Name/Nicknames: Redding Schmidt
Age: 29
Gender: Male
Appearance:
Clad in a somewhat ratty light green t-shirt and a dusty, scuffed leather jacket. Wears steel-toe work boots and a compact 9mm pistol tucked away in his pants.
Race: Human
Strengths: Redding can be a kind man and knows this can be useful
He's a tough individual, growing up on the streets, he won't shrink away from hard words.
His loyalty to the friends he has is limitless, having lost the love of his mother and growing up with a shit father.
He always tries very hard to use violence as the last resort. It's bad business to beat people to death if they don't need to be dead.
Weaknesses: Redding has a mean streak to contrast his niceness, he can get very violent.
Alcoholism, though highly functioning, is a side effect of using alcohol as a maintenance drug for chems and very rare prescription drugs.
He can not sleep unless he is drugged or drunk and this puts him on edge, or can lead to him being somewhat robbed of his energy.
Personality: Redding tries to be a good man when he can, it's just too bad he's made a career of doing things he doesn't like. In another time, they say he could've been a good guitarist, but his voice isn't anything to write home about on account of the smoking. To any who meet Redding, he comes off as cold and businesslike, but you'd find he was only shy, but mostly very knowing of the fact people in his line of work don't live long enough to become good friends or end up on the other side of his gun for one reason or another.
Skills/Attributes: His father taught him how to take punches, his friends taught him how to throw them. Growing up with a street gang as family does things to a man, even one who started out as meek and helpless as Redding. He shrank away from violence, but when he found his brothers, he turned his self-loathing outwards and became the man he is today. He's a good shot, he has quick hands and no fear of a sharp edge.
He's also learned to cultivate an aura of fear about him, as it's less how you feel about a violent situation as much as those others in it feel about you. Put on a mean face and people tend not to fuck with you. As a man whose job is to squeeze people for their very last cap, he knows how to do this very well.
Back-story: Mentioning the Brothers Schmidt's names is enough to have your tongue ripped out of your mouth in many dive bars in North Vegas. The eldest and de facto leader, Craig Schmidt is a name both respected and hated, depending on who you ask and his three brothers below him in station and age are all names just as known- Simon, Jaime and Redding. All three are known for different things, Simon for his quick tongue and womanizing, Jaime for his size and rough features and Redding for helping Jaime settle disputes some might have with the Schmidts. And his taste for the drugs.
Left to their own devices when Craig was of age in the Mojave, the brothers sought their fortunes in the much more turbulent New California Republic crime world. The Families and street gangs there were in an everlasting battle for petty reasons. The one thing that drew them there was that the Families were willing to pay those who were willing to settle their petty disputes. Taken in by a minor gangster who was tenth in line for inheritance as patriarch of the Family but whose ambition and greed reached far beyond what he could achieve by himself, the brothers Schmidt were given the best lessons money could buy. Almost Dons themselves when it came to their wallets, the thing that kept them there were their willingness to do what it took to keep themselves at that position. The things they were told to do was anything from blackmail to murder. One such Schmidt excelled at the art of killing.
It would be years before their young employer would be killed in a fistfight, in which he met his opponent on the backstreets but was shot by hired thugs, thus losing fair and square- this obviously using the crooked rules of 'who-has-the-biggest-gun'. Of course, in order to keep their heads and their money, they joined with the obvious winner of the fight in a show of goodwill and professionalism. Two years in service to a man named Vincent de Courmier and they worked with more freedom in what they chose to do, enjoying their place in a growing empire in the underworld. Redding and Jaime began spending more time around the chems and alcohol and developed a taste for it, Redding much more than Jaime. It was also around this time that Redding began a romantic relationship with a girl named Teresa. Redding’s taste for the sugar and skooma only worsened over time, left unchecked in his frequent absences from his brothers.
It was to the point at one time where Redding had stopped working for money and started accepting drugs as payment. Craig would not stand for this, neither from Vincent nor Redding. Craig took it up with Vincent and failing to reach an agreement, Jaime broke the man’s spine and they took their brother away from Vincent. They skipped town, selling their services to some upstart drug dealer in an insignificant town. Despite their assistance, the small-time pusher still managed to get himself killed and the Brothers Schmidt earned a price on their heads on behalf of the town's sheriff. It was around this time, after three years of hiding and the anniversary of their most recent defeat, that Redding decided to cut ties with his brothers and move on to a shiny town full of opportunity named New Reno.
