Mercenaries: Born of Blood

[Messageboard Golem]

You've tasted blood before, whether it was yours or others; it's all the same. It runs hot, dark and sticky as it falls to the ground in an endless torrent. There have been plenty of weapons, armor and men left broken on nameless battlefields -- but do you care? No. Why should you when you're the one left standing?

It comes down to two very important things... first is survival and second is collecting your pay for services rendered. Paladins and heroes do it for the 'greater good', you're just in it for the payoff. After all, you're not doing this for free are you?

Mercenaries: Born in Blood will explore mercenaries throughout "real-world" history, how they've been used in fiction, tips for using them in your game, new feats, skills, and prestige classes, as well as six samples for use in a fantasy game, two for use in a pulp/modern game, and two for use in a sci-fi game.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Let me give you a little background about how I'm approaching this review. I like the idea of a mercenary campaign. My last campaign was a mercenary campaign based in the Scarred Lands with a group called the Soldiers of Fortune. I stole a lot of material from the anime Berserk as well as the Black Company fantasy novels. I've been looking forward to reading a hardcover from Other World Creations for months now and was a little surprised that this book came out in a larger page count in softback.

Having said that, onto the review.

Born of Blood is broken up into fourteen chapters and varies in content from crunch to useful fluff. Each chapter starts off and ends with a short piece of fiction ranging in genre and pacing.

In terms of role playing, it provides a good break down of what a mercenary is, the tendencies of different alignments, races, and core classes to go into those fields. Want to know about monsters? Most of the creatures found in the Monster Manual are given a similar breakdown. Things included in the breakdown or tendency are alignment, type, and power level and while it's not a perfect listing, it does provide some quick ideas that can have the GM using the formula on creatures from any source. Those looking for something new get the war loving Gorkha, a halfling race that specializes with knives. The stats look like they need work as it follow an uneven pattern with a +1 to Con, +2 Dex, -2 Wis and -1 Int. Sure, the stats balance out but it doesn't follow previous established patterns and seems to do so for no good reason.

Of equal importance to those wishing to role play are titles, the ranks that characters can go through, and the prestige and command abilities that are associated with them. Want a typical day in the life of? You've got it. Want to know about the laws and customs that mercenaries follow and what happens when they break those laws? Detailed. Want a table to roll on for why you became a mercenary or things that have happened to you since that day. Done.

In terms of rules, like how many people in each unit and how much they get paid or how easy to find recruits, the book does a good job of laying out the material. One of the things I liked was that it didn't just focus on the soldiers or the fighters but talked about the other non-combatant roles that have to be filled. Whose going to be doing the cooking? Whose going to be handling the herds to feed the men? Whose going to be the quartermaster and handle the supplies. How can a unit gain more fame and hence, more fortune? All covered.

Want to know not only what you get paid but what equipment you have available to you? How about by era? Done. How about working out things like resources, reputation and common equipment? Done. Heck, they've even provided a sample mercenary fortress as well as several mercenary companies with NPCs to interact with characters.

A mix of roleplaying and crunch comes into play when discussing the classes and how they fit into the mercenary pattern and tendencies. Most classes, as they're designed as adventurers, tend to have fairly high scores but those adventurers that gain power through deities or an ideal, like paladins, druids, and rangers, tend not to fit into the mercenary lifestyle so well. Of course specific deities can change that. For example, since Tempus, a god of war in the Forgotten Realms, isn't about honorable battle but battle, I'm sure that every mercenary company would have a priest or two of that god.

The crunch in this section comes in when detailing two new twenty level core classes, the professional, the soldier of the future, and the soldier of fortune, the soldier of the present. Both are basically fighters with more skill points. In some ways, these two are very tempting targets to replace the fighter as a core class as not only do they have more skill points, but more skills to spend them in.

