FKR Mercator (or Sword & Sorcery) Character Generator

Inspired by this post, I decided to apply the same treatment to Paul Elliott's Mercator. If you don't know about it, it's a great supplement for Classic Traveller to play in pseudo-historical ancient Rome. And it turns out it's perfect for Sword & Sorcery. I plan on running a game based on the Savage Swords of Conan old black & white comics, because they are awesome.

CHARACTER GENERATION

Name your character. You get 12 HP. +2 HP each time you get the "Tough" trait.
If you don't use HP, characters have 4 Hits, +1 each time you get the "Tough" trait.

Attributes (d6)
1 Strong
2 Dextrous
3 Tough
4 Smart
5 Educated
6 Roll twice, ignore and re-roll any more 6s

Career & Rank (d8 + d6) - Note: you are 18 + (4*Rank) y.o. Barbarians are 14 + (4*Rank) y.o.
1 Legion
    1 Tesserarius
    2 Signifer
    3 Optio
    4 Centurion
    5 Princeps
    6 Primus Pilum

2 Auxiliary
    1-2 Tesserarius
    3 Signifier
    4 Optio
    5 Centurion
    6 Prefect

3 Navy
    1 Tesserarius
    2 Signifer
    3 Optio
    4 Centurion
    5 Captain
    6 Navarchus

4 Merchants
    1-2 4th Officer
    3 3rd Officer
    4 2nd Officer
    5 1st Officer
    6 Captain

5 Noble
    1-2 Tribune
    3 Quaestor
    4 Praetor
    5 Legate
    6 Proconsul

6 Rogue (no ranks, though you still use that d6 for skills and age)

7 Barbarian
    1-5 Warrior
    6 Chief

8 Other (no ranks, though you still use that d6 for skills and age)

Retirement Pay (Legion, Auxiliary, Navy and Noble Only, others get a flat 10 denarii)
(Your Rank times 10)+20 is the chance you get a yearly retirement pay. Pay is 1d10*10 denarii.
Nobles always get 1d10*100 denarii.

Skills
Roll as many skills as you have Rank. If you get a skill twice or more, it improves beyond the professional level. Rogues and Others roll a d6 to see how many skill rolls they get. If you don't know Traveller, skill-1 is professional, skill-2 and beyond is expert. It is also assumed that player-characters have skill-0 (no "untrained penalty", adventurers have some basic know-how) in any weapon and basic skills required for the campaign setting (probably survival-0 for our purposes). Blade Cbt should be whichever melee weapon you get (see next step), Bow Cbt can be Sling or Bow. If you get an attribute, make up a fitting superlative or added adjective (great strength, cat-like, etc.)

Legion (all Legionnaires get Sword-1)
1 Gambling
2 Brawling
3 Teamster
4 Survival
5 Blade Cbt
6 Recon
7 Artillery
8 Carpentry
9 Stonemason
10 Tactics
11 Siege Cbt
12 Medical
13 Leader
14 Tactics
15 Combat Eng
16 Admin
17 Strong
18 Dextrous
19 Tough
20 Smart

Auxiliary (all Auxiliaries get Spear-1)
1 Gambling
2 Brawling
3 Teamster
4 Survival
5 Blade Cbt
6 Recon
7 Riding
8 Tactics
9 Bow Cbt
10 Medical
11 Combat Eng
12 Leader
13 Admin
14 Strong
15 Dextrous
16 Tough
17 Smart
18-20 Re-roll

Navy (Navy Captains get Navigation-1)
1 Gambling
2 Brawling
3 Carousing
4 Blade Cbt
5 Bow Cbt
6 Small Craft
7 Artillery
8 Pilot
9 Carpentry
10 Navigation
11 Ship Tactics
12 Medical
13 Streetwise
14 Admin
15 Strong
16 Dextrous
17 Tough
18-20 Re-roll

Merchants (Merchant 1st Officers get Pilot-1, Captains get Navigation-1)
1 Blade Cbt
2 Bribery
3 Small Craft
4 Steward
5 Carpentry
6 Archery
7 Streetwise
8 Navigation
9 Pilot
10 Medical
11 Admin
12 Strong
13 Dextrous
14 Tough
15-20 Re-roll

Noble
1 Carousing
2 Brawling
3 Bow Cbt
4 Blade Cbt
5 Hunting
6 Riding
7 Bribery
8 Pilot
9 Small Craft
10 Navigation
11 Combat Eng
12 Leader
13 Medical
14 Tactics
15 Admin
16 Liaison
17 Smart
18 Strong
19 Dextrous
20 Learned

