Table of Contents
00:00 Cold Open (Body Horror)
01:02 Intro
01:51 Kenshi, What is it?
02:30 Meet the Team
03:42 The Dangers of the Wasteland (Mentions of Starvation, Violence, and Slavery)
05:00 Mining Days
06:05 The Party Begins
08:20 Journey to Royal Valley
09:54 Royal Valley Begins (Body Horror)
12:20 Chase Through Royal Valley (Disturbing Violence and Body Horror)
17:06 Being Chased by Skin Bandits (Disturbing Violence and Body Horror)
18:52 Conclusion
00:00 Cold Open (Body Horror)
Small homes and shops made of sandstone blocks sat around what seemed to be the town square. As the crew got closer, several figures came into view which appeared to be human at first. As the group got closer, the ambiguous humanoid shapes grew in detail and horror. Rather than legs, they had long slender pegs with no toes. Their abdomen was less wide than a pipe which lead up to a rib cage that seems to fold in on itself. Perhaps most frightening though, was the face: it essentially resembled a piece of post modern sculpture with eyes or a shoebox with two holes. Speaking of which, several shoeboxes stopped their current tasks and snapped their gaze toward my encroaching party.
01:02 Intro
Welcome to D-Pad Diaries, a new game and story each week hosted by yours truly. This week’s episode: Kenshi.
Good whatever to whoever wherever you are, my name is Kyle and you’re tuning into another episode of D-Pad Diaries.
I’ve decided to add content warnings to each episode going forward so folks can be more informed about specific content that could potentially be disturbing or alarming. You can find the content warning both here in the audio podcast and included in the transcripts.
This episode features the following content that could potentially disturbing for some listeners: mentions of slavery and starvation, body horror, and disturbing violence.
01:51 Kenshi, What is it?
Today’s episode is on Kenshi, a strategy role playing game developed by Lofi Games where you guide characters through a harsh sci-fi wasteland filled with flesh-stealing robots, monumental steel carcasses, and mobs of people who want to see you dead. An unforgiving, but eventually rewarding game Kenshi starts you out as a nobody and forces you to slowly crawl up the food chain. Today, I shall tell the tale of Saru, Izumie, and Taco, who started out with only rags on their backs, pocket change, and a rusty pipe to fend off the hostile inhabitants of the world of Kenshi.
02:30 Meet the Team
Saru is an older man with a slouch, a shock of white hair on his head and onyx mixed with indigo skin long weathered from the harshness of the wasteland. For whatever reason, he decided to quit whatever life he had before and scavenge the greater world lying beyond the horizon near retirement age. Probably looking for treasure or whatever.
Saru started in the beginning city named the Hub which was a relatively small settlement squatting in the middle of a vast desert with a hill as neighbor, this desert doing it’s best to kill anything outside of the Hub. Perhaps one day too, the desert would try to take the Hub out for good but for now the city stood defiant against buffeting winds and wandering outlaws.
I was excited to explore the vast world outside, but the aforementioned dangers prevented Saru from exploring any further than just outside the city walls. Through several in-game days of scavenging around the site of finished battles and picking equipment from the dearly departed, Saru managed to scrounge up enough coin to buy enough food and supply to ensure a safish travel to the next settlement.
03:42 The Dangers of the Wasteland (Mentions of Starvation, Violence, and Slavery)
Safish is quite a relative word which can mean many different things to many different people. For Saru, it meant not getting instantly killed or enslaved once walking out of the Hub, or more likely, starving to death in the vast wasteland. So safish, in Saru’s context, means first and foremost means having a meal every few days so as to not starve while traveling. Secondly, it means to avoid the large roving bands of bandits and slavers who will kill or enslave anything on two legs. Maybe even four legs.
After a safish journey across the wasteland, the next settlement’s name was Catun which was, for what it’s worth, a fairly prosperous city of trade perched atop a plateau South of the Hub.
