/pic517827.jpg "The cover of Red Hand of Doom for 3.5E D&D")
Remixing Red Hand of Doom
This post is part of a series. Read the next post here!
Table of Contents
Face fire, steel, and scales as the Red Hand of Doom descends on the valley!
The dry hilltops danced with fire. There, thousands of warriors had gathered around great bonfires - hobgoblin soldiers in armor dyed scarlet, bugbear berserkers, goblin worg riders and orcish marauders. “We are the Kulkor Zhul! We are the People of the Dragon! Uighulth na Hargai!” they shouted, and the hills shook with the thunder of their voices as the High Wyrmlord climbed to the Place of Speaking.
On the hundredth step, he stopped and turned to face the waiting warriors. He was tall and strong, the greatest of the hobgoblin chieftains, but sharp blue scales gleamed along his shoulders and jutting horns swept back from his head. “I am Azarr Kul, Son of the Dragon!” he cried, “Hear me, warriors of the Khulkor Zhul! No more will we waste our blood fighting each other. Under the banners of the Red Hand we march to victory and conquest! Today we march to war!”
The burning hills were too small to hold the roar the Khulkor Zhul gave in answer to their warlord’s call.
Why Red Hand of Doom
Red Hand of Doom presents a high-octane war with iconic setpiece moments and a classic villain. Assassinate enemy commanders, sabotage secret weapons, and fight on the front line of massive battles! Confronted with the relentless advance of Azarr Kul’s horde, heroes must undertake vital missions to influence the outcome of the war. Can you shatter the armies of the enemy, or will Azarr Kul rain destruction upon the valley?
Red Hand of Doom is considered one of the best modules from D&D 3E and has maintained an steady pace of online discussion as new GMs look to run it. There are a huge number of really excellent resources already available. Especially useful for me were Saintheart’s 3.5 Red Hand of Doom Handbook, the RHoD subreddit, and Matt Colville’s overview.
What happens in RHoD
Save some time and go watch this.
Red Hand of Doom features High Wyrmlord Azarr Kul, a cleric of the evil dragon goddess Tiamat, and his army’s 35 day march to conquer the Elsir Vale. The horde is too numerous to combat directly, so the PCs race around the map striking key enemy forces, rallying allies, disrupting enemy alliances, wrecking Azarr Kul’s many plans, and finally leading the defense of the city of Brindol in a climactic clash.
The adventure is advertised to take characters from levels 6 to 12, but the designers have stated it targets levels 5 to 11. As I have (and probably you will) run the adventure in a system other than D&D 3E, this distinction won’t be too important; I personally ran both of my campaigns from levels 5 through 10.
Part 1: The Witchwood
The adventurers are ambushed by hobgoblin raiders as they arrive at the small town of Drellin’s Ferry. At the request of the townsfolk, they explore the Witchwood to find Wyrmlord Koth’s fort. Here they learn of the vast army that will immenently descend on the valley, and obtain an awesome map that details all of the timelines and plans of the enemy. They will likely fight a battle against the green dragon Ozyrrendion atop Skull Gorge Bridge before returning to Drellin’s Ferry and convincing the townsfolk to flee.
Part 2: The Ruins of Rhest
Clearing roadblocks along the northern roads, the heroes will meet the reclusive giant-owl-riding elves of the Blackfens and learn about the sinister hatcheries at the sunken ruins of Rhest. There the heroes will fight Wyrmlord Saarvith as he rides the black dragon Regiarix to prevent the creation of more foul dragonspawn. If they play well, they can ally with the elves and gain their assistance in the siege of Brindol.
Part 3: The Ghostlord’s Tower
At Rhest, the heroes find the phylactery of the Ghostlord, a sinister druid-lich of the Thornwaste who has been coerced into aiding the Red Hand. The adventurers must travel to his lair to defeat his jailer Wyrmlord Ulwai and return the phylactery so that the Ghostlord can no longer be blackmailed by Azarr Kul.
