Caius Taggert

== Description ==
Caius Taggert, or "The Party Host" as he's referred to by most wanderers, is a human male infected with Sanguine Festivus. Reports from eyewitnesses and detained SFV victims describe him as having a hulking build and stature, standing at roughly 7'2". While descriptions of him assume his age to be roughly in his early thirties, documentation throughout the years on Taggert points to his true age being over 250 years, the exact explanation as to how he's survived for so long entirely unclear. He is always spotted wearing a worn black shirt, ragged brown pants, and a ratty yellow canvas bag over his head decorated with a crude red smiley face and a single eyehole. Regarding equipment, the only item he's consistently known to carry is a massive rusted man-catcher decorated with a red balloon. Beneath his apparel, some wanderers claim to have seen jagged bone plating covering his body as if functioning as natural armor or an exoskeletal structure. The appearance of his face is entirely unknown, save for scattered accounts of his mouth lacking solid structure and unhinging to reveal several rows of jagged and bloody bone shards in place of teeth.
Taggert is widely credited as being the sole driving force behind the spread and sustainment of SFV in the Backrooms for most of the virus's history, and is believed by some to be the single person responsible for the virus's presence at all. With records pointing to Taggert potentially being the "patient zero" of Sanguine Festivus, it's possible that every single wanderer who succumbs to the virus could trace the chain of infection that led to them all the way back to him. Some believe this to not necessarily be the case, and that Taggert succumbed to the virus via the tainted waters of Level 338.1, while others speculate that Taggert somehow made the level into a breeding ground for the virus himself, and contracted the disease from somewhere else.
Documented sightings of Taggert are sparse in number for much of his life in the Backrooms, with the few available being mostly fragmented or damaged accounts of his appearances following his first known appearance back in 1771; by which point he had already been infected with SFV likely just a few days prior. Many wanderers, even those who had heavily researched the history of the Backrooms, had assumed Taggert to be more hearsay and myth than an actual person prior to the 21st century. This swiftly changed with the beginning of the Euphoric War in early 2004, with reports suddenly appearing en masse of him accompanied by dozens of heavily armed and armored SFV victims appearing on countless levels, most often either conducting raids on settlements or engaged in combat with Party Crasher forces. Since the end of the Euphoric War in late 2007, sightings of Taggert are still surprisingly common compared to earlier history, with accounts suggesting him working towards personally bolstering the numbers of SFV victims in the Backrooms. 
Individuals infected with SFV who have been detained and interrogated about Taggert reveal some interesting information about his behavior. Those who've personally interacted with him describe him as highly empathetic and caring towards infected individuals, going out of his way to speak calmly and quietly. When dealing with non-infected, Taggert usually maintains the same demeanor, most often attempting to convince wanderers to "painlessly" contract the virus and join the ranks of those infected with Sanguine Festivus. The only exceptions to this seem to be anyone who personally kills another SFV victim, to which Taggert shows no such compassion and will invariably try to kill. This lack of mercy seems to also apply to any and all Party Crashers Taggert encounters.
Category:Person of Interest