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Dakaran
2011-11-21, 04:38 PM
I'm looking to revolve a D&D campaign around the players being members of a "hero-for-hire" kind of organization.

Essentially the nation in which the characters reside the ruling class have their knights, but they more or less protect the ruling class, and in real problematic times defend the borders. Peacekeeping for the lower class are knights in training, but they really focus most of their time on issues like violent crimes and either don't care, or don't have time for much else. Thus various businesses emerged to fill the void to provide protection, help those in need, or do whatever a paying customer wants. I'm trying to come up with a good name for the organization that the players will be working for.

Right now my best idea is "Heroes, Incorporated", but I'm waffling on whether I actually like that or not. So is Heroes, Inc. a good name or does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!
Dakaran

eulmanis12
2011-11-21, 04:56 PM
Do you want a more serious name or a more comedic one?

Serious
Watchmen's Guild
Black Watch
Mercenary's guild
Free Company

Funny
Rent-A-Guards
Mercs-R-Us
International House of Unemployed Reclkess Trained Excelent Military Professionals (I-HURTEM)

deuxhero
2011-11-21, 05:00 PM
Rich Muderous Hobos guild.

Dakaran
2011-11-21, 05:01 PM
Do you want a more serious name or a more comedic one?

At this point I'm open to either. I think what would be cool is a name that satisfies both, which is what I think I was trying to accomplish with "Heroes, Inc.", but I don't quite know if that succeeded, haha.

paladinofshojo
2011-11-21, 05:18 PM
Why not borrow a name from a real private military organization? Such as Blackwater or Executive Outcomes?



Another thing you need is have a badass name for the founder of your organization....., probably someone with a noun as the last name, such as "Joseph Shield", "Erik Prince", "Damien Sword", remember no one will take the name of the organization seriously if the CEO's name isn't badass.....

shawnhcorey
2011-11-21, 05:19 PM
"Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap"

Tvtyrant
2011-11-21, 05:20 PM
Shield, Peace @ Price, The Defenders.

paladinofshojo
2011-11-21, 05:29 PM
I also suggest adding the word "guard" or "legion" or "batallion" to a noun (color, or object)

:Kingsguard, Saphire Guard, Black Legion, Earl's Batallion etc.

PrinceOfMadness
2011-11-21, 05:46 PM
Serious:

Westwood Warrior's Guild
The StormHammer Clan
The Wardens


Funny:

Thugs For Hire
Bureau of Really Ugly Thugs, Etc (BRUTE)
The Lollipop Guild
1-800-MERC. Call in the next ten minutes, and we'll throw in ANOTHER merc absolutely free! In fact, we'll DOUBLE your order again! That's FOUR mercs for the price of one! If you're not completely satisfied with the Merc-Mart program, just send your order back within 30 days and we'll 100% refund your order! Merc-Mart is an equal opportunity employer. Side-effects of the Merc-Mart program may include nausea, vomiting, headaches, forcible disembowelment, large and unwashed men defiling your furniture, and death. Merc-Mart will not accept refunds on products that have been bruised, beaten, bloodied, or had their feelings hurt.

Emmerask
2011-11-21, 05:50 PM
Black Company

deuxhero
2011-11-21, 07:07 PM
Association of International Mercenaries
More Economic Recruiting Center
Institute for Mercenary Profiling

Morph Bark
2011-11-21, 07:20 PM
The one I used in my last-DM'd game was called the Redbolt Mercenary Company.

Of course, they weren't a business company, but a company in the sense of a military unit.

Since you got Heroes, Inc. it seems like you want it to sound Good with a capital G. In that case, something like "Protagonism" might be an idea. It also has the slightly whimsical, arrogant air about it.

suhkkaet
2011-11-21, 07:23 PM
Garant Opal,
Agile Standards,
Bloom Wilds (or Wild Blooms)
Soldiers of Fortune (or Heroes of Fortune)
The Condottieres
Tempestmantles
Sovereign Squad
Calmcover
Bladehawk
Camp Fire, Inc.
Hourmen (or Daymen, Minutemen, Weekmen,...)

Just a few.

jaybird
2011-11-21, 08:19 PM
Builders League United
Reliable Excavation and Demolition

:smallbiggrin:

Kalirren
2011-11-21, 08:47 PM
Some ideas listed from funny to not:

Three Midgets and a Tall Guy

(^^ we seriously used that one once)

Errant Knights Errant
Blood and Iron
The Red Shields
The Trader's League
The Tower

Vknight
2011-11-21, 09:09 PM
'Name of home location/town' Guard/Company/Band/Group etc.

So
Riverdale Guard/Company/Band/Group etc.

Dakaran
2011-11-21, 09:15 PM
Haha, these are great. I think I'm going to have a harder time now coming up with a good name... so many options! :smallbiggrin:

Maybe I should go really obvious: Player Characters, Inc. :smallwink:

Lord Raziere
2011-11-21, 09:52 PM
Money Blades.

