Lady SandaReport
English：Lady Sanda · Characters
Governor of Bark, and a rare Shek inside the United Cities' noble circle. Her head is worth nothing at all in the Holy Nation, yet it buys the most useful commodity in the game — goodwill.
Lady Sanda is one of the diplomatic leaders of the United Cities, and in practice the ruler of Bark, on the north-eastern shore of the Great Desert. She lives in the town's Noble House, surrounded by ten or more guards.
She is a Shek.
A Shek sitting in the Empire's noble circle
The fact alone is unusual. The Noble Circle of the United Cities is overwhelmingly human, and Shek inside the Empire are usually mercenaries, labourers or prisoners of war. Sanda, however, holds governance of an entire city, and the game never explains how she got there. Her personality field reads "Dumb", which puts a considerable distance between her and the other Shek leader, Esata.
Her combat numbers, on the other hand, are no joke: Strength around 52–58, Toughness 56–64, Melee Attack 56–64, and all six weapon skills between 47 and 53. Among the nobles that puts her at the upper end, though nowhere near top-tier warrior standard — her Dodge is single-digit and her Perception can even come out negative. The genuinely awkward part is her guard detail.
Her bodyguard is a special case
According to the wiki's own tabulation, Lady Sanda is the only United Cities noble with a bespoke bodyguard unit of her own — "Sanda's Noble Guard", equipped with Empire Samurai Armour and Toppers.
These units are generally taken to be either cut content or a leftover data error, since every other noble shares a single generic guard template. There is corroboration along the same line: Sanda, Lord Nagata and Lord Yoshinaga all share one army-squad configuration.
In practice her escort is 5–8 Empire Noble Guards plus 5 hooded ones, all in Masterwork armour with weapons made by Edgewalkers. The hard part of attacking Lady Sanda is not Lady Sanda; it is the dozen-odd Edgewalkers blades around her.
What her head is worth
The answer is 0 Cats.
The United Cities does not put bounties on its own nobles, and the Holy Nation — the only party willing to take her — offers zero Cats. The payment is +2 relations with the Holy Nation; if the player declines that (non-existent) bounty, it becomes +5 instead.
This is a distinctive piece of design within Kenshi's bounty system: where senior figures of a hostile state are concerned, the money is not the point, the relations are. For a player who wants free passage inside Holy Nation territory, carrying Lady Sanda to Blister Hill is one of the most direct methods available. The real income from the trip is her Long Cleaver — Edgewalkers-made, roughly 26,585 to 28,996 Cats — and the rest of her gear.
What the world looks like once she falls
Lady Sanda is one of the characters bound to world states. Once she is killed or imprisoned:
| Condition | Result |
|---|---|
| Lady Sanda down | Bark enters the Half Ruined state |
| Lady Sanda + Emperor Tengu both down | Bark falls to the Empire Peasants |
| Lady Sanda + Lady Kana + Slave Master Wada all down | Bark falls to the Empire Peasants |
| Lady Sanda down | Samurai patrol frequency in the Great Desert is halved |
Beyond that, if Lady Sanda goes down together with Emperor Tengu, Lord Inaba, Lord Yoshinaga and Lord Nagata, patrols of Samurai Rogues in groups of 4–13 begin spawning across the Northern Coast, Sinkuun, the Skimsands, the Stormgap Coast, The Eye, the Great Desert and the Outlands.
In other words, killing her does not make the Great Desert safe; it just changes who is doing the patrolling.