There are sixteen new prestige classes in the book. They're a mixed lot for the most part. Some of them look like they might've stepped out of the Black Company like the Illusionary, a master of using illusions to fool their enemies (Goblin anyone) while others are specialist of weapons ranging from the Gurkhali (a knife fighter) to the Forlorn, a doomed mercenary who uses a greatsword to chop through pole arms and create openings for his allies. The good news is that each one is a full ten level PrC. The bad news? If you run a fantasy campaign then some of the material isn't for you as you've got Commercialists, semi-fighters who trains and utilizes men for a corporation, the Traditionalist, a good old fashioned pulp fiction style hero like Indian Jones or Laura Croft, and the Specialists, a master of 'electronic warfare''.

One thing missing was a battle mage. While the Soul Catcher uses demon gold to sign up foolish mercenaries and the necrenary animates legions at a time, there's no mage who specializes in blowing things up real good. No real spies or scouts either. It's a broad field however and I can appreciate the historical PrCs that fill in a lot of roles here.

As far as problems, I don't like the organization. At first, it looks like it's alphabetical, but then the order's off for that. Then, because it's a multi-genre sourcebook, there's material for modern and futuristic settings with the standard stuff. I can see mixing historical and fantasy but the other settings jar me a little. Lastly, while some may wonder about the abilities of the PrCs, (I'm not too worried about that because your mileage may vary.) What I am worried about is that some of these are just too easy to get into. The Legionnaire requires the user have a Constitution of 12+ and be Neutral Good. That's not a prestige class.

Other crunch comes in the form of magic. Now horns and banners aren't often covered, but here we get new ones for just about every occasion. Those more interested in spells will find an interesting variant of Summon Monster with Summon Mercenary, although I personally found most of the spells under valued because of the focus on d20 Modern or futuristic campaigns. Ammo Explosion? Animate Firearm? Protection from Bullets? These things will increase the appeal of someone using this book in a d20 Modern Game that uses magic or a cross genre campaign but left me cold.

What about feats? Many of them are general use, and we do get some of the dreaded +2 to two skills, others are for modern campaigns or future campaigns. Replacing limbs with cybernetics or cloned tissue? Uh, I'll pass on that thanks but will help myself to some of the feats that provide bonuses with ranged weapons, probably aimed at the modern crowd again mind you but I'll take 'em anyway. With 60 feats, there should be something for almost everyone.

One thing that the book didn't let me down with is a bibliography. Want to know some historical references? Done. Want to see some fantasy novels with mercs in them? Covered. While it misses the anime Berserk, it covers some wide ground and provides the ever valuable ISBN numbers for the books mentioned. Just as important, it provides a well documented index to make moving around the book and find what you need easy.

How does this book hold up to AEG's Mercenaries? It has more material on mercenaries and a more gritty feel. It has more information and a sample contract. It has codes of conduct, as well as punishments, both from your fellow mercenaries as well as the local rulers.

It includes material for historical, modern and future settings not only in terms of equipment, spells and feats, but organizations, core and prestige classes That makes it more useful to those not running a standard d20 fantasy campaign which AEG's book doesn't do. It includes rules on reputation and mercenary ranks and titles. Most importantly, it includes a bibliography so that fiends like myself who want more information or to see the root sources of this book, can go look it up.

AEG's book is bigger, tends to have a better layout, some better art and a more fantasy feel, but in general is more a sourcebook then a book about Mercenaries.

My problems with the book are partialy based on what I was hoping for. I wanted a mercenary core class for a fantasy campaign. The fighter is a great class but limited skill points and skill selection leave him out as a real viable choice. I didn't want to see all of the genres mixed in because I was afraid that it'd be a little confusing and at times, I was indeed personally confused. Read the Soldier of Fortune and tell me where in that first paragraph does it show what setting it's for. Not there. I'm hoping that this non-standard fantasy stuff in future books gets put into an appendix or at the end of each chapter.

One serious issue is with the book's layout. While it follows the standard two column text and has some good illustrations, the text itself is jagged and uneven in many places giving the book a very zigzag uneven feel that's distracting and rough on the eyes. Another problem is that while there's a ton of new equipment, there are hardly any illustrations for it. What does all of this new and neat stuff look like? Won't know from reading this book.