Ironguards

Firebringers

Vknight
2011-11-21, 10:19 PM
Haha, these are great. I think I'm going to have a harder time now coming up with a good name... so many options! :smallbiggrin:

Maybe I should go really obvious: Player Characters, Inc. :smallwink:

PC Inc.

Party Crashers Inc. A group that is known to cause problems for the knights of the realm to such a point they are called party crashers. This is to the point they have actually entered into a feast hosted by a powerful lord to capture one of his guests

gbprime
2011-11-21, 10:44 PM
My campaign world had a mercenary captain a generation or two back who called himself the Blue Bladesman. He made quite a name for himself both as a swordsman and as a unit commander. When he retired, he opened an inn and school by the same name. Sort of a "mercenaries with a heart of gold" organization.

So nowadays, people can hire and PCs can join. You're either "with the Blue Bladesman" or you're "one of the Blue Blades", etc, etc. The titles vary, but the association is there.

Siosilvar
2011-11-21, 10:46 PM
I've got essentially rent-a-cops in my campaign world called the Blue Knights. I think it nicely bridges that gap between verisimilitude and fourth-wall-breaking.

Lord Tyger
2011-11-22, 01:51 AM
Do you want a single large organization, or numerous, more local ones?

Morph Bark
2011-11-22, 03:50 AM
Of course, there are some obvious ones:

The Iron Hearts
The White Ravens
The Tiger's Claws
The Stone Dragons
etc.

Megaduck
2011-11-22, 04:50 AM
Band of the Hawk

Zejety
2011-11-22, 05:43 AM
The Song of Ice & Fire series features a situation that fits your description almost perfectly.
There a a number of free companies, sellsword companies that get hired by cities to support their common born/slave armies and heroes.

Maybe you will find inspiration from the names of the companies from the books:

The Golden Company
The Shadowcats (an actual animal in the setting)
The Windblown

The Reverend
2011-11-22, 08:27 AM
Golden Shields or Silver Swords

"You got gold we'll shield you"


A classic formula for Merv companies is
Blank's Blanks
Hammer's Slammers

JOulie's Jaguars

Grants Grunts

Xenons Xenos

Etc

Dakaran
2011-11-22, 09:01 AM
Do you want a single large organization, or numerous, more local ones?

Large org. It could have various "branches" in different towns, but all the same org.

Nero24200
2011-11-22, 11:24 AM
Trade of Blades?

INDYSTAR188
2011-11-22, 11:31 AM
I always thought 'The Red Hands' sounded cool. If you're going for a evil/assassination tilt you could go w/ Murder Inc.

GungHo
2011-11-22, 12:28 PM
Large org. It could have various "branches" in different towns, but all the same org.
Leading questions:
Where is their home office located?
What is the name of their leader?
Is there any special normal or mythic animal with which your campaign, the organization, or their home kingdom is associated with?

For Forgotten Realms, they have
Bloodriders
Blue Sigil
Brotherhood of the Griffon
Company of the Lynx
Eagle Knights
Flaming Fists
Gutbuster Brigade
Knights in Silver
Knights of Merciful Judgement
Knights of Myth Drannor
Order of the Radiant Heart
Red Plumes/Sashes/Shields
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (I keed)
Star Protective Services
The Nine

In my homebrew we have,
The Order of the Resplendent Falcon
Wolfjaws
Catspaws (who war with the Wolfjaws)
Keldan's Grey Riders
Sabers of the Red Caliph
The Iron Shackle
... and many others.

Dakaran
2011-11-22, 01:28 PM
Leading questions:
Where is their home office located?
What is the name of their leader?
Is there any special normal or mythic animal with which your campaign, the organization, or their home kingdom is associated with?

The home office is in the capital city called Dragonshold.

The name of the organization's leader is... Dakaran. Clever, right? :smallwink:

Right now there isn't a specific animal associated with the organization. A large part of the capital city is inside a large cavern system that was once a hold out against predatory dragons, so I guess dragons are associated with the home kingdom.

Noedig
2011-11-22, 01:47 PM
A constant company name my gaming group resurrects is the 'The Black Leaf' with various 'Company', 'Order', 'Society' what-have-you attached. One of the first games we played the party ranger (who was not nice) started the group under the ethos that we would take any job if the pay was good enough.

GungHo
2011-11-22, 02:07 PM
The home office is in the capital city called Dragonshold.

The name of the organization's leader is... Dakaran. Clever, right? :smallwink:

Right now there isn't a specific animal associated with the organization. A large part of the capital city is inside a large cavern system that was once a hold out against predatory dragons, so I guess dragons are associated with the home kingdom.
Dakaran's Heroes
Wardens of the Hold
The Dragonguards/wards
The Dragonslayers League
The Order of the Talon/Claw/Fang

If it's a specific type of dragon... the Order of the Black/Red/Blue Talon.

