How realistic is the Fantasy adventurer? how would they exist in a fantasy world? | FANTASY RE-ARMED

In this episode of Fantasy Re-armed let's take a more realistic look at the fantasy adventurer, and see what they would really be like in a Medieval fantasy world.

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[Kishandreth]

I think the biggest aspect you overlooked was bounty hunters. Not in a sense of chasing humans, but cities or towns putting up cash rewards for killing the monsters nearby and providing proof. The bounties could be posted by the local government for safety concerns, or by an apothecary that uses the item in their potions.

Once you accept that monsters are real, question how the people and government will react. Maybe a local lord wants to raise their political position by ensuring the safety of the townsfolk and travelers by hiring someone to take out the local goblins completely, but the local guard/military won't do it because they're unsure of the total number of goblins.

Are the funds from a larger government or did the locals pool their money to take care of a problem? A small village constantly being attacked by goblins might petition the government to send soldiers out, but if it takes too long they might pool their money to have it taken care of quickly. An interesting plot point, would be to have a platoon of soldiers arrive the day after a group took care of a problem.

Maybe the local farmers want to pay an armed escort to get to the big city to sell their excess produce. Maybe the army does regular troop movements and any civilians are allowed to follow.

When monsters are real, world-building how society reacts to that can take you down so many roads.

[DD]

A trick I saw use often in dnd was for the adventurers to get hired as security for caravans to make money and travel safely. They would also hunt criminals and monsters for rewards. So, from my point of view adventurers always have been mercenaries and bounty hunters.

[tathemrelag]

The "local hero" thing for some reason makes me think of the Swedish Empire's allotment system, where each village would have to choose one individual to serve as a soldier, with the rest of the village supplying him food, clothes, and a home. When there wasn't a war, the soldier would work as a farmer, but he was required to attend drills and maintain a level of military readiness - rather like a modern reservist. So I can see a system where each village would pool its resources to buy armor and weapons for one guy whose main job would be to kill any roving monsters who threatened the village.

[omarderouich]

I feel like Mercenaries being historically disreputable is tied to the fact that they were hired to fight other people. I think that in a fantasy world, mercenaries whose job is slaying monsters exclusively could be slightly less blood-thirsty or cutthroat.

[ugojlachapelle]

While not exactly medieval in time, I am surprised you didn't talk about the "coureur des bois" (woodrunner), a North American concept from early years of colonization. They travelled the land and were basically traders between the Europeans and the various nations in North America. They'd bring goods from the European colonies to the nations, and these would let them hunt for fur and even given them fur to bring back to the colonies. They doubled as explorers and translators in many situations. While the "monsters" might make the hunts more challenging, I believe it could be a possibility in any fantasy world.

[sbvera]

I love how Shad started at local heroes and ended up inventing feudalism.

[marcogenovesi]

"adventurers" or "mercenaries" make sense if the government is not strong and can't control much on its own, similar to the Condottieri mercenaries in Italian peninsula and the constant skirimisking between small city-states.
If the kingdom is big or becomes a relatively serious empire it has to have strong enough local lords to deal with most of the garbage and monsters on its own, leaving "adventurers" to do the very low-level stuff, like working as private investigators or private security, which is still plenty enough for a RPG game to be fair.
I've always found it silly that everyone needs to hire random murder hobos to get ANYTHING done in a settlement even if it's an obvious threat to their life. How does that society not implode

[largeseed]

Guts is a good example of a "realistic one", at least before he joined the band of the hawk, but he is a more of an adventurous mercenary

[Pezantri]

Honestly, one of my favorite sorts of 'adventurers' are the romanticized wandering knights like you see in Arthurian style tales (modern or not)- the chivalrous and gallant knight questing the land in search of wrongs to right. Don't get me wrong though, I still love me some murderhobos, but the wandering hero is classic for a very good reason.

[masonwheeler]

7:01: "A really fun, classic and well-known book series that actually is framed much around classic fantasy tropes is Dragonlance."

Back when those were written, they weren't framed around classic fantasy tropes. They invented a surprising amount of the stuff we consider "classic tropes" today.

[therealkillerb]

To have a "realistic" setting for adventurers, you need a world, where there is no strong central government; or areas outside of the control of such governments. You also need an older civilization, with treasure worth obtaining, and dangers that prevent the average person from just walking in and taking those treasures. You mentioned Rome, but the early Dark Ages is actually a time when adventurers could exist. During the devastation of the 30 years war and the various mercenary bands might quality. Also, the Spanish and Portuguese conquests in Central and South America are almost classic examples of small bands of men, far removed from central government authority, facing dangers for treasure. Let's face it, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings created the entire genre as we know it today. Earlier fantasy (such as Howard's Conan series) was almost always about the adventures of an individual rather than a party, but the whole "ancient" civilization bit was there.

[BigBossDragonZ]

For my setting, "adventurer" is a catch all term. The general consensus of the peoples of this setting is; "You hire traveling Slayers for monsters that you wouldn't risk the local champion for, you hire explorers to find relics and rarities, you hire caravaneers for getting from one place to another and not risk dying to monsters.. and you hire mercenaries to deal with men."

