From publisher blurb:
Why henchmen?
In classic versions of the original fantasy adventure game, heroes led armies. Before the modern trend of best in slot Christmas tree magic items, attuned items, and super-heroic powers, heroes were equal to 10 men, not 1,000.
One of the ways codified in the text that players accumulated power was followers. Automagically arriving after achieving lord, but before then you had other options: hirelings and henchmen. Hirelings were soldiers, troops, and specialists. Henchmen though, they were sidekicks.
Henchmen, much like powerful magic items, were ways that characters gained power. A character wasn’t just himself, it was his partners—his company. It was the very reason Charisma wasn’t a dump statistic.
Henchmen were leveled player characters. They began at level 0. After accumulating some pre-agreed amount of experience (usually 500), they became a leveled class, and could not advance in level beyond the player. Traditionally they took a full share of experience,and applied half of it to their experience total. This was by design, insuring that henchmen never exceeded the level of the player character, and slowing advancement, because of the strength an additional leveled character would allow further success.
What class did the henchmen become? Well, in classic gaming, unique classes based on their background and fictional positioning. What kind of person are they? What are they studying? Then the Dungeon Master with the player’s input would use the tools to create an experience chart and a selection of specialized abilities for the henchmen.
Presented here are ten illustrations of characters available for becoming henchmen. They are the kind of people who can’t succeed on their own, but can be cultivated to be useful and constructive—even powerful members of a company.