Name: “Solomon of the Dusk” (assumed name)
House Name: None
Age: Solomon appeared in the realm of the living approximately twenty years ago, though the exact date is unclear even to him.
Homeland: The realm of death, first manifested in Ferros
Race: Shade
Spells: Pyromancy, Alchemy, Summoning
Bio: There is an old legend in Ferros of an ancient warrior king, long since descended into myth, who led his people to battle against their age-old enemies in Valeal. He went by the name of Solomon, and rose to the position of king by winning the loyalty of the other warrior houses with his great skill and bravery. The enemy had pushed their way into the very heart of Ferros, and threatened the capital itself, and the story goes that Solomon led one last desperate charge against all odds, to take the head of the enemy king and save Ferros once and for all. Reaching his nemesis just as the sun began to fall, they engaged in battle, and after a hard fought duel, Solomon, for all his skill, was cut down. Just as it seemed that all was lost, and the Ferros lines began to break, Solomon miraculously rose and took up his sword once more. This time, it was the enemy king who fell when the two crossed swords, and the Ferros forces rallied behind this victory to route the much larger enemy force. When the battle ended and the victorious Ferrosian forces went to look for their king, all they found was his empty armor and abandoned sword lying alongside the fallen Valealan king. He is remembered in legend as Solomon of the Dusk, the warrior king who rose from death with the setting of the sun, to fight for Ferros once more.
~
In the early days of the war against Malfear, there was little knowledge about this new terrifying magic known as necromancy, and in that climate of fear and ignorance, rumors and stories were everywhere. In particular, shades, as little as they are understood now, remained entirely unrecognized then, and most risen, shade or undead, were considered to be one in the same. Though many of the strange tales were simply the product of misinformation and exaggeration, there were some stories that held at least a kernel of truth, as unbelievable as they seemed.
One of the most popular tales that made it's way across the land in those days was that of “Solomon of the Dusk”, a story now well-known in taverns across Ferros, owing its name to the legendary warrior king, reviving a legend nearly lost to memory. During a particularly violent, bloody battle at the outset of Malfear's reemergence, it seemed a certain human army was on the verge of annihilation, its leaders and greatest warriors all lost, hope seemingly extinguished. As the undead beasts began to close in, the arms and armor of the fallen warriors began to move about, rising from the ground seemingly under their own power. As the story goes, within the metallic maelstrom, a humanoid shape began to take form from the discarded gear.
Within the whirling vortex, there came a terrible cry, and at once the armaments ceased their flight, and fell to the ground, unmoving. The armored warrior that had appeared roared once more, and threw itself into the wave of death before it. Summoning forth fire to engulf the enemy, reducing the undead to ash, and wielding swords that sliced through them with an unnatural ease, it began to tear a ruthless swathe through the assembled creatures. Unlike the legendary namesake of this story, the unknown warrior was not able to rally the Ferrosians to victory, but instead gave them time to withdraw and live to fight another day, taking with them the story of Solomon of the Dusk, the returned king who had saved his people once more from beyond death.
~
Whatever the truth of such ancient legends and tall tales, the shade who now bears the sobriquet 'Solomon of the Dusk' was among the first shades to appear on Casdora, and is also among the oldest to remain amongst the living. 'Solomon', given his namesake, identifies with the male gender for the sake of simplicity, though it is extremely unlikely his soul truly belonged to the Solomon of myth, and it is even debatable whether he is the shade that first appeared and invoked that ancient name. By his own admission, his memories of his first years in the realm of the living are extremely jumbled and fragmented, and he only remembers storming unrestrained across the battlefields, instinctively seeking something he could not truly name within the ranks of Malfear's forces.
This shade claimed his name by virtue of his continued actions against the undead, and especially against their necromancer masters. Clad in a distinctive set of armor, likely taken from some unknown warrior on one of the many nameless battlefield claimed by the War of the Blight, Solomon wrought havoc on the necromancers. He could not truly die, and even when cut down, he would inevitably return, seemingly unharmed, and this apparent immortality served only to add fuel to the stories. If a host body was destroyed, Solomon would enter a new one, preserving and enhancing it with his alchemic powers, each time concealing his identity within that same set of armor, picking up exactly where he had left off.
For over nine years Solomon continued to hunt down and destroy every necromancer and undead creature he could get his hands on, driven by a compulsion he did not understand. There are stories of Solomon that come from the world over during this time, wherever Malfear and his acolytes could be found, of his distinctive armor and flaming swords. He spent those years roaming the kingdoms, and it is said he could sometimes be spotted during the furor of battle, an otherworldly ally to the mortal forces, though never truly on their side. In fact, there are very few stories of Solomon of the Dusk in which he is said to turn his swords on humans, which strengthens the belief of some that he truly was the ancient king risen again.
With Malfear's apparent death, and the dispersal of his followers, Solomon was left without purpose, though he could still feel the compulsion within him, driving him to hunt. It took many years, but eventually, as he continued to tirelessly hunt the surviving necromancers, he came to understand many things about himself and about the world around him. He was a damned soul, crossed over to the realm of the living from hell, the price of a necromancer gaining his power, and it was that same necromancer who continued to bind him to this world. Necromancers disrupt the balance of nature, and destroy the world around them, perverting even the course of life and death. The uncontrollable impulse he had felt for all those years, across all those battlefield, and in all those fights, was to restore himself to his natural state. Solomon needed to destroy the necromancer who tethered him in this unnatural state, though with the scattering of those who remained after the war, this would prove a daunting task.
In the eleven years that have passed, Solomon has continued his mission to free himself from the shackles that keep him in the living realm, following every whisper of necromancy, and every rumor of the undead, ruthlessly hunting down any survivors he can. Solomon of the Dusk continues to be something of a legend in Ferros, though as the chaos receded and sightings continued, it became clear that he was more than a simple soldier’s story. However, the truth remains shrouded in mystery and rumor even now, some saying Solomon is simply the name given to an unknown warrior who fought in the war, others attributing the many tales to the actions of disparate group of individuals woven into a single story. This uncertainty suits Solomon, using the rumors and legends to confuse his enemies, as well as any who might seek to stand in his way as he continues his grim war against the darkness in Cadora.
