The Black Company

"The company in those days being in the service of the Syndic of Beryl..."

– Croaker

The Black Company is Glen Cook's long running grim high fantasy series about a band of middling sellswords getting by in a world full of BBEGs.

The titular Black Company (last of the Free Companies of Khatovar as reads its full name) is a mercenary outfit which for the last several hundred years has cut a bloody trail generally northward, killing for whomever can afford them for as long as they can afford them. By the standards of sellswords, they're fairly elite, fighting as heavy infantry with a handful of genuine wizards for support. Admission to their ranks is by vote, and a prospect is expected to give up all previous attachments.

Personalities

• Croaker: The company's physician and annalist; serves as the narrator for most of the books.

• 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 dump stat.

• Darling: A camp follower of the company; a mute girl rescued by Raven shortly after joining. She eventually develops a modicum of magical power.

• Soulcatcher: An enigmatic, hermaphroditic undead 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.