One of the few Fey in this book that I had heard of before, the
Redcap is a loveable little murderer.
The image in the book is simple but evocative. At first glance the Redcap just looks like a gnome, but then the eye is drawn to the claws, the heavy iron boots, and the face twisted in evil. It’s a solid effort, full of character and easy on the eyes.
The Fey seem divided into ‘true’ races, like the Darklings, which appear to breed and have a culture, and the ‘summoned’ races, like the Meenlock, who come into being in response to great evil and then act as predators for a time. The Redcap falls solidly into the latter camp; when murder is committed near a crossing to the Feywild, or in the Feywild itself, then ‘one or more’ little red mushrooms appear. Come the next moonshine, they will pop up as little gnomes, fully equipped and ready to slay. There are a few intriguing elements to this account of their spawning, if you will. The Redcaps have a connection to the individual whose murderous acts brought them about; they tend to either slay that person, or work for them, provided that they can provide new victims. This makes for a really interesting idea - if the players find a young boy, say, being chased by Redcaps, does that make him a victim - or a suspect? You can also justify any number of Redcaps appearing in your adventure, as the description is vague, and so these guys can serve as the BBEG’s muscle in a Fey themed adventure, while the Korreds and Quicklings and whatnot serve other roles in the story. Hags, for example, have 2d4+2 Redcaps listed as ‘brute’ minions.
Redcaps can serve as ‘things to meet in the Feywild’, of course - a group of them with nearly-dry hats will cheerfully attack any group of players, especially since once the blood in their hat dries fully then the Redcap will vanish. However, they also let you use them as a murder mystery element; if the players know that Murder Most Foul was done on the moor two days ago, and furthermore saw the Redcap mushrooms, will they choose to let them ‘bloom’ in order to follow the Redcap and see who it seeks out? Between this and all the other Fey creatures, you can probably get a surprisingly robust sandbox campaign by just stuffing all their inbuilt plots into a single small town and its environs.
The Redcap is CR 3 and has a very straightforward statblock, although it uses a fair number of words to indicate how it works. The
Iron Boots and
Outsize Strength entries basically just clarify that it is small sized, can’t hide, and gets to use a whopping great sickle. That sickle - that
wicked sickle - lets it attack three times a turn, doing only slightly more damage than the CR 1 Quickling (see above for commentary on how odd the Quickling’s CR is). It also gets a very fun
Ironbound Pursuit ability, which as an action lets the Redcap move up to its speed and boot someone in the shins - forcing a dex save or take 3d10+4 damage and go prone. The save DC isn’t that hard, but Dex is also often quite a difficult save for the frontline characters - Paladins are all born with Dex 8, it seems - and so this might work surprisingly well. It’s a nasty trick especially in groups, as it then lets another Redcap slice and dice the character on the ground with advantage. Otherwise, the Redcap has, you know, armour and hit points and darkvision and whatnot. It’s a pretty simple statblock, with the
Ironbound Pursuit being their distinguishing feature.
I’m quite fond of these guys. They will serve admirably as the bread & butter of a Fey themed adventure, being simple but dangerous brutes, and they are easy to integrate into a plot.
