Redcaps live mostly isolated lives, dwelling in ruins of castles, forts, and towers in areas once ruled over by more powerful nations. Often these areas were reduced to ash and rubble by the redcaps themselves during a wilding. Living in isolation, redcaps rely on the fact that they live in borderlands to attract strangers and travelers into their lairs so that they might torment them to consume their fear and kill them to consume their flesh. They often spread the rumors that a benevolent old man dwells where they are so that travelers might stop there.

Every century or so, the redcaps in an area will gather to go on a wilding, a frenzied raid on the countryside that will destroy villages, harry troops, and drive farmers into hiding. During these times, the most powerful among them becomes the wilding leader, but outside of this, they have no leaders. There is no set single way for them to be in community; in fact, they usually hate each other.

Redcaps are always male (socially). Any deviation is usually responded to with violence. They create new redcaps by buying a bunch of their matted locks soaked in blood along with an old cap. They do this usually as an act of mischief and malice, burying the nascent redcap in an area they wish to cause havoc in. The child will claw its way out of the ground within a fortnight. Doing this costs a redcap blood from its cap, however, and so they do this only rarely.

No one raises redcap children. They come out of the ground capable of hunting and fighting. Their caps are pre-soaked by the blood from their parent. They spend their first few years living wild before finding a burrow or abandoned house to dwell in. As they grow, they rove out, seeking other places to stay until they find an adequate ruin or tower. At the age of 25, their comb, dagger, and pikestaff appear where they sleep over the course of three nights. At this time, they go out to deliberately find a new place, one they will remain with as long as possible.

Redcaps spend most of their lives luring in strangers to kill, wandering the countryside for blood, and collecting odd trinkets.

In Unseelie and Winter Courts, redcaps are seen as dangerous but useful. They are often allowed to live their lives unmolested in exchange for occasional tribute or services. Sometimes lords and ladies of these courts take it upon themselves to capture and enslave a redcap. This has ended in ruin for many of them (one notable lord was wrapped in lead and boiled to death), but some have found ways (a chest with three strong padlocks made of copper, for instance, to lock them in) to contain them. In the Seelie and Summer Courts, they are converted or killed. The Kindly Court refuses them entrance unless they change the nature of their Names.