Other Aliases
- He went by just "Redwing" in theri groups pre-Changes, and still answers more readily to that than "Dennis."
- Fundamentalists quickly labeled him "The Beast" after the Los Angeles Riots and his immediate rise to stardom; this stuck with him even after his political moderation.
Redwing is a fairly large (non-metallic) copper-brown dragon with, as might be guessed, bright red wing surfaces. Two straight horns jut back from the sides of his head, set off by a mane of red hair that tapers off halfway down his neck.
In human form, he's of below-average height with a well-sculpted form and short, spiky brown hair (he dyed it red in college but has since given the practice up). He has red line-art tattoos of stylized wings on his shoulder blades.
Available documents paint a picture of an ambitious but unfocused man. Until late 1996, Dennis Carpenter worked occasional freelance jobs in media relations for Colorado firms while managing a Boulder coffee shop named
The Dragon's Roost. Before that, Dennis dropped out of graduate school in public relations to pursue employment.
He graduated with an A-minus average and a B.A. in sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. While there, he ran for a minor student government office and lost; he won a regional Debate Club award; and he briefly wrote for the school newspaper. His college entrance exam essay was about how the world would be different with dragons in it. Amusingly, virtually none of those predictions matched the reality of The Changes.
Under the name Redwing, Dennis was a prolific poster to several dragon-related Internet newsgroups; he was quite open about his belief in his inner dragon nature, and was a recognized and well-liked figure in those online circles. Many theris attribute his effectiveness as a leader immediately after The Changes to the connections he built up before them.
It is widely accepted that Redwing was the dragon seen in
The First Sighting, and much evidence independently supports this. For instance, several of his Boulder friends told media that he canceled a social engagement the evening of
The First Sighting with the excuse that he was "heading east to visit relatives." Also, experts' consensus is that the dragon seen in the video footage is an exact match for Redwing's features and coloration.
However, the man himself dithered about that sighting when first asked; finally denied it when pressed on the question; and to this day hasn't changed his story despite the evidence. Redwing continues to strenuously deny his involvement, refusing to explain or discuss it further except to say that people are entitled to think whatever they want but he knows he wasn't on the streets of Nebraska that day.
Facts about Redwing's pre-Changes magical training are as vague as their more mundane counterparts. Redwing himself has mentioned he got his start with some college friends, although none of these friends has publically surfaced. (Many suspect
Elf is one of them.) One or two mages Redwing has worked with online say that he told them he was self-taught, but there's no evidence to be found for or against this. What is known for certain is that he hung out at the edges of several online mage circles, occasionally participating in their rituals or trading tips; he definitely sharpened his skills this way. Redwing cast his first (post-Changes) spell "shortly after [his] first change to dragon," but he declines to speak much about the time before the
Los Angeles Riots.
As a highly public figure and (in later eras) survivor of three assassination attempts, Redwing is never to be found without several layers of defenses against magical and mundane attacks. He'll publically work magic in self-defense or when he's deliberately establishing magic as a force for public good (such as the
Los Angeles Riots), but otherwise prefers to work behind the scenes -- he puts a lot of (wasted) effort into carefully cultivating a public image as a regular guy "who just happens to be a dragon."
Many mages complain, especially in TTU's later eras, of Redwing's advocacy for things they see as limiting the power of magic. For example, after the
Brogi Accident in January 1997, Redwing walks a fine line on teleportation, discouraging its use while never saying so in that many words. Redwing also is a supporter of
thaumometer technology, arguing it ultimately helps mages by reassuring non-mages they have
some control over this supernatural force.
Years after
TheChanges, Redwing also produced a series of magical-safety television commercials for the U.S. Agency for Spells and Magitechnology -- and while the commercials' goal was admirable, the ASM inspires such loathing among many mages that Redwing's cooperation led a number of them to brand him as a traitor.
Despite this, Redwing is also a public advocate for mages and magic, and has argued the long-term solution for magical power imbalances is to teach willworking to all children.
Level of fame: Household name.
- Reputation: Because of his fame and his pivotal involvement in many of TTU's historic events, he's one of those people that it's impossible not to have an opinion about. He's pretty consistently a media darling, but public opinion swings widely based on era and recent events. In December 1996, he's a superman; in early January 1997, he's a rebel; after The Meeting, he's a dangerous revolutionary; by Winter Of Discontent, he's started to claw his way back to respectability, though it would ultimately take years and never return him to his former glory.
- Support for him is strongest among liberals, though his base shifts centerward over the years. In early eras, mages and theris think highly of him, and if he had declared war he would have had a dangerous following ... but he becomes an apostate among "his own kind" as he tries to reclaim the middle ground destroyed by The Meeting. In later eras, many mages take pains to distance themselves from him, and see him as a warning of what they could become if they knuckle too far under to the world's demands.
Group affiliations: Advisory board member of
SANE.
Rumor has it that Redwing knows more than he's letting on about the purpose for The Changes, and its path in the future -- although he says this is flat-out wrong. A few make the odd claim that he's not a dragon at all (to which he responds, "I'd tell, but that would be cheating"); or that he's Elvis, still alive and with a lot of plastic surgery under his belt ("I kind of doubt it. I hate donuts"); or that he's the subject of over 14 of Nostradamus' quatrains ("Probably. Who can tell?"). Redwing finds the rumor that he is actually several centuries old humorous, and has learned to laugh at being labeled "The Beast" by religious extremists. (He once famously quipped, "
The Guardian Knights keep getting it wrong. I'm not just 'evil,' I'm Satan himself. Didn't they get the memo?")
Writers should treat Redwing like a celebrity -- which is to say, someone who we hear a lot about, but somebody who exists primarily or totally through a media filter. Even Redwing's friends and associates very rarely talk to him directly; his full-time media secretary
Elf filters his calls, and he's hired several of his friends to jobs screening and answering the bags of fan and/or hate mail he gets each day.