[hider=Solomon Antabolis][center][img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/7b/c1/4a/7bc14ab317bb3ce039e495cd24d38253.jpg[/img]

[i]“Every regime is built on a foundation of blood.”[/i][/center]
[B]Name:[/B] Solomon Antabolis, the Slaughterfish. 
[B]Race:[/B] Imperial.
[B]Sex:[/B] Male.
[B]Age:[/B] 54.
[B]Birthsign:[/B] The Tower.
[B]Origins:[/B] The Imperial City, Cyrodiil.

[B]Appearance:[/B] Tall and wiry, Solomon has the build and body of a someone used to tough conditions and hard work. There isn’t a gram of excess fat beneath his skin and the sinewy musculature of his limbs make him deceptively strong and nimble for a man of his age. He has a warrior’s scars and calluses, seemingly at odds with his profession as innkeeper, that speak of a hard-fought existence. If fate had tilted ever so slightly at various points in his past, Solomon would undoubtedly have joined his father and his brothers in the afterlife long ago.

The Imperial possesses a long and narrow face, weathered and tanned by the sun and dominated by strong, hawkish features. His brows are sharp and angular, making it seem as if he is frowning or sneering at all times, and one could cut themselves on his high and prominent cheekbones. Gaunt cheeks end in a downturned mouth with modest lips, partly covered by the full and somewhat ruddy mustache -- the tips just long enough to twirl when lost in thought -- and goatee that he chooses to wear. The Imperial’s age is evident not only in the deep lines in his face but also in his receding hairline, creating a widow’s peak in his dark hair that is emphasized even further by his swept-back, practical style. His only touch of fashion is a single silver stud earring in his left earlobe. 

His mannerisms are reserved and deliberate, speaking in the clipped tones of a soldier and moving with the understated elegance of a man conserving energy for when he fears he might need all of it. Solomon’s expression is almost invariably inscrutably neutral, with piercing, heavy-lidded eyes, pale as the autumn sky, that see even the most minute hints of dishonesty with alarming perceptiveness. Slow to smile and seemingly bereft of joy, there is precious little warmth to be found in him, spoken or otherwise, but he strikes a capable and dependable image -- a man with many qualities and hidden talents. 

Solomon is usually dressed in practical and understated clothes of simple make and muted colors. A common outfit is a white linen shirt beneath a black jacket, a pair of leather vambraces, brown pantaloons stuffed into sturdy black boots and a belt around his waist. He owns a fur-lined greatcoat for the colder winter months (or, recently, the unseasonably cold nights) which is probably the most expensive piece of clothing in his armoire. Solomon prefers any armor he might wear to be lightweight enough to afford him full freedom of movement, in line with the Imperial leather armor he wore during his time with the Legion. 

A permanent presence by his side is his dog Sirius, a large, shaggy, wolf-like shepherd with fur as black as the night and eyes like gold, after who Solomon’s roadside inn is named. He is five years old, still in excellent health, loyal to a fault and ferocious in defense of his master. However, Sirius prefers to laze by the fire and snack on other people’s generosity as often as he can get away with it. 

[B]History:[/B] The Antabolis family had a rich military tradition in the Fourth Era, with almost every man in the family serving with the Legion at one point or another in their lives. Solomon was practically raised with his father’s war-stories and he grew up full of adoration for him. He was not alone in that regard, and Solomon did not fail to notice the respect his father commanded in Imperial society. Being the youngest of three sons, Solomon deeply desired to prove himself and coveted such respect for his own. As brothers are wont to do, Solomon was frequently picked on by Lucius and Bram but always struck back twice as hard, even from a young age. His father, Gabriel, saw the ‘fire that burns in his heart’ and encouraged it, nurturing it in his own way: he did not intervene and let the three brothers quarrel, much to his wife’s exasperation. Not that Gabriel was home often anyway. The middling years of the second century of the Fourth Era were turbulent times and the Legion was often deployed throughout the Empire to keep the peace. Solomon yearned for his father’s approval and he struggled with Gabriel’s long absences, but whenever his father was home he would take the time to sit down with Solomon and explain to him the necessity of his work. These were lessons that the young Imperial never forgot. 

