In this post, I've written about a mercenary company I created a little while ago. It was made for D&D 5th Edition, but was always intended more as an adventure hook as well as offering roleplay opportunities (both with the mercenary officers and men, as well as those they interact with), and could easily be slotted into other systems.
Although I've given classes and levels, there are no stat blocks, because the idea was never that the party it was designed for would fight any of these guys, and the big battle they were caught up in was handled narratively with the party standing in reserve watching for a bit before being called on to do a "special operations" mission.
Sir Walter Garley's Company
This company of experienced veteran mercenaries is named for it's founder and commander, Sir Walter Garley. The total strength varies from 100 to 150 men, depending on recruitment and recent losses. On the battlefield, they operate as heavy plate-armoured infantry with small a contingent each of crossbowmen and scouts. Recruitment is handled by Sir Walter's lieutenants, who can afford to be picky about who they enlist.
The emblem of the company is a silver hart.
Image created in drawshield.net
Key NPC's
Captain Sir Walter Garley
Photo by Gio Bartlett on Unsplash
A renowned mercenary leader from Magoran. A tall, thin man in his early 50’s, with greying hair and a cropped beard.
His speech is highly educated (often too high-brow for his men), but he’s been on the mercenary scene for at least 30 years and has a reputation for getting into tight spots but usually on the winning side. He’s worked with King Gortig twice in the past, during the Wilderland War of Independence, and a couple of years later as part of the expedition that took and occupied Tiraz.
For the last 10 years, he has commanded his own mercenary company, and made good money from wars across the face of Argull.
Sir Walter is a Fighter 5/Bard 7.
Gilbert Hamhand
Photo by Luca Di Giovine on Unsplash
Sir Walter’s senior lieutenant. A giant of a man (literally – he is a half-giant), originating in Tallshavn.
He’s a 10th level fighter 8/barbarian 2, with full plate armour armed with a halberd and mortuary sword.
He’s a blunt fellow, who considers no-one any good until they’ve proven themselves in battle. He is also a towering figure on the battlefield, and a great motivator of the men who he has saved there.
Rickard Milberry
A half-elf of indeterminate age, Rickard has been a mercenary all his life, and has spent considerable time working for various Enrieme employers in the Warmark. Within Sir Walter's Company he acts as a scout and intelligence gatherer (including on new recruits before they are accepted...). He is a terse, skinny short fellow, and is actually a fighter 4/assassin 6.
Walvis Seaborad
As his name suggests, this native of Milmar is the size of a small whale. It’s one of the perks of his job as quartermaster for the company. He is phenomenally good at getting the supplies the company needs, and has the lack of morals required to do this very effectively. On the surface a nice jolly chap, he is however, not a man to be crossed. For him, everything is about money and success. He is an 8th level fighter.
Brother Marnag Fetz
Photo by Azamat Mukanov on Unsplash
A warrior priest of Hextor, from Werchen. Fully plated up, he is an 8th level cleric, and the nearest thing the company has to a chaplain. His healing actually all comes from wands, scrolls and potions (he’s an accomplished herbalist), as his spells tend to be of a darker inclination. In aspect, he is a brutal fanatic, but one who fights with ruthlessness and cunning.
The Party Brief / Adventure Hook
When seeking recruits, the Lieutenants will say little of the expedition’s goals, only that it’s a potentially dangerous journey to solve a little local difficulty in the Sarassid lands. They’ll imply it’s a policing mission. Travel to the Sarassid lands will be on a ship chartered for the company. The employer and more details of the mission will be revealed once the company are underway.
The pay on offer is good; a sign-on bonus of 100 Gold Stallions (paid on embarkation), plus 5 Stallions per day, with bonuses of 50 for a victorious skirmish and 250 for a victorious battle. A contract-end bonus will also be paid, the amount depending on success.
30% of all cash paid will be held by the company in a personal “Emergency Fund” (released on termination unless dishonourable). Loot from enemy combatants or civilians is divided equally between those who take it but looting or abusing friendly civilians is punishable by summary hanging.
Those wishing to sign up should present themselves at Tarak in the next fortnight, or in Enrieme within the next month and a half.
The ship is The Pierced Wave, captained by Frodegar Wavethrasher of Milmar – a man who looks too young for such a senior role, but is actually a very accomplished “privateer”. The ship is a large caravel, and can hold the whole company company plus their horses, although it gets crowded and rations are basic.
The reality of the contract, once the sales fluff is taken out, is to be part of the army needed to hold the undead advance from the south and throw them back to the border of Ciudad Cassaro. Subsequent contracts are planned for the reconquest of Ciudad Cassaro and a possible advance into Lymbrium Nomoth Klasmet.
The employer is (of course) King Gortig of Jakta, whose charismatic leadership and years of successful warfare make him the natural choice to lead a diverse alliance in this time of trouble.
Conclusion
So what do you think of the approach here, with a sketched out background and a few key NPC's hopefully detailed enough for RP interaction ? Do you think stat blocks are needed for all combat-oriented NPC's even if the idea is not for the party to fight them ?
I hope you like some of the ideas here; if you do, feel free to borrow/steal/adapt them, and I'd love to hear if there are things you would do better !
Cool idea! A mercenary unit would be a nice hook into a campaign. The players could be sent on special missions behind the lines, climb in ranks, eventually getting their own command over a unit in the course of the campaign. For RP interaction the infos are good without having stat blocks for I don't think the battles of the armies will be done on battlemaps using D&D combat rules 😄. Those would only be needed if the PCs would be accompanied by one of the NPCs on a special mission. If the players will be fully integrated in the mercenary army and perhaps will take part in planning attacks, as a DM (which I am not ^^) I would perhaps make a listing of the single units of the mercenary company. But that could just be me having kept myself too busy trying to set up a battletech mercenary order of battle in MegaMek the last week. 😅
Thank you ! It worked really well when I ran it. They had the whole "recruitment experience", then plenty of RP interaction with the mercenaries, ship's crew and locals as they sailed down to the exotic port near the fighting. Then I had them go off on their own on a couple of recce missions before the whole army tabbed across the desert to fight the big battle.
Lots of exhaustion and heat stroke checks later, they arrived at the choke point of Wadi Naffatiyeh. There, they were in reserve as the battle started, but I kept them in the narrative by having undead manticores fly overhead firing tail spikes and a few airborne attacks from (frankly terrifying) undead sphinxes.
After enough of that to give them a flavour of the desperate battle being fought, but before it got boring, I sent them off on their special mission - to go under the battlefield with a scroll of Earthquake and lots of ways of setting off explosions. They had to fight through undead counter-miners to find the underground naptha pits and blow the whole shebang before the army above ground was overwhelmed.
Having a serious time constraint made things thoroughly exciting, and stopped the "I've just used a couple of spells, time for a long rest" syndrome. Everyone had a lot of fun !
Yes it's interesting to be set with a fix amount of resources and/or time and see what you and the other players come up with to achieve their goal!
This looks like a nice plot hook set up :) If you were doing this as a module type thing statblocks might be useful for newbie GMs or something quick and easy for any given GM that has the type of players who just want to attack everything XD
lol, do you know how HARD I have had to work to persuade the players that not every... single... thing.... should be attacked ? They still have an approach of "if it has a stat block, it can be killed".....
But yeah, you're right, if I ever turned it into an actual playable module rather than something where half the info lives in my head or can be improvised on the fly if needed, I'd need to add stat blocks for these guys.
LoL oh dear XD I've only had two groups of players and I've been fortunate with both of them.
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