Seth Briars

Origins

Seth Briars is a grave robber and treasure hunter who works the cemeteries of New Austin. The Red Dead Redemption Game of the Year Edition guide puts him in his late thirties in 1911, which places his birth in the early 1870s. In "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies", he says he once had a wife, children and a business, and that he has lost all three. He says he no longer eats, sleeps or washes, that he has not bathed in six months and that his hair is falling out. He adds that it used to be about the money, but that he no longer knows who he is and cannot stop. In "A Gentle Drive with Friends", he says he has not liked women since his mother died.

His former partner is Moses Forth, another grave robber. Seth says Moses stole half of a treasure map from him, and that he would never have done the same to Moses. He describes the two of them as alike. In "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies", a line heard only if the player fails the ride to Benedict Point several times has him say that the last thing he ate was a crow, and that it tasted like a pig his father killed when he was a child. That piglet, he says, was the only thing he ever loved.

Red Dead Redemption (1911)

In 1911, agents of the Bureau of Investigation hold John Marston's wife and son to force him to hunt down Bill Williamson, who holds Fort Mercer in New Austin. Seth appears in four missions of Red Dead Redemption, all in the first act: the three of his own strand, from "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies" to "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead", and "The Assault on Fort Mercer". He has no mission in Mexico or West Elizabeth.

Act I: New Austin

Issue No. 53 of the Blackwater Ledger, the first issue John can buy, carries the article "Grave Robber Captured, But Crimes Persist". It reports that Moses Forth has been arrested for desecrating and robbing graves, and that he was believed to be solely responsible for a string of such crimes across the West over the past couple of years. Since his arrest, the paper adds, more graveyards have been desecrated, and people wonder who else is doing it. The article does not name Seth. At the end of "You Shall Not Give False Testimony, Except for Profit", Nigel West Dickens sends John to an old friend of his, Seth, for help in getting a wagon inside Fort Mercer. He warns that Seth can seem a little odd and says he is usually found at Coot's Chapel, which he puts down to Seth being very devout.

In "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies", John finds Seth in the cemetery of Coot's Chapel, in Cholla Springs, where he is digging up the grave of Josephine Byrd. When John introduces himself as a friend of West Dickens, Seth says goodbye at once and declares that he hates people, who got him into this mess. He then tells John about the stolen half of his map (see Origins) and refuses to say where it leads. Moses, he says, is held by the law at Benedict Point for exhuming bodies. John offers to help him get the map back, in the hope that Seth will then help him, and the two men set off together.

On the way, John asks how he can sink so low as to rob the dead. Seth calls him a hypocrite: in his view, stealing from the living is worse, and corpses do not care. He says he talks to the dead long after everyone else has forgotten them, and that he embraces them when they rot. He wonders aloud whether either of them really exists, and admits he does not know what year it is. At one point he asks himself, in a second voice, whether he has looked in the cave, answers that it is too dark, then denies having said anything. Seth brings up Bill Williamson himself: he has met Williamson, Norman Deek and their men, who sometimes call on him for special jobs, because he has a name for doing what most men refuse to do. He tells John he can get into Fort Mercer without trouble, provided he first helps with the map.

At Benedict Point, Seth explains that Moses is held in a shack guarded by two deputies, and asks John to lead them away past a hill. John steals one of their horses and loses the pursuit. Seth then calls Moses out; Moses bursts through the door and runs, and John lassoes and hogties him. While being carried back, Moses tells John that Seth would sell his own mother and offers to split the treasure with him. Seth draws his knife and threatens to cut Moses up piece by piece; he tells John he has never cut into a living man before. Moses gives in and says his half of the map is at Odd Fellow's Rest. Seth says it is a shame, as he was starting to enjoy himself, and notes that Moses has wet himself.

The theft of the horse has put a bounty on John's head. Seth has no money, but he gives John a pardon letter to clear it at the telegraph office, as payment for his help with Moses. Before they part, he thanks John, who answers that Seth only needs to help him when he comes asking. In "Liars, Cheats and Other Proud Americans", John tells Dickens that he has met Seth. Dickens praises his directness and defends his trade (see Quotes). Later, on the road, John calls Seth deeply disturbed. When Dickens says he has a soft spot for life's castaways, John replies that he and Seth both rob people, although Seth at least waits until they are dead.

