A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Maddo & Verez: Mercenary Company Captains

Maddo & Verez: Mercenary Company Captains by Cliff Dunn is a role playing game supplement published by ZealZaddy for use with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

The supplement is available as a 22-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $1.99. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Contents and one the Open Game License.

The first two pages of content are taken up by some links to Free City of Vadashar material, a sidebar, Welcome to the Free City of Vadashar, that is duplicated from other supplements and gives background and history of the city, and some details on using The Maddo & Verez in a non-Vadashar or a Vadashar campaign.

Maddo & Verez: Mercenary Company Captains explains that the two captains arrived in Vadashar six months ago with a dozen soldiers of the Invincible Company, a company noted for ruthlessness, cruelty and haphazard honour.

The Free Mercenary Companies of Zul gives some history of these, from their formation following the Fall of the Giant Kings to integration in the armies of city-states and their behaviour when there weren’t any profitable wars to fight, which led to the Free Companies. Also in this section are game details on applying for membership in a Free Company and a monthly wage scale.

Don’t Get Even: Get Maddo gives the history and stats (there’s a note on stat blocks; these and other ZealZaddy books use character stat blocks for NPCs, not the rather odd decision for 5E to design them as monsters) for the first captain. This covers his mercenary service prior to joining the Invincible Company and how he tries to deal with being a member of the company when it, often, conflicts with his own personal honour. It covers his mission in Vadashar too.

Man Without a Country: Verez does the same for the second mercenary captain, who is a much nastier and more ruthless piece of work.

Yerlanda, Cohort Adjutant is a third NPC and is treated the same way. She isn’t a mercenary captain, but the senior staff officer responsible for bookkeeping and administrative work.

Adventure Hooks has two hooks for the NPCs.

Maddo & Verez: Mercenary Company Captains in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. Navigation is good. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a variety of colour illustrations, up to full page in size. Presentation is good.

This supplement details three NPCs in detail. Of course, if you don’t like NPCs being treated like characters, not monsters, the stat blocks won’t appeal, but it does make NPCs more interesting. The NPCs can be dropped in to other settings, but in such a case it will be necessary to dump most of their personal histories and, probably, alter their current missions and goals – and each NPC has their own mission – because those are a little too intertwined with Vadashar, as are the adventure hooks, which will diminish their utility. Maddo & Verez: Mercenary Company Captains has some well described NPCs and it can be found by clicking here.