No fighting in the War Room
A note or two on your knowledge of mercenaries:
Mercenaries do not exist in the Twin Empires, they are in fact illegal. Bands or individuals that travel through Imperial ports are only allowed to enter the walled harbour quarters found in a mere score of imperial cities, at all other locations they must remain on their ship on pain of death. State control of military force is thus in theory absolute, given the armies structure effectively there is no real need for local powers to make use of them either.
The deep southern lands of the chivalric likely have small bands of swords for hire given there is no explicit ban on them in their code but a general frowning upon a perceived lack of honour which dominates martial affairs in those kingdoms. Again local military arrangements make them effectively unnecessary on a large scale as independent bodies.
Mercenaries do however very much exist across the Gold Sea the land of ancient, merchant and mage princes. Most of the continent is rife with both small bands and vast organizations. Armed men and women of negotiable loyalty replace standing armies and watches, though it is worth note that certain groups have a strong fidelity with a given city (one in particular actually built and owns the city) but ultimately the coin must still flow.
The Free Cities of the Great Gate peninsular (just south of Aravigia) make extensive use of mercenaries in a fashion reminiscent of the far flung lands on the other side of the known world but on a much smaller scale and in a slightly more organised fashion. Separated from the rest of the Chivalric kingdoms geographically and culturally they do still maintain public watches and a nominal legal method of raising the population to arms but the competitive nature of private individuals and the cities themselves means a peculiar form of mercenary warfare is the norm. The bands must apply for a licence from the Guild of Mercenary Arms (reputed also to be an establishment linked to assassins) which is recognised by all the city states and demands fees and prescribes a code of conduct. It is not unheard of for captains of rival armies to come to terms without ever actually fighting to save both sides unnecessary loss of life or expenses though this sort of behaviour doesn’t encourage repeat business.
Now to Aravigia:
You discover it to be a land without a domestic mercenary trade, apparently it had hitherto for been too politically stable for one to survive. The nobles are sufficiently well supplied with young men and loyal subjects to keep their own lands free of substantial banditry and thus the trade caravans passing susceptible only to their potentially criminal taxes. When the messenger from the capital city spoke of mercenary forces it is likely they meant to hire them from abroad, make an arrangement with a border princedom or both.
Over all your trip to the country side yields little since most able people have either already been marked for service in a lords army or are unwilling to join a foreign one any more than a native one. All in all you scrape up another five men, two of whom you expect of being runaways left out of other drafts for being too young, another you are sure had to leave town in a hurry for some misdeed or other and the remaining two to avoid the hard work of a turning agricultural season.
Upon your return the Wregelli staff Trivaldi promised have arrived (making your sleeping accommodations quite cramped) but he says he has a plan to get the funding that was promised. All he will need is one of your bars of Mithril and two days. Rather worryingly he finishes by asking if any of you are any good at card games.
Roll 6d6 and pay that much gold. Roll a Charisma (Deception or Persuasion) check and give me an example of what might be said to ingratiate the populace to the Marian Empire.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:42, Wed 21 Oct 2015.