In "A Gentle Drive with Friends", John goes back to Coot's Chapel, where Seth is waiting beside a wagon. Seth says he is not ready to help yet. After a long search for the last piece of the map, he has concluded that Moses did not lie: the problem was Aiden O'Leary, who said he had the body that carried it. O'Leary died in a flu epidemic, and its victims were not even buried yet. Seth has loaded their bodies onto the wagon. Seth says he never liked O'Leary and repeats a rumor that he slept with his sister. He wants to search the corpses somewhere quiet and warns that others are interested in them.

John drives the wagon to Tumbleweed while Seth rides in the back with the bodies. Seth asks him to stay left so that the people of Armadillo do not see his cargo. If John already has the machine gun from Irish, Seth passes on a message from Dickens: it has no ammunition. Seth talks to the corpses, and when John objects, he says he feels less alone with them than in a crowd. Treasure hunters then attack the wagon. John outruns them or shoots them while Seth goes through the bodies, finding a few bullets and a bottle of elixir before he finds the map. It shows that the treasure is in Tumbleweed, where they are already headed. On arrival, Seth sits down to study the map. When John tells him to get over to Fort Mercer, he answers that he will do so once he has found his treasure.

In "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead", John finds Seth in the cemetery of Tumbleweed, complaining that a corpse will not talk to him and remarking on its smell. It is the body of Elenora Riddick. Seth tries to slip away, then admits that, according to the map, the treasure is somewhere in the big abandoned house. Treasure hunters who followed him open fire, one of them thanking him for doing the hard work. Seth begs John to find the treasure for him. Following him through the town, John fights his way to the mansion. The front door is locked, so they go in through the basement doors and fight their way up to the second floor.

Seth finds a chest and starts to dance a prospector's jig, saying he will be rich after all these years. He breaks the lock and finds only a glass eye. John laughs. Seth breaks down and curses the liars and their maps for making a fool of him. John tells him to stop crying and help with Williamson's gang. Seth answers that hunting dead men's treasure has done him no good and that he is ready for the living. He arranges to meet John and Dickens at Fort Mercer when they are ready.

In "The Sport of Kings, and Liars", Dickens says the team will be ready once Seth and Irish have delivered their part, and John sums it up as a con man, a grave robber and a drunk. "The Assault on Fort Mercer" brings together John, Marshal Leigh Johnson, his deputies Eli and Jonah, Dickens and Seth; Irish, who supplied the Gatling gun, misses the fight. From a hilltop, John looks through a spyglass and sees Seth, already inside the fort, dancing on the wall. Dickens explains that they cannot wait long: the outlaws will soon tire of Seth's oddness and throw him out or cut his throat, but for a minute he will amuse them, and that is when he will get the posse inside. When Dickens's wagon arrives, Seth welcomes it at the gate as if the fort were his own home.

Dickens raps on the side of the wagon, and John opens fire with the Gatling gun hidden inside. The posse clears the fort and drives off the gang's reinforcements, but Bill is not there: Jonah reports that a captured gang member says he left for Mexico the morning before. Seth has no line after the welcome at the gate, which is his last appearance on screen in Red Dead Redemption.

The 1914 newspaper

Act III: West Elizabeth

Seth's fate is told in issue No. 213 of the Blackwater Ledger & Sentinel, dated 1914, which becomes available after John's last mission, "The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed", with Jack Marston as the playable character. Its short article "Treasure Found" calls him a local man. It reports that Seth Briars walked out of the mountains in Tall Trees and into Blackwater with a huge haul of gold and precious stones, which he had apparently spent years of his life pursuing. The paper describes him as a former known associate of Moses Forth. It adds that he denies any connection to the New Austin grave robberies with which Forth terrorized the dead of the region three years earlier. The article says nothing about his family, nor about where the treasure was found.

