Dust KingReport
English：Dust King · Characters
Supreme leader of the Dust Bandits, wanted simultaneously by the Holy Nation, the Shek Kingdom and the United Cities; his is the earliest large bounty in the game that can actually be cashed in.
The Dust King is the supreme leader of the Dust Bandits, and the first wanted man most new players hear about by name. He does not travel and does not patrol; he simply sits in his tower in the Border Zone and waits for someone to come for his head.
Still alive, eh? Looks like I didn't kill you enough last time! — the Dust King
A misprinted wanted poster
He is wanted by the Holy Nation, the Shek Kingdom and the United Cities all at once, which in Kenshi is an unusually high distinction — most bandit chiefs manage to offend only one government. The poster says merely that he is the leader of the notorious Dust Bandits and is thought to be hiding out somewhere in the Border Zone; even his exact location was never established.
There is a trap here that players regularly fall into: the poster prints a bounty of 30,000 Cats, but the amount actually paid out is 35,000 Cats. Budgeting from the poster figure undercounts the reward by five thousand Cats.
Dust King Tower
His lair sits on a clifftop overlooking a river valley in the Border Zone, defended by level 3 walls, a single gate and five mounted crossbow turrets. Beyond the 20-plus Dust Bandits, the garrison includes four or five Dust Bosses in Standard-quality equipment or better — effectively his lieutenants. The third floor of the tower is a prison holding the unique recruitable character Cat — a United Cities citizen who was dressed well on his way to a date, was taken for someone rich, and was abducted for a ransom nobody ever paid.
The tower also generates equipment through the "ancient" system, worth roughly 10,000 Cats in total across 30 inventory slots and refreshing every 24 hours. This is why taking the tower pays far more than the bounty alone.
Thirty-five thousand, straight out of the opening
What the Dust King is most famous for is the classic Kenshi opening shortcut he makes possible.
The player can sign a contract with the Mercenary Guild at the nearby Waystation bar, hiring one or two squads of bodyguards at 2,000 Cats per day, and march them straight at the tower. The mercenaries are badly equipped but numerous, and they will usually break the Dust King and his garrison inside the one-day contract; hauling him into town to cash in nets thirty-five thousand Cats in a single trip, plus a batch of decent early-game gear.
There is one more exploit that comes up often: the garrison inside the tower sometimes fails to go on alert because of the fighting outside. When that happens you can take out part of the force, pull back to heal, then return for the next batch. Since Dust Bandits carry no bandages, cutting weapons are especially effective at keeping opponents bleeding out.
World states
Once the Dust King is dead, the "Bandit Demands" event the Dust Bandits launch against player outposts stops firing permanently.
The wiki's reading of this is that it actually says something about the Dust Bandits as an organisation — strong enough, loyal enough, or decentralised enough that it keeps running when its leader is carried off.
Trivia
- In earlier versions of the game the Dust King could spawn as a Shek; he is now fixed as a Greenlander.
- Like other bandit chiefs, his skill sheet shows the classic "pure bruiser" distribution: every melee skill and physical attribute at 44–46, while Perception, Stealth, Lockpicking and Thievery all lie flat at 0–2.