He took to his education, both martial and academic, with more apparent talent and enthusiasm than either of his brothers, working tirelessly and often forgoing the normal diversions of childhood to study or practice more. When Lucius and Bram were out playing on the streets, Solomon was swinging his wooden sword in their house’s practice yard, or pouring over books and scrolls with unrelenting dedication. More than any of his peers, Solomon paid close attention to the news of the day and to his father’s words, especially when Gabriel thought none of children were listening, and Solomon discerned that which many did not, or did not want to: war was brewing. The boy wanted to be ready. 

He was still a young man, only recently trained and accepted into the ranks of the Imperial Legion as a legionnaire under the illustrious command of Captain Carius, when the Great War between the Empire and the Dominion broke out. The horrifying reality of the battlefield came as a shock to the system of many of Solomon’s kinsmen, but the young Antabolis had been bracing himself for years. He fought tirelessly in the white-knuckle battles, frequently lost and only survived by the skin of his teeth, that were waged in the first years of the war along Cyrodiil’s southern borders. The sieges of Leyawiin, Bravil, and many more skirmishes in the forests and fields in between forced him to become a hardened combat veteran in no time. 

His Legion suffered great casualties and Solomon climbed the ranks at breakneck pace, forced to replace far more experienced superiors as they fell on the battlefield, or as they were slain in their beds during the nighttime Thalmor raids. Morale was low and the advance of the Dominion seemed inexorable as Lord Naarifin marched his armies slowly towards the Imperial City over the next two years. The Imperials were forced to retreat repeatedly and Solomon grit his teeth whenever they had to give up more ground and abandon yet another city to the elves. He was determined to offer up more resistance than Captain Carius could manage. And so, within the Third Legion, Solomon gathered a group of likeminded soldiers to his side in secret to return the Thalmor’s favor. They snuck out of the Imperial encampment at night to wage a war of terror on the pursuing Dominion forces under the cover of darkness. They marked themselves to one another by subtly inscribing their leather vambraces with the likeness of the slaughterfish -- ripping and tearing from the depths only to disappear when the sun rose. It was not without risks and many of them died in the line of duty, but there were always more soldiers that were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for emperor and country. 

After two years of bloodshed and destruction, Carius had rejoined the Third Legion with the Emperor’s own forces in the Imperial City. This saw Solomon reunited with his family -- by some miracle, all the Antabolis brothers had survived the war thus far, and even their father, Gabriel, was still alive, although gravely wounded. He was cared for by his own wife in his own home and often visited by his son whenever they were rotated off duty as he recovered slowly. Bloody fighting continued outside of the City’s walls as Lord Naarifin attempted to encircle the capital entirely and cut it off from reinforcements. It was a slow and hard-fought process as the Imperials made the elves pay dearly for every inch of ground they surrendered around the Niben and many spectacular naval battles were fought in the waters around the Imperial City over the course of the next two years. 

For it wasn’t until 4E174 that the elves began their final, massive assault on the Imperial City. Against all of his advisors’ words, the Emperor decided to abandon the city and fight their way free, breaking north towards reinforcements from Skyrim. This was a bitter pill for Solomon to swallow -- he was loathe to leave his home for the Dominion to desecrate, and he knew the innocent population would be subjected to great horrors at the hands of the Altmer. Even worse, what was a national tragedy turned into a personal one. Gabriel fought and died with the Eight Legion’s heroic last stand, defending the rearguard of the retreating Legions against the vengeful elves as they fled the city, leaving the Antabolis brothers suddenly deprived of their beloved father. They each broke ranks in the chaos and personally escorted their heartbroken mother from the city, wading knee-deep through rows of corpses in the streets and the fields outside the walls, facing off against all manner of Daedric summons from the Dominion’s sorcerers. It was hell on Tamriel and for the first time, Solomon found the strength of his spirit wavering. How had they not just definitively lost the war? An Empire without the Imperial City was no Empire at all. Mankind seemed doomed.