Undead Nightmare (non-canon)

Undead Nightmare, an expansion released in October 2010, is not part of the series' canon. In "Curious Tales from Blackwater", a group of survivors gives John two leads on the origin of the plague; one of them points to Seth. John follows it in "Get Back in That Hole, Partner" to The Old Bacchus Place, in Hennigan's Stead, where Seth is playing poker with Moses Forth, now one of the undead. John declines to join the game. Seth plays the plague down. When John reports that people in Blackwater blame the glass eye he found, Seth flies into a rage, curses the townsfolk and John, and urges Moses to attack him, without result. Pressed for an answer, he tells John to cleanse three cemeteries: Coot's Chapel, Odd Fellow's Rest and Tumbleweed.

On John's return, the house is hosting a party. Seth's dance partner is an undead woman he calls Mary Lou; Moses dances with one called Francine, and another undead plays the violin for them. John protests that the plague is still there after his work in the cemeteries. Seth tells him that the cause has something to do with the Aztecs, or perhaps the Incas, and that the answer lies in Mexico. At this point, he swallows the glass eye.

Seth appears once more at the end of the expansion. In "A Civilized Man", John kills the undead Abraham Reyes in Escalera and puts back the Aztec mask that Reyes had taken from the catacombs, which ends the plague. In the closing scene, "On a Pale Horse", the Marston family is reunited at Beecher's Hope. Three months later, Seth is shown stealing the mask from the Escalera catacombs. The dead rise again, and John comes out of his grave. Once the expansion is finished, the catacombs are closed off, and neither Seth nor the mask appears again.

The Game of the Year Edition guide of Red Dead Redemption describes him: "Seth is an American male in his late thirties. He is certifiably insane. He is not unlike an opium addict, only his addiction is money and he has been utterly consumed by it. His gold prospecting partner died on him, with the map to vast riches, and now he digs up graves in search of treasures." In the game, his former partner Moses Forth is alive in 1911 (see Biography).

In the game he talks to the corpses he digs up and carries, and answers himself in a second, higher voice. He often speaks of himself in the third person ("Seth's gonna be rich"). He calls the men he deals with partner or mister. When he opens the chest at Tumbleweed, he goes from euphoria to tears within a few seconds (see Biography). In Undead Nightmare, which is not canon, he keeps the undead as company (see Biography).

In his own words

On the road to Benedict Point, in "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies", he sums up his situation: "Oh, I've lost it all partner. My wife, my children, my business. Good riddance to them all. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't wash, and I don't care." He goes on: "Used to be about the money, but now... I don't know who I am no more. I see myself but it's like I'm lookin' at somebody else, only it's me." When John tells him to move on: "No way I can stop now. It's taken me over."

On why he robs graves, in the same ride: "I talk to 'em, long after they been forgotten by every other fella. I tell 'em it's alright to be scared and alone." On the corpses in his wagon, in "A Gentle Drive with Friends": "I feel less alone with them than in a crowd of people. The way I see it, they lost their souls, just like me."

Names

In the missions he is only ever called Seth. His surname appears in print in the last newspaper of the game, the Blackwater Ledger & Sentinel of 1914, which names him "Seth Briars" and then "Mr. Briars". Nigel West Dickens calls him "Seth of the dead" when John reports their meeting, in "Liars, Cheats and Other Proud Americans". Moses Forth calls him "a twistly little freak". A treasure hunter greets him with "Thanks for all the hard work, Seth!" at Tumbleweed. In Undead Nightmare, the lead that sends John to him is labelled Freak with a glass eye.

Appearance

He is a gaunt man with sunken cheeks, visible ribs, sores around the mouth, a thin pale mustache and long, lank hair under a battered, wide-brimmed hat. He wears a torn, dirty shirt open on his chest. A piece of rope serves as his belt, and he is balding under the hat.

Grave robbing

John first finds him at work in the cemetery of Coot's Chapel, and later in the cemetery of Tumbleweed. He does not wait for the dead to be buried: he loads the bodies of flu victims onto a wagon and searches them on the move (see Biography).

