The Red Hand of Doom (Dungeons & Dragons Accessories) [Paperback]

I hesitate to call Red Hand of doom an adventure. At 128 pages and taking characters from 5th to 10the level or higher, it is really an entire campaign that will take players many hours and late-night gaming session to complete. The background to the book is one straight out of heroic fantasy novels. The players have come to the Elsir Vale and find that the towns are being threatened by hordes of goblinoid tribes commanded by Azarr Kul, a half dragon, half hobgoblin warrior who has risen up to be a great warrior. Azarr Kul had the tribes under his command turn away from their traditional deities and begin worshipping the great dragon Tiamat, after Kul found a long abandoned temple to her deep in the Wyrmsmoke Mountains. Now, allying his tribes with a powerful blue dragon named Tyrgarun, Azarr Kul plans to bring destruction to the human towns of Elsir Vale.

Red Hand of Doom is an adventure that can fit into any campaign and the writers have made suggestions on where to place it geographically within the Forgotten Realms, GreyHawk and Eberron settings. A number of different hooks are provided to get the players involved into the adventure and soon the party will find themselves having to take on missions that grow more and more difficult including battling bands of goblinoid raiders, spying on Azarr Kul's army, preventing Kul from forming an alliance with a Lich, and finally, taking the fight to the warrior priests of Tiamat deep within their mountain strongholds. While this all sounds daunting, the players also have the opportunity to form alliances with helpful NPCs as well as an army of elves to help aid Elsir Vale.

The book begins with an overview of the various towns of the Elsir Vale and provides notes on the town's military forces, including local militias, governing body, and important NPCs. Over the course of the next five parts in the book the players will begin to battle the forces of Azarr Kul as well as undertake dangerous missions of espionage. Throughout these five parts the book provides mini-maps showing the locations of points of interest and encounter areas. In the back is a large pull-out, double-sided battle map that can be used by the DM and players to play out various battles between the players and humans, and the goblin races. The book also comes with fully detailed appendices with statistics provided for the various NPCs the players can encounter and unique monsters such as the blue dragon Tyrgarun. In addition there are new feats and new magic items.

Red Hand of Doom is an epic adventure that pits the players not only against an overwhelming army of goblinoid tribes, but also against a truly evil, and well-defined leader who is both powerful and crafty. It's a dangerous adventure to be sure. One great thing about the book is that it is not a linear adventure and players won't feel as if they are being led around by the DM. They are free to jump to sections perhaps out of the order and while that could prove deadly, it can still be played that way, although the DM should make every effort to make sure all bases are covered in whatever order...the players will need all the help they can get.

Like most products from Wizards of the Coast, the production values are first rate. The book is a soft-cover, square bound book printed on heavy stock. It features full-color artwork by a host of talented artists including Howard Lyon, Lucio Parillo, Wayne England, Erik Polak, Randy Gallegos, and more. Writers/designers James Jacobs and Richard Baker have created an engrossing storyline filled with well developed characters on both sides. Red Hand of Doom is one of the finest adventures for D&D in a long time!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Red Hand of Doom is the latest mega-adventure for D&D 3.5. It is, in many ways, one of the best adventures ever published for the D&D game. Richard Baker and James Jacobs deserve the highest kudos for this tour de force.

The adventure is designed for four PCs of level 5 or maybe 6. During the course of the campaign, the PCs will advance to level 12+. This is a very fast paced campaign with almost no down-time. To make up for the fast pace, the treasure awarded is very rich. Players will not have time to create magic items, but should run across most everything they need through smart game play. In fact the DM is encouraged to tailor the awards to the PCs so that they get the items they need and desire as the game progresses. This is a very sensible philosophy since the entire adventure (levels 5 - 12) takes place in less than 6 month's time. But rest assured, the progression will not feel unnatural. The players will earn every XP in spades!

RHD represents the best compromise between linearity and free-form adventure. In a sense, it is by necessity a linear plot-line as the enemy army advances towards its final goal of total conquest. Yet the players are free to choose any course of action they see fit, and the designers have anticipated virtually everything that most groups will consider. Random moves by the PCs will usually simply lose time, making things more difficult later, but because of the in-built flexibility of the scenario, the PCs would have to be really determined to totally screw up and lose the whole game. Many bits of advice are offered to the DM along the way about getting players back on track if they seem to be off on a tangent. Ultimately your group could work its way through the entire adventure having seen only perhaps 10-20% of the written encounters, and still come out with a nominal victory. Far better of course, is the group who pays attention to clues and follows up on the obvious leads. Following the natural course of action in RHD leads to easier times ahead when things get really nasty. The real beauty of the writing lies in how all of this is presented to the DM: the consequences of every action are quite clear-cut and you should never be at a loss when deciding what happens next. The authors do a fantastic job of anticipating even the most bizarre of developments.

Diplomacy plays a large role in RHD. This is not unique among D&D adventures. What is unique is the way the diplomatic situations are presented in the written module. Virtually every diplomatic opportunity is treated in detail in the text with guidelines about how to resolve the situation through roleplaying, use of skills or a combination. Situations in which Bluff, Intimidation, and Diplomacy are key abound. The entire adventure could probably be successfully completed by a group of low charisma barbarians, but it would take a lot of ingenuity on the player's parts. Usually the easiest way is the obvious way ... talk things out, be diplomatic, be sensible. Heroic (and diplomatic) game play is strongly encouraged and rewarded in RHD. And you can do all of this with as much or as little actual roleplaying as you and your group like.