For an actual reasonable amount of safety, travelers should travel in high numbers and with many weapons. Saru did not have the coin for a vast number of people nor coin for people wouldn’t be knocked over by the wind, so it looked like he was again stuck, but this time in Catun. So Saru, like many others in this land, rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
05:00 Mining Days
Iron isn’t a bad trade with the right amount of equipment and personnel. Of course, Saru was more economical than that and would be satisfied with using a rusty old pick he found tossed out among the trash heaps. The metal bit was blunt and the wooden handle would leave a few splinters in the palm after a few handshakes, but it was free.
Venturing just a little out of Catun, there were several spots where iron ore could be found and, once removed, sold to the various traders found throughout the city. With his pawn shop special pick, Saru saddled up and went outside the safety of the city walls to begin his mining adventure. Walking down the main road, he spotted a good gaggle of rocks that shined with a rusty brilliance. With a swing of the pick, Saru’s latest entrepreneurial exploit began.
I’m going to time jump here because Saru essentially spent several in-game weeks gathering up an inventory of iron to sell to the local traders. Other than having his back more crooked and getting less than what he wanted, Saru doesn’t really have much to share other than that.
06:05 The Party Begins
Now a little more liquid, Saru walked with a swagger to the local recruiting grounds: the tavern. Here, adventurers and those seeking, well, something different than whatever they had before, come to be swooped up by prospective scouts into a life of fame and fortune. Saru did not have enough cash for fame and fortune. Whatever kids that got picked last in the gym class would have to do.
My party expanded to three people: Saru, Izumie, and a man who’s real name is not worth knowing so we shall call him Taco. Izumie is a young woman with little experience of the wasteland, but was excited to leave town and go experience the world outside, harsh or otherwise. She had brunette hair and a lighter complexion. Her outfit was composed of a well-worn t-shirt and pants. Perhaps her most valuable possession were her shoes, since shoes seem to be hard to come by in this game. Taco, the worst member of the group, had an unkempt beard and only pants to shield his peachy skin from the sandstorms and acid rain of the world, along with a flimsy sword that was somehow worse than Saru’s rusty pipe. Taco said that he would lend his aid to the party and single-handedly take us to glory. It was my philosophy that just numbers were important to have in a party at this point, but Taco really was a negative if you catch my drift.
In order to recoup or establish a crew who can’t stand on their own two feet, I decided to venture in the South corner of the world in hopes of finding some rare goods or additional recruits who wouldn’t break the bank. You see, the South I had never explored and now with 3 fine adventurers, I was going to take this world by storm. Saru would guide them away from the dangerous roaming mobs and into promised neverlands that would have all the shoes and usable pickaxes they could ever dream of. The destination I had chosen to hopefully improve fortunes was called Royal Valley. It was near the coast, had a lovely name, and smelled of potential opportunity. With the rest of the money Saru earned from mining iron spent on food, camping gear, and medical supplies, the crew dubbed the “Nice People” set off for Royal Valley.
08:20 Journey to Royal Valley
The first day or two was fairly safe albeit the crew had to avoid a few roving bands of looters and wolves. When encountering these hostile hoards, Saru and friends would simply employ two tactics in this order: hide, and if that fails, run like hell. So far, this survival strategy seemed to be working for the group, although Taco had insisted during the entire start of the trip that he could single-handedly take down a small army of bandits with his can opener that he called a sword. Saru and Izumie, wanting to make it Royal Valley alive, decided to appeal to Taco’s ego rather than his logic and said the following: “you’re wasting your time, you have better things to do.”
“Of course,” said Taco, “You’re absolutely right-- there are better things to do than teach these punks a lesson.” Saru and Izumie were regretting letting Taco come along.
