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Rebirth



Welcome to Kenshi, the title screen says it all. Desert and the odd building. And thats the fun!



Selecting new game we get a choice between several starts, each with a different type of difficulty. The normal start is a wanderer who gets some pocket change and a sword, or you can be a group of freedom seekers who start with a bunch of building material, or a person who finds a dog and you're both starving, or even a person who is starving, broke, in the middle of the desert and is missing an arm!

Our start is gonna be what I consider the "pro strat" start, the slaves start. This starts us off with 2 characters in a slave camp.



There is some advance options we can tweak. I am gonna stick with mostly default options, I am gonna lower (I know the number is higher, but thats how it works) the hunger rate by 33%. Sadly hunger is one of those game mechanics where at the start its a constant threat but after that its a constantly nagging bar.



This loading screen of a dog gives us a valuable tip, that we can pick the lock of slave shackles. There is some neat artwork in the loading screens, I'll show them whenever a new one shows up while playing.



Meet the character creator screen. We can change a bunch of options about our character, but honestly I mostly stick with the defaults. Lela is definitely not an anagram of Leal.

We can choose several races with different effects, but I'll be sticking as a greenlander. Its the most basic race that gives an xp bonus to cooking, science and farming. They have no penalties. Now onto the second character...



Ibblebibble! A goon who helped me through my Neptunia LP, he is sorta like family to me. An LP family group, which gives him priority. Hm.. giving priority to a person within your family, there is a term for that but I can't think of it right now.

Anyways, I just use his Final Fantasy 14 character as reference, by which I mean I just made the hair color match as best as I can. There is a reason why both characters are female its definitely not a fetish thing



We start in a stony area, a tower in front of us. The game recommended we do something at the start, to avoid a beating.



Right. By holding right click over things we get a menu like this to do certain things, and being able to select different actions if there are different ones on the menu.

Just a tip, generally it isn't a good idea to jump into prisoner cages.



We make it in the cages in time, as a guard runs out of the tower and yells out about how we are escapees. Something I should mention about this game is jank, and I think the reason we have to do all this is because the engine can't handle already placing us in cages. I could be completely wrong on this however.



The guard shaves Ibble's hair and gives himher the run down (hey uh Ibble if you want a more feminine name for your Kenshi self lemme know)

: You serve the Holy Nation now. I am freeing you of your possessions and your name. You will have a higher destiny, cleansed of darkness. Repent for your sins. Devote your soul to the cause of Light. And you will be shown mercy.... Only heretics disobey their masters, only heretics defy Okran's will. Try to escape and you will be purged in flame.
(The symbol is the flag for the Holy Nation, which I will use whenever someone from that faction speaks)

Meet the Holy Nation, our new owners. The Holy Nation is a highly religious faction, worshiping their god known as Okran. Their own form of satan being known as Narko. Surely a highly religious group will be helpful and kind to others and not in any way bad people. Clearly we are slaves because we did something wrong beforehand, like in <insert Elder Scrolls game here>



Look who still gets to keep their hair Since we are now slaves we automatically perform labor, namely mining, refining materials and servicing a well. We randomly move between jobs, though a pro strat is to click somewhere near your character which will make your character move to a different job zone. Mining will increase our labor skill, running between spots will increase athletics, and I want to prioritize athletics first.

Note that you CAN decide to stop working... and then get beat for it. This can also happen if you click too far away from your character, the guards will accuse you of trying to escape and beat you for it.



Here is an overview of the mining pit, and the statue we are supposedly gathering materials to build. Lets take a look at the UI on the bottom (there is a lot so feel free to skip ):


1 (from top to bottom): Our slave status, as we are active slaves we are shown as such. If we escape we are marked as an escaped slave, this has game effects such as the faction who owns us attacking on sight and bringing back here.
The selected character's name and the faction they belong to (as we are unnamed, our faction is simply Nameless).
State is the "mode" the character is in, the goal is what they're currently out to do, encumbrance is how weighed down they are and "labouring" is whatever skill is being used. So moving between jobs would have that say athletics, if we are picking locks it'll show that, etc.
Then our fighting statistics, the weapon we are using (since we are unarmed its martial arts),strength, dexterity and toughness score, then our defensive stat (dodge if unarmed, melee defense if we had a weapon)