In the game

Seth gives three missions in Red Dead Redemption and one in Undead Nightmare; the Missions table lists them, with the game mechanics each one introduces. Seth has no money and pays John for his help with Moses Forth with a pardon letter, which clears the bounty John gets for stealing a lawman's horse. The player can instead pay the bounty and keep the letter. His missions in Red Dead Redemption fail if he is killed or abandoned.

Weapons and horse

At Benedict Point he draws a knife to threaten Moses Forth (see Biography). He also carries a Cattleman Revolver and a Repeater Carbine. He rides his own horse to Benedict Point, and the mission fails if that horse is killed. He shouts "Fly! Fly!" when he rides. In Undead Nightmare, which is not canon, assaulting Seth, Moses or the dancing undead fails "Get Back in That Hole, Partner". Seth draws a revolver only if he survives a stick of dynamite or a fire bottle thrown into the party at the end of the mission: he then fires at John and tries to flee.

Seth has a strand of three story missions in the first act of Red Dead Redemption, all in New Austin, numbered 13 to 15 in the story order. The first, "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies", becomes available once John has completed Bonnie MacFarlane's "Wild Horses, Tamed Passions" and Nigel West Dickens's "You Shall Not Give False Testimony, Except for Profit". It introduces wanted levels, bounties and hogtying, and unlocks the stranger mission "Funny Man". "A Gentle Drive with Friends" introduces fire bottles. Seth's strand, which ends with "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead", is one of the four that must be completed before Leigh Johnson's "The Assault on Fort Mercer", with those of Johnson, Dickens and Irish. In Undead Nightmare, Seth gives one mission; completing it with Dickens's "A Cure for Most of What Ails You" unlocks the achievement "Judge A Man By The...".

Appearances

Missions in which he is mentioned

The lines below are given in the original English.

What others say about him

• I want you to go see my old friend, Seth. He can come across as a little curious, but I'm sure you two will get on. He's most often found at Coot's Chapel. He's very devout.

  Nigel West Dickens, You Shall Not Give False Testimony, Except for Profit (RDR1, Act I)

• Yes, contemporary society is remarkably harsh on professional exhumers, but did you know, in Ancient Egypt, it was an art form more highly valued than literature? I believe Seth comes from that school of thought.

  Nigel West Dickens, Liars, Cheats and Other Proud Americans (RDR1, Act I)

• A connection with them, more like. You and Seth have a lot in common. You both rob people, for one. Mind you, at least he waits until they're dead.

  John Marston, Liars, Cheats and Other Proud Americans (RDR1, Act I), after Dickens says he has a soft spot for life's flotsam and jetsam

• You must be stupid, trustin' that crazy bastard. Seth'd sell his own mother. We'll split it between us, just me and you.

  Moses Forth to John, Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies (RDR1, Act I), hogtied

• Seth has managed to get himself inside, but we can't leave it too long, or they will soon realize how very curious he is, and remove him from the premises, or slit his throat and watch him bleed to death, but for a minute, he will delight and amuse them. That's when he'll get us inside.

  Nigel West Dickens, The Assault on Fort Mercer (RDR1, Act I), as Seth dances on the wall

• It's the glass eye! The freak with the glass eye! He caused this!

  Lucille Billingsgate, Undead Nightmare, on the cause of the plague

Red Dead Redemption, Act I

• Look at me! Look. Scrambling around, looking for maps, half insane. I ain't washed in 6 months, my hair's fallin' out, my mind's going.

  Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies (RDR1, Act I), at Coot's Chapel, when John asks what mess he is in

• Marston: How can you sink that low? Diggin' up graves and lootin' from the dead. / Seth: Hypocrites, the whole damn lotta you! Are you sayin' it's better to steal from the livin'? They're corpses. They don't care none.

  Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies (RDR1, Act I), on the ride to Benedict Point

• Seth: Are we really livin' anyway? Do you exist outside my mind? Maybe we're both havin' the same dream and when we wake up we'll die? / Marston: I certainly seem to be in some kind of nightmare.

  Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies (RDR1, Act I)

• Seth: Have you looked in the cave, Seth? No, it's very dark. / Marston: What did you say? / Seth: I-I didn't say nothin'.

  Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies (RDR1, Act I), Seth answering himself

• Marston: Seth, I need someone who can get a wagon inside Fort Mercer. I was told you could help me but I'm not sure you even know what day it is. / Seth: I don't. I can't even tell you what year it is.

  Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies (RDR1, Act I)

• Seth: Then I'm gonna cut you up piece by piece, 'til ya find your tongue. / Marston: Friend, this man's gone crazy in the sun. I suggest you take my advice and start talking. / Seth: Shut up, Marston, I wanna cut into a bonafide man's flesh! Ain't never cut into a live one before.

  Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies (RDR1, Act I), threatening Moses Forth at Benedict Point

• I needs the map, partner. I needs it.

  A Gentle Drive with Friends (RDR1, Act I), at Coot's Chapel, beside the wagon of bodies

• Marston: You're not even going to wait until they're buried before you... / Seth: Well they don't care, do ya boys? Honest folk, off to a better place.

  A Gentle Drive with Friends (RDR1, Act I), about the bodies in the wagon

• Seth: You remind me why I hate people. For a man who kills so much, you sure seem to have a problem with the dead. Life kills everyone in the end. They ain't so different from you and me. / Marston: Aside from them being dead and rotting, I guess they ain't...

  A Gentle Drive with Friends (RDR1, Act I), after John calls him a sick man

• Christ alive! It's the map! I found the map! Go left up here! Looks like the treasure's in Tumbleweed! That's where I was headed! It's fate!

  A Gentle Drive with Friends (RDR1, Act I), searching the bodies during the chase

• Seth: Finally! Months of searching! I'm gonna be rich beyond my wildest dreams! / Marston: Maybe then you can take a bath.

  A Gentle Drive with Friends (RDR1, Act I), on reaching Tumbleweed

• Yeee Hooo! Finally, I see the light at the end of this very long, long tunnel. Seth's gonna be rich after all these years... It's silk sheets and Parisian whores from now on, mister!

  Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (RDR1, Act I), on finding the chest

• Seth: What the goddamn hell is this? A glass eye? / Marston: I'm sure whoever that belonged to treasured it very much.

  Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (RDR1, Act I), on opening the chest

• Hunting dead men's treasure ain't done me no favors. Sure. Sure, I'm ready for the living. I'll see you and Mr. West Dickens over at Fort Mercer when you gentlemen is ready.

  Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (RDR1, Act I), the last line of his strand

• Hey, hey there! Come on in, come on in. Welcome to my humble abode! Come on.

  The Assault on Fort Mercer (RDR1, Act I), welcoming Dickens's wagon at the gate

Undead Nightmare (non-canon)

• It ain't nothin'.

  Get Back in That Hole, Partner (Undead Nightmare), when John asks him about the plague

• Folks? Folks! Folks! Damn them folks, John Marston! Damn them! And damn you!

  Get Back in That Hole, Partner (Undead Nightmare), when John says Blackwater blames the plague on his glass eye

• Moses wouldn't hurt a fly, would you darling?

  Undead Nightmare, to John

• Moses is having a tough time right now. Ain't ya, pal?

  Get Back in That Hole, Partner (Undead Nightmare), at the card table

Casting

Seth Briars appears in Red Dead Redemption and its expansion Undead Nightmare, both released in 2010. Kevin Glikmann voices him in both games. Glikmann is an American actor whose other credits include the film Changeling, the film Hot Tamale and the video game Splinter Cell: Double Agent. No source consulted names a performer for Seth's motion capture.

Unused Red Dead Online model

Seth does not appear in Red Dead Redemption 2. On August 17, 2020, PCGamesN (Iain Harris) reported that the dataminer VideoTech had found him in the files of Red Dead Online, where he was added with the game's first update in 2018. According to the report, the character has 41 finished lines of dialogue, one of which refers to a mission, and he was either cut or kept for later use. The unused model shares a slightly altered version of John Marston's face.

