Preview here —> Battle Brothers Comic <— Preview here
The Comic Breakdown
Miniseries with each volume being 120+ pages consisting of 5-chapters each.
A script for the first introductory volume is finished.
Based upon the bestselling indie-RPG game, Battle Brothers,
https://store.steampowered.com/app/365360/Battle_Brothers/
Setting
Based upon the best-selling indie game, “Battle Brothers.” The world is a dark medieval fantasy with Germanic-styled monsters and themes. In-game (and in-comic), the eponymous “Battle Brothers” is a sellsword company that is trying to make as much money as possible.
Overarching Story
The Battle Brothers, a band of sellswords, venture around taking contracts and facing down the world’s nastiest beings. Each miniseries covers a segment of an overarching story concerning the rise and fall and rise again of the Battle Brothers, as well as the bottom-up perspective and ascent of its main protagonist.
Arc 1 Story Summary (120+ pages)
The first arc introduces us to ‘Scav’, a young boy caught stealing from a battle that the eponymous Battle Brothers sellswords had just won. Avoiding punishment, he is pressed into the company’s ranks as a lowly ‘camp follower’ — a non-fighter who must do menial tasks for the band. He pairs up with Wetlaw, a newer recruit hoping to make a name for himself, and Arno, a short-statured and often confused ratcatcher who is just along for the ride.
After an ambush sees the company captain and Wetlaw stranded in the wilds and surrounded by goblins, the scav ventures out on his own to rescue them — and succeeds. Slowly, he gains more prominence in the company and gets more hands-on experience. Perhaps seeing some potential in him, the captain decides to give the scav a task: to a climb the face of a nearby mountain and light a bonfire high in the sky.
Grouped with Wetlaw and Arno, the scav heads through a forest filled with treacherous men and dangerous creatures. Together, they get to the top and see down the mountain’s opposite slopes a huge goblin city. As it turns out, lighting the bonfire was meant to be a distraction and doing so might be suicide for the three sellswords. Debating what to do next, a giant spider attacks the group from a nearby cave. The arc closes with them lighting the bonfire, fighting the spider, and — at the last moment — seeing the Battle Brothers wipe out the goblins below. Having done his duty, the scav is now setup as a formal member of the fighting contingent of the Battle Brothers, establishing the scene for an action-packed future.
Characters
The comic follows the ‘scav’, a young battlefield scavenger swooped up into the Battle Brothers. Using the scav’s perspective, the comics will explore the band of sellswords through the eyes of someone who starts at the bottom of its hierarchy. Young and somewhat of a hardscrabble loner, the scav perceives humans as an extension of the natural order. He often assigns ‘animalistic depictions’ to people and events. For example, early on he sees himself in the shape of a buzzard, with slow changes of self-perception as events unfold.
Like the one in the video game, the in-comic sellsword company consists of a mishmash of elite fighters, middling mercenaries, and a large roster of degenerates and castoffs just trying to make a coin or two. The company’s heavy-lifters largely exist in the background, seen as distant and dangerous men, often envisioned by the scav as animal predators. More will be learned about them as the scav rises through the ranks.
Themes
In Battle Brothers, every encounter carries a presage of annihilating danger. Life is cheap and monsters — human or otherwise — are plenty. However, despite these grimdark trappings, the world leans heavily into dark comedy as a contrast to the violent absurdities. Though it takes place in a fantasy-world, Battle Brothers is in many regards anti-fantasy, with the sellswords being treated with derision and suspicion instead of lauded for their (admittedly well-paid) heroics.
Mini-Comic
In addition to the Scavenger 5-page element at the top, we have also done a free 14-page comic. You can see that here, from the Battle Brothers website:
http://battlebrothersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Caretaker-A-Battle-Brothers-Comic.pdf