2: At the top is our "status", we are starving so we have the hungry status. This also lets us know if the character is KO'd, or bleeding, and other status effects.
Below that is the blood in our system and the health of each body part. Head chest and stomach are considered critical body parts, if they go below a certain point our character will get ko'd and will be in a coma until it raises above that threshold. Limbs getting knocked so low will make them unusable and risk getting dismembered.
And below that is the hunger meter. The highest point is 300, when it gets below 200 we start suffering malnutrition which lowers our stats. If we hit 85 we pass out, and die if it continues to lower. Note that eating doesn't instantly fill the hunger bar, it slowly goes up over time.


3: Our squad, the "nameless_0" is basically <faction name>_<squad number>, we can make multiple squads and switch by clicking on the tabs. Below that is our squad members.


4: Right of the squad menu is some tabs that open different menus:
INV: Inventory
STA: Statistics menu, shows our characters stats.
MAP: The map
TEC: Research menu, lets us pick what to research once we get a bench.
SQD: Squad, lets us create squads and move characters between squads.
HLP: Help menu, has tutorials

On the top bar, from the left, the floor selector. Changes between floors while in buildings that have multiple floors. Then we have the speed options, we can pause, go to normal speed then 2 faster options. Next we have our money, currently 0, the days our adventure has been going on for and the current time in game. The hammer icon is the build menu
Lower tab, starting on the left, is states we can put on our characters.
Block increases their block stat, but makes them never attack. Useful for unskilled characters in hopes you can get a tougher character to help them.
Hold makes them not move, useful for archers
Passive makes them not attack, useful for when you don't want your farmers running to the gates from their fields. Also makes them less likely to be targeted by attacks.
Jobs makes them do jobs you have assigned them or turns them off for a bit. Useful if you want someone to stop mining for a bit and don't want to have to manually select the mine again when you want them to do it again
Ranged makes them prefer to use their ranged weapon, if they have one equipped as well as a melee weapon.
Taunt makes them more likely to be targeted by enemies. Great for your "tank" characters
Sneak makes your character sneak.

To the right of that is our job menu, which works off a priority system. Since our character is a slave they automatically get assigned the obedient slave job. Disabling it is a great way to get our ass kicked by guards. You can do things like assign someone to haul ore to a box, then assign them to mine ore. They will mine ore, and when an ore is gathered they will run to the box to drop it off, then go back to mining. Or you can flip it and they'll mine until the mine is full, then haul all the ore to the box. They will continue to do this until you tell them to stop.

Below that on the left is the speed option. We can make characters walk, run, sprint and go the highest speed of the slowest character in the group. There is no exhaustion so there really isn't a reason to not go with the last option, everyone moves as fast as they can but wont leave anyone behind.

To the right of that is Rescue, which makes the character pick up any squaddies that are ko'd to a bed. Medic makes them automatically run to squaddies and use medkits to heal them. Prospect shows nearby fertility and resources.



This is the statistics menu, we can see all of our character's stats. I'll assume you can figure out what skills means what. Weapon skills increase the damage using the weapon, combat skills increases how well we attack or defend, precision shooting makes it less likely to shoot friendlies and assassination isn't killing people but rather knocking them out. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.



Oh dammit, lost my hair Also in the back a guard is preaching at a Shek, a demihuman.

: What are you? Confess your true nature, beast!

: A foreign beast.... A darkened being of Narko...

: And tell me, what is your purpose, beast?

: An unholy one must be rebirthed to serve the cause of Okran. Lest they join the cause of darkness.

: Good, beast. Good.

: Love and devotion to the Holy Lord Phoenix Himself...

: Love and devotion to Okran.



At 22:00 all the slaves are brought into their cages for the night, until 5 the next day.



We can take this time to grind up our lock picking skill, picking both our shackles and the cage we are in. Whats nice about Kenshi is that you actually learn from your failures. So we have less then 10% chance (ignore that it says 20%, its not applying the "in a cage" debuff) to pick the lock and each time we fail we earn experience in lock picking.



