The Kobolds, the Paladin, and the Red Hand of Doom

[Rogue Shadows]

So for the past few months me and my friends have been running Red Hand of Doom, with me DM'ing. It was our first run in basic, unaltered D&D (well, Pathfinder - well, Pathfinder with a lot of homebrew - but the point is we've been doing Star Wars and Spycraft and Vampire for awhile) for years, so I decided to start the players at 1st level, run a bunch of adventures prior to RHoD beginning to level the players up with the occasional sprinklings and suggesting that the Red Hand was rising, and then begin RHoD as appropriate.

I ran a mix of both my own adventures and some official WotC adventures. One of the first adventures my group went on, before we had a Paladin in the group, involved the players helping the kobolds of the Scalehold Mine drive off some goblin tribes that had been displaced by the Red Hand. Later, after the Paladin joined, I ran the DragonDown Grotto series of adventures - with encounters scaled down a bit to account for the PC's lower levels, of course - and this involved Meepo the kobold, etc. The players made a good impression on Meepo (LN). They did not keep the eggs of Bahamut nor Tiamat, but rather gave them to Meepo.

Begins the Red Hand of Doom. The players...well, they made a pretty good showing in Part I, destroying the Skullgorge bridge, killing Ozzyrandion (Koth escaped but was killed later), and evacuating the town rather than fighting the Hand. Part II went...a little differently. They managed to drive off, but not kill, Saarvith and Regiarix. They also completely insulted the Tiri Kitor and made the elves hate them (long story), so the Tiri Kitor are out as Brindol allies.

Now, here the players got a bit creative. The Greenspawn eggs, remembering that Meepo existed, they brought to Meepo; he took one looked at them and opened a portal to Hell via an incantation and threw them back to Tiamat. While there, they brought up the whole Red Hand thing (Meepo doesn't get out much), and asked if Meepo could help. Throwing the players a bone, I decided that Meepo has a lot of pull with the Scalehold kobolds, and he'd see if they'd help Brindol out.

Part III went better than Part II (Ghostlord alliance severed without fighting the Ghostlord, Varanthian dead*, but Ulwai managed to escape), but now we're on Part IV**, and about a hundred kobolds have shown up with Meepo to help with the defense of Brindol. They don't have an airforce the way the Tiri Kitor would, but they've turned the fields directly in front of Brindol basically into a minefield. Gotta love that trapmaking bonus (getting the kobolds on their side was only worth half the Victory Points as the Tiri Kitor, though, and they're only fighting because if the Vale falls, their mine is probably next in line - and if things look grim, they'll flee)

The problem, and one I just realized, is that the majority of the kobolds are Lawful Evil - and the party includes a Paladin. You see the problem here.

Basically...what do I, as the DM, do? Obviously the Paladin is not required to slaughter every evil thing he comes across - but nor does his code allow him to even work with an evil being. On the other hand, I can't help but think back to a 2nd-Edition campaign, The Night Below, where the party could recruit freakin' Mind Flayer help and the campaign informed DM's that any paladins in the group, if they asked their deities for advice on what to do, would be told that in this instance it's okay to work alongside Evil in order to deal with a greater Evil.

This'd be preferred, but at the same time, it feels a wee bit like a cop-out.

Right now what I'm basically thinking is that the Paladin should probably refuse to work directly in concert with the kobolds, but he will still obviously keep fighting to defend Brindol and won't demand they leave/refuse to fight at all/claim that "nobody understands me" and leave to start a Alternative band.

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*this is particularly good as I had re-statted Varanthian to be a Fang dragon

**incidentally, Kharn is already dead - the players attacked the Horde directly looking to skirmish a little, killed a few giants, ran for their lives, got surrounded, then a Samurai in the party challenged Kharn to single combat rather than be captured. Kharn accepted, and two rounds later, he was dead (though the Samurai was hurting as well and really only won 'cause he rolled higher on inititive). Then the players were able to make good their escape, with Kharn's body, back to the walls of Brindol. Right now, Ulwai is leading the Red Hand. So as a quick recap: Koth and Ozzyrandian are dead, Varanthian is dead, Kharn is dead, but Saarvith, Regiarix, Ulwai, and Abithriax are all still alive.

Oh, and Abithriax is now a brass dragon. And Ulwai is a gunslinger. Don't ask why, I just wanted it.

[Fyermind]

Are you the player of the paladin? If yes, than that sounds like a reasonable course of action. If not, then if the Player asks you, you might point out that since the current goal of the kobolds (save Brindol and stop the red hand) is good, he doesn't have to stop them or make out on his own, however he probably won't like what he sees if he works with them. (for example that "minefield" they made, what happens after the battle? Will they remember where all the traps are and bother to disable them?)

He can probably even work directly with the kobolds as long as he holds them to standards of neutrality while they work together. If they slip below that he might have to have them reprimanded/incarcerated for improper behavior/war crimes pending severity of their actions.

