Hire a mercenary! (Need advice and random ideas...)

[Miles Craven]

Hello all, I've been a long-time reader, but have rarely had the time and energy (between work, work, and more work, to be honest) to actually post on these boards. With that in mind, greetings to the board! In any case, I'm looking for some advice in an upcoming adventure I'm DMing. To skip over a lot of background detail, the antagonists in my adventure are the followers of a fallen Planetar/Solar-like servant of a now-dead god. This villian, known as the Angel of Shadows, is sending his followers to search for relics of his former master, to allow him to finally make the step to true godhood. Currently, his followers efforts are focused on acquiring a particular relic hidden in a temple in a large town (the PC's are also looking for the same relics, for the purpose of resurrecting the dead god, hence there's a....conflict of interest, you might say).

The cult's first attempts to acquire the relic through stealth and intimidation failed, so they're taking the time-honored path of hiring a large mercenary army to stomp the city flat and take what they need from the ruins. The PC's, being great heroes (well, at least some of them _try_ to be great heroes) will hopefully try to defend the town from the marauding army (and this has nothing to do with me seeing the Two Towers, nothing at all . This, fellow ENBoarders, is where your valuable advice and ideas come in. I need ideas for mercenaries! Stats aren't that important, but cool descriptions and concepts are. Likely, the PC's will only interact with these guys at the point of a sword, but I want to make them memorable. Notable figures that are likely to appear, or have already been mentioned to the PC's include:
-The Winds of Judgement, a group of elven desert-dwelling nomads noted for their mastery of the blade and the arts of the psychic warrior.

-A group of Gnollish siege engineers, specialized in large cannons, and the like (In this world, Gnolls, bizarrely enough, have a culture and technology level similar to Reneissance France-don't ask me, I'm just the guest DM.

-A lone fire giant known as the Master of the Infernal Fist; who is rumored to have studied the fighting arts of the monk.

-Zohar the Lightning King, a destruction-loving sorceror famed for his magical skills.

Thanks in advance for any ideas, help, etc., and I'm curious to see what ideas come up.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The kind of mercenaries that you will be using as NPC's depend entirely on the resources of the people hiring them, and the nature of the campaign (obviously). Does any one have the resources to hire extra-planar combatants? What kind of magic level is available within the campaign?

Anyway, here are my suggestions.

- The Hooded Ones: Doppleganger spies with high levels of Rogue.

- The Bronze Legion: A group of Human pikemen who wear Bronze breastplates and use reach weapons.

- Servants of Aod: Halfling priests of an abyssal demon lord with a perchant for rot and decay.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

1) Go Green. Orcs are cool.

2) A necromancer who hangs back in the early part of the battle and uses the bodies of the fallen for his undead army. This guy would start out weak but his army would gain in size as the seige wore on.

3) A team of monster hunters who keep green simes in large glass containers. They load the containers into catapults and lob them over the walls

4) An elven sorceror who simply casts invisibility and fly, then goes over the city to look for a weak spot. When he finds one he casts Melf's Acid Arrow and then flys away and doesn't attack for another day. This is just something to annoy the players with.

5) Have a group of your gnolls act as sappers and build a tunnel under the city's walls. They start out 200' away and advance 20' a day. this would be another threat that could be ignored to start out with but horrible if left alone.

Happy gaming and welcome to the fourms!