Ibble gets to stay in a cage in a comfy house, meanwhile I'm outdoors on a pole. It aint right I tell ya. The pole also has a lock on it by the way.



Next morning I open up the stone mines and grab a few piles of stone out of it. We train strength by moving around while weighed down, the shackles are pretty heavy and these stones will weigh us down some more. Since we automatically move it isn't so bad, I'm basically alt tabbing constantly.



Sadly when we are set to work at this refining station the stone is removed from the inventory to be used. I'd like to note though that on the whole, slavery labor is "fake". So the stone mines do generate stone, but they're never removed. They eventually get full but slaves will still mine at them, and they operate these refineries without any materials and thus, never produce anything in them. Unless we happen to have stone in the inventory in which case a building material is made.



Uh oh, we are dangerously low on the hunger meter. When this happens the game puts yellow stripes on the character's thumbnail. Now since we are slaves, our hunger wont hit below 115. This basically maximizes the starvation debuff but doesn't allow us to get ko'd. Another reason slave start is a pro strat, no worries about food while you afk grind athletics and labor.



Night 2 and Ibble is on the roof of a building surrounded by other slaves. I make her enter stealth mode in the cage and she starts getting ridiculous xp for it. In the time I hit stealth and then pause she gained 5 levels in stealth. There is something about stealthing in cages that give insane stealth xp gains.



Look at this, at the end of the night she hit level 58, out of 100! I think its a combination of the game giving xp for each of the nearby slaves, but also due to the hunger, shackles and being in a cage makes her have effectively 0 stealth, which makes the game go haywire in giving xp. So each night its basically sitting in stealth mode while gaining stealth levels.

This could be an exploit but I mean, stealth is about not being seen. And what is more stealthy then being shackled in a cage AND NO ONE KNOWS THAT YOU'RE THERE?!



Here is a shot of an exit path from the camp. Though it is the most defensive portion, besides there being a barracks tower up here there is also the HQ for the camp up here, with 2 sets of gates meaning there is 2 sets of gate guards nearby, and the walls are staffed by mounted crossbows. For whatever reason though there is a well up here that the slaves service.



Next night and I wanted to show the hilarity of every slave attempting to go into the same cage at night then rushing out of the building when the cage gets filled.



That night with Ibble's stealth skill I break out of the cage and drop the shackles to the floor. Needless to say, darkness helps with stealth. Time to grind assassination, we do this by trying to KO people while in stealth mode.



Alright Ibble, his back is turned to you, its dark. Just walk up behind him and clonk him in the back of his metal helmet wearing head.



Thats it, just walk up an- aaaggghh what the fuck is wrong with your body?!



Welp, rip Ibble. The guards are shouting things like "How dare you hit me woman!". So yeah, the Holy Nation is a group who hates other races and women. I'd make the joke but I know you're all making it already.

Despite failing Ibble gained about 4 levels of assassination off that single attempt. It'll slow down as she gets levels in it, but for now constantly failing to knock out guards will be part of the night schedule.



Well, if nothing else after getting hacked away the guards will patch you up before throwing you back into a cage. See the thing with the guards is that they're so devout to their god and trying to reincarnate people into good pure white greenlander males that they refuse to let you die until you fully repent and can be reincarnated properly. They straight up say things like "Its not your time yet".



Most games it would be considered a bad thing to lose and you would be smacking the quick load button. But Kenshi is a game about getting your ass kicked over and over. Very rarely will you actually die, most enemies will loot your corpse and move on. Getting our ass kicked increases the ever important toughness stat, which increases the threshold for being KO'd and also reduces damage taken.



Ibble got her stomach messed up, so she now holds it while walking. Characters will also nurse their leg or arm, or hold their chest or forehead.



In my case, I got my leg messed up and so I limp. This also effects walking speed and sneak, unsurprisingly.



Ibble is getting preached at.

: One day, woman will no longer walk unleashed. No longer will you taint and seduce your holy brethren! Repent! You must sweat Narko's darkness out from the depths of your being! Work 'til your fingers bleed. Work 'til you bleed tears of devotion for Okran!