But there was barely any time to reflect on that. The Emperor relentlessly marched his soldiers north until they were out of range of the Dominion and they found refuge in Bruma, where the Antabolis brothers left their mother in the loving care of distant relatives they had up there. But even now, their respite was brief. The Empire still had need of them as the Emperor began to draft up his plan to retake the Imperial City the following year. The borders of Bruma needed to be defended against the occasional prodding attack or Dominion scouting party. It was in these seemingly trivial engagements that Lucius lost his life to a stray elven arrow. Solomon was angered by the apparent pointlessness of it all, but he let his anger fuel his resolve. Battered, bloody and close to broken -- for Solomon had sustained many injuries and close brushes with death of his own over the past five years -- he still persevered and reconvened the lodge of the Slaughterfish to his side. They were just thirteen men and women now, but they swore a blood oath to find and kill as many elves as they could, independent of the Legions’ orders. They struck forth from Bruma and returned south, using their knowledge of the land against the foreign invaders. The Slaughterfish warriors spent six grueling winter and spring months hiding in the forests of Cyrodiil, striking against the forces of the Dominion wherever they found then, though shying away of assaults on well-fortified positions. They picked off patrols and scouts, nailing corpses of Thalmor officials clad in black and gold to the trees, taunting and striking fear into their enemies. After the winter was over there were only four of them left, but their guerilla tactics had seen them inflict their own casualties on the elves many times over. It was grim work and Solomon saw some of his kinsmen lose themselves to the bloodthirst, becoming shadows of their former selves, dehumanized by their own actions. But not him. He took no pleasure in the murder and slaughter, but it was necessary. The Emperor had not abandoned the Imperial City yet. The Dominion had to be as weakened as much as possible for the inevitable counterattack. 

It came in 4E175. Solomon and his surviving Slaughterfish warriors linked up with the marching Legions once they learned that the Emperor was moving south was once more. Their desertion, aided by their substantial collection of elven ears, was forgiven, for the Imperials needed every able-bodied soldier to win the ultimate battle of the Great War. Solomon was placed under the command of his own brother, Bram, as Captain Carius hoped that his older brother would be capable of reigning him in and keeping him disciplined. Solomon found it hard to defer to Bram, who he considered a lesser warrior for waiting in Bruma while Solomon had been out there to bring the fight to the Dominion, and the two brothers had many vehement arguments -- just like the old days. But they set aside their differences once and for all on the eve of what would become the most famous battle in the Empire’s history: the Battle of the Red Ring. 

For five days, the relentless soldiers of the Empire drove the Dominion back in a three-pronged attack. Solomon, cold-hearted and pitiless, fought in the vanguard of the Emperor’s own forces as they assaulted the city from the north. Thousands of his fellow soldiers fell around him as the elves put up ferocious resistance, but Solomon would not be denied. His sword and armor were gore-drenched by the time they breached the walls and he dug up energy from reserves he did not even know he had. The sight of the Emperor himself, Goldbrand held aloft, leading the assault, fortified his resolve and the Imperials swept the elves like a tsunami while the Nords and the warriors from Hammerfell attacked the city from other angles. 

The very last battles fought in the war, street to street in the dark and blood-soaked husk of the sacked Imperial City, were the hairiest fighting Solomon had ever seen. The elves were tenacious, he had to give them that, and he did not sleep for more than fifty hours straight during the final days of the assault, driving the elves back, inch by inch, towards White-Gold tower. The Imperials sang songs of Pelinal Whitestrake, the hero who had slain the Ayleids in ages past, and they spilled elven blood on the cobblestones in imitation of the ancient histories. Not even Bram’s death, torn apart by angry Atronachs, could diminish Solomon’s resolve. They were on the cusp of victory. There was no room for sorrow. Their war-horns and battlecries echoed through the halls and corridors of White-Gold tower. And at last, on the eve of the fifth day, the Emperor’s personal forces apprehended Lord Naarifin. The battle was over. The war was won. 

