The Companies of the Battleborn are self-governing bands of mercenaries that operate across the known world, serving various purposes and aims. The focus of a given Company varies widely with the group in question, and Companies specialize in everything from body-guarding to dungeon-crawling to construction.
There are over half-a-hundred known Companies, ranging in renown and longevity. As there are no formal prerequisites for forming a new Company except the Battleborns' own sense of honor and self-respect, some Companies have withstood centuries of upheaval, while many splinter into fragment-Companies at the first signs of internal strife.
There are a dozen widely-known Companies that are generally regarded as the most powerful, either for reasons of longevity, or military or financial success. Though this is not an exclusive list of the original fourteen (as the Silver and Blood companies have since disbanded), but all of these dozen fought on the East Continent. They are (in descending order of antiquity):