The Life and Times of Charles Billingsworth

(For those of you who've never met Charles, he was my character in the Deadlands roleplaying game, up until I moved away from where that campaign was being run.)

Charles Billingsworth was born into a family of minor nobility and respectable wealth in London, England. He lived the idle life of one whom, born into luxury, feels he deserves it. The nightmares began shortly after puberty, featuring unreal, fantastic, and ethereal terrors. His dreams grew worse as he aged, so that by his mid-twenties he barely slept and spent most nights walking the misty streets of London. While the sleep deprivation was gradually making Charles more erratic and spiteful towards people who didn’t suffer so, it was his nocturnal wandering that lead to a more drastic change in his life the night of his 30th birthday.

A vigilante had been stalking the streets of London for almost two years at that time, killing muggers and rapists with a “lucky” shiv that and stabbed over forty convicted felons in the hands of its previous owner.* The police had been unsuccessful at stopping the violent crime-fighter because in proper British society it never occurred to the detectives that the vigilante was actually a young woman. It was only chance that Billingsworth, somewhat inebriated from his birthday celebration and wandering the streets after the other revelers had gone to bed, happened down the alley just as she was dispatching a robber.

Weary from nights without sleep and tipsy from drink, Charles mistook the criminal for an innocent victim and acted without thinking; He picked up a loose cobblestone and brained the vigilante. The woman lay dead at his feet, and the mugger was slumped against the wall, bleeding from the neck. Staring into the man’s eyes as his life poured out of him and down his chest, Charles Billingsworth recognized true fear for the first time. He checked on the fallen vigilante, and in the exposed brain and bone fragments he caught a glimpse of the beauty that he’d been unconsciously searching for since his own nightmares had started. Unsure what he was looking for, he began cutting open both bodies, eventually arranging them in a grisly mural. During the process he realized the truth about the scene and felt like he gained insight into the personalities of his subjects. The vigilante was shown as an avenging angel, with her flayed skin stretched behind her as wings and a halo fashioned from removed ribs. The mugger was shown as a terrified wretch being struck down; his intestine formed a noose around his neck and hellfire painted with blood licked his feet. Upon returning home, just before dawn, Charles slept well.

Over the coming months he killed a few more times, only at times when his nightmares grew unbearable. He had kept the shiv, and on nights when he used it instead of some other weapon he subconsciously selected criminals as his victims. Criminal or innocent, he dissected his victims and reveled in the biological aesthetic of veins, organs, and tissue. While he marveled at the beauty he perceived there, he was unable to recreate a piece of artwork as perfect as his first attempt. The papers linked these deaths to the earlier vigilante, thinking the same killer had taken a more gruesome turn. Fearing capture and trial for his own crimes as well as two years of another’s, Charles took a “vacation” to India, and from there secretly took another ship to California.

Arriving shortly after the manitous were unleashed, he saw the fearful Americans as weak-willed and cowardly. His own dreams had numbed him to some of the strange sights, and now began to occasionally provide insights, though he still struggles to understand them. Most of his money was spent on the voyage, so he fell in with the Mexican Army after their raid of a town he was passing through. By claiming to be a surgeon he was spared from experiencing battle firsthand and given opportunities to peer inside human bodies once more. He gradually picked up some actual surgical skill through bloody trial and error, and began to wonder about the power of his own will over the fearfulness of those around him.

* Minor Relic: "Newgate" Palmer's Shiv
Richard Palmer was incarcerated in London's Newgate Prison for allegedly robbing a series of banks. Though innocent, he was sent to prison by a corrupt judge, where he was routinely the victim of abuse. Newgate Palmer made his name by slaughtering over 40 inmates during his 12 month stay, after which he was released due to the rising costs of prisons and overcrowding. (Strength+1d6 damage, +3d8 if used on an unsuspecting criminal. +4 to Law rolls when trying to escape punishment. Taint: -6 to Law rolls when falsely accused.