Red Ledger's page

About Red Ledger

Character Sheet

BACKSTORY
Talireans, such good, proud, stately, utterly despicable people. They prance about on top of the rotting earth like they own it, and not a thing could be wrong for that reason. The entire world is on fire and they are just basking in the glow. They turn their holy noses up at anything that is less than what they see as fit for their pure and righteous hands. What this world could use, what it needs, is a man of vision. A man to turn the world upside down and shake it until there is dirt on every man’s head. Of course the goodly peoples of Talengarde would see such a man as a psychopath, or a tyrant. Of course any form of simple correction would evoke the just wrath of the perfect race. But that’s what this man is made for, to fertilize the seed of corruption that is within every man.

They call him Red Ledger, not that it really matters. He'll probably have you killing someone you love before you get the chance to say it anyways. Red Ledger was raised on the streets nameless, alone and unloved. His mother was a whore you see, and she was impregnated by a particularly careless client. Dedicated to her job, she continued to work despite the child she carried. Seven months into her pregnancy, she was bought in to the company of a particularly shady man. She had seen every kind of man in her line of work, so the only thing she thought of it was that he liked to bite.

She awoke the next morning, pale and weak. Her eyes were red and a white streak shot down her head. An overpowering taste of iron filled her mouth. A few hours later, however, she was fine. Her color and strength returned, and then it was business as usual for the next two months.

She gave birth to her son in an alley with no help. The labor gave her great pain, but she already loved her child before he was born. She knew she would not be able to support the two of them, but she would do everything she could for the baby, even if it pushed her do the brink of life, because that’s what a strong mother would do for a child. After she birthed the child, she held it in her arms and smiled upon it. The smile changed instantly to a looked of terror. She screamed as she saw the thing that laid host in her womb for months. The baby was bluish pale, and wrinkled. Black nails grew from his fingers and toes, his eyes were red, and snow-white hair grew down to his shoulders. His mother instantly became pale and weak again. In just moments, her heart gave out. She dropped the child onto the ground, and he stood up and gazed upon his dead mother, whom he had drained the life out of.

For nearly a century and a half, Red spent his life in the streets, beneath the feet of the normal society. He was the half-vampire child of a harlot, and the righteous Talireans couldn’t possibly have anything to do with him. This gave him the unique opportunity to see the world from the bottom up. He could see that the world needed changing, it needed to be flipped onto its head. Scorned and ignored, there was nothing left to do but train and prepare. He spent decades dedicating his life to training for… what? Truth be told, he hadn’t the slightest idea. He only knew one thing: There was red in his ledger.

The world owed him. The world let the rich and powerful be rich and powerful, and let the true visionaries such as himself live in squalor. Every person in Talengarde owed him a debt and he would collect. He knew corruption had taken root in every man, and he knew exactly how to bring it out in its most perverse, destructive form. His first opportunity came when the son of a rich man took his food, and beat him half to death. When the rich man saw this, he only demanded compensation for scuffing his son’s shoe on Red’s teeth.