Part 4: The Enemy at the Gates
The Red Hand army has arrived at the walled city of Brindol. This battle will determine whether the valley is saved or razed. In an epic nighttime siege, the heroes will sally out to defeat giants bombarding the walls, hold off waves of enemies as the streets run red with blood, fight the red dragon Abithriax as she sets the city ablaze, track down an elite sniper picking off the city’s commanders, and duel with Wyrmlord Kharn as he leads a concluding assault to crush the remaining defenders. After the battle, the heroes tally up their actions over the whole campaign (enemy commanders killed, allies gained, enemy alliances broken, etc.). This determines whether the siege of Brindol ends in a gory defeat or stalwart victory.
Part 5: The Fane of Tiamat
Azarr Kul and his high priests seek infernal aid from their goddess at the Fane of Tiamat in the Wyrmsmoke mountains. If the battle of Brindol was a human victory, he seeks to summon reinforcements to get his revenge on the valley. If the battle of Brindol was the human defeat, this is the heroes last chance to cut off the head of the snake. The heroes raid the temple, defeating the blue dragon Tyrgarun, High Wyrmlord Azarr Kul, and the aspect of Tiamat in a final battle.
Why RHoD is great
RHoD sends the PCs on a really classic adventure — defeat an invading hobgoblin army! It centers the players as heroes against Tiamat, an iconic D&D villain, and serves up nonstop setpieces:
- A massive war: It’s on everyone’s bucket list — who doesn’t want to be a lone hero standing against an army!!
- Tons of epic dragon battles: The green dragon Ozyrrandion atop Skull Gorge Bridge where a river rages in the chasm far below. Running across the flooded city of Rhest as Saarvith rains down arrows from the back of a black dragon. The red dragon Abithriax as sets fire to the rooftops of Brindol.
- A shocking reveal: Assaulting Vraath Keep and discovering the horrifying scale of the imminent invasion. In both of my games, it has been a jaw-dropping moment as the enormity of the enemy the heroes will be facing for the next five levels comes into view.
- OWL RIDING wild elves: The Tiri Kitor elves of the Blackfens ride on giant owls! And if they really like you, they’ll loan you some!
- A DRUID LICH: The Ghostlord is clearly a bad guy, but also very dangerous. You get a classic scene where the PCs must negotiate with a powerful evil to convince them to sit this one out.
- A huge fantasy siege battle: An escalating series of back-to-back combats during the Battle of Brindol against waves of enemies, hill giants, a red dragon, and Wyrmlord Kharn in a juggernaut nighttime siege (it’s like Helm’s Deep but with dragons).
- THE ASPECT OF TIAMAT: Defeating Azarr Kul and his dragon goddess deep in the bowels of an ancient temple complex.
- Classic locales: Travelling and fighting through plains, forests, swamps, and mountains keeps the environment fresh and exciting as the heroes race across the land!
And there’s innovative design here as well. To determine the result of the Battle of Brindol, RHoD uses “Victory Points”, which are an abstract representation of the comparative advantage between the two sides and are influenced by all of the heroes actions. This is really satisfying for the players, who get to re-live their past adventures and see that everything they’ve done across the whole campaign mattered and had an impact. This moment at the end of the Battle of Brindol has always been the highlight of the campaign: the players are high on victory and on the edge of their seat as the points are tallied.
There are a whole list of additional great things that each deserve their own posts: “drop in” scenes that bring the warzone alive, a system of roleplaying and alliances with the Tiri Kitor elves, multiple pages of contingencies in case the PCs do the unexpected, and “Designers’ Notes” sideboxes. All of this combines to turn Red Hand of Doom into a rollercoaster that hurtles towards a really satisfying conclusion.
The Remix
This series of posts aims to take Red Hand of Doom and expand it into a sandbox open-world action movie: dialing the setpiece moments up to 11, cutting the filler content, adding new locations and enemies, making the villains narratively richer, and increasing player options. The core themes, plot, and genre will remain the same, but there will be even more variety in the places to go and problems to solve.