Fun fact: Narko is Okran backwards!



So after a bit of getting my ass kicked, the damn guards didn't patch me back up before throwing me into the cage.



Both legs are in the negatives, I can't stand and walk.



: What are you doing? Leave. You're not allowed here.

PATCH ME UP YOU FUCKERS



Oh god dammit they threw me right back into the cage.



FINALLY. I was scared I was gonna end up bleeding to death.



.... And now they wont put me back into the cage. So I'm gonna get my ass kicked as soon as I get out of the recovery coma

Recovery comas happen when your head, chest or stomach are below your KO threshold. You gain consciousness when you get above that threshold.



On the plus side I'm getting some toughness training



Speaking of, whenever we get thrown back into the cage without shackles the guards will slap another pair on us. Each one is 20kg, so I pick up a few I left on the floor for strength training.



Another gate, on the northern side of the camp. Leads straight up into the hills, there are some stone mines out here that the slaves mine. It isn't a bad idea to take off the shackles when you're mining out here and run for the hills...



Another path, on the west and up the hill, is another exit. There is a wall nearby however, something to keep in mind.



So a way to cheese assassination training is to try and ko a sleeping guard, then go into the cage before they attack you. They'll turn around and go right back to bed.



This hunger thing is a bit much. There is some cooked veggies sitting tantalizingly in a corner of Ibble's building. Holding alt will show items on the ground, ones with red around them are owned items and its considered stealing when you grab them. Stolen items shouldn't be sold to the faction you stole them from (you'll get caught and a bounty placed on you), also they are worth half the selling price.



I'm getting the business now from a guard.

: Woman must be tamed, she must be put to work so that she has the strength to defeat the darkness in her heart! Lest she seduce and tempt the purity of man into the darkness with her! A daughter of Narko must live a life of restraint and discipline....



One night I go and steal everything inside of the building. I then check myself into a cage and proceed to drop it all...



You can grind thievery (skill that makes it easier to steal items with people nearby) by dropping stolen stuff and picking them back up.



Picking these things up, dropping them and grabbing them again gets 6 levels of thievery. Depending on your patience you can abuse this to get all the way to 100. Not that thievery is exactly useful if you just KO everyone in the building...



Alright Ibble, we got this. 2 sleeping guards in the building, we just gotta sneak up on them and knock them out.



Dammit Ibble!



While Ibble is getting her ass beat by the guard, I steal the weapon from the one I KO'd. The weapons the Holy Nation uses are hackers. They're like blunt and saber hybrids, doing roughly equal blunt and cut damage.



Welp, I couldn't manage to KO the guy as he was fighting Ibble and he knocked us both out. I get thrown into a cage and patched up...



: I am so dead

(I'll use the generic prisoner portrait until we escape)

If a character is knocked down but recovers from the KO, they will "play dead" so the enemy ignores them. If you instead make them move they'll "get up" which makes them say something and gives them a good chunk of xp in toughness. It gave Ibble about 4 levels worth.



Of course she still gets smacked down



Yeah that is some pretty good toughness xp.



One final gate here, at the north. Its basically above the other northern gate, again leading up into the hills.



Assassination training pays off and we can get about 60% success in KO'ing the guards. I take the weapon and armor off this guard and throw it into a nearby container.



Like so, then I throw my shackles onto him....



And toss him into the cage!



Ibble manages the same in her building.



Hilariously enough, another guard comes in and proceeds to shave the imprisoned guard and does the "You belong to Okran now" spiel.



Yep, he is now considered a slave by his own faction! He will do labor and be subjected to the same things as us. This game is great.



This guard starts following Ibble...



Like everywhere, the entire day he is right behind Ibble and talking about how it is in a woman's nature to be lazy.



Then I realize this guard doesn't have his weapon on him, think he may be harboring a grudge?



I start making moves to stockpile food and get our characters fully fed. We are nearing the start of the 3rd week here, and up one of the barracks is the gear from someone else who was imprisoned here. It seems they actually take stuff and put them in containers around the camp.



