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D&D Ideas — Adventuring Company

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is Adventuring Company, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of Adventuring Company our monthly fan games take place under the auspices of the Company of the NAG where your characters plunge into adventure straight from our library. Discerning newsletter subscribers can use their store credit and discover the next unforgettable adventure for your adventuring company’s next get together right here. You can get Nerdarchy the Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Doing a quick Google search for adventuring companies for Forgotten Realms brings up eight of them. You can grab more info here.

Companions of the Hall is one of the most famous and featured prominently in a lot of novels. Force Grey I only remember because of the limited series run by Matt Mercer. I vaguely remember the Knights of Myth Drannor from the Forgotten Realms boxed set for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Then there is the Burning Order of Dawn, Heroes of Baldur’s Gate, the Company of Eight and Heroes of Ascor, all of which I’m not familiar. Finally we’ve got Acquisitions Incorporated — the adventuring company I am the most familiar with after the Companions in the Hall. I’ve included a little blurb about each from the Fandom page to inspire your own adventuring company.

Most of these groups are what you’d expect from a regular group of D&D adventurers but with a few twists, one becoming basically mercenaries, another acting as elite forces for the city and finally one as a for profit corporation — an adventuring company in the most literal sense of the term.

The Companions of the Hall is the name for the group of adventurers who retook and subsequently defended Mithral Hall. They consist of King Bruenor Battlehammer, Drizzt Do’Urden and his companion Guenhwyvar along with and Catti-brie, Wulfgar and Regis.

Force Grey, otherwise known as the Gray Hands, are elite adventurers who work directly for the government of the city of Waterdeep. Their job is to deal with threats to the city neither the Guard nor the Watch could handle without risking significant loss of life. They are called upon only as a last resort since the Lords of Waterdeep tend to not be fond of their methods.

The Knights of Myth Drannor are a famous adventuring company of Faerûn.

The Order of the Burning Dawn is an adventuring company active along the Sword Coast in the 14th and 15th centuries DR. Originally founded to track down the Moontear, a powerful relic of Sehanine Moonbow, the Order lost its original purpose shortly after being founded, turning instead to mercenary protection work. The Order was nearly wiped out in the 1490s DR by the Helmite group known as the Knights of the Gilded Eye.

The Heroes of Baldur’s Gate are an adventuring company that originated from the city after which they are named. They had exploits in Baldur’s Gate and traveled to far-off locales such as the Spine of the World mountains and even the foreboding Demiplane of Dread. They made a great many friends and allies during their adventures, along with their fair share of enemies.

The Company of Eight was a band of adventurers based out of Tethyr during the time of the Tethyrian Interregnum. They are dedicated to freedom, justice and peace.

Acquisitions Incorporated is an adventuring company from the Sword Coast. The organization consists of several groups of adventurers for hire who act more or less independently under the company’s charter.

The Heroes of Ascore, later known as the Heroes of the North, are a skilled adventuring company that successfully stopped the Zhentarim from conquering parts of the Sword Coast.

If you are playing in Forgotten Realms there is no reason you couldn’t incorporate these adventuring companies in your own games.

Using an Adventuring Company in your D&D Games

• The adventurers could seek them out as mentors or trainers to help them advance their skills and levels.
• They could join one of these adventuring companies. Sometimes an adventuring company needs to split its resources and in those cases they give quests to the adventurers in your party.
• They could be foils or friendly rivals competing for the same objective.
• Perhaps an adventuring company doesn’t exist anymore but the party discovers their tales and stories and wishes to honor them. They take up the name and try to do good in by the memory of the adventuring company. This might come with complications and misunderstandings though, but that’s what adventuring is all about.
• Members of a famous adventuring company (or more than one!) go missing, show up dead or act out of sorts and it’s up to your players to figure out and solve this mystery.

From Ted’s Head

I have been gaming for three decades but before Nerdarchy I cannot recall ever naming my adventuring company either in game or out of one. It feels weird looking back. After all, adventurers accomplish loads of great deeds over the course of their career.

If we look at history we find loads of tales or stories of individuals or groups that have done spectacular things. Myths and legends are told about such things. If history teaches us about something it makes some sense in a fantasy world the same could apply.

When it comes to an adventuring company name there is of course the Fellowship of the Ring. R.A. Salvatore’s novels introduced the Companions of the Hall that Nerdarchist Dave mentions in his editorial this week. In my current game run by Dave our adventuring company is the Grotto Gruffs. We have a whole goat theme based on our leader’s designs and desires. My Thursday group is of course the Dawnbringers, which was named before I even joined the game.

