Red Hand of Doom is an adventure that can fit into any campaign and the writers have made suggestions on where to place it geographically within the Forgotten Realms, GreyHawk and Eberron settings. Now, allying his tribes with a powerful blue dragon named Tyrgarun, Az arr Kul plans to bring destruction to the human towns of Elsir Vale. Azarr Kul had the tribes under his command turn away from their traditional deities and begin worshipping the great dragon Tiamat, after Kul found a long abandoned temple to her deep in the Wyrmsmoke Mountains. The players have come to the Elsir Vale and find that the towns are being threatened by hordes of goblinoid tribes commanded by Azarr Kul, a half dragon, half hobgoblin warrior who has risen up to be a great warrior. The background to the book is one straight out of heroic fantasy novels. At 128 pages and taking characters from 5th to 10the level or higher, it is really an entire campaign that will take players many hours and late-night gaming session to complete. During the Vietnam era, it was a symbol calling for strikes against the war.I hesitate to call Red Hand of doom an adventure. But it’s also been the symbol of radical movements. Recently, the red hand has been a symbol of political activism, whether for the plight of child soldiers, the dump–Karl Rove movement, stopping local vehicle theft and crime, or protesting against terrorism and violence.
It is also the symbol of Ulster in Northern Ireland, where legend has it that a Chieftain cut off his hand and hurled it forward to win a race, his bloody hand touching the shore before his opponent landed. In the same war, it was a mark of the “Hun” in anti-German posters. In history, the red hand can be a warning, such as the one issued by John Brown to Governor Henry Wise in 1859: “Thy doom is sealed! Beware of the ‘ Red Hand‘!” It was a symbol for a Black regiment that fought in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in World War I. There’s even a board game where “green with envy” you “cut through the red tape” and “roll out the red carpet” to sharpen your “gray matter ” “given the green light” you’ll be be “tickled pink” to play Red-Handed®. In war zones, red hands have their own poignancy. It can also be the result of mixing iron oxide, or trying to enter forbidden areas. For children, a red-hand can have other meanings. Or it can mean “the jagged edge between the mainstream and non-existence” in Latvian traditional music. It means stop, don’t litter.It means stop, as in halt. Occasionally, the hand is even dripping blood.īut the red hand has so many other meanings. Then there’s just recent news: getting caught censoring email or manipulating terror alert statusor spying on U.S.
There’s also the proverbial “ fingers in the pie” version of being caught red-handed.
So where does this metaphor of the red hand come from, and what does it mean?į quotes the Oxford English Dictionary which “defines the term ‘red-handed’ as being caught ‘in the very act of crime.’ In fact, one meaning given by the OED is, ‘fresh from the commission of murder or homicide having the hands red with blood.'” MoveOn wants to play the dictionary-game and “cites a definition of ‘red-handed’ that is milder, saying Merriam-Webster defines the phrase as caught ‘in the act of committing a crime or misdeed.'”Ĭaught red-handed is usually associated with crime, or at least fingers in the cookie jar. The image above is a graphic threat from John Brown to Virginia governor Henry A.