Redcap

Squat, iron-hard, and leather-skinned, the Redcaps are never seen without the woolen cap that gives them their name. They cultivate the story that it is dyed in the blood of the slain. The truth — that the dye is ochre clay out of the Bloodmoors, and that the cap is a practical piece of cold-weather kit — is one they take considerable pains never to correct.

They are the largest standing military force outside the Kingdom, and the reason the Queen's generals speak of the Outer Wilds with more caution than their public statements suggest.

Appearance

Short, immensely dense, with skin like tanned leather and hands disproportionately large. A Redcap is roughly half again the mass of a Sylph at two-thirds the height, and hits accordingly.

Attuned Magic

Iron — the one substance that troubles Faerie magic, and the only attuned element that is a material rather than a force. A nascent Redcap can find ore by touch and keep an edge from dulling. A powerful one can forge weapons that dampen glamour in their presence, ruin a spell mid-cast, and make an attuned Faerie feel the way a Faerie feels in thin air.

This is why the Kingdom's official histories describe Redcaps as savages and its quartermasters describe them as a procurement problem.

Society

Martial, blunt, and surprisingly legalistic. Disputes are settled by arranged combat on ground set aside for it, with terms negotiated beforehand and honored afterward, and the Bloodmoors have hosted nearly every large disagreement in the Wilds for as long as anyone can recall. Iron Jarl Gorrach is Marshal of the Great Hunt as well as lord of the Barrow.

Relations

Loyal to the Goblin King, and the backbone of his claim. Wary of the Pukwudgies, who have never sworn to him. Contemptuous of the Hobgoblins, who took service with humans instead of fighting — a charge the Hobgoblins consider both unfair and beneath answering.