Born of Blood is a good start to the new Vertigo series by Other World Creations. I'm very curious to see if other readers think that the future and modern material should be put in an index or appendix and would love to hear how other readers use this book.

If you're looking for more material for your campaign, fantasy, historical, modern or far future, that focuses in on the Mercenary mold, than Born of Blood is your book.

“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth." George Washington.

 

[CCamfield]

Sounds pretty cool! I've been waiting for this for a while and hemmed and hawed about whether to read your review in advance. I'm glad that I did, not because it'll turn me away from buying it, but because I have a better idea of what I'll be getting.

I'll post more comments here or a separate review when it arrives here in Canada.

 

[trancejeremy]

Mercenaries: Born of Blood is a d20 sourcebook about Mercenaries from Otherworld Creations. Honestly, I haven't been all that impressed by other products of theirs, but a) I really like the subject matter b) the author, Michael Tresca, has written a number of large free d20 PDFs that are pretty cool and I wanted to buy something of his, and c) They released a massive (something like 50 page) preview of it way back in December of 2002.

So I've actually been looking forward to it since it was announced. That was a long, long time ago, and this book was initially slated for release in January of 2003. But it finally made it out in August of 2003 (at least they're better than Chaosium), so I ordered it brand new from an on line seller.

Mercenaries:BoB really is about Mercenaries, unlike another d20 book with a similar title (which was more of a grab bag of stuff). It aims to covers Mercenaries for 3 types of settings - historical (and presumably fantasy), modern, and futuristic.

Unfortunately, while it's very ambitious, and true to it's subject, it's something of a disappointment (once again, proving that anticipation is often the best thing). Basically, I'm looking for something similar to the "Mercenary" book for Classic Traveller, only for d20, and expanded. It also seems to look somewhat different from the preview (which is odd, as I assumed it was just an excerpt of the file they were going to send to the printers)

It starts off with some basics on mercenaries, what they are, some history about them, including a rather curious projected future history, which among other things, claims that in 2007, anti-aircraft weapons will be perfected, making "carpet bombing" impossible, and thus making mercenaries in greater demand.

While presumably this was done for game purposes, it's somewhat flawed for a number of reasons. For one, I really don't think it's possible to perfect anti-aircraft weapons. And the main thing, "carpet bombing" means literally bombing every square inch of a battlefield, and that hasn't been done since Viet Nam. It's generally used in conflicts that are a scale far larger than anything mercenaries would ordinarily be involved in.

There are a couple other predictions that seemed like stretches, but none as bad as this.

Next comes a chapter on mercenary characters. This is largely comprised of filler material (info on how various standard d20 classes feel about being mercenaries), and two new base classes.

There's a basic rule in d20 - don't make a fighting class that is better than the Fighter class. Unfortunately, the two new base classes shatter that rule.

There's the "Soldier of Fortune", which is more or less like a Fighter, but with 4 skill points, a better Reflex save. The only downside is that they only get light armor proficiency, not medium or heavy like a Fighter. Still the pluses by far outweigh the minuses.

Then there is the "Professional", which is even more like a Fighter, but even better. Gah. Neither one is really usable or desirable (from a GM or game balance point of view)..

The next chapter is on "Mercenary Tendencies", which details the attitudes of various standard d20/D&D races towards the "mercenary" lifestyle, including many monsters, like kobolds, minotaurs, driders, and gnomes.

However, it introduces one of the silliest things I've ever seen - Gurkha Halflings. They're just like real life Gurkhas, except they are halflings.

Chapter 4 goes into details about mercenary companies, how they are organized, what types of personnel they are comprised of, etc. It makes distinctions between Historical, Modern, and Futuristic.

However, in the make up of how a mercenary army is organized, I noticed that the smallest group in modern and futuristic armies is the "Squad". While I'm not an expert on such things, I was under the impression that the "Fireteam" was the smallest building block , being made up of 3-5 soldiers, and then a Squad being made up of 2-3 Fireteams. (Though apparently this is mostly a US thing, at least according to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireteam.)

