Someone commented on an earlier post that the guards were supposed to defend him/her against hostile parties and did not, in the case of an NCP that he/she had provoked into an attack. (I am putting this as a separate post since I noticed the mods did not like having someone respond to an old post--hopefully I am not breaking any rules by doing so.)

I just wanted to add my observation--the guards will attack and kill anything that is CONSISTENTLY hostile towards people. If it is something/someone you have provoked that would not otherwise be hostile towards you, the guard will ignore it. (This does not, of course, address the bug of having everyone attack you unprovoked, then the guards "defending" them, etc.)

Early on in the game, when I was still weak, I would run back to the nearest village and let the guard kill the Kwanza whatjamajizits (the worm-looking things with one eye that you run into early on). After I saw one of the non-hostile little purple critters appear to give birth to one of the hostile worms, I started killing non-hostile little purple critters on sight, hoping to nip the problem in the bud. (This may have been a bug or something weird, since it's now my understanding the nasty worm things come from eggs laid by large critters in caves??) When I ran back to a village with a little purple critter I had provoked on my heels, it was a different story--the guard completely ignored its presence.

you are attacking kwama foragers and scribs. the foragers will attack but the scribs wont. what you saw was an overlap glitch.

Good to know that was a glitch, because it had me confused. It's probably one of the weirdest ones I've seen. You've noticed how the scribs wiggle their behinds a lot. Well, I was behind one, saw the butt-twitching thing, then this forager materialized under its bottom, so I ASSUMED...

Sorry you think my post deserves a thumbs-down, Nev. I'm not getting anything useful out of this forum, so I'm outta here.