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| You aren't the big one |
Hirelings often operate in their own guilds. There is excellent business to be had in stripping foolish children of their stolen goods supporting new adventurers through lean times and fat equally. Hirelings have often been instrumental in the goings-on in the adventuring community, but what does the wider world think of them?
Social Classless/Levelless
The decision to become a hireling is a puzzling one. Adventuring makes a sort of sense, in that they are often so full of hubris and selfishness even a king would blush, but becoming a handservant to an adventurer? Many parents would balk and mourn their loss if a child announced a future in the Hireling game. There are plenty of practical reasons to join a guild, though, to be fair!
- easy access to dungeon loot
- protection from monsters while looting (optimistic)
- networking in adventuring guilds, which can get you access to wizards and clerics who could resurrect a dead aunt or fireball your ex-manager or other such gifts usually reserved for player characters.
- Fast retirement (if you're clever)
- Very VERY high promotion potential (possession by a player in case of PC death)
All that said, there's a lot of reasons to avoid the job too. Sure, people look sideways at adventurers, but they often have Power. You, a hireling, do not.
Know it or not, the folk who employ you are paying for you to be expendable. Some groups like to be coy about it but make no mistake they will sell your life for theirs to the reaper the first chance they get. Oh, they mourned and buried their last crop of suckers? FAT FUCKIN CHANCE! They probably just tossed them and are looking to save face. Not that they'd lose face anyway, because the thing you have to relinquish if you're committed to the job is your life's inherent value.
When you're a shopkeeper, travelers that freelance as the guard and as dungeon delvers are suckers to be scammed at best and serious liabilities about to ruin your town at worst. You're THOSE guys' lackey. You are regarded as an object, a piece of equipment made to carry other equipment. If you are well loved by the party, you may be treated like cattle but think about how YOU would treat an ass as someone who does not own the one in front of you
The wider world forgets your name, and you will be quickly sealed inside the suicidal and foolhardy adventuring networks should you choose this path. You can maybe get away with one or two delves to make ends meet in desperation, but it is expected and advised you bury that part of your employment history deep.
The average person will scoff at the way you have thrown your safety and family aside, clerics and priests from back home will assume you are rife with sin, taverns will blame you for any brawls that break out, the very worst of adventuring stereotypes will be applied to you tenfold! You are worse than a pariah, you are a parasite supping on a parasite. If you choose to make this your regular work, you are foolish and overconfident, though filled with a self-loathing and "humility" that normal adventuring types do not possess. Does this make you better or worse?
Adventurers long ago demanded Hirelings organize themselves, as they are the ones holding the check and they are utterly obsessed with orderly lists of objects to purchase (Especially 3rd and a half generation adventurers). Hirelings complied, and since then the profession has become obsessed with competition, reputation and renown. This is equal parts competing to join the most successful and safe Adventuring Parties while also pining after the social life they had before they took up the job.
These collections of Hirelings are organized as guilds, with membership requiring a payment of dues and an adherence to Guild Law. For GMs, this is just a cute way to organize like-minded or similarly useful Hirelings but could also serve as a jumping off point for faction and domain play. I would imagine them as being extremely niche and unlikely to ever impact actual politics or amount to anything city-shaping. It's like entering faction play with tribes of goblins, constantly squabbling and in-fighting and preventing each other from ever getting the power and notoriety with normal people that they crave. Of course, Hirelings often try to leverage their guild status and rank in wider society to try and buy back some of that life they have since abandoned. This doesn't work, often comedically.