The tactical advice for each encounter is also peerless. As a DM you will have lots of complex characters to run in each encounter, but you'll never be at a loss if you follow the tactical guidelines set out in the book. NPCs act according to their nature, from mindless to insidiously smart, and groups of enemy npcs work together to be much stronger than they would otherwise be. Tactical battle maps are provided so that most major encounters can be played out with minis. You can easily improvise battle maps for the rest of the encounters. The stat blocks given are in the new DMG II format. They are included in the appendix at the back of the book, not incorporated in the text. To avoid page flipping you can download the entire stat block text as a pdf from the Wizards web site for free. My only complaint about RHD is that the authors could have been a bit more clear about their sources for the various npc races, classes, prestige classes and monster types. They draw on a variety of sources, such as the Complete series for prestige classes, but in each case enough information is always given to run the npc without having to own the source book.

The layout, artwork and overall production value of the book are all outstanding. You can see much of the artwork in the online gallery at the Wizards website. The book is paperback, but well-bound with glossy pages and 100% color throughout (just like your Monster Manual or Player's Handbook). The maps are beautiful and do a great job of presenting exactly the information you need to run the adventure. RHD is only 126 pages long, but it packs such a huge amount of heroic adventure that it's worth ten times its weight. Another great feature is the Designer's Notes sidebars, which give insight into the design of the encounters. I love this addition, and hope to see more of it in future published adventures from Wizards.

All of this adds up to a great pre-made adventure, but RHD is more than that. Most importantly it is a great example of adventure writing. It sets a new standard for 3.5e design that pretty much any DM can learn from: Believable and sympathetic allies who are easy for the DM to play; an interesting, flexible and engaging environment with lots of room for expansion; villains with lives of their own, who have the potential to be more than one-encounter throw away paper dolls; an example of how to plunge the players into a truly epic heroic scenario and see where they take it; detailed tactics for battles and detailed guidelines for interaction with npcs both friendly and enemy, and opportunities for every class and type of PC to shine. And everything is presented in the most down-to-earth and concise manner. It does a better job of giving the DM what is needed when it's needed and no more than is needed, than any adventure I've ever seen. Red Hand of Doom is top notch, don't miss it!

Maybe you agree with me, maybe you don't but I have to say that although the title is a bit cheesey, Red Hand of Doom is easily the best D&D adventure module I have ever had the pleasure to own. No small feat considering that I have been playing D&D since 1985 and own most, if not all the original Basic D&D classic modules as well as numerous modules from other campaigns such as Dragonlance, Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms. Among those modules there are a few duds, many good ones, a few great ones, and one or two immortal ones. But even compared to the likes of these, Red Hand of Doom is still my new favorite.

The artwork is excellent and although it was usually a category I once considered unimportant to the overall quality of a module, having seen the great artwork in the Red Hand of Doom I am now of the opinion that great art definately adds something to a module even if used as nothing more than flash cards to help set a mood for a certain encounter.

Given the fluid nature of adventure modules in general, they are difficult to write in a clear, concise manor, but Red Hand of Doom excells in this area as well. The overall structure of the module is very clearly laid out so it is, for me at least, actually entertaning to read. Unlike most adventure modules, Red Hand of Doom does not make me feel like I am doing homework while I prepare to run it.

The module contains a flowchart of sorts for the overall arc of the story, which like the rest of the module, is immense. So I consider having a flowchart to help me keep track of important events in an adventure extremely important. I usually run most adventures with nothing more than a flow chart to help organize my thoughts and use the actual module as little more than reference for minor details that always seem to slip my mind during play.

The encounters in the module are also great reference for anybody who wants to write their own adventure modules. While most modules are nothing more than a quick description followed by creature stat boxes, the encounter structure of Red Hand of Doom is FAR more robust. It gives detailed description for each encounter, the NPC's Creatures, or Traps involved as well as a quick overview of how the enocunter "should" play out. If your the type of person whos runs encounters as little more than die rolls and stat comparisons than The Red Hand of Doom is a MUST BUY for you because most encounters also include a brief paragraph or two explaining the motivations and tatics of the PC's enemies, which is probably the single most important bit of information a DM needs in order to run a entertaining and memorable encounter. But for some reason this cirical bit of information is usually missing from the encounter descriptions of most other modules I have ever read.

I could go on and on bout this module, which I am sure will end up on most peoples "greatest modules of all time" list as it ceratinly has on mine. But as my fingers are getting wearey from all the typing I have done thus far, I will give it a rest and simply sum up my opinion of Red Hand of Doom.

It's Great and is easily one of the best modules I have ever read. I am once again looking forward to running this game for my party and I have already incorperated the entire campaign region included in Red Hand of Doom, almsot completely intact, into my home brew campaign World of Erndorth.

Even if you don't plan to run this particular module for your group, I heartily suggest that you get to use as reference for how all adventure modules "should" be written.