Kedri Kek-Pensh
Mr. Kedri Kek-Pensh (a.k.a. The South Desert Mauler)
Kedri Kek-Pensh was a Lepidosian military scout who is best remembered as a hero of the war against the Occult Fraternity that would lead to the formation of the League of Lepidosian City-States, one of the founding members of the Waste Wanderers, and as the husband of Lili Parsens, the first post-war mayor of Steel Mill Corners. A high-functioning sociopath, Kedri later in life became the vigilante - or, as some would say, a serial killer - known as the South Desert Mauler in response to the tragic death of his two youngest daughters. For this later work, he was eventually memorialized as a saint by Lepidosian followers of the Patron Shank Moswen
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Little is known about Kedri's early life, though it is known that he met Reed Vangard and the other members of the Waste Wanderers in his teen years towards the end of the Magocracy period. The group traveled the Great Ilmenite Desert fomenting sedition against the Occult Fraternity, liberating slaves, and waylaying caravans carrying condemned prisoners to Execution Hill as would-be victims of the Fraternity's sacrificial rites.
After the arrival of the Harkinite Expedition, Shank Moswen and Wurth Harkin approached the Waste Wanderers to coordinate what would become a successful rebellion against the Occult Fraternity that culminated in the nuclear bombardment of Fraternity holdings around the equator. After this event, Kedri and the Wanderers kept roaming the desert, but instead of fighting their world's tyrants, they spent most of their time helping to get isolated communities vital supplies and crushing bandit bands that had sprung up in the power vaccuum.
Eventually, the Wanderers found their way to Steel Mill Corners. Reed helped cure the rustlung epidemic, earning the gratitude of the people and especially the mayor, Lili Parsens. Kedri became smitten with Lili and chose to settle down, eventually having a son and four daughters with her while taking up more peaceful work as a teacher.
Unfortunately, the violence Kedri thought he had left behind revisited him when the serial killer known as Madhook Jonny kidnapped and killed his two youngest daughters. This turn of events broke Kedri's resolve to restrain his more violent impulses, and he took these impulses out by continuing the same anti-bandit actions he had participated in the past with a more merciless twist. Bel Pries, another Wanderer who had become the town's sheriff, almost caught kedri on numerous occasions but never actually managed to pin the extrajudicial killings in the desert on Kedri. Lili was able to prevail on Kedri to set aside his anger and grief for the good of their family, but he never truly recovered from the loss. Kedri died at age 80 of exhaustion exacerbated by advanced age.
Sexuality
Otherwise not very social, Kedri had a unique savvy with the opposite sex. Alongside liquor and combat stimulants, womanizing was a vice Kedri gave up completely when he and the other Waste Wanderers settled in Steel Mill Corners.
Employment
Kedri's two great life-long loves were hunting and martial arts. He was a practitioner of Senshet-Rai, a style that combines a pressure points with hard, devastating blows designed to incapacitate or kill ideally with a single blow or combination of blows. The stealth he learned during a youth spent hunting varmints for food served him well later in life when, as a town militia man and later operator with the Waste Wanderers, he took on an advanced reconnaisance role. Kedri also demonstrated a proficiency with seducing his way to the top of potential enemies' hierarchies, more than once working his way into the hearts of female Occult Fraternity officers in a region before quietly dispatching them in the leadup to a slave uprising fomented by the Wanderers.
Mental Trauma
Kedri never spoke of his family to the other members of the Wanderers, and it is now believed that he may have been orphaned because his parents were, as he would later become, themselves Raikepists targeted for persecution by the Magocracy. This childhood trauma stunted his emotional development, making him a calculating emotionally distant individual who took sadistic joy orchestrating the death of Occult Fraternity members. Until his arrival in Steel Mill Corners, the only genuine warmth Kedri ever felt towards others was towards other members of the Waste Wanderers, especially his best friend Reed.
After becoming accepted by Steel Mill Corners community, Kedri began to explore a new world of feelings: respect, affection, and a sense of purpose based on the wellbeing of others. At the height of his personal journey to redemption, Madhook Jonny delivered a crippling psychological blow by targeting Kedri's family. Kedri's body count began to climb for the first time in almost two decades, and he only came back from the brink out of love for his remaining family.
Morality & Philosophy
Though he spent most of his early life as a cold-blooded operator, outside of regular warfighting, Kedri embraced a personal code that strictly forbade him from tasting violence until he found the right target and the right time to strike. Kedri exclusively targeted people who either worked directly for the Occult Fraternity or who had committed crimes that already marked them for death. A consummate vigilante, his philosophy was that killing these people wasn't a moral wrong to feel guilty over, and he didn't; until his dying breath, Kedri never once felt regret about his 'extracurricular activities' except insofar as it would bring his friends and family trouble if he were ever to be caught.
Relationships
Alignment
Lawful Evil
Current Status
Deceased
Current Location
Species
Ethnicity
Age
80
Circumstances of Death
Advanced age
Place of Death
Steel Mill Corners
Spouses
Lili Parsens
(Wife)
Siblings
Children
Sex
Male
Eyes
Green
Hair
Short, black
Height
5'6"
Weight
175 lbs
Aligned Organization
Other Affiliations
Comments