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The mercenary in Larp

A mercenary is a soldier who is recruited against payment and is usually employed for a limited period of time and bound by contract. The mercenary system has already existed in ancient times and is still found in parts of the world today. This article deals mainly with the mercenary in the Middle Ages and how he or she is represented in Fantasy Larp.

Playing a mercenary in Larp

The mercenary is basically a good starting character in live roleplaying for people who like to go into battle and are looking for action. However, this requires that you know how to use the weapon you are wielding or really want to learn how to use it. No one will pay a mercenary not to fight.

Playing a mercenary requires above all physical fitness, because you are constantly in battle. But also assertiveness and negotiating skills determine the role of a mercenary in Larp.

Of course, mercenaries are also often used as guards for occasions, their dangerous appearance and heavy armament make them ideal security personnel for dubious events. In live roleplaying the mercenary is a popular figure for beginners.

You can quickly earn a coin or two and get to know many people. Especially with the right outfit you don’t necessarily look like the absolute beginner. With a heavy tunic or gambeson, sturdy armour parts like our armour belt for waist or hip and a larp weapon you quickly have a base together with which you can start.

Fierce rogues or ferocious warriors – Mercenary morals

Their lack of affiliation and patriotism fundamentally distinguishes mercenaries from a normal soldier or knight who, while receiving pay, serves his country or fiefdom. Mercenaries usually serve only themselves, the ringing coin, or their group of mercenaries. Which brings us to another essential characteristic of mercenaries. They usually appear as a group, troop, battalion or regiment, which has its own moral concepts and is usually in deep friendship and comradeship with each other. They may have gone through the toughest battles and saved each other’s lives more than a dozen times.

A mercenary doesn’t let anything come over his group, they can be something like his family and the only thing that is important to him besides money. Of course, the tone in the mercenary group can be rough and marked by clear hierarchies and pecking orders, or you can be at odds with other mercenary groups. How a mercenary troop works depends a lot on the play and the agreements among themselves.

Mercenaries in Larp, however, have the reputation of vermin, the appeal of infamy clings to them as they wage war for pay. They are usually not interested in much more than their filled purse, and if the payment is not enough, they will not lift a finger on the battlefield. This sometimes offends honorable larp characters like paladins and they will avoid a mercenary in the game.

But even if you have chosen a mercenary, this path in Larp is never set in stone. It is said that there have been mercenaries who became knights given the right circumstances. Anything is possible in Larp!

Finding the right equipment for mercenaries or making it yourself can be very time consuming, especially armour and padded weapons or a gambeson are not easy to make yourself, you can find all this and more for your larp mercenary in our Andracor Onlineshop.

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