Blood for Coin: Mercenaries

True loyalty takes time to build, and loyal soldiers vary widely in fighting capabilities, so truly dedi¬cated fighters in the corps are always too few for a leader’s liking.
Building a professional standing army takes time, both for combat training to be honed to an edge and for mental discipline to become iron¬clad tradition. It also takes the right environment, usually an ordered, law-abiding land, such as Cormyr, and a lot of coins. Monetary costs must be borne even in peacetime, which is one reason why some rulers get so aggressive about border patrols and expansion, reasoning that “If I’m pay¬ing for these sword swingers, I’m going to use them!” and “If they sit idle, someone may use them against me, or some might get dangerous ideas about their own capabilities—so let’s keep them busy, by the gods! Besides, their aggressive vigilance will keep any citizens from daring to op¬pose me in anything.” For everyone else in the Realms, who are prob¬ably poorer and who don’t need an army all the time but might pressingly need one right now, mercenaries are the answer. Leaders use their best, most loyal fighters as personal bodyguards and generals, and turn to hireswords for the bulk of their fighting force. (Hireswords are also known as sellswords, though this term is more for individuals and impromptu bands, whereas hire¬swords are well organized—with ranks, insignias, or even uniforms—chartered companies.)
Mercenaries are particularly suited to raiding, pillaging, and wild charging attacks, activi¬ties they enjoy and ones in which breakdowns in discipline won’t matter as much as, say, when withstanding a siege or holding a vital pass.
A reputation for unreliability inevitably clings to mercenaries, because saving their own skins usually trumps dying for a cause. It’s not their own homes and families they’re fighting for— although their self-respect, their prospects for continued employment, and their standing with Tempus all demand they fight well.
Those same societal pressures make mercenar¬ies trustworthy in limited ways. Most patrons who hire them don’t have to worry about said hirelings double-crossing them in the midst of a battle, be¬cause hired blades “bloodsworn” to one side in a conflict dare not switch sides. Even if they are captured or offered more money, they must sit out as neutral, usually withdrawing from the battle¬field to keep from having to fight on the wrong side in self-defense, and departing the region of the conflict to avoid being imprisoned by whoever captured them. When proper prisons or soldiers enough to garrison them are lacking, captured hireswords are often put on a boat to “a far, fair port” to keep them at sea for a month or more.
Mercenaries also dare not switch sides because heralds and priests of Tempus would proclaim their deeds to everyone, so no one would hire them thereafter. Even if such turncoats change their names, trudge halfway across the Realms, assemble into different groups, and start over, they might still be recognized and scorned. Those who are not shunned outright can most often find work only as “dullblades.”
Dullblades are inexperienced, untested, or un¬trustworthy muscle sent on the most dangerous assignments and deemed expendable. They are paid the bottom rate: 1 cp a day plus two daily meals, a bed blanket, and wound-dressing—a wash and bandages—if needed. If adventurers are not known to be capable and accomplished combatants, they are hired on as dullblades.
At the other end of the salary scale, employers can expect to pay as much as 25 gp per day per soldier for skilled individuals, such as nightblades (commandos) and sappers, who can build bridges and plant bombs covertly and while under heavy attack.
Standard mercenary rates are 1 gp per day plus three meals with drink, provision of a tent and a new pair of boots, and a bonus (usually 5 gp) for every major battle won, such as the seizure of a city.
The commander of a mercenary force is paid a large negotiated amount for expenses upon hiring, a 1,000 gp bonus for the achievement of agreed-upon objectives, and a large negotiated fulfillment fee when the ultimate objective is achieved. Such payments are made to surviving soldiers and never to the kin of the fallen (except by fellow comrades-in-arms, out of personal sentiment).
Very few employers of mercenaries dare to try to get out of paying them by having them slain (either by attacking them with other friendly forces or by sending them to or leaving them in an impossible battlefield situation). Heralds and priests of Tempus witness the signing of such agreements, retain copies, and will proclaim against those who betray such agreements on the altars of the Wargod and publicly, meaning no one would work with them and Tempus would frown on their battle fortune.
From Chessenta eastward and southward, and east and south of Raurin, the situation is slightly different. Mercenaries, like royalty and nobility everywhere in the Realms, have a ransom price that their families or treasuries pay if they are captured. So if you capture a king, a lord, or the head of a mercenary company, you can slay, exile, maim, or enslave that person if you can square such treatment with local laws and with the gods, or imprison him or her—or you can demand a ransom, and when you receive it, return your quarry safely home. The gods and the heralds frown on those who collect a ransom and then de¬liver a mistreated, near-death captive, or free the victim far from home in dangerous territory so that he or she could well be recaptured and ran¬somed again.
An old Faerunian saying runs,

Spring is for planting and getting stuck in mud, summer is for loving and fighting, fall is for harvesting and get¬ting stuck in mud, and winter is for shivering, cursing, and starving.