What deeds has Dakaran accomplished?

Dakaran
2011-11-22, 02:18 PM
Dakaran's Heroes
Wardens of the Hold
The Dragonguards/wards
The Dragonslayers League
The Order of the Talon/Claw/Fang

If it's a specific type of dragon... the Order of the Black/Red/Blue Talon.

What deeds has Dakaran accomplished?

I don't exactly have specifics, but let's assume general heroics and awesomeness. He was formerly a knight on track towards top leadership, but resigned after discovering corruption in the knight's order. Not wanting to become buried in politics and protecting only the aristocracy, Dakaran opened a sellsword business for the lower classes. While several successful major sellsword organizations existed, Dakaran's was probably the most honest one. He would even take on "pro-bono" quests to help build a reputation for his business. Nowadays his business is one of the best, and well known sellsword organizations in the kingdom.

Coidzor
2011-11-22, 02:26 PM
So, basically this is an Adventurer's Guild that also acts as a private police force for hire to the local municipality and whoever else that's wealthy enough to hire them and doesn't already have a private army?

If it doesn't have competitors you could just go ahead and call it like it is. Or "The Guild," even.

Dakaran
2011-11-22, 02:45 PM
So, basically this is an Adventurer's Guild that also acts as a private police force for hire to the local municipality and whoever else that's wealthy enough to hire them and doesn't already have a private army?

If it doesn't have competitors you could just go ahead and call it like it is. Or "The Guild," even.

I guess I've kind of envisioned it as part private force for hire, part adventurer's, and part protectors of the lower class. While it's been a long time since I've seen it, I think I have some Naruto influence coming in here with the secret villages of ninjas going out on assignment for paid work or to protect some village or whatever.

There are competitors, but Dakaran's org has one of the best reputations.

Coidzor
2011-11-22, 03:03 PM
Sounds like you really want two separate but related organizations then, if not three alltogether.

Dakaran
2011-11-22, 03:13 PM
Well, I guess the adventuring is a part of the other two. From a campaign standpoint and format, I'll be best served going a little Dungeon Delve and offering the players various missions/assignments/quests to choose from instead of trying to run some long storied campaign. There will still be plot, and I'll link some of the missions, but I'm trying a modular approach. (There's a good chance for turn over in players and this'll make it easier.) The organization is essentially a "hub world" if you will, where the players can find supplies that they need, interact with each other and NPCs, and select their missions. The "parts" that I mentioned are there so that the group can have a variety of missions to choose from and a variety of reasons to take the missions. Maybe the group is into helping the needy who can only pay in chickens. Or maybe they're all secretly multi-classing rogue and want to take the highest paying mission. Or maybe they just want the one that sounds like it has the most killing. Who knows, but I don't want to put myself or my players in a typecast corner. Yikes, that started to sound a little ranty... this is actually helping me to flush out a few details though, so thanks for all the questions, haha.

The Reverend
2011-11-22, 05:39 PM
Dakaran's Daggers

Horde Holders

The Spears

The Golden Wyrm Company

Talon's Holding

Wyrm's Shadows

Dakaran's Delivers

The War Scales

Golden Scales

deuxhero
2011-11-23, 12:03 PM
Veteran Combat Initiative is another one from fiction.

herrhauptmann
2011-11-23, 12:16 PM
The Song of Ice & Fire series features a situation that fits your description almost perfectly.
There a a number of free companies, sellsword companies that get hired by cities to support their common born/slave armies and heroes.

Maybe you will find inspiration from the names of the companies from the books:

The Golden Company
The Shadowcats (an actual animal in the setting)
The Windblown

Golden Company's motto is "Our Word is Good as Gold." Or something like that. All exiles and the sons of exiles. In over a century, they've had just one broken contract.

Also:
Second Sons
Storm Crows
The Unsullied (they aren't mercs, but you can buy them)

deuxhero
2011-11-23, 08:59 PM
So their word has minor value in water resistant electronics and is other of no value except what is ascribed to it?

Snowbluff
2011-11-24, 12:54 AM
Taverns 'R' Us

Templarkommando
2011-11-24, 03:09 AM
In my experience military units frequently get named after animals.

Just "The Eagles" might be the name of a mercenary company, but you can do a bit more with it. You can add a color (Silver Eagles), or an adjective (Bloody Eagles) You might also add the city name that the company is based out of - so in my campaign world "The Bloody Eagles of Koldern"

Animal types that I would suggest are the following:

Wolves, Vipers, Foxes, Leopards, Lions, Sharks, Pike, Panthers, Vultures, Piranhas, Coyotes, Bears - anything that is sufficiently scary works. You can also name your company after weapons. (i.e. The Broken Axe, The Gleaming Sword etc.)