More days of travel, more hiding and the occasional running because Taco couldn’t keep his mouth shut from issuing loud verbal challenges to the bandits they encountered. Other than that, the traveling to Royal Valley was progressing well enough and with little to no harm so far. After about 5 days of travel, the crew saw something delightful: a faint but noticeably blue line just on the horizon. Saru and Izumie gave each other a curt nod with a slight smile. Taco kept to the back of the crew bellowing about some shoe he won in a bar fight. As they neared the horizon, the blue line grew into a blue stripe, then the horizon turned all blue. Finally, they made it to the beginning of Royal valley which hugged the sea.
09:54 Royal Valley Begins (Body Horror)
The sun was low on the horizon and Izumie and Saru began setting up camp. Izumie pitched the tents and rolled out the sleeping bags, Saru got the campfire lit and the food cooking, and Taco told everyone to wake him up when dinner was ready.
Izumie, having finished pitching the tents, found a nearby rock where she could lay out her medical supplies and begin assessing the health of the party so far in the trip. Saru, despite his age, was extremely spry and had no major injuries. Izumie, examining herself, was also relatively athletic and had no major problems. Taco, other being Taco, was in fairly good health if unconditioned to the harsh life of the desert.
After camp was setup, the crew noticed a large island just about a mile off of the coast. It seemed accessible via a delta that snaked from the mainland to the island. Perhaps here, with my party of three, could I make a peaceful living searching the waters for fish and selling my catch to the locals. A peaceful, morally straightforward way to live.
After having breakfast the following morning, the crew of 3 headed toward the delta.
As my party came into the island, there seemed to be no local inhabitants there save a few plants making residence upon the hills. A wooden sign staked into the ground read “Beware of Fishman Island”. Strangely, they spelled fisherman wrong. Whatever, local inhabitants might not put much stock into signcraft. As the troupe made it’s way more onto the island, there were several buildings and huts gathered around both the interior and along the waterfront. Izumie noticed some humans in the distance slowly roaming in herds along the coast. Odd way to fish...
The crew, save Taco, scoped out the large groups but couldn’t make out much details due to the sun glare and the general distance. Taco, having had enough of the sneaking, called out to the herds asking if they had any spare fish, or better yet, a meal already prepared. Izumie tackled Taco before he could finish his sentence, but the damage was already done.
After the roaming people finally located the sound and moved closer to the crew, all three of the group realized that these are not people-- these were not fishermen but fishmen. Humanoid creatures with crablike claws and crustation heads.
*****
12:20 Chase Through Royal Valley (Disturbing Violence and Body Horror)
The Nice People had gained a lead on the school of pursuing fishmen after escaping back to the mainland but were still being chased. Saru, Izumie, and Taco bustled straight into Royal Valley hoping to find somewhere to hide, or in the very least, make suitable grounds for a last stand. Spotting a winding mountain range, Saru led the charge into the theorized haven of hills that lay within the Royal Valley. The Nice People climbed for some hours, went up switchbacks and double backed on paths to lead their assailants astray. After an afternoon full of tactical retreats upon the mountain, it seemed that the party had lost the misspelled fishermen. It was time to make camp and heal up from the awful encounter.
Izumie and Saru tended to their usual responsibilities while Taco found a tree to practice his sword technique on. As the evening came to a close, small bursts of orange and red embers started to dot the mountainside some several miles away. The group gazed at the lights with hope, but decided to travel there in the morning when they all got their 8 hours. After he had scarred up a poor random tree, Taco came back and found a spot to sleep next to Izumie and Saru. Poor Taco had to make his own bed this time.
With the fear of fishmen hanging about in their dreams, our intrepid party didn’t find much sleep during the night. Once dawn broke the horizon, I gathered up my party from the camp and had them travel toward the direction of the spotted lights some several miles away. Packing up, the crew surveyed the land to find the best route to the assumed settlement with the lights. The mountain range was rather hilly and filled with a dense forest, so travel would take some time. Better wake up Taco and get started.
The crew traveled for several hours, going in and out of thickets, climbing up steep inclines, and avoiding the various roaming packs of wolves in the forest (note that roving bands of killers, humanoid or not, should be considered part of the landscape at this point). As the sun lazily fell into evening, the crew finally came upon the outskirts of the village.