As a player I think it is important to develop a group name or organization name for an adventuring company. This fosters teamwork and unity, and the group’s game can become woven into your game. Through enough effort perhaps the adventuring company becomes part of the lore and legend of your own campaign world. As a Dungeon Master I enjoy adding elements of previous campaigns and working them into teasers for players to pick up during those later campaigns.

Furthermore, as a DM you can work elements of an adventuring company into the world in several different ways. Consider including guild halls in major cities where groups can register the desire to get work and build fame. It is also a way for characters to run into other heroes. Whether they are just looking to meet famous adventurers or maybe find one who has a particular bit of knowledge, a famous adventuring company could be the answer.

A great way to bring the fear to those players’ eyes are to see those same adventurers they admire cut down or already dead from the threat they are chasing. Another great concept is a rival adventuring company attempting to complete the same task. When this happens it sets the party against a time frame.

I see no reason why we should not be using adventuring companies in our games. An adventuring company can build lore, encourage competition and foster an easier navigation of quests of any level. Do yourself and your fellow adventurers a favor and start making groups and organizations into your D&D game.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

I am no stranger to fantasy adventurers and the names they devise for their adventuring company. More often than not in fact these groups take both aspects equally serious. They embark on more than their fair share of heroic quests with the same gusto they consider the business side of an endeavor.

In our own Dungeons & Delving campaign the group came together through selection on a fantasy game show and choosing an adventuring company name was part of the deal. The nature of the campaign demanded our Sensational Chimera work the magic in our dungeon runs as much as we had to during the off times. It was all about branding and I was surprised how quickly my character glommed onto this aspect of the game.

Since then several of our live chats veered into themed campaign concepts and the idea of an adventuring company puts me in a mind for one such theme. A successful adventuring company likely swells with at least some support staff over time I imagine. What sorts of shenanigans do these folks get up to when the adventurers are off doing their hero thing?

Playing the Other Guys from an Adventuring Company

Particularly when we explored Secret Bases and Law Enforcement we discussed the idea of a campaign where players took the role of characters who worked for a larger organization in a more administrative fashion. The premise is these characters aren’t the Big Damn Heroes of the story and instead they’re the people who help those people get their jobs done. I love the notion of an epic quest going on as the B plot for a campaign while the main focus stays with a small group of people who basically work day jobs at the adventuring company.

What sorts of shenanigans might befall these Other Guys? This is where my great enjoyment of fantasy intersects with the relatable mundane aspects of everyday life in the real world.

• A special delivery arrives and the stone golem who brings the extremely heavy package of presumably dangerous or powerful contents simply refuses to budge until signed for by the adventurers. According to the Monster Manual, “When it can’t fulfill its orders, a golem might react violently — or stand and do nothing.” Either way the Large creature interferes with everyday operations.
• One of the adventurers is notoriously messy and never wipes their boots when they stop by the office. Last time the gunk they left behind mutated into a gibbering mouther. It’s currently trapped in storage but the Gibbering is starting to really disturb everyone and besides — that’s where the extra parchment is stored.
• It’s been a while since anyone cleaned the alchemy lab. All those magical chemicals and reagents flowing down the drain create quite a stench but worst yet — a hirsute horror came to life down there and now it’s creeping around inside with the rest of the staff…
• The staff kept putting off a work order to reinforce the adventuring company vault and now a xorn chewed straight through the nonmagical, unworked earth and stone wall. It’s in there munching on the company coffers!
• A dretch shows up at the door, hat in hand looking for a job. The repulsive, self-loathing creature is already doomed to spend eternity in a state of perpetual discontent and figures getting out of the Abyss and working for the man can’t be much worse. Is there any potential here and even if so can anyone survive the Fetid Cloud it lets loose when it gets frustrated with the daily grind?

I know this all sounds a bit silly but if I’m honest I’ve played the heroic adventurer plenty of times and themed campaign concepts like this appeal to me. Characters who work at an adventuring company can certainly come from the same race, class and background stock as their more prominent employers, advancing in level just the same.

What appeals to me most about ideas like this are how the players’ different perception of the fantasy setting influence their character choices in different ways. Fireball might work great for clearing out a dungeon chamber full of nasty buggers but inside an adventuring company office? No way — the files and paperwork would be toast! Perhaps the paladin in the group gets more mileage from drawing a magic circle in the lobby while they sort out that stone golem mess rather than from yet another hum drum Divine Smite.

*Featured image — The legendary Larry Elmore’s painting shows the Companions of the Lance from the original Dragonlance novels. This is one adventuring company with impeccable bona fides.

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