Imagine you’re a Redbrand ruffian named Farmer, guarding captives in the holding cells below Tresendar Manor. You’re half-way through your dinner of salted pork and apples, wondering what you’re doing with your life when you go for a pull of your waterskin and find it empty. That means a trip to the cistern. Dammit.

Drawing a deep, steadying breath to steel your nerves for a trek through the adjacent crypt, you take a torch from one of the wall sconces of the holding cell chamber, then tiptoe into the crypt, quietly pulling the door to the chamber shut behind you. The door has barely closed when the shapes of the crypt’s guardians emerge from the shadows and descend upon you with swords drawn. Nightmare fuel, in the form of password protected skeletons, stand sentry in the crypt. And only when you hear their rattling bones do you realize you left your greasy red cloak in the holding cells! They think you’re an intruder!

“Gah!” you scream. The password. WHAT’S THE PASSWORD you think frantically to yourself as the restless dead surround you, raising their swords above their heads. “KLAATU BARADA N…NECKTIE! NECTAR! NICKEL! NOODLE!” you scream, each word more shrill than the last.

Behind you, the door to the holding cell chamber is thrown open, flooding the gloomy crypt with the soft light of a lantern. “NICTO. You idiot,” says the annoyed silhouette of a woman framed in the doorway; the brassy ruffian. A sharp-tongued young woman by the name of Madge.

With the last portion of password uttered, the skeletons lower their swords and return to their positions stationed around the crypt. Breathing a shuddering sigh of relief, you turn to thank your savior, but she throws a greasy red cloak into your face, then slams the door shut with a loud bang that echoes throughout the chamber. You stand among the shadows, thinking to yourself that Amendsfarm sounds like paradise right about now. A shame they’re not fond of escapees.

Pushing past the double doors at the southern end of the crypt, you make your way into the somber hallway beyond, carefully negotiate the ledge at the side of a cunningly hidden pit, then finally reach the cellar door wishing there was something stronger than water in the cistern located in the next room.

You open the cellar door to find a battle raging.

On the landing above, one of the nastier ruffians (a lumbering brute named Brica) is trying to throw an archer to the floor below. By the doorway where you stand, his twin, Brak, trades blows with another intruder, who appears to be covered in flour.

A shouted curse draws your attention to Beaut, the handsome murderer from Waterdeep, as he tumbles into the cistern with a combatant he is entangled with. There are apples all over the floor, and the secret door across the cellar is wide open for some reason. All of this feels like it’s happening at once.

Brak lets out an anguished sigh as he slumps to the floor, a foot of steel poking through his back. You reach for your blade, only to realize your sword is back at the holding cells! The flour-dusted intruder looks up to see you standing in the doorway, then pulls his blade free of Brak’s lifeless body with a spray of blood.

You slam the door shut and dash for the safety of the holding cells, making a long jump over the concealed pit in your haste. As you clear the trapped floor, the door to the cellar behind you opens with a crash, and Brak’s bane comes charging down the hallway, sword in-hand. You turn to reach for the oxidized copper-plated doors to the crypt, but his footfalls are upon you! Just when you think you’ll end up skewered on a sword, you hear your pursuer crash through the breakaway timber of the trapped floor, landing with a thud and a groan on the floor of the pit below…

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Okay, I have no idea where I meant to go with this. It’s a scene that’s been playing over in my mind since publishing my earlier article about combat tactics in Tresendar Manor’s cellar.

I’ll just wrap up whatever this is with a few thoughts, and ask your pardons for the impromptu one-man stage production:

• The Redbrand Hideout is populated by an evil wizard, animated dead, and a creepy eye monster that shoves itself inside your mind telepathically. While I’ve worked in worse offices, this is by no means a nice place to hang out. Even garden variety scumbags like the Redbrand Ruffians would be totally creeped out by spending time in this place. Let fear flavor your dungeon by making the ruffians jumpy and on edge – because there’s some terrifying stuff in Tresendar Manor that would make any tough guy’s hair stand on edge.
• When the battle is raging between characters and the Redbrands in the cellar, something as simple as an additional ruffian opening a door to the cellar, bearing witness to what’s happening, and then noping out of there has the potential to lead characters through several rooms of the dungeon if there’s a fear among the party that to forego pursuit would bring reinforcements into the fray. It seems to me like one coward fleeing can lead a pursuit through almost half the dungeon, simply by informing the party they’ve been spotted.
• The ruffian knows the trap is there. The character does not. In a pursuit, any attempt at spotting the trapped floor with a Perception check would have disadvantage imposed upon it.
• I’m not a fan of pit traps that are just holes one falls into. Nor do I want a pit trap to be absolutely deadly. The compromise: fill the pit with a swarm of insects (centipedes). If the centipedes drop the character to 0 hp, the character will be unconscious and paralyzed, but not dead. No death saves necessary. And, they’ll remain paralyzed for an hour once consciousness is regained. Much more memorable than just falling into a hole, I’d like to think.
• I tend to think more tactically when I have villains I care about. Farmer is deeply flawed, and poor decisions have led him to the Redbrands. But he’s not a villain. And since I want Farmer to have a fighting chance against characters who are highly likely to be far more murderous than he is, my mind goes to these types of tactics, where everyone wins. Even the guy who took a centipede bath.
• In case you haven’t guessed, I really like the Redbrand Ruffians. So much so that I published a DMs Guild product with colorful descriptions of each and every Redbrand in Phandalin. It’s a free/PWYW publication. You can download it here.