The Crimson Hood - Brigand of the Woods

She never wished for this life. The road. The woods. Choosing between an overhanging rock or hollowed out log to spend the night. The Crimson Hood was not always her name, but it doesn’t matter now. Her moniker is her identity: a brigand upon the highways, wanted posters splayed across all the land of Grimmvale, along with her partner in crime, The Big Bad. Her lot was always an unfortunate one. Orphaned as a teenager, forced to fend for herself and find work in the local mill, her sole remaining relative was her grandmother who lived in the woods several miles from town. Once per week, she would take her weekly earnings and buy stores of food to take to her grandmother, spending several days with her before returning. One weekend, she arrived late under the light of a full moon. The door to her grandmother’s cottage was ripped from its hinges, and inside was a scene of bloody murder. A werewolf had barged its way into the abode, and feasted upon her grandmother, who was still sleeping in bed. The beast noticed her as she entered, and bared its fangs. She would have perished, had another hunter not been tracking the beast already. A werewolf in clothes and armour, striking down its naked brethren with a single silver crossbow bolt to the heart. Her saviour introduced himself as “The Big Bad,” a highwayman by day and werewolf hunter by night. She fled from him, but on telling those in town her tale, was labelled hysteric, with many suspecting she had killed her grandmother herself. Days later, The Big Bad would find her again, weeping in the woods. He took her under his wing, and the Crimson Hood was born thereafter, with nowhere else to turn than a life of crime, larceny and werewolf hunting.