I would also liked to have seen info on mercenaries other than soldiers/ground forces. For instance, mercenary air or space pilots. (I used to run a Star Wars game based on a mercenary starfighter unit)

Still, it's a useful chapter, as it describes all sorts of soldiers and support types, and gives statted examples of them. It also details info on how to recruit them, and all sorts of other detail about mercenary companies, including a statististic for them, "Prestige".

Chapter 5 is on prestige classes. It's pretty short, only about 20 pages. In an interesting move, many of the prestige classes are historical ones, which makes the chapter an interesting read for those of us (like me) who don't use them much.

Chapter 6 is on skills. It's a combination of the fairly standard "New uses for old skills", detailing how various existing skills can be used by mercenary types and in mercenary situations. It's well done for the most part, often including DCs for mercenary related tasks.

The one thing that bugged me a bit is that it has Alchemy DCs to create various modern substances. While useful, I thought this was a bit problematic, as if you have the Alchemy skill, you should just be able to create alchemical formulas, not modern chemical products. For that, you really need Chemistry, I think.

It also introduces some new skills primarily aimed at modern or futuristic settings - most are taken from Dragonstar (but also show up in most other modern/futuristic d20 games)

Chapter 7 is one new feats. They're sort of a grab bag of stuff. A lot of skill bonuses, some new combat feats (mostly for guns). The most unusual are feats for replacement limbs. Basically, you need to take a feat (and then pay a variable amount of money, depending on the part) to replace a limb with a cyber version. While I'm not sure I like handing cybernetics that way, I guess it does make sense, as most of the parts give bonuses comparable to a feat. On the other hand, you also need a feat if you just want to replace a limb with a cloned replacement. That seems a bit unnecessary.

Chapter 8 is on equipment for mercenaries. The new equipment is interesting, and like the rest of the book, a mixture of historical, modern, and futuristic stuff. But there are some oddities and problems.

For instance, in the entry for most firearms, it says that the propellant cartridge is good for 300 shots? What? Real world guns like the M16 don't use propellant cartridges.

Turns out it was likely a case of the downside of the Open Gaming License - the author presumably simply copied the entry on Assault Rifle from the Dragonstar Starfarer's Guide, then altered it a bit, giving info about the M16, but left in the bit about the Dragonstar Assault Rifle using a propellant cartridge (as opposed to the propellant being in the round itself, like in most real world weapons)

Besides guns, there are vehicles (including combat stuff, like tanks and gunships), travel gear, and some magic items.

Also, while most people probably won't have too much trouble telling the difference between what era a piece of equipment is for, some sort of indication would have been nice, other than the listing on a table (All of the book has this problem, and apparently was the result of a layout problem, originally there was supposed to be some sort of indicator).

Especially as there is no table of the new weapons. If any sort of equipment needs a table listing various data, it's weapons. (I could have sworn I saw the table in the preview).

Chapter 9 is on combat, and pretty short. It has basic d20 rules for firearms, and very small ones for morale. If you have a modern d20 game (besides d20 Modern, any of the other d20 modern day or future rulesets), you probably won't need this chapter, but if you don't

Chapter 10 is probably the best and most useful part of the book, on mercenary contracts. It details different contracts that mercenary groups might be hired for, ranging from guard duty to assassination to all out wars. Each type has a group size, as well as a "pecuniary index", which is modified by a number of variable. What the heck is a pecuniary index? Well, it's a way to determine how much mercenaries get paid. It's somewhat arcane, and frankly, could have used an example (in other words, I've had the book for 2 weeks, and I'm still trying to puzzle it out, exactly). But it seems detailed enough.

Chapter 11 is on mercenary codes. Basically, rules that mercenaries operate under, and how to enforce discipline. This perhaps goes into more detail than I'd like, at least in the section on punishments doled out, but is pretty comprehensive.

