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Kerr was not born to anybody of particular importance. He was apprenticed early to a blacksmith and farrier because he had strong hands, a good back, and he learned quick enough to do what he was told. He was not the greatest smith in the world, but neither was he the worst. As farriers, he and his master were attached to the Marquis of Deepwood's men, repairing armor, honing weapons, and shoeing horses. It was a good gig. Kerr learned a lot about soldiery and weapons-handling, and about boasting and bragging. He was whippet lean and young and hungry, and his master died in the slaughter along with countless other men and women, soldiers and otherwise, at the hands of the Gray Forest Reapers. He took up a broken shield and reforged it, hiding amongst the chaos, and picked up a mace and threw himself into the fight. Somehow he survived. The device he put on his hedge knight's shield is just a criss cross of steel grooves. He started calling himself Kerr Redsteel, and threw his mace behind the device of the living vassals of the Deepwoods, trying to make sense of a world full of chaos and slaughter. He didn't expect to become Sir Kerr Redsteel, but he did, fighting for the child-marquesa and earning the favor of her Bisland guardians. Attached to the Deepwood house as a knight retainer, his loyalty is that of the steel he named himself for: forged in fire, sturdy and strong, yet flexible.

Rangy and dark, with a rough tousle of black hair above bright black eyes, Kerr is all lean muscle and sinewy strength. His shoulders bear the breadth of the forge and the strength that defines him burns in his eyes. He has a chipped tooth that lends a rakish air to his every dark grin, and there is a broad scar lit across his cheek in a lance of puckered grey-white over his brown skin. His dark eyes are sometimes veiled by the sooty thickness of eyelashes absurdly long for a face otherwise mostly strong jaw and sharp angles.

Fierce, passionate and a little dramatic, Kerr is driven by a need to excel. His ambition is to prove himself, past humble roots, past death and ruin. He has a cold streak born of angst, and a sardonic sense of humor that goes from gray to black. His personal strength and moral suasion are such that he tends to look down on people who need props to get by, be they drugs, alcohol, meaningless sex, prayer, whatever: his independence is too important to him. He has a deep egalitarian streak, but with that comes a strong sense of loyalty to the Deepwood March and their potential.