The Scarlet Lady

The Scarlet Lady is a legend of the Fens turned deadly reality. In the last years of the nineteenth century, a young woman named Mary James fell on hard times. Slandered and disinherited by her family, she ultimately found herself on the streets of the Fens. After a short career as a streetwalker she was considering ending her own life, but someone beat her to it; Mary a victim of the murderous Jack-a-Knives. While some credit Lantern Jack with the end of the killer’s reign of terror, others say it was Mary who put an end to the murderers—that when he passed over the place where he had killed her, Mary’s ghost rose up and struck him dead with her bloody touch.
Recently, on the anniversary of the murder of Mary James, a prostitute was killed on the same street. This convergence drew Mary’s spirit from its rest. Now she wanders the streets at night, killing those who would prey on streetwalkers or draw innocent women into this sordid life to begin with.
The Scarlet Lady is completely focused on her mission of vengeance. She is not fully aware of her surroundings, and ignores anything that does not fit her Victorian frame of reference (cars, television, microwaves, etc.). It is difficult to engage her in conversation; as soon as she has accomplished her current task, she drifts through a wall or floor, in search of a new victim.
As a ghost, the Scarlet Lady has a number of powers. First, she is permanently incorporeal. Most attacks pass right through her, although mystical powers affect her normally. Second, as she is already dead, it is extremely difficult to harm her, and even if she is killed she will inevitably return. She also fades away each morning as soon as the sun rises, returning again when darkness falls.
In addition to her supernatural defenses, the touch of the Scarlet Lady can disrupt the life force of any living creature. She has a haunting beauty that has a particularly strong effect on men. This can have a disarming effect on observers, but if she wishes she can exude an aura of supernatural menace and primal dread, causing weak-willed men to flee in terror.
The Scarlet Lady generally ignores those who have not incurred her wrath (by harming prostitutes or women in general). She has no desire to kill the innocent, and her deadly touch is an all-or-nothing attack. She concentrates on a single victim, using her Fearsome Presence to try to drive off other attackers. When she has eliminated her targets, she uses air walking and her spectral nature to evade pursuit, slipping away through solid walls.
The Scarlet Lady has pale white skin and long, wavy black hair. Her eyes are pools of shadow. She wears a tattered Victorian dress that appears to be made of crimson silk, but on closer inspection this is revealed to be a white dress soaked in blood; she leaves a smear of wet blood any time she attacks. It is clear that she is a ghost; she is slightly translucent, and she tends to float a few inches off of the ground.
The Scarlet Lady is yet another tragic murderer. She begins by preying on rapists, pimps, madams, and other people who victimize and abuse women. In time, however, she may start to kill the relatively harmless johns. It’s possible she will even begin killing prostitutes herself, seeking to “free” streetwalkers from their grim lives—in the process, becoming as great a threat as Jack-a-Knives ever was. As she continues down this path, the Scarlet Lady moves from being a legend and folk heroine to an object of terror. Can the heroes find some way to finally lay her spirit to rest? If not, she simply rises again to haunt the Fens once more.