Scorched Shek – Shek Subrace and Martial Arts Mod
"Shek and the human races are generally too far removed in blood to produce children together, but on rare occasion a coupling of Shek and Scorchlander will succeed, perhaps due to their more survival adapted physiology compared to Greenlanders. They have the external skeletal plates and strength of a Shek, but retain the grace and flexibility of a Scorchlander. Much of the world treats them as simply mutant Shek, while the Shek scorn them for their natural hornlessness. Untrained in the blade, and with the agility of a Scorchlander, they often favor martial arts."
This mod adds:
1. A new playable race designed primarily for martial artist characters, hopefully as an acceptable alternative to Skeletons, they can be found in various places throughout the Shek Kingdoms and rarely in the hub, available for hire as either basic NPCs or ones with a small amount of skills. They also find themselves among the Shinobi Thieves, fighting for them as Grapplers, or as Wandering Grapplers seeking challenges. A custom start can begin your game as a Scorched Shek in Admag, with a pittance of skill and basic cloth bindings.
2. Two potential bounty targets, Brenn Black wanted by the Holy Nation, who also sponsors young Scorched Shek looking to join her among the Shinobi Thieves, she may be willing to join your squad if you find yourself the superior warrior between the two of you. Found at the first Shinobi Tower you freshly load after adding the mod.
And among the Band of Bones a Scorched Shek who once showed promise as a fighter has fought his way into working under Tora the Fearless, and like her is wanted by the Shek Kingdom. Though he has weakened greatly from hunger, do not underestimate the once mighty Bonefist as a novice martial artist. Found among the Band of Bones with Tora the Fearless, has similar stats to her so it may increase the difficulty of capturing her slightly.
3. New clothing/armor, a black stealthy version of the basic cloth bindings as well as a version based on each of the leather and chain shirts, with stats and coverage adjusted as I saw fit for a martial arts playthrough, the goal being to provide a sense of progression like you’d normally get through weapon grades with other playstyles. All of them should be craftable as soon as relevant clothing or armor benches are researched and built, and can be purchased from Shinobi Traders and Armor King. The chain versions also raise the cutting damage of unarmed attacks slightly, since you’re punching people with chains.
Known Bugs/Potential Changes: This is the first mod I’ve ever made for a game, I tried to use vanilla assets as much as possible to avoid issues but given the existence of some I’ve already had to fix in my testing, I can’t predict that there couldn’t possibly be more. At this time these are the only things I’m aware of that I haven’t been able to fix or might change depending on feedback.
1. NPCs treat you and other playable/outsider Shek largely the same, including Brenn Black who will also give a reduced Shinobi Thieves price to normal Shek. I investigated fixing this with the help of other modders in the Kenshi Community Discord, and no good solution could be found due to how the game handles sub races and dialog in this use case.
2. The icon I made for the Rusty Chain Bindings will not show up. I have no idea why, I did it exactly the same as the others and even tried redoing it, but it just doesn’t show. I’ll fix it if anyone figures it out.
3. I gave the Scorched Shek a bonus to martial arts and armor crafting for lore reasons instead of weapon skills like the parent races, but I was informed martial arts racial bonuses don’t actually work in Kenshi. They seem to learn it faster in my testing but that might be because of their changed stats compared to Shek, for now I’m leaving it but be aware it might be fluff.
4. I originally wanted to make belt versions of the cloth bindings, vanilla and the black version I added, but they don’t work properly due to the way vanilla Kenshi handles them, it can’t be done in the same way as other modders have done hats or masks as belts. No one on the Kenshi discord had any ideas of how to solve it except making new versions with custom meshes, which would be distinctly different from the vanilla objects, this led to me making armored shirt versions instead which I now love. I would like if it was possible to still do the belts someday though.
Huge thanks to Spine on the Kenshi Discord for helping me figure out dialog, and others who offered suggestions on things.