Rogue (all Rogues get Streetwise-1)
1 Brawling
2 Carousing
3 Blade Cbt
4 Recruiting
5 Riding
6 Gambling
7 Streetwise
8 Forgery
9 Bribery
10 Liaison
11 Tactics
12 Medical
13 Teamster
14 Leader
15 Strong
16 Dextrous
17 Tough
18 Smart
19-20 Re-roll

Barbarian (all Barbarians get Blade Cbt-1, Barbarian Chiefs get Leader-1)
1 Carousing
2 Brawling
3 Blade Cbt
4 Bow Cbt
5 Survival
6 Riding
7 Recon
8 Hunting
9 Medical
10 Interrogation
11 Tactics
12 Leader
13 Strong
14 Dextrous
15 Tough
16-20 Re-roll

Other
1 Teamster
2 Gambling
3 Carouse
4 Brawling
5 Bribery
6 Small Craft
7 Blacksmith
8 Carpentry
9 Admin
10 Steward
11 Artisan
12 Medical
13 Streetwise
14 Strong
15 Dextrous
16 Tough
17 Smart
18 Learned
19-20 Re-roll

Aging
If your character is 34 or older, age might have started to take its toil on their body.
Roll once if 34, twice if 38, thrice if 42.

1-3 no change
4 get weaker*
5 get clumsier*
6 get sickier*
*: first you lose the bonus, then you get negative traits if you get below average.

Equipment
All the following weapons deal 2d6 damage (with HP) or 2 Hits
Unarmed attacks or Improvised weapons deal 1d6 damage (with HP) or 1 Hit

Melee Weapon
1 Dagger
2 Shortsword
3 Sword
4 Javelin
5 Spear
6 Cudgel

Ranged Weapon
1-4 None
5 Sling
6 Bow

Armor
Roll 1d6+Rank. If you roll 7 or more, you also start with armor.

1-2 Leather (7+ to Hit or grant an extra Hit)
3 Chainmail (8+ to Hit or grant 2 extra Hits)
4 Scale (8+ to Hit or grant 2 extra Hits)
5 Segmentata (9+ to Hit or grant 3 extra Hits)
6 Shield (harder to Hit by 1 pip or grant an extra Hit) & re-roll, on another 6 that's all you get

(Optional) Chance of Death
I can hear some of you in the back lamenting that it's not really Traveller if you can't die in CharGen. So here you go: roll 2d6 for every Rank/4 years Term. On a roll of 4 or less, you died.

That's it. Here are some extra rules if you don't have you own and/or aren't familiar with Traveller.

Saving Throws
Roll 2d6, with a target of 7+ if skilled, 9+ if not. Adjust TN as needed for special circumstances.

Surprise (this one is straight out of Traveller and I love it)
When an encounter occurs, roll 1d6 for each side. Add 1 if someone has the Leader/Recon/Tactics skill (cumulative). If one side beats the other by a margin of 3+, they can choose to evade the encounter altogether, or, if they attack, they do so with surprise. Which, unlike OD&D, lasts until it is lost, which I interpret as "until someone makes a mistake" like failing to cut someone's throat.

Violence
If you want to use HP and attack rolls, roll 2d6 to hurt someone with an appropriate TN (see above). Anyone who reaches 0 HP is dead. Most people or beasts who lost half or more HP are badly wounded and may die if their injuries are not taken care of. Player-characters can tough it out. NPCs should get between 1d6 and 3d6 HP, same for beasts. Anything beyond 12 HP won't die in one hit so keep that for very dangerous foes or big animals.

Or, you can go the Any Planet Is Earth way. Don't roll to-hit or damage. People can take about 4 Hits. Maybe less for nameless NPCs (especially non-fighters), maybe more for some particularly dangerous people. Attacks hit "automatically", describe it like you would a real fight, with fatigue, light wounds and a decisive final blow. I've explained why I enjoy this approach in this post.

Or, you can ditch HP and Hits altogether and only go with descriptive wounds and injuries. They did that in the 70s and some of the old guard as well as other gamers still do, it works out just fine.

Commerce, Sailing & Other Logistics Details
Mercator is a good starting point, though the wiser move would be to read up on how the stuff you want to use in game actually worked historically. The more you know, the more realistic a simulation of a world you can offer to your table. Otherwise, you can also just pretend you know just a bit more than they do and it should be fine.