Chapter 12 is on new spells. Some of these are somewhat odd to me, like the "Summon Mercenary" series. I don't think they really aren't distinct enough a critter to justify having a whole series of spells to summon them.

Chapter 13 is quite short, around 4 pages, and is an example of a mercenary fortress.

Chapter 14 is on famous mercenary companies. It's essentially a bunch (9 by my count) of example companies, ranging from the historical to fantasy to modern day to future. One interesting thing, is you get stats for Hannibal. (Alas, not the one from the A-team, but the one from the Punic Wars, and it's a bit fantastical.).

A lot of the characters are apparently of the "Noble" class, which isn't in the SRD. In fact, several versions of it exist, from a variety of sources, but I'm guessing in this case, it was meant to be the Aristocrat class.

Chapter 15 is a bibliography. It has the good taste to mention both Glen Cook's Black Company series, as well as The A-Team.

So, the book is something of a mixed bag. It has a lot of potential, but is perhaps a bit sloppy in focus. While it's much more focused on mercenaries and running a mercenary campaign than the other d20 book with "Mercenaries" in the title, it still seems like it was designed as a d20 book first, having obligatory chapters on new classes, races, feats, and spells, as opposed to being a book about mercenaries, using the d20 system. It's hard to explain what I mean, exactly, but when I read this book, then read books on mercenaries in other systems, this seems like it was following something of a d20 , er, splatbook, format. Which is not bad, exactly, but I think a lot of the d20 stuff, like the spells and a lot of the feats, were unnecessary.

And it definitely needed better editing and proofreading. Also, while the art was generally good, it was a bit sparse, and very generic.

Bottom line, while it's got a lot of problems, it's still a useful book. If you're running a d20 game based on mercenaries, it's definitely worth getting. C--

(What the heck is a C--? Well, it's really not a bad book, and I certainly don't feel ripped off despite buying it new and paying nearly cover price, so I can't give it a D, but it's definitely got a lot of issues, so it's not an average book, either. If the problems were fixed, it would be a B- or so)

 

[CCamfield]

I heard about Mercenaries: Born of Blood well before its original release date, and as a fan of military fantasy like the Black Company and Malazan Books of the Fallen series, this book seemed aimed right at me. Then it was delayed, and delayed, and delayed... during which time I built up all kinds of expectations and also negative feelings (because of the delays).

For this reason, when I finally bought the book, I didn't feel that I could write a fair review of it. However back in November, the author (Mike Tresca) asked me if I'd write up my thoughts on it, and I decided I'd be interested in doing so. I scrapped two previous versions of this review, so I hope the results are interesting to you.

The scope of the book, briefly, is mercenaries in history, fantasy, and the future, with mechanics for the d20 system - base and prestige classes, feats, new skills and new uses for old, equipment and spells. Unfortunately, due to when the manuscript was written, these are compatible with version 3.0 of the SRD, and not 3.5 or d20 Modern.


First inspection

Mercenaries: Born of Blood includes a history of mercenaries, talks about how companies are formed and organized (with rules that extend the Leadership table for larger numbers, and to cover company budget and headquarters), presents sample mercenary personnel, company codes of conduct, mercenary employers, duties and contracts, and famous mercenary companies.

For fantasy campaigns, the book outlines a simple but effective system to determine how likely races are to be found in mercenary companies, as well as which classes are inclined to sell their services in war. It also has some spells related to contracts and to magical company tattoos which serve as the focus of spells such as Company Contingency. There are also some magical horns and standards, which are welcome as these types of items are often overlooked.

Players of modern and sci-fi settings will find included a system for d20 gun combat and a reasonable variety of guns, grenades, rockets, blasters, and modern vehicles. Many of the feats in the book, such as Crack Shot and Hail of Bullets, are written for this gun combat system.

The book does close with a two-page bibliography (fiction and historical works), glossary, compiled tables, and a full index. Well done there.

In general, I liked most the chapters which dealt with common mercenary issues such as contracts and employers. I found problems with the other chapters, either in the execution of the content or in their utility.


