The Life & Times of a Sell Sword Company aka All About Mercenaries by John Josten is a generic role playing game supplement published by Board Enterprises. This is part of the Small Bites series and is the “World Walker” version. The full version is only available to Patreon supporters and is more than double the length.
The supplement is available as a 25-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover.
The Introduction explains that this month is going to consider mercenaries and separate them from those that are similar, but different, such as assassins, adventurers and soldiers.
Fletnern Wiki duplicates a number of entries from the wiki, related to mercenaries, covering military units, military actions and legends.
The Sounding Board duplicates several blog posts. Reputations considers how what characters know and feel is different to what players do; in-game, a character might fear the reputation of a group, given their historical actions, even though the player thinks they shouldn’t.
Arms Dealers considers how these are probably an important contact for adventurers attempting to sell a pile of gear, or even buy some, and that they can be a source of weapons if you need to arm a militia in a hurry, though rulers may keep a very careful eye on someone who can outfit an army.
Lifestyles of the Magical and Mundane looks at the pay scale of a mercenary, compared to soldiers and police, as mercenaries are far more likely to put their lives at risk; people generally don’t hire mercenaries unless there is a war, whilst soldiers and police are around all the time. It then looks at how mercenaries would be hired by a recruiter. Troop Organisation suggests that mercenaries will often follow the prevailing local troop formations, unless they want to look like famous exotic soldiers. The Off-Season considers what mercenaries will be doing for a living when not fighting. Transient Homes considers what mercenaries would do with their possessions, and what they’d have with them.
Wet Behind the Ears considers how a mercenary starts out, what pay they might get and what equipment they might need.
How to Play a… Mercenary looks at how a mercenary might be played as a character.
News of Fletnern is Aynertyr War Losers, a group of nobles who wound up forced from their land in a not-exactly-a-war and ended up taking to the mercenary life, originally as an attempt to regain their lost lands.
News of Sylansse looks at the trolls and dwarves, their armies and how they are used as mercenaries.
The Good Life is Slang & Superstition explains that the sally port in Fletnern is called the Crusader’s Door, and gives the history.
$ilver Sense looks at weapons, armour and related equipment.
The final pages are What’s Missing, which describes everything in the full version, and In Conclusion wraps things up and gives various links.
The Life & Times of a Sell Sword Company aka All About Mercenaries in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Table of Contents isn’t as thorough but is hyperlinked. There are also a number of external links. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of black and white stock images. Presentation is okay.
As is usual for this series, it is a collection of connected articles, though in this supplement’s case they stay more on topic than usual; almost everything is related to mercenaries, and how they differ from other professions that get paid to risk their lives, or risk their lives for money. The Life & Times of a Sell Sword Company aka All About Mercenaries is an interesting collection of articles and it can be found by clicking here.
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