Poke around Tresendar Manor long enough, and you start to realize the Redbrand ruffians are far more sinister than they are presented in the pages of Lost Mine of Phandelver, and especially so in the sanitized reboot, Phandalin and Below: The Shattered Obelisk.

Let’s talk about their criminality.

Racketeering. The most obvious piece of Redbrand activity is racketeering. By the time the characters arrive in Phandalin, the ruffians have already entrenched themselves in town for two months. They’re said to be “extorting and bullying everyone in town,” which likely takes on a couple of different guises:

For merchants and business owners: “Nice place you got here. Shame if something happened to it.”

For families: “Beautiful family you have here. Hate to see anything happen to them.”

This isn’t random, bullying violence. It’s calculated. It’s systematic. Collections probably happen on a schedule, and the ruffians expect compliance, which implies consequences for those who don’t cough up when they show up at the door.

But here’s the thing: racketeering doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s usually one branch of a broader criminal enterprise. An organization with larger ambitions (and the Redbrands are ambitious) would need to expand its felonious portfolio. Merely shaking villagers down probably doesn’t keep the lights on at Glasstaff LLC HQ beneath Tresendar Manor.

So where does the rest of the money come from? There are clues in the text of the Redbrand Hideout.

Brigandage. There are fifty-three crates and barrels of stolen goods – yes, I counted – scattered throughout the rooms beneath Tresendar Manor. At least some of it is explicitly called out as “loot from a caravan.” Realistically, it’s probably all loot from caravans accumulated over roughly two months of Redbrand activity. At the same time, Cragmaw banditry is happening along the Triboar Trail, providing a convenient layer of cover for these raids.

So what’s in all of those boxes? That’s an article for another day, but it ought to be more interesting than beaver pelts, salted pork and beef, flour, sugar, apples, and ale.

🧐 I’d just like to point out that there are ingredients on hand to make apple pies, but there’s no oven in the Redbrand hideout. Such fucking bullshit. But I digress.

Anyhoo, ill-gotten goods can’t just keep piling up around Glasstaff LLC HQ. That product needs to move. That implies fences, connections, maybe even cooperation, or competition, with other criminal networks in the region. Mayhaps that’s why Halia Thornton has an interest in the characters rubbing out Glasstaff – so she can take over the ruffians as a crew for her own Black Network highwaymen operation.

Glasstaff’s 17 Intelligence score suggests he didn’t just fall off the turnip cart. That kind of intellect likely comes with a head for business. He would understand that stolen goods piled up around the office need to be moved, and that he needs a buyer.

How he might learn about a place like Carnath Roadhouse is anyone’s guess. Maybe someone in his crew knows it as a hub for illegal goods. It’s only a few days down the High Road, just beyond the edge of the Sword Coast map, along the southern reaches of the Mere of Dead Men.

Carnath Roadhouse also appears in Tyranny of Dragons, for those Dungeon Masters who find themselves bi-curious about blending one adventure with another.

Human Trafficking. And then there’s the part of the Redbrands’ operation that seems to have made WotC squeamish enough to scrub it entirely from the LMOP portion of Phandalin and Below: The Shattered Obelisk.

If you’re playing that version, area 5 of Tresendar Manor (R5: Holding Cells) is where the Redbrands keep hostages for ransom. However, in the original Lost Mine of Phandelver, the area is referred to as “slave pens,” and it explicitly states that prisoners confined within these cells are sold into slavery.

So yes, the Redbrands are human traffickers as well. But slavery is not a major institution in the Sword Coast North, and places like Calimshan and Mulhorand are far enough from Phandalin that transporting “inventory” across an entire continent would be inefficient and unprofitable. So what use would Redbrands have for human trafficking?

Well, it just so happens there are destinations close enough to Phandalin that would purchase a slaver’s wares.

There’s Evernight, whose lore specifically lists slaves among its imports.

For the uninitiated, Evernight is the Shadowfell reflection of Neverwinter, an upside-down version of the City of Skilled Hands, inhabited almost entirely by undead. Intelligent undead would have uses for the living. Vampires might treat captives as juice boxes to sip on throughout the days and weeks, while discerning ghouls might shop for fresh meat at the city’s Corpse Market.

Conveniently, the Shadowfell Road that leads to Evernight passes through the Burning Woods, which is the Shadowfell’s dark reflection of the Neverwinter Wood. This road can be accessed through shadow crossings scattered throughout the Wood and beyond. That crevasse beneath Tresendar Manor emits a faint aura of necromancy, doesn’t it? There are slave pens nearby. The pieces fit a little too neatly.

And the destination does not have to be Evernight. It could be Thay, famous for its institutionalized slavery. Yes, That is as far off as places like Calimshan and Mulhorand, but the Shadowfell Road is known to warp space, making it faster, if more dangerous, than an overland route to Thay, which is the Shadowfell Road’s eastern terminus, while Evernight sits at the other end of that road.

Maybe human trafficking is a bit heavy for some tables. Fair enough. But heroism often involves saving people from terrible fates. In this case, you don’t need to wander through the mists into Barovia to add a touch of horror to your game.

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Anyway, once you start pulling on these threads, the picture of the Redbrand ruffians shifts, doesn’t it?

Sure, I’m running hog wild witg some loose ends. But those elements are right there in the text. Racketeering, brigandry, and human trafficking, all explicitly present in Part 2: Phandalin of Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Taken together, they paint a much clearer picture of what the characters are actually battling against when they take the fight to the Redbrands and save Phandalin.

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