The section on hirelings in the Blueholme rulebook p51-52 confounds several types of hirelings.

* Adventurer Hirelings: the first 2 paragraphs refer to adventurers hired by the party for a specific dungeon or other dangerous expedition. Low level PCs might want to hire these guys since henchmen might be out of reach. Adventurer hirelings don't require maintenance, just their fee and/or treasure share.

* Specialists: the rest of page 51 refers to skilled NPCs hired as employees for money. These generally will not go on dungeon expeditions. Check the maintenance page for update payment costs.

* Mercenaries: soldiers who fight for money are detailed on page 52. Check the maintenance page for the updated costs for paying mercenaries. Various monsters such as orcs, goblins or lizardmen might be recruited on adventures to serve as mercenaries. Likewise, bandits, berserkers and thieves might join a character's entourage and should be paid/maintained at a rate like mercenaries.

Treasure Shares: Adventurer hirelings will usually negotiate for an equal share of the treasure, since they will be usually a similar level the players. That can be adjusted if they are much higher or lower in level. Mercenaries are trickier. Their pay does not include going into dungeons or fighting monsters like dragons, trolls undead or facing powerful magic. They will demand a treasure share if used for these purposes. As a rule of thumb, take the average party level times 2 and that is how many HD of mercenaries should get a full share. So, if the party is average of third level, every 6 level-1 mercenaries would get 1 share.

Experience Points: While the Judge need not keep track of XP for hirelings, as most are only temporary parts of the party, if an ongoing relationship develops, he may want to track their progress. Adventurer Hirelings gain full XP for the session award, and for their treasure share. Specialists generally don't keep track of XP, as they are non-adventurers (although you might treat Sailors and Sailor Captains as mercenaries if appropriate). Mercenaries get 25xp per level for each session they participate in active, dangerous adventure, and they get 25% of the GP value in XP for any treasure (but not maintenance/salary) they receive as a share.