Character lists

On November 4, 2016, Dennis Patrick of Gameranx included Seth among the characters he wanted to see again in Red Dead Redemption 2: "Everyone remembers Seth Briars, you might not remember the name, but you can't forget the crazy lunatic speaking to the dead and hunting for unimaginable wealth." In a list of the ten best characters of the Red Dead Redemption franchise, published by Sportskeeda (page last modified on August 13, 2023), Aniket Mukherjee ranked him eighth, between Irish (ninth) and Leigh Johnson (seventh), citing "his quirky personality and unwavering determination to discover hidden treasures".

Rob Wiethoff

In an interview with the YouTube channel Dan Allen Gaming, published on March 27, 2021, Rob Wiethoff, who plays John Marston, named Seth as his favorite character in Red Dead Redemption.

The Man from Blackwater (2010)

Seth appears in Red Dead Redemption: The Man from Blackwater, a short film made with the game's engine, directed by John Hillcoat and broadcast by Fox on May 29, 2010, then by 5USA in the United Kingdom on June 5, 2010. The film follows the first act and reuses his meeting with John and the confrontation with Moses Forth from "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies". Its final segment changes the order of events: the map leads to Fort Mercer, and Seth finds the glass eye in a room of the fort, a scene taken from the Tumbleweed mansion of "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead". In the film, he says: "Put me on a cross and paint my picture" and "I'm gonna make you a nose check."

Multiplayer

Seth became a playable character model in the multiplayer mode of Red Dead Redemption with the Liars and Cheats Pack, detailed by Rockstar on August 27, 2010 and released on September 21, 2010. Players select him in the Redemption section of the Outfitter, alongside John, Abigail, Jack, Bonnie MacFarlane, Leigh Johnson, Luisa Fortuna and Nigel West Dickens. The versions of Red Dead Redemption released on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on August 17, 2023, then on PC on October 29, 2024, do not include the multiplayer mode.

Marketing

Rockstar released official artwork of Seth for Red Dead Redemption, which shows him with longer, thicker hair than in the game. The debut trailer of Undead Nightmare opens on Moses Forth digging up a grave at Coot's Chapel before an undead Bruiser charges and devours him, and briefly shows Josephine Byrd's tombstone stained with blood.

Red Dead Redemption

• In "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead", Seth walks through the basement of the Tumbleweed mansion past a real treasure: the one that the third treasure map of the Treasure Hunter challenge leads to, which gives Rank 4. If the player has already dug it up, there is nothing left there.
• Strangers at campfires sometimes tell a story about a family in Tumbleweed of whom nothing was left but a glass eye.
• The title "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead" quotes Jesus in Matthew 8:22 and Luke 9:60, answering a disciple who asks to bury his father first.
• In "Exhuming and Other Fine Hobbies", Seth does not die if John shoots him at the start of the mission: he gets up and runs away.
• In "A Gentle Drive with Friends", the first body in the wagon uses the same model as Sam Odessa, found dead outside Tumbleweed. If the player drives through Armadillo against Seth's advice, extra lines play, and a lawman who sees the wagon stopped for long enough examines it, which fails the mission.
• Josephine Byrd died on April 1, 1878. Her grave can be opened with a fire bottle, and her body wears the same trousers as Seth.
• Moses Forth's father, Herbert Forth, is buried in the Tumbleweed cemetery, under a tombstone that reads "This is one grave he cannot rob."
• Issue No. 56 of the Blackwater Ledger carries the article "More Ghosts Take up Residence at Tumbleweed". It reports that dozens more men have died in Tumbleweed and mentions rumors of riches hidden in the town's abandoned mansion. It does not name Seth.

Undead Nightmare (non-canon)

• Seth and the niece of Mordecai Robbard are the only characters the undead do not attack during the story, and Seth and Nigel West Dickens are the only uninfected major characters who take no part in fighting the undead.
• The undead at Seth's party cannot be shot, but a stick of dynamite or a fire bottle can kill them (for Seth's reaction, see Weapons and horse). Shooting the lantern above the dancers sets one of them on fire and makes the others attack, and riding over them on War sets them burning while Seth runs off. John can kill Seth, but this changes nothing: Seth still steals the mask at the end of the expansion.
• "Get Back in That Hole, Partner" is also the title of a track on the Undead Nightmare soundtrack.