Start off in a desert, alone
Starving to death
Have one arm
Find a town
Try to steal food
Get caught and thrown in jail
Repeatedly pick your cell's lock and try to sneak out only to be beaten near death
Do this for at least a month of in game time
Practically become a master of lockpicking, stealth and taking a beating(toughness) from repeated escape attempts
Wait until night
Break out of cell
Lock pick 7 other prisoners' cells
Escape from town in the following chaos as guards attempt to wrangle other prisoners
Find another town
Begin using newly found stealth, lockpicking and thievery skills to great effect
Join thieves guild for 10k cats(money)
Fence all stolen goods
Become the One Armed Bandit
Buy a house
Hire a worker and force him to do research 24/7
Steal crafting materials and store them in said house
Hire another worker to craft swords
After a couple months of non stop crafting swordsmith makes master work blades
Become reputable business man, VERY wealthy
Hire more workers
Continue on to manufacture saki, grog, armor and weapons
Continue to steal all crafting materials at night to keep costs next to nothing
Hire 3 bands of heavily armed mercenaries
Build a small town near an iron and copper mine
Grow your own food
Build town into a city
Pretend to worship the Holy Flame when the Holy Nation shows up for prayer day every week
Build an army
Wipe out the Holy Nation one city at a time
Become the One Armed King
Prosper.

TLDR Kenshi is a "make your own story" game of growth, hardship and most importantly, suffering. It has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Where you can become powerful or dead. As someone who bought this game on Desura absolute ages ago, I recommend it and am HIGHLY excited for Kenshi 2. The loading can get a bit old when you're exploring, but all in all, great game.