Careful with that knife, dude... 😲

What, worried he'll poke his eye out or chop off a finger or toe?

Stab stab stab!

Don't forget to throw in a slash or three for good measure!

Looks like this guy can take it and dish it out judging from his scars there.

Indeed, you don't make it this long without being able to hold your own in a fight--most of those scars look like they were made by claws, though, so maybe somebody forgot to bring their knife to the fight?

I'm working on a new story series involving a somewhat wasteland planet with pockets of habitable areas here and there (known as Hubs; they have a central area that's more of an oasis, and gradually dries out as you go outward; the main Hub towns in the oasis distribute supplies to the outer regions in exchange for protection from raiders). This guy looks like he'd fit in with many of the residents of the Knife Hub. Each Hub has something it's more well-suited to doing, so's to encourage a larger society amongst Hubs in a region. Knife Hub is the place to go when you need a blade, chainsaw, sawmill saw blade, lawnmower blades sharpened, etc. The residents also tend to carry and be well-skilled in the use of knives, swords, machetes, axes, etc. It's one of those places where someone can take a knife to a gunfight and win. Their more advanced blades are actually made at Forge hub, but Forge is more specialize to making, selling, and recycling things, rather than actually selling much on a customer level.

Sounds fancy--I get the feeling this guy just fashioned his knife from scrap metal and materials, though, as is quite common for his kind. His does look a bit nicer than one would expect from something cobbled together from scrap metal using whatever other tools were available, though--perhaps he found it somewhere, or purchased or bartered for it, or stole it from someone. Something as simple as a knife seems to open up a lot of storytelling potential!

Residents of the Knife Hub are no strangers to fashioning blades out of some piece of scrap they've run across. Lots of scrap in the world of Oktahv [basically means "dust"], from before the Cataclysm occurred, and the occasional wreckage from fighting off raiders, or rival raiders killing eachother out in the wastelands. It's fairly good business to gather scrap and haul it off to Forge Hub to be properly recycled into useful stuff and better blades and parts than one could just fashion for one's self. But, a Knife Hub citizen would never be without 3-5 personally crafted knives. And it's something of a hobby for many to compare and trade, so it wouldn't be unheard of for one to actually be carrying a pack of knives for trade. Stone knives would also be something rarely found outside of Knife Hub, unless someone had traded with a knife maker. Needless to say, Neither Knife Hub nor Buckshot Hub have a too many issues with raiders. Other hubs may have less of an inherent deterrent factor, but the raiders of Oktahv aren't particularly dumb. They seek to gain control of the hubs, not to destroy the stuff within, because it's stuff they also need. Similarly, they'd rather not actually kill those who run things like the Forge Hub foundry or any hub's water purification plants, because they know that would be shooting themselves in the foot.