You might also have a company named by it's base of operations and it's job. The 37th Crestdalian Volunteers, the 6th Nest Haven Engineers, or the 22nd Koldernian Regulars.

You could be named after a feature in a place that you hold meetings. So, if there's a table that is gold plated in the meeting hall, you get "The Order of the Golden Table." Or to be a bit more mundane "The Oaken Gavel" could also serve as a name for a group whose meetings revolves around the use of a wooden gavel"

Your sellswords might be composed of musicians, so the name of a group of traveling minstrels might be appropriate. "The Trilling Pipe," "The Cracked Mandolin" "The Charming Musette" etc. These could also serve as names for inns.

GoblinGilmartin
2011-11-24, 04:42 AM
The Silver Shields

deuxhero
2011-11-24, 01:19 PM
^ So heavy and too highly mailable to be a good defensive tool?

Calanon
2011-11-24, 02:29 PM
Association of International Mercenaries
More Economic Recruiting Center
Institute for Mercenary Profiling

AIMMERCIMP :smallconfused:

EDIT: ah, AIM, MERC and IMP... still a little confusing :smallconfused:

OT:

Superior Adventuring Battling Espionage and Recon

You may call us S.A.B.E.R.

(Colonel Fury would be proud :smallwink:)

Give them a flying Enclave, make them a secret organization, and you have yourself Shield for D&D

suhkkaet
2011-11-24, 04:18 PM
AIMMERCIMP :smallconfused:

That's what I thought first. You have to split it up. Realize that it's three suggestions, not just one.

axraelshelm
2011-11-24, 07:37 PM
I want to know who founded the organisation? because that would have a trumendous effect on the guilds name.
Eg BY a dragon The shining hoard
By a elf The Autum guards
By a orc The Screaming Axes
By a Lizardman The Faded Scales

I have to know what the history of the guild before any naming traditions like the classic The Foot clan.

deuxhero
2011-11-24, 11:42 PM
EDIT: ah, AIM, MERC and IMP... still a little confusing

The 3 are from Jagged Alliance 2. AIM is the main outfit the eccentric cast of usable characters come from, MERC is a cheep upstart whose members are only good for training milita and as messengers while IMP lets you create 1 custom merc.

The Reverend
2011-11-25, 12:24 AM
The Guild of Negotiable Defense

Victoria
2011-11-25, 12:50 AM
I'm surprised no one has sarcastically (or even seriously suggested:

The Order of the Stick

The Succubus
2011-11-25, 09:59 AM
"Sellswords?"

Well, there's an obvious one - The Bartered Blades.

twas_Brillig
2011-11-25, 02:46 PM
Really more of a motto, but "You Pay It, We Slay It". (Ippywissy!)

"Knights Errand"

"Dragonslayers" fits a fairly militant group, so seconding whoever it was who proposed that one.

"Sisters of the Silvered Hope" ...alliteration?

"Children of the Sun"

"Brute Squad"

Depending on how dramatic and well-publicized their leader's break with the knights of the realm was, some part of that debacle might fit in the name. Like, if swords were a mark of office, something like "The Broken Blade"/"The Blade Reforged/Remade" would work. In line with the tradition of black knights fighting anonymously by way of covering their coat of arms, "The Black Shield" works to tie it with humbly supporting the lower classes (especially with opposition from the aristocracy).

"Hope" ("Heroes Offering Potent Eroticism Protection and Equality")

"Trailblazer(s)"/"Pathfinder(s)"/"Trendsetter(s)"/"Fashion Guru(s)" (This theme got away from me, I will admit.)

"The Band With The One Song That Kind of Goes 'Bchoo bchoo ba-chicka-boom bchoo-ba-whoo', You Know the One"

"Lingua rudes" :smalltongue:

"The Who"

"Seekers of the Lost"/"Keepers of the Lost and Found"

Warlawk
2011-11-27, 12:23 AM
Here's a hybrid of serious and a touch of fourth wall humor.

Rogues of the Forbidden Legion
or
Rogues of the Forgotten Legion

Dakaran
2011-11-29, 12:54 PM
Thanks for everyone's ideas. Your questions and suggestions gave me a good deal to think about and I ended up putting a good deal of backstory into my world simply for the sake of naming my sellsword organization. I ended up naming it The Red Hands. It's creator/leader is a man named Dakaran who left a royal army to start his own business to help the lower class. I won't go into detail here, but I backstoried that Dakaran's final mission as knight resulted in the loss of his left hand to a red dragon and so that's a good part of why his new organization is called The Red Hands. Anyway, thanks for the help. Now that I've finally got a name I feel good about I'm starting a PBP campaign around The Red Hands. If anyone is interested, I'm recruiting this week: The Red Hands (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224062)