Edit: Since it didn't seem clear enough, if you are not the player of the Paladin, don't punish the paladin unless they grossly violate their code as in by helping the kobolds torture captives. Generally if someone chooses to play a paladin they are thinking about that kind of thing and will try to play a according to their interpretation of the code. Good players will let you know if they think they are bending or breaking their own code.

[Rogue Shadows]

Are you the player of the paladin?

No, I'm DM'ing (and am having way too much fun running the bad guys to want to use have a DMPC). It was just a wee bit of panic on my part when I realized the problem - it didn't exist in the Paladin's meeting with Meepo, since Meepo is Lawful Neutral; but the Scalehold kobolds are just kobolds and so LE on average.


If yes, than that sounds like a reasonable course of action. If not, then if the Player asks you, you might point out that since the current goal of the kobolds (save Brindol and stop the red hand) is good, he doesn't have to stop them or make out on his own, however he probably won't like what he sees if he works with them. (for example that "minefield" they made, what happens after the battle? Will they remember where all the traps are and bother to disable them?)

That's what I figured. Just cruising for alternate ideas/advice, just in case.

[Fouredged Sword]

Or, he can just not work with them. If you want to be strict he can't work with them. He can do other things while they do their things. He can train the human militia or do ANYTHING OTHER THAN WORK WITH THE KOBOLDS. It's not like the paladin is good a laying traps, so, yeah, he is unlikely to work with them.

It's a big defensive line, and if they can't find a place to stand that they don't have to think about each other, then the gods should grow up and give the paladin some slack.

[Joe the Rat]

And/Or you could shift their collective alignments into the LN(E)-LE(N) range. You've already established that Meepo has some repute with the scalehold kobolds. It's possible that his lawful-neutralness is rubbing off on his fellows, making them collectively not-entirely-rat-bastiches. Oh, the lot of them is probably still South of Neutral, but they might not (collectively) ping as seriously evil.

Personally, I'd put this in the Paladin's court (figuratively and literally). If the player can come up with a decent justification, roll with it. You could even turn this into a Test if you so desired (not to force a Fall, but to have the Forces of Good give a boost to their local champion's team for his having an understanding of the Greater Good. But he still has to keep his nose clean).

[ShriekingDrake]

I ran the DragonDown Grotto series of adventures - with encounters scaled down a bit to account for the PC's lower levels, of course - and this involved Meepo the kobold, etc.

Would you be willing to share your notes about how you led into RHOD, i.e., how you lowered the encounters, and what you ran specifically? I'm always looking for a good lead in to RHOD.

[Rogue Shadows]

You could even turn this into a Test if you so desired (not to force a Fall, but to have the Forces of Good give a boost to their local champion's team for his having an understanding of the Greater Good.

Good idea, but unfortunately doesn't really work due to some of the fluff I've added the whole Red Hand thing...basically the short version is that except to grant spells to their followers, none of the gods are allowed to get involved.


Would you be willing to share your notes about how you led into RHOD, i.e., how you lowered the encounters, and what you ran specifically? I'm always looking for a good lead in to RHOD.

Hmm...off the top of my head, I basically just ran weaker monsters straight out of the Monster Manual. So instead of the duskspawn lizardfolk or whatever CR-8 monstrosities they were supposed to be, they were just normal lizardfolk and a trog. The wraiths and other horrible things encountered later I replaced with an army of skeletons and zombies. And that green dragon they're supposed to fight, I kept normal but had the players encounter her at 1/2 hit points (I wasn't afraid of keeping her normal because of reasons related to an earlier modified adventure*).

I kept the sorcerer and his black dragon buddy at the same level, but given that the players could summon up an Aspect of Bahamut and/or an Aspect of Tiamat at that point due to acquiring those magic eggs, I didn't feel too bad about that (they summoned the Aspect of Bahamut first, holding Tiamat in reserve).

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*I also ran Fields of Ruin, sort of, but completely changed the adventure to be a trap-filled dungeon with only a very few monsters, among them a ravid casting animate object on some corpses 'cause I found that funny. I left the earthcrown artifact completely intact, however, but each time the player that was wearing it (a monk) used it, I made him make a DC 17 Will save. He correctly deduced that the reason I was doing this was because the dao sultana trapped inside was trying to take control of his body - but he kept on using it anyway when necessary. Eventually, he failed a save and the sultana took control of the monk, then fecked off.

The dao sultana - I've named her Ramlah al-Ghūl bint Khaldun ibn Saeed ibn Saleh al-Aziz ibn al-Ard - is going to end up being the final boss of the entire campaign, post-RHoD, when the players start adventuring around levels 16-20. Turns out that she's the rightful ruler of the Great Dismal Delve and kinda' wants to take over the Prime for reasons I'll work out later.