My first successful adventurer was accompanied by a peasant whom i recruited right after my first quest. He was fat, not very muscular,but very tall.
I always recruited the maximum number of followers, and they always died. This guy survived. Everything, including dragon fire and a scratch to the heart. Indeed, I retired with him, after all the megabeasts were slain by my merry, everchanging party.
This is not the cause he was awesome. He was awesome because he cut night cratures in half. Not one time, but six times. I was playing a Swordswoman, reached legendary in almost all combat skills and used an *iron longsword*, but I couldn't chop off the lower bodies of the night creatures in this world when I tried, and he did it with a bronze knife.
One time, during an ambush, he charged at two goblins wearing shields and meele weapons, and disemboweled them in two turns. Just ran them over, slashed their lower bodies and they died. I nicknamed him "Auswaider", since it kept happening. The first time i saw a severed gut in this game? It belonged to a troll he cut up singlehanded. When we retired, I searched for him in the legends mode, and found out that he had about thirty sentient kills. I myself had 60, maybe, plus megabeasts.
While the megabests lie slain in this world, and man can walk the daylight without fear, there was still a ridicolous amount of NCs and their grooms in this world. I think, one of this days, I wil make a copy of this save. Then i will start a dwarf fortress and produce a masterwork short sword and shield. Then my dwarves will dig into the salitre circus where Doom awaits, and leave a staircase to the surface, storing the weapon and the shield in a workshop near the entrance.
Then Whatever-her-name-was the Radiance of Laughter will leave her home, and take the Auswaider with her. They will kill the NCs that are remaining under the sky, and then they will descend. Descend and not return, for hell is other people... people with a (bronze slicing knife) and nothing to lose but a <loincloth>.