Race: Dark Elf
Gender/Sex: Male
Appearance: As Ralos has been soldiering most of his life, his entire body his well-muscled if somewhat on the slim side. His chest and legs are veritable tapestries of scars earned through countless fights and battles. He is without the warpaint shown in the picture.
Class: Scout
Equipment: Bonemold pauldrons, chainmail cuirass, leather greaves, leather gauntlets, leather boots, Gah-Julan bonemold helm, steel katana, steel dagger, composite bow + 30 arrows, a roll of clean bandages
Skills: Ralos is first and foremost a marksman, and is exceedingly skilled in the use of the bow, which he has used and trained with since he was a child. He is a competent swordsman, though by no means excellent in this regard. Despite his rather unapproachable personality, he can be a quietly reliable leader when commanding individuals that he can trust, and trust him. He also has a good mind for tactics, and after winning several notable victories against the Argonians is a proven commander, though certainly not the most inspiring leader. Ralos has also taken a more recent interest in the scholarly arts, and while he is no ancient mage, he knows much of Tamriel's history and has a better understanding than most of the Dwemer.
Weaknesses: Ralos' weakness however is his lack of social grace. He is decidedly bad at talking to people, and his mouth has gotten him in trouble with nobles on more than one occasion. Not to mention he is simply not a very kind person; betrayal and backstabbing are not below him if the result is the death or capture of people he doesn't care about. However for those few that he does trust and care about, betrayal is out of the question. Ralos is a naturally suspicious individual by nature and winning his trust is quite difficult. In return he often advises people not to trust him. Considering his gruff, blunt, and rough nature, not trusting Ralos Athelyn is quite easy for most. Charm and the intricacies and courtesies of a noble's court are, if not quite beyond him, most definitely not his forte.
Bio: Ralos was born in 4E 230, just south of the city of Blacklight. His father was a noble fairly high up in the hierarchy of House Redoran, being a House Father. Ralos was a bastard born out of wedlock, and was disinherited from his father's lands. However, Galen Athelyn decided to raise his bastard among his trueborn children, much to the annoyance of his wife. Ralos grew up practically without a mother (as she ignored him) but was treated as a trueborn son by his father, despite often being left out of court affairs because of his bastardy. Because he was never brought along to sit in on meetings of the Redoran Council like his brothers were and was excluded from sitting alongside his family during feasts, his understanding of court politics and statesmanship lagged behind that of his siblings.
However, Ralos proved himself to be a masterful archer from a very early age, and under his father's tutelage he became recognized as one of House Redoran's best archers before he was twenty. After winning several skirmishes against the Argonians, he was given command of several companies of Dunmer and tasked with holding a large section of the southern border against Argonian invaders and the occasional Nord raiding party. In 4E 273 the Argonians attempted another northward push with the hope of seizing Blacklight once and for all. After sweeping aside the first Dunmer army to get in his way, the Argonian general Batar-Meej led 7,000 of his fellows north. Ralos, who commanded about eight hundred Dunmer, laid an ambush in the mountains south of Blacklight and took Batar-Meej completely by surprise, destroying half his army at the Battle of Vansunalit. The Argonians managed to rally their forces and move north again, but Ralos launched successive hit-and-run attacks to wear down their strength and lower their morale. Finally, he gave battle near a hamlet named Maelu and defeated the remainder of Batar-Meej's army, saving Blacklight and House Redoran from the Argonians, at least for awhile. He fell in love with one of his officers, a Dunmer named Varasa Brenos, and began to court her in the years following his greatest victories. He continued to serve in the field, but the conflict with the Argonians subsided somewhat and he never participated in engagements as large as Maelu or Vansunalit again.
He won much acclaim in House Redoran for his victories, which made his thus far unaccomplished trueborn brothers jealous. They spread rumors that he had raped and impregnated the daughter of a Redoran Councilman (who had been raped a few months before by a perpetrator who's face she did not see) and even concocted their own evidence to lend the story some credibility. The Redoran Council was forced to bend before the evidence and act against the general who had saved them. Ralos was declared an outlaw and banished from Morrowind. However his father refused to believe the accusations against him and allowed numerous companions and officers from Ralos' small army to join him. Though disgraced, Ralos left Morrowind at the head of a band of sixty or so Dunmer soldiers who were now without purpose except to follow their general. Varasa was among the party, and the two got married in Cheydinhal later that year. Though banished because of rape accusations that a goodly portion of the Redoran nobility have come to regard as true, most of House Redoran and indeed, most of the Dunmer in Morrowind remember Ralos Athelyn in a positive light; as the general who saved Morrowind from the Argonians, for twenty years at least if not in the long term. In Morrowind he is now often referred to as "The Bastard of Blacklight," though usually in a derogatory manner.
Still, the resolve of the Redoran Council did not waver and Ralos remained an outlaw. He turned to mercenary work, serving one client or another in Cyrodiil, Skyrim, High Rock and even as far afield as Hammerfell and northern Valenwood. He supplemented the legions of the Empire against the Stormcloaks and several years later assisted Nord nobles in staging a revolt in Riften, which was ultimately put down after a year. Ralos spent three years hunting bandits up and down High Rock, all in the name of coin. The longer he wandered, the more bitter he grew, until the day that his wife Varasa was devoured by a vampire clan in Stros M'kai. After that he was very nearly mentally broken, and lapsed in and out fits of babbling madness for close to a year. Half of his remaining men deserted him during those months. After close to a year however he recovered, but was left a harsh, bitter, and uncouth individual, full of anger that he took out on those his clients wanted dead.
By 4E 295 Ralos was sitting on a nice large pile of money, made higher by the fact that he didn't drink or whore like most self-respecting sellswords. He took an interest in the scholarly arts and began delving into old ruins and dead cities of his own accord, learning much of Tamriel's history, while accepting fewer contracts. Ralos learned much of the Dwemer and their disappearance, though he came no closer to divining the reasons behind their vanishing than scholars who had tried before him, which only further frustrated a life already more full of disappointment than anything else.
It is now 307, and the last vestiges of the satisfied man who put Batar-Meej's head on a pike have died. The make-up of Ralos' band differs significantly from twenty-five years before. Of the sixty Dunmer who followed him into exile, only eleven remain to him, the others having died in his years of mercenary work or gone their own way during his year of madness. The rest of his men come from all of Tamriel, individuals who Ralos recruited during his travels or approached him of their own accord. He is now in Chorrol at the head of forty men, unsure of what he wants, unsure of what to do in the present, but dead certain that at some point, he will return to Morrowind and take vengeance on his brothers.
RP Sample: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=327920&hilit=Erlend&start=275
Personality: Gruff, direct and not very polite, Ralos is poorly suited for a feast with nobles or a lively dance with pretty maidens. He is not unkind, but neither is he kind. Since trust has lost him so much in his life, he trusts only a small circle of individuals and is slow to take a liking to anyone not already in this circle. Guile and charm are not options for him, and he tends to look down upon those who use it to achieve their aims. Ralos is also much more devout than one would expect of a disgraced exile and veteran mercenary. He is a strong adherent to the new Reclamations religion that the Dunmer took to after the Red Year, and is fiercely supportive of his faith.
Likes: The Reclamations, Dunmer, Morrowind, soldiers and fellow fighting men, his small circle of Dunmer friends
Indifferent: The Empire, the Aldmeri Dominion, Nine Divines, Stormcloak sympathizers, Mages
Dislikes: Black Marsh. He doesn't hate Argonians, but he is most certainly not a fan of theirs. When it comes to things he does hate, vampires top the list as they are responsible for the death of his wife.
Theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c8wxrmg2vY
Voice: Nah
