Fire In the Temple!

[David L Pulver]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Yeah, I had a similar reaction. The Redcaps are caricatures and the political philosophy and symbols used seem anachronistic or out of place for a medieval setting... except "it's Cidri" so it's actually modern or post-modern and the local thoughts could come from 20th Century Earth or something... but they still seem like caricatures.

Indeed, Cidri appears to be a world where anachronism must exist, as it's strongly implied that it is post-20th century world that with the help of dimension-walking individuals created a fantasy playground. Also, while there were quite a number of instances of historical medieval labor-based struggles that produced a lot of bloodshed (e.g., guild/anti-guild violence in florence and flanders in the 14th century) much of the real medieval social movements were tied very strongly with religious and local political elements. That sort of thing requires developing a lot of extra back story to do properly, whereas the existence of guilds, and the rivarly between the wizards' and mechanicians' guilds, exists as an ongoing element of Cidri's background that is already covered in the core ITL rulebook. Thus, building on it seemed logical.

Again, it's hard to get much nuance in an adventure this short. I think that in a short labyrinth adventures, characters entering a dungeon and encountering foes don't have time for more than shouted slogans and broad, primary colors; I tried to give the Redcap leaders and followers some personality and motivation beyond the bare bones, though, to help the GM play them in case they, for instance, captured the PCs, or the PCs opted to negotiate or take them prisoner, but of course your milage may vary.