Ruth Norwood is a witch living in Forgotten Hill. She has spent multiple lifetimes terrorizing the inhabitants. All other game adversaries are directly or indirectly linked to her, making her the primary antagonist of the entire Forgotten Hill series of games.
Biography[]
Born in the latter half of the 17th century, Ruth Norwood eventually came to live in a small shack at the edge of a forest near the area known today as Forgotten Hill. Within a short while, rumor spread that she could predict the future and cure various ailments. As time passed, more and more people went to her for assistance. Despite her four servants (dubbed "Guardians") always accompanying her and locals finding mutilated animal carcasses around her home, it took the death of the baker's daughter for the townspeople to realize she was a genuine witch. Judge Richard Larson sentenced her to death for "witchcraft, murder, and promiscuity with the devil". Before being hanged alongside her servants, she shouted "I will return and my revenge will fall on all your descendants!"
Centuries later Ewan McMillan, a founder of the town of Forgotten Hill's wife died at the early age of 33. In October of 1889, a full year after her passing, Ruth took the opportunity to appear as the ghost of the wife to the widowed man via magic. With promises of the lovers being reunited, McMillan eagerly did as he was told. When his machine was up and running, she explained that she required the energy of his daughter Camille in order to come back. Using that machine, she transferred her consciousness into the body Camille and Camille's consciousness into a mandrake doll. Distraught, McMillan sent his "daughter" away to live with her cousins and shortly thereafter he hung himself. But "Camille" did not stay away for long...
When she and Camille's friends Nathan, Ethan, and Theodore gathered to trick-or-treat on Halloween night, 1891, she donned a ghost mask made of haunted bedsheets (citing she needed a mask with a lot of power) as part of her Halloween costume. Shortly thereafter, she gathered the materials for a spell to kill almost all of the remaining founders. The spell was a summoning using a pumpkin as a vessel and with it in hand she professed to the other children that that she would use the trick to scare the grownups off. Unleashing the hellish jack-'o-lantern on the few founders left, two of the men were slaughtered and one was possessed by the spirit previously within the pumpkin. The other children, knowing what she'd done, decided to join her in her quest to go into the village to "spook everyone off". Joining her cause, they all decided to "scare forever". After the gruesome events of that night, she and her new friends were adopted by the remaining man, Baxter Anderson, taking the name Ruth Anderson.
As Baxter was the Forgotten Hill Museum's financeer, she used his connections to take over control of the building. Using it as the new base of her operations, she raised four sadistic individuals from the dead to serve her as her new "Guardians" and function as the museum's caretakers. She also was the only woman in the town to receive keys to the city, notable for the symbolism of who the power truly belonged to. Making good on her promise, has cause chaos for years to terrorize the citizens of the town alongside her friends (whom she granted immortality). Now her focus is on the great-great-great-great grandson of the judge that condemned her to die. Knowing her history, she will be sure to raise hell...