[Sacredsouless]

Was hoping someone could point out which book has this, if its been included at all. I see mention of it in Picador's mini-story in the Runners Companion (PG 178, last paragraph before Netcat's mini-story), but I can't find any mention on the boards. I admit that I have the 6th world Almanac and War!, but I haven't had time to go through them as yet. I'm pretty curious as I am in the process of drawing up an ex-merc for a character (medic believe it or not) and I would like to know more about the Shadowrun merc culture so I can keep the character "real". Any help would be appreciated.

[Makki]

War! has a lot of info about Mercs.

[Sacredsouless]

War! has a lot of info about Mercs.

Thanks for the help, I'll make sure to look there first.

[Longshot23]

The old sourcebook Fields of Fire contains an essay by Matador (Picador's former mentor etc) all about mercs. Nothing so clear-cut as a Merc's Charter, but well worth the read at least.

[Mirikon]

And I think there was an update by Picador in one of the SOTA books. I think SOTA 2064? Might be useful info there.

[Crimsondude]

 SOTA 2063, actually.

[CanRay]

Wonder if they ever tried to Unionize.

"What if they had a war, and it was picketed?"

[Crimsondude]

Sort of. There's an unofficial association of all mercs called The League, but that's more of a mutual brotherhood thing with its own unspoken mercs-only version of the Geneva Conventions and such.

That said, it might work with long-term employees of the large firms like MET2000 and Tsunami. However, it doesn't really work with lone characters or even smaller units when they are employed on freelancer independent contractor agreements like IRL. That's the funny thing actually. Fields of Fire predicted the 21st century mercenary culture pretty accurately.

[CanRay]

Actually, IIRC, the Corporate Court's charter has some pretty big items in it about Union Busting, I was making a joke, as usual.

But those are some pretty good points.  "Unspoken Codes" are in a lot of occupations and workplaces, especially in places where you can be enemies one day, and allies the next.

[WSN0W]

Runner's Haven in the Hong Kong section has a bit of merc talk too with the Sister island. Combat Inc. plays a big role in that. Doesn't really go into charter and the nitty gritty, but there is some info there.

War! as mentioned has some good stuff in it too.

[Crimsondude]

Yeah. Combat, Inc. used to be based in Hong Kong. Then Wuxing chased them off about twelve years ago in game years. Now they're in Macao, and the third or fourth largest merc corp.