For five years, Solomon had fought. Five years worth of blood took a long time to wash out of his proverbial clothes, and so for five more years, Solomon rested. He retired from the Legion and returned to his ancestral home, ruined but still standing, now the last Antabolis left in the Imperial City. His mother, unwilling to return to the site of the death of so many of her family, remained with her relatives in Bruma, and slowly diminished before dying peacefully in her sleep. 

Nightmares plagued Solomon and there was a tight-wound tension in his limbs, knots of stress and alertness, that took years to ease and come loose. He accidentally almost killed not one, but two men in two different incidents in which they were foolish enough to wake him from his restless sleep. Normal life slowly resumed in Cyrodiil, but Solomon found himself unable to hold down a job and he burned through his family’s remaining wealth in order to keep his himself clothed, fed and housed. He spent night after night stalking the empty halls of his home and frequently drowned his memories in booze, getting into trouble with his neighbours and with the local guard -- they had a soft spot for him because of his status as a war hero, but there was only so much that they could ignore. It wasn’t until 4E180 that someone appeared on the doorsteps of his house and rescued Solomon from himself. 

The stranger turned out to be an Intendant of a newfound order, the Penitus Oculatus, a man by name of Karthus Marin. He had learned of Solomon’s activities as the leader of the Slaughterfish warrior lodge during the winter of 4E174. Solomon shrugged, half-drunk and apathetic, expecting a full court-martial by this so-called Penitus Oculatus business for his desertion and the reckless endangerment of the men and women under his command, but instead Karthus came with an unexpected offer: he extended an invitation for Solomon to join the order. Karthus explained that they needed men like him, men who would stop at nothing to fight the Empire’s enemies, who could operate autonomously outside of the direct chain of command and who did not shirk from assassination and torture to achieve their objectives. The Blades were no more and in the modern political landscape of Tamriel, the Emperor required a more… [i]ruthless[/i] secret police force, properly integrated within the Imperial government, and loyal to a fault. With no other prospects and no other way of putting his experience or his skills to use, Solomon agreed. 

It turned out to be exactly the push he needed to find his park once more. He managed to kick the booze habit as his training began in the order’s exclusive library in the White-Gold tower. Solomon’s fellow initiates were men and women of action that were each as interesting and as capable as he himself was, and he was inspired by them to put himself back together and pursue excellence once more. The dedicated student he had once been, almost washed away permanently in the baptism of blood that had been the Great War, was reborn in the dim candlelight and the hushed whispers of the library under the tutelage of the knowledgeable Professors of the Penitus Oculatus. When his old comrades asked him during their weekly game of cards what had happened to him to turn his life around like that, Solomon could only shrug and say that time healed all wounds. He had to keep his status as an Initiate secret to everyone, but he found that it wasn’t hard to do. The rejuvenated and sober Solomon had made a conscious effort to remember his father’s lessons about the importance of order and the rule of law, and he placed his loyalty to the Empire -- and to due diligence, discretion and operational security -- above all else. He would no longer go rogue and act as he saw fit. His defiant temperament had been tempered by age and experience, and a more reserved, calculating Solomon was born.

Even so, upon his graduation from the academy and his promotion to field agent, his asset designation was to be ‘Slaughterfish’. Solomon could only laugh to himself, and he decided to let it serve as a reminder of the man he could be when the chips were down. His work saw him travel across the width and breadth of Tamriel in the decades that followed and the development of his skills continued. Simple, but deceptively useful magic spells became a part of his arsenal, he learned how to hide in plain sight, observing his targets from right under their noses and he mastered the art of silent assassination, of which a hidden dagger stuffed up his sleeve in a spring-loaded mechanism became an instrumental part. With these skills, Solomon quietly put down an insurrection in Morrowind in 4E183 by capturing the leader of the secession movement and turning him in to face proper Imperial justice; in 4E188, he operated in the shadows of the Bravil Riots to assassinate the two Skooma kingpins that were responsible for the chaos in the city; he spent a few years behind enemy lines in Elsweyr and Valenwood during the 190s, tracking the movements of Kilvayne One-Eye, infamous extrajudicial vigilante; and in 4E200, he investigated a secretive religious movement in the underbelly of Breton society that whispered of dark days to come.

