The Black Company

by Glen Cook

The Black Company is an elite mercenary outfit that has served countless causes across centuries of warfare. Told through the eyes of Croaker, the company physician and annalist, the series follows the Company as they serve the Lady — a powerful sorceress locked in war against the rebel alliance. Glen Cook invented military fantasy with this series, telling epic fantasy from the grunt's perspective.

40 characters, locations, and items in this world codex.

Characters

• Bonegnasher — One of the Taken — named for something you don't want to think about too hard. Killed during the northern wars.
• Croaker — Company physician and Annalist — the man who writes it all down. What you know about the Black Company, you know because Croaker told you. He left out
• Darling — The White Rose reborn — a deaf-mute girl who generates an anti-magic field that grows as she matures, terrifying the Taken, raised by a mercenary, and
• Elmo — Veteran sergeant — the man who makes sure the privates don't die of stupidity before the enemy gets a chance to kill them properly.
• Goblin — Company wizard, One-Eye's nemesis, and the ugliest little man to ever save your life with a spell that shouldn't have worked.
• Howler — The Taken who screams — his sorcery comes with a sound so terrible it damages the mind, and he rides a flying carpet because even the Taken have style
• Moonbiter — One of the Taken — killed during the northern wars. The name implies ambitions beyond his station.
• Murgen — The Company's next Annalist after Croaker — a standard-bearer who inherited the journals and the obligation to write down things he'd rather forget.
• Nightcrawler — One of the Taken — operates best in darkness, dies in the northern wars. The name tells you when not to go outside.
• One-Eye — Company wizard, cheat, drunk, and the oldest man who refuses to die — been running the same cons for longer than most Company brothers have been alive
• Raven — The Company's darkest soldier — a man running from a past bad enough to make the Black Company look like a fresh start, who attached himself to a chil
• Shapeshifter — The Taken who becomes things — animals, people, nightmares. You never know who Shapeshifter is until it's too late.
• Silent — Company wizard who never speaks — does his magic without words, fights without sound, and communicates through a silence so complete it became his nam
• Sleepy — The Company's third Annalist — a woman passing as a man in a mercenary company, who took over when there was nobody else left to hold the pen.
• Soulcatcher — The Lady's sister and most dangerous Taken — speaks in a dozen stolen voices, shifts loyalties like weather, and considers betrayal a form of self-exp
• Stormbringer — The Taken who commands weather — lightning and wind are his weapons, and entire armies can drown in storms he whistles up.
• The Captain — Leader of the Black Company — never named, rarely described, always obeyed. He runs the outfit. That's what you need to know.
• The Dominator — The buried evil — the Lady's husband, the original dark lord, entombed in the Barrowland and spending centuries trying to claw his way back out.
• The Faceless Man — One of the Taken — the name says what's wrong with him. Don't look. Killed in the northern wars.
• The Hanged Man — The Taken who never speaks and survived his own execution — carries the rope marks around his neck like a badge of office.
• The Lady — The dark empress who hired the Company — not evil enough to be a villain, not good enough to be a hero, and smarter than everyone who tries to sort he
• The Lieutenant — Second in command — does the work the Captain doesn't want to and the sergeants can't handle. Also never named. That's how it works here.
• The Limper — The most hated Taken — mean, vindictive, petty, unkillable, and nursing a grudge against the Black Company that outlasts multiple apparent deaths.
• Whisper — A new Taken — a Rebel general who was captured and turned, proving that the Lady's method for making Taken didn't die with the Dominator.

Locations

• Beryl — Where the Black Company starts Book One — a corrupt southern city-state where the Company's contract is running out and everything is about to go wron
• Charm — The Lady's capital — a city built on the premise that if you make a place grand enough, people forget it's run by a dark empress.
• Juniper — A major northern city — the setting for significant Company operations and one of the northern empire's strategic points.
• Khatovar — The Company's legendary origin — the place they've been trying to get back to for four hundred years, a name in the oldest Annals that might be a city
• The Barrowland — Where the Dominator is buried — a cursed mound in the northern wilderness that everyone agrees should stay sealed and nobody can quite stop messing wi
• The Black Company — The last free company of Khatovar — four hundred years old, always for hire, never for sale. They've served tyrants, they've fought gods, and they wri
• The Black Company Camp — Wherever the Company pitches tents — it moves, it's never comfortable, and it smells like soldiers. Home is where the Annals are.
• The Lady's Empire — The northern empire — ruled through sorcery, the Taken, and the understanding that the alternative (the Dominator coming back) is worse.
• The Plain of Fear — Supernatural badlands — a stretch of territory so weird that even the Taken avoid it, populated by living rocks, talking menhirs, and things that don'
• The Rebel — The resistance movement against the Lady — prophets, idealists, and soldiers fighting a dark empress with the conviction that they're the good guys, w
• The Ten Who Were Taken — The Lady's sorcerer-generals — ten of the most powerful wizards alive, bound to her service against their will, hating each other almost as much as th
• The Tower at Charm — The Lady's stronghold — a tower so tall it dominates the skyline and the politics of everything beneath it.

Items

• The Annals — The Black Company's history — centuries of journals kept by a succession of Annalists who wrote down the truth as they saw it, which means the truth w
• The Company Standard — The Black Company's banner — the one physical object that matters as much as the Annals. Where the banner stands, the Company exists. Where it falls,
• The Domination — The era when the Dominator and the Lady ruled together — a period of magical tyranny so total that centuries later, its shadow shapes every political
• True Names — The most dangerous knowledge in the world — know a sorcerer's true name and you own them. The entire power structure of the north runs on this one sec

View full codex at Simulacra.Ink