How does one go about forming a mercenary company, anyway?

[Coidzor]

I was reading through this thread about an evil princeling wanting to form a mercenary company and then eventually use that as a springboard to conquer his home country and it struck me that I have no idea how one would go about forming the mercenary company in the first place.

I mean, sure, you could put out want ads and attract a whole bunch of loner freelancers or small groups of them, but it seems like you'd want a core nucleus of some sort to act as a binding agent that the rest are alloyed into, and I'm not talking about the adventuring party.

Or do something like the Swiss did and just have everyone in the area be conscripted for a certain part of the year, then the territory sells their combined labor to go fight and most of them come back home in time for the harvest aside from a few longer term contracts. So basically a given place has its army and just sells their services to others.

So, basically, it seems like I'm probably missing something here.

[Marillion]

Probably the most effective way is from within the actual military. I believe a large number of mercenary groups were formed by groups of soldiers who'd already forged a bond or alliance during their stint in a standard army, who then found themselves unable or unwilling to continue to fight for their government but felt that their futures still lay on the battlefield. Could be for gold, could be they didn't want to obey their superiors anymore, whatever. They take as many other soldiers with them as will come, complete a few missions to earn a reputation, and suddenly they're taking (and making) offers from governments and would-be employees alike.

Edit: You could also obtain a rank of command in an existing company, or a gang of unsavoury characters such as pirates or brigands, and build up /buy enough loyalty that you can say "This is what we're doing now."

[Knaight]

A lot of times it's also just a case of a mercenary company that is also something else, such as the successful militia of a city, or the personal army of a rich and powerful noble. Even in the cases where this wasn't the case, the origin of said company often traced back to one of these.

[kieza]

You could recruit from the disbanded armies of conquered nations, especially if part of the recruiting pitch is that you'll take contracts that pit them against the country that invaded them.

You could find a country willing to let you recruit out of their prisons if you promise to take the criminals a long ways away.

You could cultivate a reputation for taking prisoners, and then offer anyone who surrenders the option to join up.

Or you could go to a dwarf bar around last call and say you'll pay people to crack heads.

[Gamgee]

You can do it the hard way. Find men willing to fight and train them. I imagine this would be a low quality mercenary company unless you could equip them and train them to equal professional soldiers. Not an easy task back in the day for one lord.

You can also hire ex-soldiers as was mentioned above. Some of these soldiers while skilled and trained could be out of shape or a little injured.

You can hire a company. These guys have already done the hard work to make their mercenary company worthy of fame and fortune.

[woodlandkammao]

Have you tried casting Bigsby's Fulton Retrieval Device?

[nedz]

It depends on the Setting, and also the System, but mainly the Setting.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Real-life mercenary armies historically formed by either splitting off from an existing state military (usually because the state ran out of money to pay them and they didn't have any other prospects for feeding themselves), or as paid paramilitary arms of non-military, non-government organizations, i.e. the rich businessman's private army.

[sovin_ndore]

They were also often drawn from disbanded forces of trained military; such as in the case of a conquered nation. If your only marketable skill is being effective at putting pointy objects into other people, hiring yourself out is a mercinary is an attractive option.

[Nerd-o-rama]

In that vein, hiring less-successful or newbish Adventurers in D&D is probably not a bad idea, since they're basically short-contract mercenaries to begin with, most of them have no skills or inclination whatsoever outside of combat, and a lot of them might find a salary and hot meals more attractive than camping out in the Ruins of Bloobityblah fighting undead horrorterrors and hoping to strike it rich on a lucky loot roll.

[Nifft]

1 - Be an Adventurer (a short-contract mercenary) in a party (a small organization).

2 - Get to 6th level.

3 - Take Leadership and build a Stronghold (your mercenary company base).

4 - Continue to take contracts and level up personally as your fame spreads and your mercenary company grows.

[Kiero]

Might there be marketplaces for mercenaries established in particular areas where you can go and buy in bulk? In the same way that in history there were established slave markets (eg Delos), there were also places unemployed mercenaries tended to gather in spring where prospective employers could go and find them. It might be linked to a festival, fair or feast day in a particular region.

[Knaight]

1 - Be an Adventurer (a short-contract mercenary) in a party (a small organization).

2 - Get to 6th level.

3 - Take Leadership and build a Stronghold (your mercenary company base).

4 - Continue to take contracts and level up personally as your fame spreads and your mercenary company grows.

This isn't the 3.5 forum, and the question isn't about game rules.

[LibraryOgre]

I think the basic idea of forming a central cadre of leadership (an adventuring party-type, with different skills and interests) that can trust each other, with a goodly group of less-trusted grunts, is a not-bad way of doing it. Your core group forms your officers and senior NCOs. From there, you hire your muscle and magic, assigning them to lesser NCO and enlisted positions, with them slowly gaining trust and leadership positions if they're suited to it.

