Starving BanditsReport
English：Starving Bandits · Factions
The most common people on the Holy Nation's frontier. Weak, hungry and badly armed — but they come 8 at a time, or 13, or 42. And all they want is your food.
Today we eat! Gut him, take every last scrap of food from him! — Starvers attacking
The Starving Bandits are the most frequently encountered hostile faction in and around the wilds and peripheries of Holy Nation lands.
They are close cousins of the Starving Vagrants found in United Cities territory, but somewhat more organised: they always move in groups, and they have leaders.
Who they are
The wiki does not soften it: they are made up of countless nobodies, destitutes, thugs and beggars who, instead of working or begging inside settlements, ganged up and turned to banditry in the wilds to feed themselves.
Because they are permanently hungry, they spawn with low Hunger, which applies a further 10–15% penalty to already poor stats. A rank-and-file Hungry Bandit has Strength of just 3–7, wears a Rag Shirt and carries an Iron Club.
Their personalities are constrained in the data too: they are never Honorable and rarely Smart. Recruited ones use the "Player THUG" dialogue package.
The threat is the headcount
| Squad | Composition | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Starving Bandit Mob | 5–9 bandits + 1 leader | Skinner's Roam, Shem, Border Zone, Dreg, Okran's Gulf, Okran's Pride, Okran's Valley, Northern Coast |
| Starving Bandit Big Mob | 9–16 bandits | Border Zone, Shem, Okran's Gulf |
| Starving Bandit Giant Mob | 40 bandits + 2 leaders | Skinner's Roam, Shem |
They roam in gangs of 8, 13 or 42, looking for wanderers — usually the player — to prey upon. Individually they are a joke. Forty of them is not.
Distribution is uneven. The wiki estimates that the Border Zone accounts for 51% of all Starving Bandit spawns, Skinner's Roam 26% and Okran's Gulf 11% — the three frontier zones where Holy Nation policing is thinnest, which is exactly why the gangs can rob there with relative impunity.
They only want food
This is the mechanical difference that matters most:
Their primary concern is taking your food. They will loot unconscious characters, take food items, generally leave everything else alone, and move on when they are done.
They will also butcher any animals they see, and if their own weapon has been taken they will loot one from someone else.
Paying them off
The Starving Bandits are one of the few bandit factions you can actually talk to. As long as relations are not hostile, they will walk up and ask for money.
| Amount given | Relation change |
|---|---|
| 50 Cats | no change |
| 500 Cats | +2 |
| 1,500 Cats | +5 |
Once relations are built up:
- While allied, they will never attack you on sight in any situation.
- Respond positively to their request for food and they will bodyguard that character for 24 hours — and despite what the dialogue implies, no Cats are actually deducted.
- Even short of an alliance, paying a specific gang enough turns that gang into friendly NPCs who will defend you from nearby enemies, though they will not follow you.
Where they come from and where they go
The wiki places them inside the Holy Nation's social cycle:
- They regularly attack the Holy Mines and Holy Nation patrols, which ends with them shackled and put to work as Lower Servants.
- If they escape from there, they end up as Escaped Servants under the Holy Nation Outlaws.
And one observation the wiki underlines: this population can never fully die out. Even a large collapse of Holy Nation civilisation — from enemy razings or internal breakdown — will not wipe them out the way it does the vagrants. They are a persistent underclass, constantly renewed by crime and desperation; instability simply increases bandit activity, leaving the total roughly unchanged.