It was an illustrious career that should have led to a high position among the order’s ranks, but fate decreed otherwise. Titus Mede II could not be saved from a Dark Brotherhood assassin’s blade in the final days of the Stormcloak Rebellion. The Penitus Oculatus was sternly reprimanded for being unable to save the Emperor’s life by the Elder Council and many existing agents were sidelined or demoted. Solomon, through no fault of his own by virtue of not even being in Skyrim at the time, was told to remain in High Rock and relegated to simple intelligence gathering, stripped of his field agent autonomy and his license to kill. His only responsibility became to monitor the loyalty of the mercurial and deceitful Bretons, and he was given the deed of ownership to a run-down inn to the northeast of Daggerfall. The whole thing was dressed up as an important task, for (allegedly) the last thing the Empire needed was another rebellion in another province, after Hammerfell’s secession and the Civil War in Skyrim, but Solomon knew that there was little chance of an organized insurrection by the Bretons, who preferred to quabble amongst themselves. His assignment was a political one, to get him out of the way of appointments that the new Emperor deemed… more reliable. “The Slaughterfish has been defanged,” his young (and dubiously qualified) replacements joked. Solomon swallowed his pride and let his loyalty to the Empire rule his actions, settling quietly into his new role as innkeeper without making a fuss. 

After so many years of blood and intrigue, Solomon had to admit that it was somewhat pleasant to have a peaceful existence devoid of violence. He was still as fit and capable as ever, but he was getting on in age, and there had never been a field agent that had died in their own bed. Solomon took to the profession of innkeep as seriously as he took to any other endeavour in his life and turned the newly-rechristened [i]Loyal Hound[/i], named after the dog he decided to purchase for companionship, into a well-run and profitable operation. As for his work with the Penitus Oculatus, Solomon still took his posting seriously and he diligently reported back to his superiors in the Imperial City every week, making sure to catalogue and document every whisper and rumor he heard in his inn.

Recently, these rumors have taken a particularly dark turn....

[B]Personality:[/B] Solomon is a complicated man with a harrowing and blood-soaked past. He has long since lost count of how many people he has killed on the field of battle or in the line of duty and their faces continue to haunt him frequently in his dreams, for it has never given him any pleasure to take a life, but he does not regret any of it. He has always done whatever had to be done to save and preserve the Empire, and he will always continue to do so. It is his loyalty, and not any particular penchant for violence or bloodthirst, that is Solomon’s most defining quality, even though his actions, observed in a vacuum, will seem like those of a man obsessed with death and slaughter. 

And all this death and slaughter has undeniably had a jading effect on him. Solomon cares about the people of the Empire he works to protect, but only in an abstract way. He has seen too many people die, including his whole family, and slain too many people with his own hands, to readily connect with other people on a personal level. The vast majority of them can never understand what Solomon went through, and after everything he has done, Solomon cannot really understand them. Boundaries and sensibilities that are normal to people from civilized society have been eroded in him, and even his manners have been diminished by the life of a soldier and a spymaster to the point that it requires conscious effort on his part not to speak brusquely, far too used to giving orders and having them obeyed. All that said, he means well, and his morals and sense of justice are as ironclad as ever. One can rely on Solomon for leadership and unwavering determination in the face of danger and he makes for a fairn, if stern, employer in his tenure as innkeeper. 

