Editing The Black Company (section)

==Personalities==

It should be noted that nobody, NOBODY in this setting uses their given name. For the Company members, it's because they shed their past identity when they join.  Their given nickname is all the identity they need. But for wizards it's much more important. This is a setting where true names have power, so naturally any wizard is going to go to great lengths to erase their past. 

As the series is literally named after a centuries-old mercenary company that will be fighting dozens of conflicts, it is healthy to both keep in mind that there will be a rich and particularly colorful collection of characters and that a number of them will not be [[Game of Thrones|retiring peacefully]].

* '''Croaker''': The company's physician and annalist; serves as the narrator for most of the books. Though cursed with an eponymous stupidly raspy death-rattle voice and a propensity for being a depressing pedantic dork, this man is probably the greatest Romeo in all of [[Anime|fiction]]. Imagine the books being read in the voice of Richard Harrow from Boardwalk Empire.

* '''Goblin''' & '''One-Eye''': Two of the company's wizards; both are well over a century old. They're more illusionists by trade but when they really get in the right mind they can get up to some pretty evil stuff. Most of the time they expend their energies on each other in a petty Gork & Mork style feud that's been running longer than most of the company's members have been alive.  

* '''Silent''': The company's most powerful wizard by far. Genuinely is a wizard unlike the previous two geezers. Never says anything; has his reasons.  

* '''Raven''': The Company's newest recruit, joining when they left Beryl to enter the service of Soulcatcher. Charisma is his [[Edgy|dump stat]]. Despite the grimdark and the [[METAL]]-iness of the setting, this guy somehow manages to be the edgiest character in the entire series. Croaker, the Company leadership, the mutes, and even the [[Wizard|walking-talking nukes]] like to joke around and shoot the shit. This guy is just [[Konrad Curze|The Crow]] (pun intended) in dark fantasyland.

* '''Darling''': A camp follower of the company; a mute girl rescued from a good old fashioned soldier rape gang by Raven shortly after he joined the Company. Under Silent's tutelage she eventually develops some power of her own, although more along the lines of [[Sisters of Silence|holy nullification]]. Along the way also learns and develops a sign language which doubles as her main form of communication and the Company's very own [[Dune|Atreides]]-style [[Awesome|battle language]] that they'll be using for the rest of the series.

* '''Elmo''': Croaker's closest friend and the company's second-leading sergeant. Is a foil to Croaker as he is just as smart but is sharp enough to present himself otherwise as a brute. Like Croaker, he has enough conscience to recognize they're all scum; unlike Croaker, he doesn't let it get him down. 

* '''The Captain''': A real greyhaired badass and great military leader you'd think of a grizzled mercenary captain. Ironically is one of, if not, the most enigmatic members of the company with his past only hinted in minute observations by Croaker. The Annals don't even mention how or why he got voted into being Captain, though you can't really blame it as how much care is taken when using it varies extremely per Annalist.

* '''The Lieutenant''': The company's second-in-command with a long background in warfare and military engineering even before he joined the Company.

* '''Soulcatcher''': An enigmatic, sexually-ambiguous, wizard of obscene power, a member of the ''Ten Who Were Taken''. Catcher hires the Black Company to come and fight against rebels for The Lady.  

* '''The Lady''': The somewhat immortal ruler of an empire in the north; the ''Ten Who Were Taken'' are her minions and rivals to power.  Took an interest in Croaker after learning about the chronicles he maintains.  

* '''The Limper''': A particularly hapless member of the ''Ten'' who is constantly upstaged by the Black Company and repeatedly betrayed by Catcher. Don't let this fool you however as he is easily the most sadistic and vindictive of the Taken, a real bastard who deserves all the shit he gets and this is saying a lot in this setting filled to brim with real amoral sons of bitches.

* '''Old Man Tree''': A literal sentient tree, growing in the dead center of a magic-irradiated desert hundreds of miles in diameter, where reality has been twisted by evilness-fallout into something resembling a Max Ernst painting of Dune. The tree was planted to imprison the undead corpse of a BBEG from [[Hyborian Age|forgotten times]] and doesn't take kindly to all these mortals on his lawn.

* '''The Dominator''': The most powerful being in the world and is very much evil. Once ruled over an empire that encompassed the entire North of the giant continent the books are set in. Currently asleep but is very, VERY pissed.