HorseReport
English：Horse · Characters
A Shek treasure hunter whose squad was eaten by Cannibals and who is now stuck in a bar unable to settle his tab. His face carries the only red war paint in the game, yet his personality tag reads "Traitorous".
Here's the deal, drifter, I'm a treasure hunter and I got a real juicy tip on a valuable looting spot. Thing is, my squad got killed off by those blasted cannibals, so here I am recuperating in this dusty old snore fest of a village...
Horse is a Shek unique recruitable character who works as a treasure hunter. He most often appears in the Fishing Village on the Northern Coast, sitting in the bar run by the Deadcat faction; the bar at Squin in the Border Zone can also produce him.
A 4,500-cat bar tab
Like Green in the Swamp, Horse is a "bar tab" recruit: he cannot leave under his own power because his account at the Deadcat Bar is unpaid. The player has to lay out 4,500 Cats to settle it before he will join the squad.
That is a heavy outlay at the opening stage of a game, and his numbers do not come close to supporting the price:
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Strength | 5.5 |
| Toughness | 1.2 |
| Dexterity | 4 |
| Weapon skills (all types) | 5 |
| Melee attack / defence | 6 / 5 |
| Athletics | 8 |
| Field Medic / Engineer | 5 / 5 |
Among the same crop of Shek recruits, Rane the Giant (7,500) and Kang (6,000) at Squin both come with every combat skill at 20 and are immediately useful, while Ruka, who is free, has combat skills of 10. Horse costs 4,500 and his numbers are around 5 — on fighting strength alone he is the worst value in the Shek recruit pool. Players who take him usually do so for his dialogue and for the character himself.
Red war paint and a traitor's tag
Horse's face carries a set of red "war paint" which is the only instance of it among the Shek warriors in the entire game. One reading holds that it is a legacy of a region he spent a long time travelling in.
What actually catches players' attention is something else: he is assigned a Traitorous personality, and he has his own exclusive player dialogue package along with 9 unique lines. Among recruitable characters that combination is decidedly rare. The game data records only the tag and never spells out what he actually does with it — so treat it as a lead rather than a conclusion.
Gear
His kit is rather more respectable than that of other recruits of the same tier: his main weapon is a Horse Chopper (a basic sabre, +4 defence), he wears Mercenary Plate with a Straw Hat above it and Cargopants and Drifter's Boots below. For someone with weapon skills of 5, this outfit is well over specification — it reads more like a narrative prop for "what a treasure hunter ought to be wearing".