Monday, November 20, 2006

I *heart* henchmen

In the Moldvay Basic Set they were called retainers, in AD&D they used the term henchmen, and nowadays they go by the moniker cohorts. In supers games they're usually called sidekicks. Whatever the label, I love PCs with their own trusty shield-man. As a DM I squeal with glee when PCs recruit junior adventurers to fight by their side. Two of my favorite characters from my old Bandit Kingdoms campaign were Sam and Tobit, the NPC henchthugs of Doctor (later Baron) Phostarius, Pat's chaotic bard/mage.

Until 3E made you buy your cohorts with feats a lot of DMs I knew weren't as hench-friendly as I. That anti-retainer bias combined with my tendency to DM rather than play resulted in me going over 20 years before I had a proper cohort for one of my own D&D characters. In Jon's World of Alidor game I've finally achieved henchitude. Here's a Heromachine rendering of Abu of the Thousand Scars, the xeph soulknife/rogue sidekick to my guy, Osric the Slayer.
I promise to buy the poor bastard some proper gear as soon as we get back to civilization.
His thousand scars are the result of henious mistreatment at the hands of the Dragon Worshipping Cannibal Halflings.

I'm so new at running a cohort that for the last two sessions I forget to give poor Abu his fair share of the XPs. He may have leveled and I don't even know it!

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous10:37 AM

    I love henchmen as well. My favorite Magic-User character- Mr. Wu always had a pair of bodyguards in addition to a Mastiff.

    A standard pair of recurring NPC's in any game I run are the two soldiers of fortune- Cannon and Fodder. whether it's an Orc slaying dungeon crawl or an expedition into the jungles of the Amazon, Cannon and Fodder are my go to guys for pumping up the parties firepower and standing those late night watches.

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