Historical woes

For instance, the history chapter starts in 401 BC, when the rebellious Cyrus hired Greek mercenaries in an attempt to seize the throne of Persia. But Greek warriors had started hiring themselves out as mercenaries hundreds of years earlier. In 650 BC, for instance, king Gyges of Lydia lent Greek mercenaries to Egypt to fight against the Persians.

I also had problems with the included historical timeline. This timeline does extend into an alternate future (based in part on some recent historical events which were resolved differently from our timeline, that is). I can understand altering dates in the timeline to support this alternate future, which is more conducive to mercenary action than otherwise seems likely And there is a sidebar that states out front that events in the timeline have been altered from history for dramatic purposes. But I don't think that excuses the fact that the dates given for Hannibal of Carthage are off by two entire centuries!

These problems with the historical timeline, and the statement about the alteration of history (which, for all I know, include the medieval events detailed as well) make it untrustworthy and thus not very useful to me for a historical campaign.

On that same note, I didn't like the way the collection of famous mercenary companies and their leaders were written up. Again, there's a sidebar about historical details being changed. Now, obviously the real White Company and its leader were not elven, and Hannibal didn't have magic weapons, but I think it would have been better to present some historical mercenary companies with no fantasy elements whatsoever, followed by some unabashedly fantasy companies, which could still be based on some historical counterparts. This would have provided fantasy and historical campaigns with a few companies that could be used straight out of the book, rather than a larger number which all need work to adapt.


System specs

Moving on to the d20 "crunchy bits" in the book, I found them a mixed bag. There are two base classes for modern and future gaming, based on the fighter. They seem good, but it's pretty clear that what they give up (the soldier of fortune gives up medium and heavy armour proficiency) is much less than what they gain (in this case, a bonus to AC against ranged weapons which reaches +12 at level 20, plus 4 skill points per level and a huge list of class skills).

The prestige classes are mostly historical (seven of them) with some fantasy (5) and contemporary (4). Their concepts all seem pretty good, particularly the fantasy PrCs, which have a nice bent for campaigns focussing on warfare. The necrenary, for instance, is a military spellcaster type who specializes in controlling large forces of undead. The illusionary does the same with illusionary troops, which brings to mind the illusions of the Black Company's mages. And the soul catcher is an obvious homage to one of that series' spookiest characters, presented here as an agent of darkness who attempts to bind mercenaries to her and doom their souls to hell.

However I again have some doubts about balance. For instance, a 10th level stradiot (vicious light cavalry that worked for Venice in the 16th century) gains the ability to automatically decapitate anyone with a successful critical hit with a slashing weapon. Without a saving throw. All I can say is, "not in my game"!

One interesting aspect of the prestige classes is that sometimes their abilities are defined in terms of new bonus feats. That's a good idea because it makes it possible for other characters to gain those abilities with a feat. However, they ought to be comparable in power with other feats. I'm not sure that reducing an enemy's effective AC by 1 when shooting arrows at someone wearing heavy armour is worth a feat, or a bonus of +2 to Balance (only) if you take off one of your shoes! No, I am not making this up; the fact that many feats grant +2 to two skills - and sadly, quite a few of the feats included in the book are of just this nature - should have been a clue that such a feat is not powerful enough.

Then there's the Master Sniper feat, with a huge list of requirements but which allows for ranged coup de grace strikes against the unsuspecting. I guess that would be okay for a gritty modern-day campaign, but I wouldn't like to see it used against my PC! There are a couple of feats for genetic and bionic replacements to lost body parts, which have extremely high cash requirements. I also have a problem with these being implemented as feats; although a bionic limb which grants bonuses does blur the line between equipment and inherent ability, I see no reason for a character to have to use a feat to get a genetic replacement arm which provides no mechanical benefit.

The skills chapter is also a mixed bag. I'm not sure that close to a full page was needed to expand Intuit Direction (which in 3.5 was reduced to a couple of sentences); on the other hand, the material provided to use Decipher Script to decipher encoded messages is a great adaptation of the existing skill. However, there are some evident misunderstandings with the d20 system, such as referring to having "five ranks" in a language.

