Beware the man in red...

...He will bring death and destruction too all he is with. The players in my group have heard this or another form of the prophesy of the man in red who will appear at some point and bring doom with him. I have really only mentioned it in a few spots but they were telling spots.

The "High Septarch of Fallcrest" spoke of the man in red after he interrogated a captured kobold the party had captured. Some of the party talked to a Bronze Dragon while in the town of Gorbizabad while searching for the Slaying Stone hidden there. He also said to the departing group that they would encounter the Man in Red.

Seeing as how some of those party members are now dead and none of the current members know of the three's encounter with the Dragon they really do not know. Spoiler: One of them is still alive, is it the monk or the cleric? Spoilers!

That brings us to yesterdays game, and well to be honest the end of two sessions ago and the last weeks free RPG Day run. The party is in Harkenwold fighting the Iron Circle and they defeated a Dark Adept, Geoffrey the Porter and now fellow adventurer (he was a hireling who has shed his wages for a share in the groups fun) asked for a red surcoat from the adept. After some words with the group he gets the item and puts it on and makes the comment, "Red is the new style, It's cool"

To be totally honest I was struggling with, and still am, who this man is red is. I do not care if my party reads this and they totally think I am being deceptive that is fine. I like a little paranoia at the table from time to time. Thorm's player is totally suspicious and it is a hoot! (10 year old paranoia is funny) No I am not evil.

When they group was asking about the loot off the bodies and I saw Red Surcoat I was like "Geoffrey wants one" I wanted to have a little fun. He had been pulled and coxed into the battle by the Druid Thorm and it made him feel excited. So he all but begged for that outfit. I am now making comments as him about red is cool and giggling about it, my players dislike when I giggle it means I am up to no good.

Well they fought a Skeletal Mage in an old Eladrin sanctuary and found the body of one of their comrades who disappeared fighting Orcs. Geoffrey took a lightning bolt to the chest and they all thought "oh no the minion is dead" only to find out he was playing dead and he got up and helped them fight the mage and his skeleton troops only to take a sword from the "pointy" end and apparently take no damage. When he was offered healing he said "no thanks a good nights rest does the body good"

They seal themselves into the mages lair and rest, Upon waking in the morning they find that some bones of a dragon laying on a table were now animated but Thorm has a waking Dream and the Raven Queen tells him that he owes her for his life and that they must spare the Dracolich because it has work to do. He also notices that the same divine glow surrounding her is surrounding Geoffrey!

Now this is great, Thorm is a 10 year old player and he has been playing D&D for a half a year or so during encounters and he asked to play in my campaign. I agreed, he is also the same player who was killed via player actions after he ran off from the group a few months back. I have been trying to add in more roleplaying that combat to spice things up and to get him out of the one encounter after another mode. When I took him away from the table to talk to him as the Raven Queen about all of this it was special for him. He was also chomping at the bit too tell the rest of the party.

I was having fun because he was exploring his boundary's as a roleplayer with what he could and could not do, he wanted to make insight and perception checks to look at him. I told him he did not need to he just needed to tell me what he was looking for. It did take a few min for us to talk with him about all the little bits of information once he decided to talk to the other members of the party about Geoffrey and his suspicions about him being the man in red.

Right now things are fine, Geoffrey appears to be immortal as Thorm has dubbed it (love it) and they have gone off to war with him. Thorm keeps boosting the ego of Geoffrey so is that a good thing or a bad thing, hey also, I never did say he was a Human Man in Red now did I?

Like I said paranoia is cool