The Red Cap



The Red Cap is the first portrayal of the Fear of Temptation, shame, sexuality, and sex. It appears as a red goo-like substance, similar to blood and possesses people called "Blood Vessels," using them to gather power among its followers, the Scarlet-Marked. When the Scarlet-Marked are in the presence of the Red Cap, they develop nosebleeds. The Scarlet-Marked typically act as a cult that frequently engages in orgies where they cut themselves and bleed on one another, thereby increasing the Red Cap's power. If a Blood Vessel possessed by the Red Cap sleeps with another Vessel, the Red Cap will be passed on to them. It has been shown, however, that two Red Caps may not get along. Red, the narrator of City of Sinopia, for example, killed a woman who was possessed and reabsorbed the Red Cap within her.

Its domain has been referred as "the veins and arteries."

Relation to the Dying Man
The Dying Man is sometimes written as related to The Red Cap. Some stories, such as City of Sinopia, suggest The Red Cap to be what the original fragment of the Dying Man became after splitting itself into multiple pieces.