I'm currently preparing a campaign for an old school tabletop game called "Lamentations of the Flame Princess", for those of you who are at all into tabletop role playing I highly suggest it, the campaign is set in the early 17th century with the campaign beginning 1619 in , specifically Europe but there may also be some vignettes throughout the rest of the world. Because the setting is not some made up pseudo-medieval continent with pseudo-English kingdoms but an actual place in a fairly well documented part of history I'm looking for some resources on making the campaign more authentic, and more importantly make it feel more alive by having historically notable events occur around the Player Characters. To that end I'm looking for resources that I can turn to in order to have a stronger familiarity with the setting I'm placing my players in to. I'm looking specifically for three things...

Resources covering key political, military, and cultural events in specific regions Books/academic papers ideally but documentaries, web articles or anything that could provide references and context in terms of major world events and how they would influence the lives of a traveling band of mercenaries... Also how would I justify a traveling band of 4-6 mercenaries in 1619? Was that something that even happened, could happen?

Resources dealing with the daily life of a person Things to read up on lower, middle and upper class life during the time period particularly with respect to how the Thirty Years War affected the lives of most people. How the witch hunts and invasions would have driven people to emigrate, where, and the general economic landscape of the time.

And this one may not be quite within the purview of this board but I have no idea where to ask it

powerful yet secretive organizations, real or otherwise, that existed during the time period Just some flavor for antagonists, no need for this to be 100% historically accurate.