Blood and Sweat is out now!

The torchbearer survived!

This was not expected. It may not even be desirable. But now the players remember their name, someone bought them better armor, and the GM has to pretend this poor doomed soul was part of the plan all along.

So here we are.

Blood and Sweat is out now for Shadow of the Demon Lord.

This is a small, focused supplement about hirelings who survive long enough to become part of the campaign. The guard who stands fast against the dead. The porter who makes it out of the tomb. The guide who keeps leading the group into places any sensible person would avoid. The apprentice who learns just enough magic to become useful and worrying.

At some point, these characters stop being disposable help and start becoming recurring companions. Blood and Sweat gives you rules for that moment.

The core idea is simple: hirelings can advance with the group without becoming full player characters. They can grow more capable, take on clearer roles, and pick up useful talents, while still remaining hirelings rather than extra PCs for the GM to juggle.

What’s inside?

Blood and Sweat includes five hireling paths:

• Professional – for healers, cooks, porters, gravediggers, map readers, and other competent survivors.
• Rogue – for quiet hands, ambushers, cutthroats, and people who open locks without asking whose locks they are.
• Shooter – for hirelings who understand that danger is best handled from across the room.
• Warrior – for guards, mercenaries, veterans, and other paid violence.
• Magic-User – for rare spellcasters desperate or foolish enough to sell their talents to adventurers.

It also includes prices for advanced hirelings, equipment guidance by role, and new Skill Training, Expertise, and Mastery talents.

That last part is important. This is not just about giving the torchbearer a bigger number. It is about letting long-term hirelings do useful things at the table: help more reliably, carry gear, support allies, keep watch, handle light, offer expertise, and generally make themselves just valuable enough that their eventual death will hurt properly.

Because that is the real danger of recurring NPCs. Not that they will become too powerful. That the players will care.

Not a private army

This book is not meant to turn the party into a marching payroll disaster with twenty statblocks trailing behind them. It works best with a few memorable hirelings who keep showing up, keep surviving, and keep making terrible career decisions.

A single guard who has been with the group since level 1. A goblin guide who keeps finding the safest path through the worst possible places. A tired camp hand who knows where everything is packed and has developed the thousand-yard stare of someone who has heard adventurers say “this should be easy” too many times.

Those are the characters this book is for. Give them a path. Give them talents. Give them better pay. Then watch the group panic when something reaches for them in the dark.

Blood and Sweat is available now on DriveThruRPG:

Get Blood and Sweat on DriveThruRPG

Want early access to future projects? Want to throw even worse ideas at me? Check out my Patreon. Patrons get early peeks at all my madness, plus playtest copies and the chance to tell me which hirelings weren’t quite doomed enough.

Share your surviving torchbearers, suspiciously competent goblin porters, and emotionally load-bearing camp followers over on Discord, Bluesky, dice.camp, or X. I want to know which poor hireling your group accidentally turned into the heart of the campaign.