So, a princeling might have a few loyal bodyguards, or a court-mage-in-exile, or a reeve or other retainers, and start using them. The reeve suddenly becomes the quartermaster and paymaster. Some of the bodyguards remain bodyguards (because prince), but others become captains and lieutenants, and the rank and file... loyal but of little note... become sergeants in the mercenary company.

[Nerd-o-rama]

There's a whole video game about forming a mercenary micronation (that recently got a gritty, in-your-face sequel [A Hideo Kojima Game]) that works basically like that. You have your legendary leader, his inner circle of trusted specialists that actually run things day-to-day, and basically whoever can be paid, coerced, or persuaded into joining up forming the bulk of the "military without borders".

And two of the games these are prequels to had the villains follow basically the same formula, although each of them adopted an army abandoned by their nation for their grunts.

[nedz]

Real-life mercenary armies historically formed by either splitting off from an existing state military (usually because the state ran out of money to pay them and they didn't have any other prospects for feeding themselves), or as paid paramilitary arms of non-military, non-government organizations, i.e. the rich businessman's private army.

They could also be cultural. E.g. Medieval Swiss, Landsknect, etc.

[ArcanaFire]

If it were me, and I was displaced royalty, I'd assume I'd have some money, or if not that jewelry that I could sell for money. Then I'd hit the streets and try and take over small street gangs. A larger city will probably have several.

I'd pick the smallest one, with the least amount of turf, and talk my way into getting them to put me in charge with promises of eventually ruling the whole city. Take your time. Get to know them intimately so they trust you. Then pick the next smallest, convince them that together you can take the third smallest.

All the while, offer people like street urchins shelter with your group. Keep absorbing the smaller groups until you have a huge one, then point out that you could be making a lot more money as a band of mercenaries.

I'd also make sure to treat all of them like they're extremely important to me. When your talking to one they have your full attention. I'd make sure to remember all their names, and things about them. If one of them is hurt, take it really seriously. Make them love you.

[slaydemons]

I did it in a game of anima, not sure if it will work everywhere but I essentially bought a building found a few people who already worked for coin, bounty hunters mostly. Then I threw out advertisement essentially bringing forth people who were willing to fight to earn some coin, in reality the guild is more like an adventurer's guild or a sellsword guild, We find people jobs and they are pretty loyal to us.

[Raimun]

It's not rocket surgery.

1) Find people who can fight.
2) Pay them enough so that they will.
3) Hey, presto. You now have a mercenary company.

Personally, I would Fulton enemy soldiers, so that my magical helicopter could carry them to my private military fortress and then they would totally decide to fight for me.

[Fri]

In that vein, hiring less-successful or newbish Adventurers in D&D is probably not a bad idea, since they're basically short-contract mercenaries to begin with, most of them have no skills or inclination whatsoever outside of combat, and a lot of them might find a salary and hot meals more attractive than camping out in the Ruins of Bloobityblah fighting undead horrorterrors and hoping to strike it rich on a lucky loot roll.

But Bloobityblah undead horrorterrors are cool

[AceOfFools]

I would think the hard part of forming a mercenary company is finding the first few jobs to start building your reputation. People have to be desperate or extremely stingy to hire untested mercenaries.

If a group is former military, or nobility, they have some contacts they can lean on and (presumably ) experience and training to put on their resume. If there's a larger conflict, there may be opertuniries for jobs that soldiers can't or don't want to do for whatever reason (such as there not being enought of them after a recent loss).

Of course, there is always relatively boring guard jobs, where just having enough people carrying arms can cause brigade to think twice. And one could always start doing the adventurer thing, hunting down dangerous creatures for bounty and fame.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The owner of the company pays the others, that's basically it.

There are types of people in a d&d world that are always looking for a fight. You give them a steady pay, and you find clients willing to pay you money for solving their military problems. Sure, it's kind of a weak business model in a world where anyone looking for a fight can just go into this famous ancient dungeon nobody ever returns from and come out a rich man with 5 extra levels of fighting power, but basically setting up the mercenary company is bookkeeping, and doing it so well that your soldiers earn more pay risking less danger and having more fun than they would going out on their own, and that there is still a big fat chunk of cash left over for you (and any investors if you're spreading the financial risk and initial investment) after pay day. You spend an average of x days looking for new work, this job promises about n days travel time, y days work, m gp costs in battlefield losses and damage to your property, w gp in new investments to be made before you can tackle this challenge, z % uncertainty, the client is sufficiently distraught and there is no competition with the same qualities near here? Than your opening bid is...

People willing to fight are not a rare resource in this world, they will come if the pay is good. especially if you start recruiting amongst the less traditionally handsome races.

Note: your DM will thrown you an easy looking mission that turns into a dragon infested slayfest that makes you choose between sacrificing the reputation you've built for yourself or having most of your troops die pointless deaths. Nobody said it was easy.