Ibble finds some real goodies. Food has nutritional value, cooked veggies has a value of 25 but these foodcubes that were found has a value of 75 value.



Speaking of food, I remove clothes just to show how our character looks while they're completely malnourished. The game actually changes their appearance its not a fetish thing.



Weirdly enough, all the other slaves are in a faction called "Rebirth Slaves", but this guy is from the Holy Nation Outlaws. Also he isn't wearing the usual robes that everyone else has. I guess this guy was patrolling near the camp and got jumped and imprisoned by the Holy Nation.



Alright, its time to bust out of here. We are no longer malnourished and as such have our full stats. We can pick locks of the other prisoners and they may thank us and run off, which can provide a distraction for the gate guards...



... They might instead freak out and refuse to attempt an escape. Typically if they don't say anything when you pick either the lock or the shackles (you need to do both to free them) they wont attempt an escape. Just move on and save your time.



But what we are looking for are the ones who want to escape with us. This gives the bonus of having a group who will escape through the gate we want to go through, and with a group its more people to tangle up with the guards.



I manage to get a group of about 4, I go through the cages outside of buildings cause I don't want the prisoners to aggro the guards inside the building with their shitty stealth skills. With these 4 we move on up




We make our move on the gate guards



As I drag off those 2 guards, a Hive Drone that I freed decides to run through this gate.



Well you tried bud. If only you tried a bit later when my entourage got up here so you could distract the guards from us.



Uh oh. Throwing 4 guards into cages (the 2 I knocked out were brought down to the cages so I don't have to worry about them waking back up) has made the faction overtly hostile. Normally once we get rid of our slave status they'll forget about us, but now they'll continue to hate us beyond that.



I was trying to find my group and found them still down here for some reason. I think maybe I move too fast and their path finding is getting jacked from it. So I slowly move up back to the gate...



And I ko another guard, which makes the AI followers stand up to loot him, which takes them out of stealth mode, which aggros the gate guards



Have fun with them nerds! We book it out of there.



To note, on the wall up here is a few mounted crossbows. Thankfully they are unmanned, I assume they're only manned during the day.



You don't have to be the fastest, you just have to be faster then the slowest guy. Though it certainly helps!



I try and recover one KO'd prisoner, which brings up this guard. Thankfully we managed to KO him while he was fighting someone else.



The prisoner is wounded, I take the first aid kit off the guard and use it to patch her up. Then I pick her up and walk with her away from the camp.

Field medic effects how fast we heal with medkits, higher skill lets us get more mileage out of our medkits. There are different types of kits that have more charges in them. All the guards have basic kits, not a bad idea to grab a few extra after KO'ing them...



Dammit, in the time it took to patch up this prisoner the guard woke up and started chasing us. Always leave someone behind.



One of the prisoners gets excited about making it out, while we still have 2 guards on us. That is currently fighting said prisoner



Thanks pal! We leave that prisoner with the 2 guards and continue running.



We get far enough for the rest of the prisoners to claim that they're free. One of them runs off and tells us they wont forget this.



One of the Sheks stays with us however. Part of the reason I went with Greenlanders is that typically the Shek prisoners are more likely to join. I set down the other prisoner and...



She also joins us! Wasn't expecting that, now I feel foolish bringing in 2 Greenlanders. Prisoners joining you is RNG, sometimes you get none and as many as 5. If you want to be a dirty cheater you can save scum until they join.



A big bon- Is the Shek seriously named Neko? I thought I got away from anime games!

Anyways a big perk to breaking out prisoners is that they start with some pretty decent starter stats. Looks like Truth will be taking on medic duties. Neko having such low strength and toughness is mind boggling however, but high dexterity. This would make her better with crossbows, but Sheks are the typical warrior race who value strength above all. Except she has NEGATIVE perception, which effects accuracy! Man the RNG was not kind here....



The starter characters are gonna be great ninja characters. Who needs weapons when you can sneak up behind someone and clonk them on the head? I'll be keeping them unarmed, I want them carrying as little as possible so they can move faster.



Well here we are, the world of Kenshi is open before us. We'll need to get out of Holy Nation territory, but beyond that the world is our oyster.