Count Ravenous
Redbeard
Redbeard, the bandit whose infamous name and savagery is well-known throughout the Bodolger Province.
Appearance[]
A well-built 60-year-old man with strands of white hair on his head.
Background[]
In his younger days, the count was a morally bereft knight who was also a serial womanizer whose favorite pastime was to travel around within his dominion to force the women he fancied into bed with him. No matter whether they were in their teens or their late forties, he didn’t let even one of them out of his grasp, thus causing the women in his dominion to stay cooped up within their homes or leave it altogether.
Due to his lifestyle, the count had over 60 illegitimate children. Though, he didn’t mind that fact at all and adopted all of them, thus causing the neighboring nobles to give him the moniker, ‘Count Ravenous’. On one occasion when Count Cobry went to the imperial capital for some merrymaking, he got to know the First Prince and the two of them quickly became close friends. Two years later when the First Prince was exiled by the former emperor, the count returned to his dominion and stayed within his bastide to nurture all of his illegitimate sons.
After a couple of more years when the First Prince raised the flag of rebellion at Bodolger Province, the count responded by bringing his thirty other grown up illegitimate sons to pledge their allegiance to the First Prince. After the civil war, the count returned with his army and loads of loot and gold back to his dominion, but only ten of the thirty sons still survived.
At present day, even though the count was already in his sixties, his ambitions still hadn’t waned. Soon after his return to the dominion, he used various excuses to start conflicts with the neighboring nobles and has successfully expanded his territory to twice its former size. The 13 noble families who had resisted him all perished. The men were culled with the women suffering fates worse than death: they were either abused to their last breath or sold to slave traders when their oppresors were done with them.
There was one noble who made complaints about the count’s cruelty to the First Prince so that the fallen noble families may be avenged. However, the First Prince stated that he was unaware of the full picture and would investigate the matter further before taking any action. But no follow up was done even though the noble had waited for more than three months. It was after that when he ran into one of the count’s sons who was one the way to the Redlis Kingdom’s capital to pay their taxes and tributes.
A fight erupted between the two with it ending with the noble’s death at the hands of one of the servants of the illegitimate son. It was described that the servant was angered by the noble who insulted his beloved master to the point where he couldn’t contain himself and started lashing out violently. This led to the servant being given the death sentence for killing a noble with the count’s son remaining unscathed from the whole affair.
When word of that matter spread to the territories of the noble families near that of the count’s, a chain reaction occurred. People started to accuse the First Prince of favoritism towards the count. At that moment, one of the aides of Count Cobry revealed a stunning fact when he was dead drunk at a tavern: before the count returned to his dominion, the First Prince had promised him that he would grant the count the title of ‘Duke of the Northwest’ if he was able to make the nearby nobles submit to him and that the lands of the nobles would become part of his dominion.
That was why Count Cobry was so fervent in looking for trouble with the nobles around the area without heeding any of the customs and traditions of nobles when it came to war. He even purged every single one of the opposition, down to every single family member, so that they wouldn’t cause any problems to him in the future. The whole of the kingdom’s nobles all lost faith in the First Prince upon hearing that revelation and almost 40 of those families banded together to form an alliance to curb the threat of Count Cobry, vowing to support each other should any one of them be troubled by the count. Even so, given the past grudges some of them had with others, it was not uncommon for some of them to stab another family in the back from time to time. During the past half year itself, two families have already fallen to Count Cobry’s clutches. The alliance also suffered quite a number of losses in battles, causing some of the members to leave it and join the count’s side instead.
Whenever the count defeated an enemy, he would raze the whole territory that belonged to his fallen foe and bring the surviving citizens of the land back to his dominion to serve as slave laborers to build infrastructure for his dominion. Count Cobry intended to build a city that rivaled that of the kingdom’s capital as his main base as the Duke of the Northwest.
Story[]
After Lorist went to and fro the battlefield three times, not a single cavalryman remained on their horses. However, only 10 of the 26 men who had followed him were still mounted.
The men who had followed his lead had all but perished, including his 6 Silver ranked illegitimate sons. The other Gold ranked son had fought with Josk until the last moment only to die as well. The only person who was still alive after all that was Count Cobry himself.
Count Cobry ended up being pinned to the cross that Lorist had ordered to be made and died after half a day of moaning and wailing. Before his death, he also witnessed the beheading of his illegitimate son who had been struck with three arrows back at the city gates. That son of his died without any suffering as he had been out cold the moment he was injured.
After the beheading, Lorist had the heads of all the illegitimate sons of the count that had died by his hands stacked up before the cross. He also requested for an artisan to craft a fitting stone tablet that described the count’s deeds and sins, including the ones he had committed during his time as Redbeard the bandit, and how the untimely discovery of his identity had caused his downfall.