PINS AND NEEDLES
Mad Maggie cut a deal with a pit fiend to secure the
services of two shrewd but lazy imps named Pins and
Needles. Mad Maggie treats them with such kindness
that the imps can't imagine wanting to work for anyoneelse. In Mad Maggie's presence, the imps usually as-
sume the forms of ravens that nest in her hair or perch
on her shoulders.
When not loite ring around Fort Knucklebone, Pins
and Needles keep tabs on the Blood War and spy on
Mad Maggie's rivals. Unlike most devils, Pins and Nee-
dles aren't gunning for promotions. They shun the infer-
nal hierarchy and crinkle th eir noses in disgust when
anyone tries to foist more respons ibility onto them.
The Imps' Goals. As much as they love their lives
at Fort Knucklebone, the imps have a problem. They
foolishly played a prank on one of the madcaps, Wazzik.
Now they fear that Wazzik and a s mall group of his irra-
tional friends are plotting reve nge. The imps don't want
to tell Maggie because s he warned the m not to pick on
the madcaps, so they see the characte rs as a potential
solution to their s ituation.He/pins the Imps. As events play out in Fort Knuckle-
bone, the characters notice that Pins and Needles lurkabout at a distance, whispering to each other and star-
ing at the characters. If confronted. the imps make a big
deal of revealing a secret. Of course they lie, telling the
characters that a madcap named Wazzik is planning to
kill Lulu and urging them to take care of this threat first.
A successful DC 14 Wisdom ( Ins ight) check reveals
that the imps are lying. If called on the lie, the imps
re veal the truth about why they want Wazzik dead.They tell the characters exactly whe n and whe re to find
Wazzik alone, and they promise to put in a good wordwith Maggie if the c haracters kill the madcap.
The imps' information is sound, and the characte rs
can take care of the problem quickly and quietly. How-
ever, if anyone witnesses the murder, the charactersmight have to deal with consequences and complica-
tions. Fortunately for the characte rs, Maggie cares little
for the madcaps and ignores the death, a lthough it might
lower the characters in her esteem a bit when it comes
time to reward th em.B A R NABAS THE FLAMESKULLBarnabas, once a powerfuJ wizard, had his crypt defiled
by an evil nemesis who stole his skull and turned it into
a OameskuJJ. Mad Maggie struck a bargain with this
rival wizard and took Barnabas as payme nt. Now he's a
part of her gang.
Barnabas is forgetful and a bit pompous, but every
now and then he has amazing ideas and remembers re-
markably useful things from his arcane past.
Barnabas's Goal. The redcaps like to hurl things at
Barnabas, and after getting hit in the jaw with a loose
gear, Barnabas lost one of his teeth. He saw a redcap,
Grubba, grab it and run off. Barnabas is too embar-
rassed to tell Mad Maggie about it, though she suspects
something is amiss because Barnabas has starting
whistling when he speaks.
CHAPTER 3 I AVERNUSHe quietly asks the characters to help him find his
missing tooth. He points out Grubba the redcap but ad-mits that all the little sly c reatures look s imilar to him.
Helpins Barnabas. Characters can question the
redcaps, starting with Grubba, to find out who bas the
tooth. Each time they question a redcap, there is a^50
pe rcent chance that the redcap gets angry and attacks
the characters, backed up by ld4 additional redcaps.
The redcaps believe the tooth is a lucky charm, so they
frequently pass it from one to the next to keep Barnabas
from finding it. Because of this constant transfer of the
tooth, there's little hope of the characters finding it by
confronting one redcap at a time. Howe ve r, a character
who quietly observes the redcaps for^10 minutes canattempt a DC^11 Wisdom (Perception) check. On a suc-
cess, the characte r sees one redcap passing a bloody
pouch to another redcap, who tucks it in a pocket. This
pouch contains Barnabas's tooth.A character who moves within reach of the redcap can
attempt to pick its pocket and obtain the pouch withoutits knowledge, doing so with a successful DC^14 Dexter-
ity (Sleight of Hand) check.
No redcap relinquishes the pouch willingly, thoughit can be magically charmed into doing so. The redcap
attacks any character who tries to take it by force, and
twelve other redcaps join the fight on the next round.
Mad Maggie won't break up such a fight unless the char-
acters have done some thing nice for her, although if the
dreamscape ritual has not taken place yet, she won't
allow the redcaps to kill a character.R E DCAPS A N D MADCAPSRedcaps are murderous fey c reatures that soak their
caps in fresh blood. Madcaps are redcaps that drench
their caps in demon ichor instead. Mad Maggie currently
commands sixty redcaps and thirty madcaps, although
a third of them operate outside the fort, patrolling theareas of the wasteland controlled by Mad Maggie. As
battles deplete this force, Mad Maggie has new redcaps
delivered to he r from the Feywild, courtesy of powerful
fey with whom s he has struck bargains. For this reason,the night hag has no concern for the well-being of her
redcap and madcap minions. See appendix D for more
information about redcaps and madcaps.
R edcap and Madcap Goals. These creatures don'thave many goals, being mad fey creatures that revel in
chaos and s laughter. Their inte ractions with the char-
acters should reflect that. One might offer a character asevered finge r as a toke n of friends hip, then accuse the
characte r of stealing it afterward. Only their love a nd
fear of Mad Maggie keeps the creatures under a loose
sort of control.
Mad Maggie understands the nature of these beings
and s he does not hold it against the characters if they
kill them, especially when acting in self-defense.