The Cult of the KingReport
English：The Cult of the King · World & History
The Southern Hive does not worship a god or a queen. It worships an ancient machine that eats people — and that belief dictates everything they do to outsiders, including what happens after they tie you to the pole.
King will protect us, King will be happy with us... — Droneguard
Of all the beliefs in Kenshi, this is the most literal one: the faithful keep their god in a valley, and they really do feed him people.
What they worship
King is the centre of Southern Hive belief and the only Crimper in the game — an ancient machine. He wanders the Royal Valley with a permanent escort of Droneguards.
He holds two positions at once. Institutionally he is the consort of the Queen of the South, who "rules over her subjects with the help of her consort, the King". Religiously, the one who is knelt to, chanted at and fed is him, not her.
How the doctrine shows up in behaviour
This is not background flavour. It is written directly into how they act.
One: the world is divided in two. The Southern Hive calls everything outside its territory "the Faraway". That xenophobia has a measurable consequence — Hiveless and Ronin Southerners are extremely rare. Nobody gets out.
Two: outsiders are not enemies, they are food. The wiki describes them as "obsessed with devouring and/or sacrificing any intruder or Hiveless to their King". Compared with their Western cousins they are far more aggressive, and that aggression has an explicit religious purpose.
Three: the sacrifice has a fixed procedure. A row of prison poles stands to the north-east of the Southern Hive. A captured player character is tied there; King then arrives and eats the prisoner alive while the Droneguards kneel and chant.
The one exception: Skeletons
There is one kind of being they will not eat: Skeletons.
As long as the player faction is neutral towards them, the Southern Hive will not attack Skeletons, because Skeletons are not seen as viable targets for King to eat — which makes them worthless as an offering.
The Droneguards' standard greeting for outsiders states the test plainly:
What are YOU?! No-hive for King! — Droneguard
How hard King actually is
The object of worship has the numbers to match: Strength 120, 1200 health in the head, 900 each in chest and stomach, 875 oil, two extra attack slots. Spawned at the Southern Hive he also carries an age multiplier of 2.40x–2.50x, putting his effective skills well past 100.
The only winnable version of him
If the player kidnaps the Queen of the South rather than killing her, King personally joins a Base Assault against the player, alongside a Prince, a War Gorillo and eight Droneguards.
The catch that matters: in that raid he spawns with a multiplier of only 0.90x–1.00x, making him dramatically weaker than the version in the Royal Valley. If you want to bring down a Crimper, this is the realistic opportunity.
Is this a religion
The game gives the cult of King no scripture, no priesthood and no separate organisation. It is one race's collective behaviour towards one machine.
Mechanically, though, it does everything Kenshi's other religions do: it draws the line between us and them, it prescribes what happens to outsiders, and it decides who is not even worth processing. Next to the Holy Nation sorting the pure from the impure in Okran's name, the Southern Hive's version is simply more direct — they do not condemn you, they eat you.