Woogitybones

Most of the personalities of the Grave, the active and social beings that reside there, are relatively benign.  Born or reborn into the land of the dead with little memory, little care and no lasting hunger from life, they approach their persistence with equanimity, if not benevolence toward what living they meet.  It takes real will and commitment to remain evil in death, apparently, which means that those who manage are especially dangerous and frightening.

So we come to Woogitybones.  We're not sure where he came from, and he's no help at all on that matter; an occultist, killed by those underground, a murderer buried at a crossroads not remote enough, a normal man who lived and died and heard a dark cosmic secret in the grave that made him mad.  There are stories, he makes a few of his own and switches around the details.

Those of the grave usually appear in their bones and whatever clothing suits those bones.  Woogitybones does the same, appearing in rusted armor, overstretched with ruined, stolen finery.  He likes the color yellow, but he'll take anything that's bright, as long as it doesn't get too stained in the taking.  Woogitybones loves garlands and flower crowns, and he's been known to leave be someone who makes him a crown and has the courage to put it on his head.

Woogitybones travels throughout the Big Charry region, looking to make mischief, but most of the records of his doings come from when he has slipped north into the southern cantons.  We saw him first around the same time people were fleeing from the region, and, thankfully, we've begun to see a lot less of him as the upswing in exploration of the Big Charry region has given him intrepid and adventurous folks to harass.

Woogitybones thinks of himself as a trickster and a comedian, but his comedy is entirely of the crude physical variety, in fatal pratfals and violent slapstick.  He's an adept boxer and wrestler and enjoys challenging the living to wrestling matches or boxing with jagged bits of rusty metal secreted between the bones of his hands.  Woogitybones is also pretty good at making traps, and enjoys taunting and joking with people he catches.

If there is anything good to be said about Woogitybones, it's that he does not plan, or put his miscreant tendencies toward real, far-reaching malevolence.  He's got just enough cunning to have not been destroyed by the growing number of people who have reason to want to destroy him, and as his legend grows, so do the numbers and competence of those who seek his end.  There's a chance that he's met such an end as I write this.  One can only hope.