I decided it was best to adhere to the lore instead of making one up on my own.

Which is fair, a lot of the things I say are just observations of the take it or leave it variety, maybe offer another perspective you might not have considered. For what it's worth, I think you made the right call on this.

Because he had a small retinue of guards and had given up soldiery. The land he was in was 'relatively' safe, but as everyone knows who's played an ES game, sometimes bandits appear.

With that last bit is kind of what I was thinking, even if he should have been safe, you honestly never know when danger is going to come out of nowhere with accompanying battle music. I'd think even most people who served as a legionnaire or other kind of fighter would feel rather naked without their weapons even after "retirement". Just one of those things of better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it.

To be honest I felt a bit cliche' with that as well, but I also feel like it used to be so common that now it's kind of uncommon. Kind of like the ideal knightly character, that used to be so prevalent, has now given way to the anti-hero or the gritty immoral protagonist that everyone now loves. I could change it though.

Not sure I necessarily agree with that sentiment (take a trip to the Free section or even a lot of Casual sometime, it's still pretty much the norm to have really quickly written off parents to act as the catalyst for the character's ready-made tragedy and reason for not living in the basement watching cartoons and eating Doritos or whatever it is medieval teenagers do), it's still ultimately up to you. It's just one of those things where I guess I like to see a bit more build-up to it all, as I mentioned before, you introduced the idea of some characters in one sentence and kill them off in the next. I guess it would just help to have some of these side characters and their relation and influence on Markus expanded upon a bit more in some cases.

As for the whole ideal knightly character, I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen someone make a character that's totally pure and noble in all my years roleplaying. I think people, and perhaps rightly so, would find that really boring to play as. Not much room for character development or arcs to develop when they start off pure and just and end up the same way, and if conflict arises, you always know which way they'll swing.

No offense (and I mean it, just speaking my mind) but I feel like this is more 'not to your tastes' than 'unbelievable' or 'cartoony.' I'd call riding a dragon cartoony, and dead parents bad luck. You seem to be very wary of certain tropes because you might or might not have had bad experiences with people who used them in the past. And while learning from the past is certainly the smart thing to do, it's also kind of odd to have a 'no dead parents' policy for all, especially those who've shown they don't go overboard with things as I'd like to think I have.

I have a few friends who've had luck similar to this, and as a military historian I've seen many cases of things like this. Plus Markus would have plenty of friends alive and well, but I didn't think I'd need to list all of the guys he meets at a pub every friday night, or cousins he visits. I was under the impression that history was about twists and plot points. Though I am playing with the idea that his mother is ok and the Count could have been poisoned instead. I might do that.
Edit: Now that I think on it though, I will do that. Whether or not it's cliche, it seems like an overused trope I have here and just doesn't seem tasteful. Though I'll need to think of a justified reason he'd leave his single mother. Maybe give him a sibling that's more dutiful.

No offense taken! Honestly, I know I can come across as harsh in my criticisms (although, a lot of the time, tone's lost over text and I'm just kind of doing a running total of things I thought should be noted, be it an issue or just something that I should point out, rather than just cutting to the chase), but it certainly doesn't mean I don't like to be proven wrong/ rebutted/ critiqued myself.

And you might well be right that it might just be a preference of my own or how I think things would be more believable, and you can certainly keep it as the rocks fall; everyone died way you have it. I'm still going to stand by my point if for no other reason than you might come up with some other alternatives that might work better for the character or make him seem less like the unknowing bastard love child of Death himself who ends up killing everyone he loves via bad luck.

It's also not so much a policy of "no dead parents", per say, just as I said, it should have some kind of reasonable justification for it all happening. Markus' dad and even mother, by extension, both made sense given the context of their circumstances. I did say I was wary of the double dead parent thing partially because yes, I have had bad experience from sheets with that (also, as earlier, visit Free and some of Casual sometime, it's a lot more rampant there with newer or younger roleplayers), but also it always seems like when you kill off all of your character's established relationships in the bio without really establishing them at all, it justifies not ever having to explore or develop a character's relationship to them.

For instance, all we know about Markus' mother is she was invited to live in the count's residence and she was killed by poison at the court. Other than that, we don't really know anything about either of Markus' family past their occupations. For Elenwyl, we get a bit more where we find out that she's the reason Markus wanted to pursue magic, as well as knowing she was and acrobat and performer who was supportive of his eccentric personality, and we know Markus' feelings towards her.