He has never had much time for romance in his life -- the phrase ‘married to his work’ applies here -- and his only experiences with physical intimacy have been with women of the night. Solomon is secretive, reserved and slow to trust, preferring to keep people either at arm’s length or in a subordinate position to him so that he does not have to deal with prying questions he cannot afford to answer in all honesty. Lying comes as second nature to him after so many years with the Penitus Oculatus but he does not like to engage in it without good reason, and it is easier to simply stop people from asking questions in the first place. However, his loyalty does extend ferociously to cover the people he admits into his inner circle and he has never readily abandoned anyone under his command during his entire life. 

Ice runs through his veins and Solomon is supremely good at staying calm and focused while under great duress. He is resourceful, quick at thinking on his feet and impervious to threats. Having survived everything the world has thrown at him thus far says little about his fear of death; Solomon is perfectly willing to take immense risks and put his life on the line if the situation calls for it. One of his weaknesses, however, is that he can tunnel-vision onto a particular goal in the heat of the moment and he has to make a conscious effort to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Experience has taught him that even the best-laid plans are usually ruined as soon as the situation begins to develop, so he prefers to improvise and work with whatever is available, and this focus on the here-and-now means he sometimes doesn’t think as far as ahead as he should. 

Like practically all Imperials, Solomon believes in the Nine Divines -- the Thalmor can pry his private Talos worship from his cold, dead hands. It has been a long time since the Great War, but Solomon definitely hasn’t gotten over his prejudice towards Altmer, Bosmer and Khajiit since then and he is often unreasonably paranoid about their true natures or intentions. 

[B]Equipment:[/B] 
[indent][i]Steel falchion:[/i] Solomon’s primary weapon; simple, unadorned and practical. It is old but well-maintained and it fits his grip like a glove. The crossguard is curved into an S-shape that lets him trap his opponent’s weapon to disarm them. 

[i]Hidden blade:[/i] A spring-loaded steel blade, no larger than a dagger and only as wide as Solomon’s thumb, is built into the vambrace worn on his right arm. With a flick of his wrist the blade extends with enough power to punch through an unsuspecting target’s jugular, and with another flick it is withdrawn and concealed once more. Very useful for assassinations.

[i]Lockpicking set:[/i] Getting in and out of places he isn’t supposed to be in is one of Solomon’s most important skills as a spy for the Penitus Oculatus. He keeps his lockpicks stuffed in a special pouch on his belt, should he ever need them.[/indent]

[B]Misc. Possessions:[/B]
[indent][i]Map of High Rock:[/i] Comprehensive and up-to-date. The margins are scribbled full of notes.

[i]Money:[/i] 200 septims on his person at all times, used to pay his employees’ wages at the end of every day. 

[i]Imperial rosetta:[/i] Carefully concealed on his person, for this marks him as an agent of the Penitus Oculatus. Used as a badge of office, can be used to extend his full authority with Imperial officials.[/indent]

[B]Family and Associations:[/B]
[indent][i]Family:[/i] Deceased.

[i]Imperial Legion:[/i] There are still plenty of Solomon’s old war-buddies kicking around the Empire, and he has friends almost anywhere. 

[i]Penitus Oculatus:[/i] His relationship with the secret order has cooled off over recent years and many of the people and superiors he was closest to have been replaced after Titus Mede II’s assassination. Still, he is an official agent and he can count on their support.

[i]The Loyal Hound:[/i] As innkeeper, Solomon maintains a professional relationship with his employees; they include a barmaid, a cleaner and a stable boy.[/indent]

[B]Favored Attributes:[/B]
[indent][i]Major:[/i] Willpower.
[i]Minor:[/i] Agility.[/indent]

[B]Favoured Skills:[/B]
[indent][i]Highly Proficient:[/i] One-Handed. 
[i]Moderately Proficient:[/i] Destruction, Sneak, Alteration.
[i]Somewhat Proficient:[/i] Lockpicking, Acrobatics, Speech.

[indent][B]Spell List:[/B] Flames, Fireball, Sparks, Lightning Bolt, Ice Spike, Telekinesis, Detect Life, Magelight.[/indent][/indent][/hider]