4-1: Shackles of Honour

Returning to the gang's lab at The Hub after a long adventure, Cat wastes no time loading the research bench up with the materials they found and getting to work. They've scrounged up an impressive stockpile of 54 Books, 54 Ancient Science Books, 11 Engineering Research, and 4 AI Cores. The advanced materials will wait until the gang has a lab set up in a settlement of their own—they don't intend to spend the materials they'd need to upgrade this Hub bench to further tiers—but Cat and Outlaw Hana use the basic Books to blaze through most of the rest of the tier 1 & 2 research.

After a couple days of research, training, and rest, the gang reassembles.

Between the trip to Armour King, loot from the Cannibal Plains and the Leviathan coast, and a few nice armour pieces they hauled out of their storage, a few people have new looks. Outlaw Hana and Horse are now sporting plate jackets: Reinforced leather jackets on the light end of medium armour that notably grant 40% resistance to acid rain. For Horse, that makes 75% resistance combined with his iron hat. That'll make travelling through acid rain pretty safe for him.

Pilaf has grown again in the meantime. She's at the elder stage of life now, larger and more powerful than ever. I will remind you that Pilaf will not die of old age! An animal growing to become an elder is strictly a good thing; it means simply that she's large and in charge.

At this point, the gang is pretty close to ready to start building their own settlement. Close, but not quite there. Before setting down roots, it's a good idea to get to know one's neighbours. Jam, Riddly, and Ells got to know the United Cities' way of life back in Sho-Battai at the start of their adventure. More recently, Outlaw Hana, Keys, Cat, and Shryke got acquainted with the Holy Nation. There's a third major faction in the world of Kenshi, though: The Shek Kingdom. The gang has been in and out of the Shek city Squin a few times but they haven't yet taken the time to understand the place. A venture into Shek Kingdom lands is in order.

Squin is just a short ways south of The Hub. It's a breezy little jaunt but long enough to get Beep's mind wandering.

I dunno what Jam is on about—their skeleton arm literally makes them stronger and more dexterous! The truth is that a lot of the travelling conversations, when they have lines not specific to any character, will just have the first or second character in the party order speak up. Naturally, this makes for variable results insofar as how well the conversation fits the characters. It's not a huge issue but I figured it was worth noting here. It's good to see Beep enjoying himself regardless.

When the gang arrives in Squin, Outlaw Hana takes a peek inside the weapon shop. They carry heavy weapons, heavy weapons, and more heavy weapons. Not her style. She's also followed by a shek warrior who keeps taunting her, apparently having a problem with humans and nothing better to do. Sick of the jibes by the time she's finished shopping, Outlaw Hana whirls around, intending to tell the warrior where to shove it.

All else aside, the warrior gives a pretty good introduction to the Shek Kingdom's whole deal. She overstates the hostility, though. Most shek are not this aggro; there are just one or two irascible dickheads per city.

While the thing about honour through battle is pretty much what it sounds like, this Stone Golem has Outlaw Hana's interest piqued. Outside the Kingdom, one hears tell of their warriors and their love of battle; this apparent ideological conflict is not known outside their borders. If the gang wants to learn more about the Kingdom, their next destination is clear: Talk to the leader at the heart of this conflict, the Stone Golem herself. Fortunately, she's not even that far away. The capital, Admag, is just a few hours west of here. Once Outlaw Hana fills them in, the gang heads on their way.

Admag sits at the heart of the Stenn Desert, a region of aggressively rugged badlands that makes up the better part of Shek Kingdom territory. It's clear the Kingdom has seen better days; the gang passes the wreckage of a town on their way with no clear sign of what led to its downfall. At least it's safe to travel through. The gang encounters no hostiles of any sort on their way to Admag, just a couple shek warrior patrols who don't seem to mind their presence one bit.

Admag itself sits in a location clearly chosen for its defensibility: A plateau with a single slope gradual enough to climb, the walls built around the plateau's edge so as to make approaching them on even ground impossible.

Looking to get a feel for the place, the gang makes their first stop at the bar. Jam, ever the social butterfly, joins a table with three local shek. They strike out on their first attempt at conversation—a shek in a white tank top blows them off—but they're undaunted. They try again with one of the other patrons at the table, a shek whose horns have been cut just like Ells'.

As a fellow outcast, Jam has a lot of sympathy for Ruka and is quite pleased to welcome her. The gang is pretty much entirely composed of people with nowhere else to go; she should fit right in.

The funny thing about Ruka is that when we first went to Squin back in Chapter 3-2, the whole reason I went there was to recruit her. She's usually there. In fact, if you start up a new game using the default game start, she will be in Squin. Allow me to explain.

Many unique recruitable characters in Kenshi, including Ruka, have multiple locations in which they can appear. In Ruka's case, she can appear in any Shek Kingdom-aligned bar, including the ones in Squin and in Admag. They don't move between these locations, though; once they spawn in somewhere in a given game, they'll stay there.

As for how the game decides where they'll be, it depends. For some characters, like Silvershade, it appears to be completely random where they'll show up. For many of them, though, they'll spawn in at the first of their possible locations that you discover. There's an important distinction there; it's the first location you discover, not the first location you actually visit.

While they didn't visit until just now, the gang discovered Admag during their trek across Vain in Chapter 2-17 since that section of Vain runs along the Stenn Desert's northern border. We weren't close enough to see it visually or anything; cities have a huge discovery radius. It didn't occur to me at the time that discovering it meant Ruka would end up in Admag; when I visited Squin soon after and didn't find her, I got confused, then concerned something had happened to her, then finally did a bit of research and put two and two together. I ultimately decided it would mess up the flow of things to go to Admag at that time and cut my losses.

As for why Ruka will always be in Squin in a game using the default start, that's simple: The default start drops you in The Hub with Squin already discovered. Ruka is very likely to be one of a new player's very first recruits since she's so close by and she doesn't ask for any money.

For the record, Riddly and Horse also work this way. Riddly will be in the first United Cities city you discover and Horse will be in the first fishing village that's big enough to have a bar. Our game start, Rock Bottom, guarantees Riddly will be in Sho-Battai. Same with Izumi, who Jam met in Chapter 1-3 but didn't recruit. Ells, conversely, does not have a variable location; he is always in Sho-Battai.

Back to Ruka: Let's check out her starting stats.

Ruka has an alright starting statline for a combat-oriented character. She's about on par with Silvershade's starting statline, a bit better than Horse or Shryke, a bit worse than Riddly. 4 Strength is pretty terrible for someone who's walking around with a heavy weapon on her back but that just means she has room to grow. In the immediate sense, it means that once the gang leaves Admag, she's going to be doing laps around Stenn Desert with a bunch of their heaviest stuff to strengthen up.

It's not time to leave Admag yet, though. Not until we see the Stone Golem.