It would be really cool to find squatters in the villages you come across in the meadows that you could enlist in your brigade. Maybe they'd be simple NPCs like a mixture of wolves and Haldor. (They might have a few generic lines of dialogue whenever you get close or give them a command, for example "follow" and "stay") and equipping these people would be very fun. Hell, maybe you'd even have to feed them or else they'd end up with 25 health just like you