Small homes and shops made of sandstone blocks sat around what seemed to be the town square. As the crew got closer, several figures came into view which appeared to be human at first. As the group got closer, the ambiguous humanoid shapes grew in detail and horror. Rather than legs, they have long slender pegs with no toes. Their abdomen was less wide than a pipe which leads up to a rib cage that seems to fold in on itself. Perhaps most frightening though, is the face: it essentially resembled a piece of post modern sculpture with eyes or a shoebox with two holes. Speaking of which, several shoeboxes stop their current tasks and snapped their gaze toward my encroaching party.
The crew began to slowly back away as several of the shoeboxes heads started to make their way toward my group. As they advanced, the party turned around and walked then trotted, then jogged, then sprinted. The shoeboxes followed suit.
The terrain that took the crew an entire day to trek through, now took them about an hour or two to sprint through with the shoeboxes in tow. Rushing through the forest groves and rocky outcroppings generated a large volume of noise that not only clued in the shoeboxes of where the crew was running, but other wandering groups as well.
The crew bursted out of the forest and onto the coast of Royal Valley heading east. On the left was a sheer rock face that could not be climbed while on the right was an ocean and behind us was the shoeboxes… along with the Fishmen. To our great luck, it looked like the Fishmen and the shoeboxes began skirmishing with each other. The group took the diversion and ran further into the coastal region known as Cheater’s Run.
Stuck in the natural alleyways that was Cheater’s Run, the crew had no available shelter, natural or otherwise. Everyone’s skin was burning from the downpour provided by the fat dark clouds overhead. The party pushed forth to find some form of shelter. After a skin burning amount of time later hobbling along the coast, the party finally found what appeared to be an abandoned village.
The huts looked similar to the shoebox village, so we approached with extreme caution, even Taco did this time as well though he remained in the back. As we advanced toward the nearest hut, we hadn’t been attacked yet so, so far so good. Izumie went forward to open the door slowly, but really couldn’t see that well from the outside. Lighting a torch, she saw several figures huddled on the floor with skin stretched taught over their metal skeletons.
One of them got up and greeted us: “ Hi there, flesh brother! Welcome to your fellow human village! Come in, rest your tired sinews… That’s some fresh looking skin you have there brother.”
“Can I have it?”
*****
17:06 Being Chased by Skin Bandits (Disturbing Violence and Body Horror)
There’s some sort of courage that takes hold in humans when you not only know that your life is in danger, but also your skin.
Hoofing it to the edge of Cheater’s run, Saru, Izumie, and Taco were nearly going at superhuman speed to get away, but the skin robots being robots, didn’t tire or have a maximum speed so they were gaining steadily on us. The terrain slowly gave way into a bed of rocks and forced the team to slow down to avoid twisting an ankle and becoming someone’s next Sunday best.
Saru looked backed, and saw the robots were ever closer. He looked ahead and saw that there was still about a mile to clear before they were out of the narrow passage. Then Saru looked at Taco.
Izumie first heard what sounded like a sandbag hitting the pile of rocks, the second thing she heard was Taco grunting. The last thing she heard was Saru screaming to hoof it one last time. She didn’t remember what happened after that, only that her heart pounded like a racehorse’s.
Izumie and Saru rounded the edge of straight away and hid among a pile of bushes gasping for air as if they were breathing for the first time. She waited for her demise.
Then waited some more.
Then kept waiting.
Finally, she got up and looked around the corner at the straightaway-- nothing in sight.
“Saru, where’s Taco?”
“He tripped.”
Izumie stood still for a moment.
“That’s too bad she said”
Saru pulled out a canteen of water, put a little on his forehead and took a swig. He offered it to Izumie. Izumie took it and took a swig as well.
Saru looked at the horizon and nodded, “Yep, too bad.”
18:52 Conclusion
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