What does it really mean to be an adventurer?

I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are adventurers, mercenaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and adventurers are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of the gods nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of the kingdom has been caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed what they were.

>>52452277
I have always looked at adventurers as individuals who are dissatisfied with their lives but are unable to better themselves either due to societal constraints or their own ineptitude. Therefore they leave their former lives dreaming of greater success through unconventional means.

>>52452277
A glorify scout that can kill an empire.

>>52452277
It means you are a mixture of a scout, a mercenary, a merchant, a thief, an explorer, a warrior, a craftsman, and a fucking hobo.

To rob your enemies, to see their loot divided amongst you, and to hear the lamentations of their accountants.

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>>52452277
To risk great bodily, spiritual and mental harm for fortune, fame and power.

The origins, reasons and means change, but this is always so.

they are Scavengers, Trespassers, Adventurers, Loners, Killers, Explorers and Robbers

>>52452277
It means you go on adventures.

Like mercenaries for peasants.
Hobos who wander through town and will do practically any job that needs doing, so long as it's not too far out of their expertise and the price is right.
When they're not working, whichever town they happen to be walking through has to bear the full brunt of their eccentricities, typically resulting in a burning building or some unspeakably dirty deeds done with sheep.

>>52452277
go to monster filled holes in the ground for material wealth

Read a damn dictionary.

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>>52454002

You're a grave robbing, murdering, thieving, mercenary, who may have a vigilante streak.

>>52452277
Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine-
You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine.
The throne that I won by blood and sweat, by Crom, I will not sell
For promise of valleys filled with gold, or threat of the Halls of Hell!

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,
The people scattered gold-dust before my horse's feet;
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.

What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king!

>>52452277
Yes

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Murderhobos. People who, for various reasons, have left or been forced out of their civilian lives and at this point are so institutionalized to violence they can never go back.

How can you settle down and raise a family after what you did as an adventurer?

How can you ever be satisfied teaching recruits how to spear-fight for five gold a day after dragging a chest of jewels out of the hoard of a dragon that almost bit you in half?

Even if you kept all your gold and retired filthy rich, how can you sit there and hobnob with other rich people all day every day when this time last year a hobgoblin had you on the ground and was about to push a knife through the visor of your helmet?

In other words, yeah, mercenaries basically. Black Company has a lot of good descriptions of the kind of people who become adventurers. There's nothing left for them back home and they wouldn't know how to go back to civilian life if they wanted to.

>>52452277
To explore and see new sights even if it means seeing a rock half way across the world