Mercenary Charter

You're the captain of a mercenary company. The Guild holds your charter. Nobody owes you anything.

Start at rank F with a few men, a wagon and a purse that won't last a month. Take work from the boards in the towns. Escort a caravan. Collect a debt from a village that can't pay. Clear out a camp. Stand watch over a village for a week of nights. Hunt down a named band for the bounty on their heads. Every offer shows the pay, the days you have, and why anyone's asking.

The men are yours to keep alive.

Each one has a name, a trade, wounds that leave scars, and a wage he expects on time. Feed them, rest them, mend their kit. Lose a fight and men die for good. Run out of money and they leave.

The fights are turn-based, on a hex grid, on painted battlefields.

Every road, town gate, village and camp has its own field. Read the ground, hold a line, pick your targets. A bad fight can be walked away from, at a price.

Dig your own iron. Forge your own steel.

When the coin runs short, take the company down the mine. Every strike costs an hour of daylight, and rich seams are worth the sweat. Haul the ore to the smith and he’ll forge a better blade than anything on his rack. Mend what’s worn, buy and sell, or have something made to measure.

The country moves without you.

Eight towns and twenty-eight villages, joined by roads that bandits and goblins work. Patrols win and lose. Raided villages stay poor. A goblin warren in the east grows while you look the other way. Walk away from a village you were paid to protect and it remembers.

Climb the Guild's ranks from F to S.

The Guild sets a task at each rank. Meet it and you rise. Reach S and the campaign ends, and the game tells you what your company became.

No magic. No chosen one. Just steel, coin and the road.