky! Jam will be able to sell their claws in town, but more importantly, skimmers are good for eatin'! Well, they're a little good for eatin'. There's a couple cuts of nice meat Jam can take and eat. Most people would need to cook it first, but as a hiver, Jam can eat it as is just fine. The first time I saw the [Possibly Edible] tag, I was afraid it meant you could eat it but there's a chance you could get sick or something, but nah, it just means only certain kinds of people can eat it. In this case, hivers and scorchlanders, which are one of the two kinds of human.

What's with all that ominous-looking yellow meat, though?

It's “Foul Raw Meat” and “no good for eating”, but hive soldiers and workers can still eat it. It's not very filling and it probably tastes horrible, but it's better than starving. Jam takes it too.

After butchering the skimmer and snacking on a piece of meat, Jam's inventory is pretty full, so they head back inside the gates and head to the bar to sell the claws.

The bar sells various kinds of food and liquor, as you might expect. Bars are also where you go to see posted bounties. There aren't any quests in Kenshi per se, so if you want to make money, you're either going to be selling stuff or bounty hunting. The idea intrigues Jam. They look through some of the bounties.

Quite a variety and that's not even all of them here. The bounties viewable here aren't even all the bounties the United Cities will accept, either, not even close. Each bar just has a random small selection of bounty items to browse. Jam could take these items to keep on hand—they're free—but all the item itself does is serve as a reminder. You don't need to have it in order to turn in the bounty. You don't need to have it in order to know who has a bounty. Having it won't affect how people react when you turn in the bounty.

We'll start picking these up later anyway, when inventory space isn't so much of a concern, but right now it is. Jam reads these, nods, and simply decides to think about them later when they're stronger. Hell, they don't even know who any of these people are beyond these descriptions. The bounty for “Tinfist” is especially vague.

While Jam's imagination is running wild on Tinfist, a couple bar patrons strike up a loud conversation as if on cue.

Well. That puts a few things into context. Maybe Tinfist is cool, actually. Maybe Jam will think a bit harder about whose bounty to go after when they're strong enough to start doing that.

In any case, with some food in their belly and a bit of money in their pocket, Jam is starting to feel like relaxing for a bit. They... don't really wanna hang out with Doob and Harlo after hearing those two go “ohh no those poor slavers”. Maybe there's someplace else in Sho-Battai they can hang out?