Mercenaries in winter, “not fighting season,” without a local war to wage, as well as disgraced and untried swords for hire, are often employed by merchants as bodyguards, cargo loaders and unloaders, and guards for warehouses, shops, cargo, and wagons.
Such jobs are negotiated on an individual basis, but merchants typically don’t offer much below the common minimum of 3 sp per day. In addition, pay usually includes “one light and one square,” meaning two meals, the evening meal being the large or “square” one; “decent shelter,” implying some privacy, a bed, and warmth; and vacation, which is almost always a tenday on, then two days off on a repeating cycle.
From the 1350s DR onward, the hitherto ever larger mercenary companies (such as the famous Flaming Fist) began to dwindle and disappear. By the mid-1360s DR, most standing companies consisted of a charismatic leader plus a staff of four to six trusted battlefield officers, command¬ing forty mounted and fully armored fighters, with a handful of veteran trainers (often sorely wounded oldsters) training a reinforcements force of twenty-odd copper-a-day hopefuls.
A few of these smaller companies are detailed below.
Most such groups formed in the 1350s DR, then found their reputations rising a decade later because they were left standing when other forces had disbanded.
The Bold Blades of Berdusk:
Commanded by “the Sorceress with a Sword” Dauntarra Hel- gorhand, based in Berdusk and widely believed to be riddled with Harpers.
Sammarth’s Swords:
Led by the much- scarred warrior “Mad” Madreth Dorl, based in Scornubel and considered vicious. The Ready Gauntlet:
Commanded by the self-styled “Lord” Argreth Harhawk, an effete half-elf highly skilled with a sword; based in Saradush and considered the ultimate profession¬als at playing politics.

Наемники в Королевствах - Mercenary Activites in the Realms

Index of Mercenary Companies by Region The North (north of the line from Waterdeep to south Anauroch) The Bloodaxe Mercenary Company 7, 18, 19; FR0C 60; FR5 33 The Blue Sigil 7, 18, 19; FR0C 60 The Chill 7, 18, 19; I14 23 The Claw 20; FR0C 60 The Masquerade 30, 58 Silent Rain 22 The Sword Coast The Flaming Fist 9; FR0C 27, 60; FR0D 34; FRA 76 The Masquerade 30, 58 The Order of the Blue Boar 56; FR0C 61; FR3 20 Zahara's Krakens 32 Amn, Tethyr, and Calimshan The Company of Hunnar 29 The Destroyers 30 The Flaming Fist 9; FR0C 27, 60; FR0D 34; FRA 76 The Jaguar Guard 25 The Masquerade 30, 58 The Order of the Blue Boar 56; FR0C 61; FR3 20 The Order of the Silver Lance 31 Servants of the Royal Egg 21 The Shieldbreakers 21; FR0C 60 Anauroch The Masquerade 30, 58 The Red Ravens 15; FRA 74 The Sirocco 7, 28 The Heartlands The Anaconda 23 The Blacktalons Mercenary Company 6, 14; FR0C 60; FRA 91 The Masquerade 30, 58 The Mercenaries' Guild of Westgate 54 The Midnight Men 50; FR0C 60 The Mindulgulph Mercenary Company 7, 14; FR0C 61, 70; FR0D 19 The Order of the Silver Lance 31 The Red Ravens 15; FRA 74 Silent Rain 22 The Teeth 22; FR0C 60 The South (Chult peninsula and south of the Sea of Fallen Stars) The Destroyers 30 The Flaming Fist 9; FR0C 27, 60; FR0D 34; FRA 76 The Masquerade 30, 58 The Mindulgulph Mercenary Company 7, 14; FR0C 61, 70; FR0D 19 Servants of the Royal Egg 21 The Vast (east of the Dragon Reach) Clan Hammerhand 19 The Masquerade 30, 58 The Veterans' Guild of Ravens Bluff 17 The Sea of Fallen Stars The Dark Watch 29; I14 34 The Masquerade 30, 58 The She-Wolves 27 The Veterans' Guild of Ravens Bluff 17 The Wraith of the Inner Sea 32; FR10 62, 63 The Vilhon Reach The Company of the Singing Dawn 8, 13, 29; I14 10, 13, 33 Llandrydd's Steel 13; I14 11, 13 The Masquerade 30, 58 The Sailors of the Crimson Sea 16; I14 28; FR10 63 The She-Wolves 27 The Sisterhood of the Oaks 31; I14 33, 54 The Society of the Sword 16; FR10 63 The Windriders 31, 51; I14 33, 34, 54 Mulhorand, Unther, and Chessenta Bushido 24 The Masquerade 30, 58 The Renegades 15, 17, 24; FR10, 63 The Sailors of the Crimson Sea 16; I14 28; FR10 63 The Society of the Sword 16; FR10 63 The Hordelands The Masquerade 30, 58 The Red Thunder Mercenary Corps 20; I14 34 Maztica and Anchorome The Flaming Fist 9; FR0C 27, 60; FR0D 34; FRA 76 The Golden Legion 9, 12, 25; MazG 10; MazJ 38; FMA14 The Masquerade 30, 58

Sources

FMA1: Fires of Zatal FR0C: Campaign Set, Cyclopedia of the Realms FR0D: Campaign Set, DM's Sourcebook of the Realms FR3: Empires of the Sands FR5: The Savage Frontier FR10: Old Empires FRA: FORGOTTEN REALMS(r) Adventures 114: Swords of the Iron Legion MazG: Maztica Campaign Set, Gods and Battles MazJ: Maztica Campaign Set, A Journey to the True World