#RPGaDAY – August 26, 2025 (NEMESIS)

 

#RPGaDAY – August 26, 2025 (NEMESIS)

Nemesis – I would consider a nemesis to be something more than just a normal enemy to a group of adventurers.  For my Grimdark campaign, the group was investigating a series of disappearances and deaths from multiple cities, all appearing to involve 3-foot-tall fey creatures, with bloody red hats which came and went through magical portals.

They turned out to be Redcaps, which are small chaotic evil fey, who wear heavy iron boots to kick victims and wield wicked sickles against their opponents. The way I played them, they must soak their caps in fresh blood every few days or else they wither and eventually die.  Rather than being born, they are mystically created and grown in fresh blood-soaked earth in the Feywilds as weird red topped mushrooms, which eventually grow large enough and the murderous Redcap crawls up out of the ground fully grown.

 

                                                

These Redcaps were the minions of a Fey Witch/Hag, who was creating portals from the Feywild to various prime material cities, through which the Redcaps were abducting humans.  The Hag would then drain their blood slowly, keeping them alive to use to create more Redcap minions and fuel her various incantations and alchemical creations.

The Fey Witch became their nemesis, with the group eventually finding her camp in the Feywilds and destroying her mushroom fields where she was growing her Redcap minion army. In her cave home and laboratory, they found all sorts of horrors, including tortured slaves, a magical cauldron that attacked them with magical potions, living heads in glass jars, and even a trapped greater pestilence demon made of red flies, grown in a still living maggot infested body chained to the wall. Really gross stuff.

Interestingly, they also found evidence that the Witch was the supplier behind a line of apothecary creations, both magic and mundane that were sold in cities all over the world.  From various hair growth tonics to beauty products and anti-aging creams, the Witch had a vast entreprenuaol empire which she was using to finance her operations and accumulate wealth.

Anyway, they thought they managed to trap and kill the Fey Witch, only to later find out they had only killed her simulacrum and that she and her coven of witches were out to destroy them.