So what mercenary archetypes are there to play other than grizzled and old?

>Swiss.
Or if in a modern game, South African.

Married to the war, enjoying the violence.
A honorable warrior who also happens to sell his services (pic related).
Flamboyant and fabulous like a Landsknecht, smugly cussing out his enemies for being both unfashionable and weak.
"I'm collecting money for *something*, and fighting seems like the quickest way to get rich"

A guy loves killing but at the same time he wants to give back to society. So he decides excessive murder is his way to contribute to society and genuinely thinks he's doing good. Being a merc is just him try to make some cash off of it.

>Swiss.
If I'm not mistaken, the French forbade their Swiss mercenaries to sing songs about home because they'd literally get too homesick to fight.

I hate bears, I really do. I hate them because they look so soft and fluffy and I want to cuddle up against them, but they'd tear me apart for doing that. Why haven't we bred a kind, gentle, domesticatable bear yet? I want bears to become the new dogs.

>I hate bears, I really do. I hate them because they look so soft and fluffy and I want to cuddle up against them, but they'd tear me apart for doing that. Why haven't we bred a kind, gentle, domesticatable bear yet? I want bears to become the new dogs.
The problem with bears ain't they're all crazy killers, it's they're unpredictable as shit and stupid as stumps. You can raise a bear from infancy and live with it for ten years and it'd be the fluffiest, loveliest pet ever then one day at random it just gets a case of stupid and bites your head off.

>So what mercenary archetypes are there to play other than grizzled and old?

Landschneckt

>I want bears to become the new dogs.
>not wanting to be a bear

Just think of the possibilities! You can rant on /k/ and /out/ about how harmless bears are and that you only need to take bear spray instead of .45-70 on your next camping trip.

...

Me and one of my friends had a joke that if we couldnt find work by the time we turned 30 we'd become mercanaries africa. So you could do that, some commoner who signs up later in life for lack of other options. Very little to no intial combat experience. Not overly ambitious, or honorable, or evil. Just a dude trying to scrape by, in way over his head.

Considering that the Swiss were the most prominent mercenary force in Europe for a good long while, that statement reads more like the French wanted them to stop singing for nationalistic reasons, while the stated reason of homesickness was for propaganda reasons.

Remember, French-Swiss is mostly understandable to a French speaker, and the living conditions there were a fair lot better than for a peasant in France. Also remember that the reason mercenaries ended up with a bad name is because national leaders realized they couldn't have condottiere and co. stealing their nation's youth away when those youths were needed in the state army, come the arms race of centralized national armies.

The guy who just really needed the money.

that whole bit where someone only does something because it makes everyone they care for happy.

The slave/orphan, etc. who doesn't know anything else

The agent who's actually a foreign spy infiltrating/sabotaging an enemy military

The old warrior looking for a place to die

The young warrior searching for something/someone who joined/formed a company for security/contacts

>The agent who's actually a foreign spy infiltrating/sabotaging an enemy military
>It's that one fucking party member who is some shade of evil and spends the whole game plotting against the party, but the plans never reach fruition because he just assists in a TPK after the party is weakened enough in a bad fight

How does Veeky Forums feel about edgy children raised to become assassins/mercenaries

>Not having the entire party be in on it via recruitment by the agent/the foreign nation
>Roleplaying with shit players who think that a TPK is the way to go because killing 4 people is 'sabotaging a military'

D-. Apply yourself.

This. The sociopath soldier who fell in love with war is top tier mercenary archetype.

What bugs is that for the most part the "mercenary" characters in RPGs never actually do any proper mercenary-ing. When was the last time the party was part of a 500 man strong company that gets hired to be part of a pike line or something in real battle? It's always "those 5 random dudes who get hired to kill nearby monsters". That's technically mercenary work but it's not exactly what the term was coined for.

Rarely good, only exemple I liked was X-23. And it was more assassin than mercenary.

Guts is an edgy child, if that helps. Really, it depends on what you mean by "edgy." Personally, I don't mind edge so long as it's not endlessly getting spouted off (Silent types like Sasuke don't bother me), but once they get sue-levels of power (again, Sasuke) they start getting irritating.

So I don't have a problem with it, although it could easily be played horribly wrong.

This. I insist on using "sell-sword" for individuals or small groups, and "mercenary company" for any organized body with a captain and supply contracts.

You forgot to mention American action hero.

It ain't me.

Grizzled
Old
Grizzled *AND* old.

>tfw you'll never have a party made exclusively of mustachioed fighter, constantely using pikes and charging the ennemies in tight formation
>horde of goblins ? pike square and charge
>seductive succubus ? pike square and charge
>bbeg duel atop a tower ? pike square and charge
>duelist with only a rapier and fancy moves ? pike square and charge

Flamboyant.
GREED FUELED.

>tfw 5e and Polearm Master plus Sentinel
>tfw there's even Charger for just what it implies

The best part is taking that nonsense extra attack with the back end of your weapon. Imagine a pike square doing that.

Young assholes

Are they cute assholes?

I want to play a character that gets actual, physical healing and buffs if you offer to pay him money.
No system adequately describes the type of greed-man that I wish to play.

What do you think these two are talking about?

"I don't want the gun, I want the spear. How do you form a pike square with a gun?"

"No, see, you can totally form a square with a gun, I've SEEN IT DONE man. And there's this new hot shit about sticking spears on the end of your gun!"

"Probably a scam. Remember when ted fillings was selling "spears" that were just brooms with metal bits on them? Complete waste of money!"

"No bro, it's legit, swear on me mum"

Spanish tercio here.

Fuck the French and the Swiss and their gay gendarme charges and pike squares.

>swear on me mum
but those are bourbons

I automagically translate whatever people are saying in fantasy land into modern vernacular.
shit like "yo dawg I herrrrd you had a princess you need rescued" is entirely fair to say.

>implying