Concept: Redcap Captain of the Guard


by AJSolis@aol.com

Fear is a tool, like any other. It can be used to help or to harm, to create or to destroy. As a redcap, fear is your tool. And what do you do with it? You protect the Dreaming, that’s what.

You are the captain of the guard of the local freehold, and it is your job, no duty, to mold the guardsmen or women into the most fearsome force possible. That is why they leave training exhausted, bloody and sweaty. That is why they must fear you more than anything else, and that they do. When you are done with them they are the finest champions of the Dreaming possible, and the stuff of nightmares. Fear is a tool, one you know well, and one your guard knows as well.

It doesn’t matter what kith your guard is, troll or sidhe or pooka, or even kinain. They will be the best, and when they go down they will go down hard and their enemies with them. You love each and everyone of them, and they respect you for it. You keep them alive and they know it. They would follow you into the very mouth of the Nightmare Lands and without hesitation. They know there is nothing they could face that is worse than you.


Story ideas: There are certainly enough possibilites with a redcap guard captain. What if the old ruler dies and the new ruler doesn’t trust the redcap?

What if the PCs join or know someone being trained for the guard? Tough love is an understatement for what they would go through. What does not kill you after all. Healing cantrips would probably be very handy.

Do the redcaps single out the freehold for attack because of the "tame redcap?" Will the guardsman decide he (or she) is more liability than asset?

What if the captain changes courts? After all, the guard ispractically a cult of personality.

And what of the social consequences of having a redcap guard captain? Mistrust and fear can be used against the freehold just as it can be used for it. Will their be rumours that the ruler is unseelie because of his captain? Sluagh might start a rumour campaign against the freehold. Although competent, the redcap is ill suited to enemies he cannot fight.

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