That night, Red broke into the man’s house. He stood over the sleeping man, ready to stab him. No no no, he thought, this is way too easy. One by one, he grabbed the man’s children and wife out of their beds and brought them into the big dining hall to be tied up. Red knew a little something about this man. He knew that the man was in a blood feud with another powerful family, and was riddled with greed and an ego to rival a king’s. When the time was right, he opened the wife’s mouth to let her scream. The man ran down stairs to see a grinning Damphir holding a blade to his bound-up family.
“N-No!” The man stammered, “Wha-What do you want huh? Just tell me!”
“There’s red in my ledger, sir.” Red replied, “And you owe me a debt.”
“Debt? What debt could I possibly owe?” There it was, the rightly manner that befitted every Talirean. The ideal that they could owe no debt because the only ones they wrong are the one that deserve it. No more. No more will these tyrants mock the lesser with their facade of perfection.
“Your son, this little brat,” He kicked the man’s son sharply, and the boy who so strongly beat a homeless man to the edge of his life now whimpered and sobbed. Guilt was a hell of a drug. “you watched him beat a homeless man within an inch of his life, steal his food, and then had the audacity to demand money from me, knowing I hadn’t a penny. So yes, What debt could you possibly owe me?” He smiled.
“What are you talking about, you lunatic?” The man looked bewildered, “You took my son’s food, you grabbed him around the neck and only stopped when he slapped you! You- you urinated on his shoes! You were stammering about pissing on the boots that walked on your head or something, then you started hitting yourself with the leg of a chair! I only demanded money so that you wouldn’t be locked up, I took pity on you, I swear!” A look of pure amusement flashed across Red’s face as realized the man might actually be right.
“Hm, I’m a cheeky little bastard, aren’t I? No matter, I will collect my debt for your longstanding corruption nonetheless.” Hopelessness showed in the eyes of the man now.
“What must I do?”
“I’m going to give your friends down the street all your wealth, your estate, and your accomplishments. Your reputation will be soiled, and your rivals will own all of your credit.”
“P-please,” The man spoke weakly, “I’ve worked all my life for this.”
“As have I.” Red said, bowing, “There is another thing I want.”
“What? Anything!” Hope sprang back into the lifeless face of the righteous, pitying man.
“Kiss your wife, and then cut her throat out. Lest I do it for you.” The woman screamed at this suggestion, Red supposed this excited her.
“Sir… There has to be another way.”
“There is. You could be in jail, your rivals could be enjoying your life’s work, and your children and children’s children could be trampled upon by the good and perfect people of Talengarde for years to come. All at the price of saving a single life that’s ran its course.” Red already knew he would win this. His smile grew wider and wider. It nearly reached to his ears. He has such a frightful smile. The man started sobbing. This infuriated Red.
“How does it feel to be piteous? To be caught be two decisions that just aren’t fair, but the rest of the people of Talengarde move right on with their saintly lives? KISS YOUR WIFE.”
The man obliged, he kissed her upon the forehead. “I-I’m so sorry. There’s no other way.” 
Red giggled hysterically. “Yes there is! You’re just ignoring it!” He bent down and got right in the wife’s face, “Did you feel that? That was your last kiss dear woman! Your last, from the love of your life, who is going to rip your throat out with his fingers! He kissed you first, isn’t that sweet? Why aren’t you smiling?” Red felt obligated to help her, and cut a smile in her face.
“She’s happy,” Red said to the man, “do it now.” The man closed his eyes, whispered a prayer to someone, and tore into his wife’s neck with his hands that could do no wrong.

The man was arrested, his daughter was wolf food, and his son was exiled*. The powerful rivals received everything from that family, but it came with a cost. The money was not untraceable, people were calling for fraud. Knowing that a vast wealth was up in the air, many families wanted a part of it, and many more wanted to profit off of the pandemonium that would ensue. War broke out in the streets. Buildings were destroyed, blood cleansed the streets of their innocence, and the righteous struck down the holy.

This was Red’s life goal. Wealth meant nothing, he simply wanted to disrobe those cloaked in their filthy rags of righteousness. Everyone had such a robe, and he would pick at every thread on every robe until the whole world stood naked and exposed. He would watch the world burn to be king of the ashes.

Years later, this all came back around to him. Of course, someone would have had to bear witness to Red’s wrongdoings. One person saw the incident with the rich man’s son, another thought they saw the shady homeless Damphir in the general area of the man’s house, and another in a position of authority simply needed someone to blame. That is Red’s story, another account is that Red wrote his confession in blood on the wall above where he slept, but that is just hear-say. As the trial dragged on, his crimes were elucidated further. Red Ledger was something like famous, and his victims created quite the display. When he killed, he killed precisely, and spectacularly. Displays of mothers killing babies, or children eating the hearts of their mothers greeted fathers as they walked in the door. His victims were few compared to some of the more famed serial killers in history, but those he killed had a ripple effect that twisted everyone’s morals into oblivion, and brought them one step closer to opening their eyes.
Alas, he was convicted, and sent to a prison for the worst of criminals. He was not worried, he was on fate’s side, and he just simply had to wait and see what fate would do next.