The Post thalmvaric period of the Dragonscape (20,000PA onwards) is a practically infinitely vast place. With any given expanse of planar often being made up of thousands of Planar that range between hundreds to sometimes hundreds of millions of square miles. With many of these coming to be inhabited by hundreds or thousands of different cultures of drekir, ormer, and mavõtur. So for the average interplanar trader or traveler, its hard to find out what you may be landing onto unless you have already familiarized yourself with a region!

This particularly guy is from the Dalat expanse, a vast series of planar made up of the old Martian, Venus, and Mercury alongside millons of miles of Õndemic planar. It's a varied expanse of planar filled with vast deserts, tepid salt jungles, inhospitable volcanic wastes. But life in many of these planar is defined by the sources of water that build small oasis. Be they frozen underground lakes of ice to dense jungles fed by steaming volcanic springs.
Across this expanse there are easily hundreds if not thousands of tribes, bands, chiefdoms, amongst a few larger city states hidden away.

So interplanar travelers and traders, be they regular visitors or otherwise, might be at a risk of banditry. Either from traveling Pirates hiding out in the deserts and jungles or local bandit dens traveling their local plana living off of banditing, with or without the support of other local groups. Moreover your average interplanar visit is gonna involve at least some degree of walking across the landscapes!

So some interplanar travelers getting held up, robbed, attacked or even kidnapped by some local bandits or pirates, particularly in the Dalat expanse, is not an unreasonable concern. But for each Bandit or Pirate, there are plenty more locals who quite like having visitors come in for trade and so in many of the Dalatãon planar you would likely find some sort of local tribal militia or part time mercenaries for hire to help protect both local and interplanar travelers from bandits.

for a price, uh probably water. Particularly in the desert regions! fresh water is at a premium in these spaces and in many communities of this expanse, water is currency! So much so to where local fighters will hire out as mercenaries for freshwater. Though don't be surprised if a local den of hired warriors also ask for other trade goods in addition to water... it is a trade after all and its your cost of safety or goods.

This guy is in the typical garb of the nomadic Matefir silk cultivators of at least one tribe of one plana. Tanned leather and hide from a variety of the large reptiles, finely woven and colored cloths of the Metefir, whoms caves they protect so as to cultivate the fine cloth of the Metefir silk, and with an artifice goggle to help them see through the whipping sands and dark nights of the open landscapes.
For the "fighting" part they are armed with a locally fabricated Aether musket or "Dachilán" energized aether stored in a sealed glass container is broken simply by a percussive strike and a nail pressed into a touchhole, Firing a projectile.
Though while the musket is straightforward, there may be a wide array of hightech projectiles. From razorwiredbolas that unfurl in flight, wrapping into and cutting opponents to bunker busting armor shots to blow up a heavily armored pirate from the inside out. Or even simply self stabilizing slugs for longer ranged shots. Along with an array of more average projectiles such as shot, balls, flechettes, etc.
So, at least by the average standards of the post thalmvar, a pretty formidable mercenary!

Is 200k Datrams of water that big of an ask when you get this fella covering you and your caravan through the rolling red of their Dalatãon plana?