 Redcaps, the age of Nightmare
Let the sidhe and the trolls snipe about which came first; both are lying bastards. We were the first kith, lads, and we alone remember the Great Dark Age, before Bronze or Silver or Gold, before the mortals and the bloodsuckers and the wolves, and before even the fae. [If you're not playing a Redcap character, this is as far as your Character reads. None of the following is known to any but they, and spilled secrets lead to spilled blood. Character knowledge which ventures further than this is unwelcome except amongst this nightmare kith. Be warned. Here be Dragons.] Let the sidhe and the trolls speak of pedigree and birthright, about their lordship over the Dreaming. We were the first rulers, and the land we ruled was the true Dreaming, the Tir-na-Nogh, the Fimbulwinter Country, 'though now the sidhe have blasphemed it with the name of the Nightmare Realms. Don't listen to the others, who speak of the Nightmare Realms as an oh-so-horrid bugaboo. True nightmares, mind you, are the grandest, most potent dreams of all. When your blood turns to ice water and your nerves become cold, crawling spider webs... aye, when're ye more alive, lads? When you watch His Imperial Highness the Grand Marquis of Effluvia turn into sniveling jelly before your tender mercies... what's tastier than that, eh? Well, except eating him afterwards, of course. [...] Anyhow, lads, in the beginning, before fire and beauty and lies, when the only dreams were of fear and gristle and blood, all was a dark and rolling tempest -- a whirling maelstrom of delectable terror. Primordial monsters and half-formed night-beasts dreamed in the great dark, and their dreams burbled and congealed like a great blood pudding. And out of the dreams of that incohate world came the first redcaps. Soon the wild things hailed us as their kings. And this was as it should be, and will be again.
But one day (the first day of the world) a bitter, hateful light dawned, and from the light strode the Tuatha de Danaan, the usurpers. And though the meatless beanpoles could not best us in battle nor in wit, they crept like maggots amongst the world's creatures and taught them new, sickly-sweet, cotton candy dreams -- dreams of fire, dreams of beauty, dreams of lies innumerable. And, empowered by these new dreams, they cast an evil radiance upon the world and wove hateful magics to deprive us of our demesne. We fought, of course, as only Nightmare's warriors can, and many a pretty elf-lord found his way into our maws. But the sidhe called forth their cousins the trolls and used their magics to enslave the creatures born from the new dreams. Pissant boggans, shifty eshu, sour nockers... aye, the nobles deployed all their puppets against us, not that it did 'em any good. We called up our nightmares, and wove 'em into our faces, and to this day none of the Seelie's timid chimerae can look on us without quailing. But then the sidhe played their cunningest, most treacherous trick: the conjuring of a great globe of celestial Glamour that blasted the very Dreaming. Aye, they lit the sun, and thus the usurpers call themselves "Seelie" for in the sun's aura the majesty of our Nightmare was reduced to puppetry and shadow-shows. Don't ever listen to the sidhe's lies, lads -- about how we were their house thanes, but betrayed the rest of the kith to the Nightmare Powers and were ever after anathema. 'Tis a hateful untruth to stain our honour, 'tis all. [...] Under the moors and in the dankest caves they drove us, far from the hateful sun, and their migtiest sorcerers conjured a great stone of purest Glamour and sealed us there, down in the dark. "Let them rot down there," they howled, "and slate their appetite on each other." [...] While the sidhe drank the wine of victory, we drank the stagnant water of the deepest caves. Some of us grew ill and died, but others lived. While the trolls quaffed mead, we licked the scum from the bottom of the cave pools and slurped the crawling things from within. Some of us grew ill and died, but not all. And when there was no more to eat -- well, the very rocks became fuel for our hate.
And then lads, we chewed our way out of the sidhe's prison, and for the first time in years felt the stars on our faces. Organization Though they scorn the protocol of the sidhe's courts, redcaps are far more organized than an outside observer might suspect. While not the spit-and-polish equal of the trolls' legions, redcap bands observe a degree of orderliness surprising in such destructive beings. Even redcaps' most anarchic, violent orgies are often carefully orchestrated -- redcaps construct carnage with clockwork meticulousness. Such efficiency is a necessary survival trait for these most despised of kithain. Then, too, redcaps enjoy inflicting discipline for its own sake. Redcap warbands are called "corbies." Within a corbie, discipline is tight; most corbies have their won personalized military maneuvers, which are executed with impressive precision. Rivalry amongst corbies is fierce, as each corbie seeks to inspire grislier ballads and garner ghastlier mementos. Even more dreaded than redcap "lairds" 'though, are the fimmrach, redcaps who specialize in the Arts of Glamour. Few redcaps have the aptitude or brains to become fimmrach, but those who do often become fiendishly powerful, able to exert terror in ways unimaginable to their warrior kin. Even the most battle-hardened redcap quails at the thought of a centuries-long fimmrach curse. The most powerful fimmrach, the witch-kings or hag-queens, often rival the sidhe's mightiest sorcerers and rule over vast demesnes of blighted, miasmal land.
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