A Note on Terminology

In discussing the history of the Free Companies and how they have helped to shape Azand for both good and ill, there is often much confusion for those new to the subject due to a simple misunderstanding of terminology: the term free company is not synonymous with Free Company.

The term "free company" is a generic term, interchangeable with mercenary warband, adventurers' guild, group of sell-swords, and the like. Such groups can be found in any kingdom or any place in the world. On the other hand, the Free Companies is a term used to describe a very specific grouping of, well, free companies.

As the astute reader can already tell, this common word usage, especially when spoken, can very well lead to some confusion.

While once the Free Companies were bands of mercenaries, they are now institutions to themselves in Azand and Eimui and as such they wield considerable political as well and military power in the areas where they operate.

Note that there is no exact qualification that makes a free company into one the Free Companies besides power and size. A free company becomes a Free Company when enough of the influential and mighty take notice and acknowledge them as such.

Supposedly the proper form of the term first came into use in the Azand and Eimui due in no small part to Doomed Sarnath, which would routinely recruit and import mercenary armies, not only from Azand and Eimui, but other, darker, corners of the world in order to further its ends.

Such commissions were highly sought after for the wealth and prestige granted from being a favored servant of the Doomed city. Those servants considered themselves elevated, better and stronger than the ones unchosen. Hence, in their various languages they began to rename themselves and in the common tongue that renaming is most commonly expressed as Free Companies.

The Free Companies of Doomed Sarnath also gained a greater power than money and reputation.

It was not uncommon for the priests of the Forgotten Pantheon to shower their most successful mercenary servants with powerful magical trinkets that those servants could then use to further their own personal agendas back in their homelands at the conclusion of their contract with the city.

According to myth, many kingdoms were made and broken in the far corners of the world with the power of Doomed Sarnath's gifts and all that spilled blood with those items were said to be advancing the will of the Forgotten Pantheon.

Today no relics are bestowed upon the leaders of the Free Companies by the priests of unknowable divinity, nor even are any such items known to exist, so instead the Companies must settle for the wealth, the prestige, and perceived legitimacy of their work.

Those rewards certainly aid in the continuing success of the organizations and those companies that find themselves borderline are often quite willing to kill for the unofficial "honor" of the capitalization. [End of excerpt]