[ukotoa]

It feels more realistic for them to only help if they get paid for it, but I’ve always loved the helping just cause it’s the right thing to do

[walfman]

I think you overlooked some of the most common themes in fantasy worlds, the market surrounding monster parts and rare resources. It comes up all over the place from more classic fantasy like dnd all the way to harry potter. For example the wands in Harry Potter require monster parts and depending on the quality\type of monster parts dictates the wands effectiveness and compatibly with its user. Not to mention the unbelievable demand things like potions, spell/enchanting components, and better amour/weapons would create for monster parts in a world without our modern scientific understating of medicine and manufacturing. So the wealthy aristocratic adventurer, local hero, mercenary, knight/monster hunting orders, or hired guards you spoke about would probably still want to invest in quality gear and potions which in most of fantasy require monster parts to make. There is also the whole nobility paying out of the nose for rare things, health/beauty items, and a chance at immortality. Like even in our reality where magic doesn't exist, all throughout history and even in the modern day wealthy people believe and invest in alchemy, spiritualism, voodoo, and magic for a chance at increasing their lifespans/power/influence. Then there is also the role of information broker/researcher that would pay really well for information about; local monster populations, monster movements, the locations of rare materials, and the locations of historic/powerful items. This would naturally create a demand for people to go and gather this kind of information and in fantasy this role traditionally falls to adventures. You kind of touch on this with the wealthy adventure, but there has always been a subset of the population who would risk everything for glory and notoriety. For example you have gladiators, knights, and nobility who would regularly risk their lives in duels, hunts and competitions to prove the martial prowess. So I think that there would be a not unsubstantial portion of adventures whose motivation would be to prove their strength or seeking notoriety for their deeds. Lastly there is the lower class/impoverished seeking to improve their lives. Because as long as there is no law or regulations preventing low born/non-citizens/uneducated people from becoming adventurers then adventuring would be a likely choice for orphans, refugees, and unskilled laborers.

[overlord_cloudread]

I feel like lessons can be taken from all of these ideas. One idea I want to note that Shad didn't really cover here though is the idea of the Monastic-Military Order, your Order of the Flaming Rose from the Witcher, or Templars if we are to take a more historical example. This kind of pseudo-centralized military organization with ties to (and funding from the tithes of) the church, that go around town to town where Priests report monsters to bravely fight off the invaders while singing the praises of their god to the grateful peasants. And this again can become a corrupt thing, towns with no church, or very cynical populations, are left bereft of defences against monsters, while towns with really prominent cathedrals are virtually impervious, and the surround local area is safer, encouraging trade, making them trade hubs, and thus hubs of civilization. You could see tremendous church control of politics, and populations centred on cities of religious importance.

[evilwelshman]

On the idea that adventuring in the form of expeditions and safaris as being the domain of the rich, something I feel Shad overlooked is that those rich aristocrats on expedition/safari were almost always accompanied by a whole bunch of people who served as guides, protection and/or general support; most of whom would comprise of commoners (i.e. poor people).

Also, the overall likelihood of adventurers being a viable, standard career path would be inversely proportional to political stability and the strength of the central authority. If the socio-political landscape is volatile, the likelier people will want to hire travelling warriors for protection or to complete tasks on their behalf. Similarly, if there is a strong central authority, people are likelier to turn to them instead of independent travellers to deal with their problems; including the odd monster roaming through the countryside.

[Deefry]

I've always thought adventurers as minor celebrities (like streamers) would be a funny angle in a sort of tongue-in-cheek manner. There would be a lot of investment in Bard's tales and whatnot, and the plucky adventurers would have to overcome the dual issue of not being a recognisable household name and low-level monsters being swarmed by every would-be upstart band of adventurers.

[ModernKnight]

Interesting video Shad, as usual. I always wonder how the economy of some fantasy worlds works, and if some monsters might become endangered species and then protected!

[bare_bear_hands]

Shad: you ever heard of the "stationary bandit" theory for the initial creation of states? It curiously aligns with your telling of mercenaries growing too big and taking entire cities hostages to give them cash.
It goes like this: there is a village. There are various groups of bandits. They usually just raid (kill the cattle), but one group decides it would be easier to ride in town, offer to defend them from the other bandit groups, and get paid smaller amounts over a greater period of time (keeping the cattle for its produce).
Btw, tell this one to Oz. He will love a story about how the state (not talking voluntary governance here) are just a bunch of thieves with the monopoly of use of force.

[prophetsspaceengineering]

I highly recommend "He who fights with monsters" in that regard. The series features a surprisingly sophisticated and (IMO) consistent world, that explores how the adventurer and monster tropes (among others) would affect societies on a fundamental level. It finds a lot of interesting answers to the usual inconsistencies of high-fantasy worlds. It features a lot of the stuff you mention in the video and takes quite a few of those tropes even further.

Experienced adventurers are basically demi-gods that rule entire countries because nobody could stop them. Pretty much anyone who gets to that stage trains up their own family to obtain powers themselves which is exactly how aristocracy works in that world. Adventurer clans spend a lot of time rying to one-up another in local politics while a bunch of official societies attempt to motivate them to actually do their job and keep the countryside safe from monster threats (most of them are too lazy to travel and do dangerous work).
The low end of society tries to get members into adventuring because it usually guarantees their rise in society. That's more wishful thinking though because the nobility is very much in control of magic and training resources. Inequality in that scenario is very much off the charts and in a very believable way. Most low-level adventurers were pushed into that job by their families and eventually stop hunting monsters because it's quite traumatizing and dangerous. Those people often end up as guards of the nobility or thugs in criminal organizations. Neither pays particularly well of course.