An accoutrement maker is the supplier or maker of military clothing and accessories. This is traditionally distinct from an armorer or weaponsmith, but that may depend a bit upon era, government, and budget. In the modern day, they would have a government contract, which often goes the lowest bidder (and all that implies). In previous eras, they probably had a monopoly by royal decree, that may have been awarded for reasons of personal friendship or expedience of alliance to the King (and therefore not necessarily less prone to corner-cutting and cost-saving measures).
If you want to get real technical, accoutrements are the non-weapon, non-uniform, equipment of service personnel, such as soldiers, police, sailors, emergency crews and first responders. So accoutrements would be things like backpacks, handcuffs, first aid kits, lanyards, gas masks, entrenching tools, whistles, toolbelts, etc., possibly even helmets and ballistic vests, though again that gets into armorer territory.
Game and Story Use
- Could be an explanation of a particular NPCs income or authority. In the middle ages or fantasy genre, some noble house may have the exclusive right to provide the spurs to the King's cavalry, or make the royal standards, or the drums for the battlefield musicians, or brew the alchemical healing potions, or whatever. This conveys an amount of political power, and wealth, but also an important responsibility in the build up to war.
- Note that most units in much of history were raised by peasant levee, with non-standard equipment as a result. So this probably makes the accoutrement merchant or royal monopoly more impactful on elite troops, such as the royal guard or professional mercenary companies.
- It's thus feasible that this supplier may have friends in those organizations, and have some sway in things should there be a power struggle or civil war.
- It also likely means there'll be a fair amount of animosity from the old grognards, as most of the soldiers I've known have loved to gripe (justifiably) about the bad food, poor equipment, or another issue of the day that's making their lives difficult. Doubly so in the case of an incompetent accoutrement maker providing substandard equipment. Your standard SNAFU.
- A war effort might be impeded if the accoutrement maker is up to some shenanigans, or if an important shipment of some necessary piece of kit is sabotaged or delayed.
- It could even be the opportunity for a mission by the PCs to capture, sabotage, or rescue an important cargo before it can be deployed to an army.
- Or a heist scenario for a game with less moral clarity might involve the PCs stealing such a shipment from an unsuspecting government warehouse or convoy, and selling it for profit in an unrelated war zone somewhere else.