It's some solid group that definitely gives some insight into how this relationship shaped him going forward, and then she's gone without much fanfare in a manner very similar to the mother. I think the reason it just seems cartoony to me is just the manner of how it all went down, just disgruntled businessmen killing off literally every woman in Markus' life without really having much for you to reference back to whenever you want to try and flesh out more of Markus' backstory in game.

This is why I like detailed bios; they really help getting all the necessary details out and on record so you can always go back to it. I personally have had to dive back into my character's sheet on numerous occasions even though I could probably recite the basic facts of his history in my sleep. It's just one of those things where I think it can do wonders to really evaluate different scenarios for background characters to help build the player character.

For instance, maybe his mother survived the assassination attempt, or Markus felt enraged about it and ended up doing much of what he did, and in the end it was his murder of the businessman that forced him to flee the city, ironically being the reason he had to leave his mother behind. Maybe she stumbled across the plot and was hurt or killed, but this saved the count. For Elenwyl, maybe she didn't get killed by a bad loanshark, maybe she was killed performing a stunt, or racists mobbed her. Maybe she didn't die and had decided to leave the city to protect herself and Markus after receiving threats, leaving her alive and perhaps a character he runs into again in his personal arc.

Once again, it's up to you how you pursue these characters, but it might be worth thinking of how their relationships affect Markus and can help shape him in a meaningful way. If someone's still alive, there's still the hope he can see them again. All I'm saying is there's a lot of ways to justify a character having to part ways with those he loves without killing them off for simplicity's sake. Sometimes it's a greater tragedy knowing that you can never find closure because someone's still alive.

God, I got rambly. Sorry about that!

He was thinking of them as being the same kind of people that killed his father, more like. Though to a young vigilante, most criminals seem cut from the same cloth I'd imagine.

Ah, didn't consider the father angle. I guess I assumed that it happened when he was young enough that his motivations from his mother's death would have definitely been the driving force for him.

I don't quite understand the sentence. I'm not sure which guy you refer to, unless you mean the one who killed Elenwyn.

Right, sorry. I did mean the loan shark guy.

I was thinking the fact that 1) medieval societies arent known for their crack CSI squads to mean that he might not think too much on killing her, and 2) the fact that the general consensus of an Alter living in the capital city is a bad one and many wouldn't care if a body was found somewhere, and 3) there is such a thing as bribing city guards.

Certainly possible, but definitely not the way most businessmen would go about their affairs, simply because most people aren't sociopathic monsters. Again, I think it's just that this whole loan shark character was introduced and murdered in the span of two sentences and it is so incredibly similar to Markus' mother's death that it kind of feels forced.

I also wouldn't trust bribing guards, simply because the entire plan would unravel if he happened to try that on one who happened to be lawful and would not hesitate to apprehend and report him. Given that it is the capital and the city in recent memory been occupied by the Dominion, I imagine most of the garrison would probably be hyper-vigilant.

I'll word this better but it was only him knowing a few merchants in the Imperial city, which is what I meant by fledgling. It would have no impact on anything in Skyrim as a whole, or even most of Cyrodiil.

Also, assume the stuff I didn't comment on will be changed as well.

Ok so, other than problems with history, my list of things to do is

Reword his weaknesses. I was more thinking of him maybe taking a leap across a crevice without using rope, more than him giving away his team when they are trying to evade enemies.
Switch mercantile with theif. I was looking up Oblivion skills earlier, my bad.
Reword on personality.
Switch Mede to Mete
Flesh out more on his experiences as a thief

Much better wording! I figured that's more or less what you meant, I just needed clarification.

Also, feel free to look up Morrowind skills as well; you might see something in there that would work rather nicely.

But sounds great, and thanks for being a champ about all of this. I definitely am not trying to tear your ideas apart, just helping you refine them and ultimately end up with a better character for it in the end. I'm glad you brought up when you disagreed with my points, because absolutely, I'm not perfect and I might have a flawed perspective or a bias I'm not acutely aware of, or simply had not considered and aspect of it all.

All in all, I think you have a good foundation, it's certainly not outlandish!