This appears to be connected to stealth murder victims:
Two NPC’s, both generic (no apparent role, both lacking in unique names) called “Townswoman” and “Guard” that I successfully stealth-murdered with no witnesses disappeared as expected a while after hiding their corpses.
That is until they both raised from the dead. This presented itself in a very bizarre way;
The deceased guard suddenly spawned where I had previously dumped his corpse and sprung at me in violent outrage, attacking me in front of other guards, whom just as surprisingly acted and forcefully hindered the guard from attacking me further.
I drew the conclusion that the guard was angry at me and acting in similar fashion as when attacked but should’ve been dead, e.g angry at me for killing him (yes that’s quite funny) !
This didn’t trigger any reputation, criminality or warrant mechanics either which is almost as weird as the fact that he raised from the dead, out of thin air on the spot I hid his corpse quite some time and several days after the fact.
Similarly this happened to the townswoman but rather than attacking me she simply runs for her life when she see’s me. She was well hidden and quite dead - I didn’t only stab a dagger trough her heart in stealth. Since I was quite bored I practiced a few arrows in her face and torso too and even though forensic investigations in the 15th century did not make use of DNA, fingerprints and serial-numbers I still made the effort to remove the arrows after and later used them for some poaching.
When approaching the woman I get a tool-tip stating “bad behavior will make people …” as with criminal activities or violence would do but every time I enter her vicinity.
I could see how this very well likely is part of needed mechanics, not least with characters that have a personality and is part of the game in such a capacity to be capable of being stopped but needed to keep the storyline intact.
Even though they lacked unique character names (which is historically and traditionally typical for disposable npc’s, items and such; whether they’re there to fill the streets as extras or to practice skills on) or any telling detail or unique features and belongs to future storyline events the issue with being instantly recognized by victims whom supposedly died from a sneak attack with a knife to the heart which causes instant loss of consciousness - as depicted in the game - not even being aware Henry were in the area or having the opportunity to see me before the thrust to the heart.
This is very, very frustrating and probably as damaging - if not more so - to intuition, logic and even mechanics in the manner they’re introduced and presented to the player.
thus ultimately the end-user experience.
I might sound more critical than a fan of KCD and while that is understandable it is not how I feel. I stand by my opinion that KCD is the best game made to date I have had the pleasure to enjoy and I began 25 years ago when my mother bought me an amiga (i’m 33).
Thanks for your time and hope this is of any use to the heroes behind this masterpiece!
Thanks. yours truly, Slimbo(dot)se