The equipment chapter has a mixture of historical, modern, and futuristic equipment. I don't really have a problem with the guns and vehicles although since d20 Modern exists, they seem somewhat irrelevant. However, the historical equipment is essentially a rundown of all the weapons, armour, and steeds available in the 15th century. The statistics for different types of armour are generally close to their standard d20 equivalents, and many weapons receive entries that seem just like filler. I didn't really need to see writeups for light and heavy maces, or one for the arming sword, just to learn what to call a short sword in the 15th century. I did however like the different versions of the long bow, which would make English archers appropriately deadly (a yew bow does d10 damage and has a range increment of 110 feet, which can be improved further by using silk bowstrings) but I think it would have been appropriate - considering the intensive training that went into the creation of those archers - to define yew bows or even all longbows as exotic weapons.


Layout

Whoever did the layout for this book should be taken out back and given a good thrashing. The results are sadly mediocre.

Sometime between when Otherworld Creations released a large preview of the book, and its actual release, the company decided to change its look. The book sports a sort of "faux manuscript" look with a few fake cracks and paper wear. Chapter titles are in scrolls, and tables look like they were written on extra bits of paper overlaid on the pages. This is fine and pretty unobtrusive.

The tables, however, often suffer from horrible layout. When a prestige class has abilities which improve with each level, for instance, the ability and its value is repeated at each level. That would be okay if it weren't for the fact that all of the columns in the table are the same width - even ones for attack bonus and saving throws, which could have been quite small. The result is an abilities column which may need as many as 6 lines (for the necrenary at 10th level), when most of the rest of the table is whitespace.

Any time an equation is presented, such as how to total a company's "leadership pool", the problem is the opposite - instead of each factor (such as leader's level and rank) being listed on a separate line, they all run together, which makes it hard to refer to.

There are also some unhelpful omissions. A castle-like stronghold is detailed in one chapter - but no map is provided. According to the author, material for different time periods was so marked in his original manuscript - but these were taken out. The Polearm Combat feat is simply missing.


Art

There isn't a great deal of interior art in the book, but I liked most of it. The exceptions I would single out seem to have been done by the same artist - line drawings which seem to have been cribbed from another project, like a woman and giant robot (which suggest a space opera setting not covered by the book) and an anime-inspired oriental warrior. They aren't badly executed, but they seem out of place compared with the rest of the artwork.

One advantage the book does have on the art front is a fantastic cover. I presume the image itself is by Kieran Yanner; the downcast warriors and women portrayed on the front, as well as the choice of mostly dark tones, are perfect for setting a grim tone.


Fiction

Finally, I'll note that most chapters in the book start and end with a piece of game fiction split in two. I liked this very much, actually, and thought that most of the fiction was quite well done. The pieces of fiction range from pulp (the first piece included, and in my opinion the worse) to the fantasy exploits of the elven Sir Hawkwood and a couple of secret history pieces featuring Hannibal of Carthage.


Mopping Up

Ultimately, I think that the author tried to provide too much support in the book for different periods of play. If he had focussed on mercenaries for themselves without paying so much attention to the 15th century, or modern gun combat, I think the book would be more generally useful. The cruel truth is that to most people, d20 means fantasy roleplaying, and in a fantasy context all the material included to support modern campaigns is not going to be useful - and if you wanted to play a modern campaign, the fantasy material would not be useful either.

Now, Mercenaries: Born of Blood is a part of Otherworld's Vergo line, which their website says are supposed to be "usable in any campaign, in any setting, in any D20 game". I would encourage Otherworld to focus more on universals in the future, and less on a small selection of specific periods.

I can only give this book a guarded recommendation. If the idea of a mercenary campaign appeals to you greatly, give it a close look at your local gaming store, and see how much of the book is useful to you. Buy it if the price to page ratio of what you consider useful is low enough.

I think that is, after all, how a mercenary would behave.