Erol Doritar is the second son of a scholarly Kildoran family who pursued a military career against his fathers wishes, and as a result of a disastrous, unauthorized misadventure has spent the last several years as a POW, a slave/gladiator and, more recently, a pirate. Born 16 Vento 2994, in Delfarin, the great capital city of the Kildoran Republic, the 24-year-old has become a skilled fighter. Very good with a gladius and battleaxe, his greatest expertise is with the spear and trident; he also wields a mean net, and knows how to fight dirty.

Standing 5′ 4″ tall, he has a slender but well-muscled build, black hair and hazel eyes, and weighs a solid 140 pounds. He has a wiry strength and sharp reflexes, as well as an above average intellect. His years in the Darikazi arena and the Taruthani Games has left him with a firm grasp of combat medicine, and his months at sea with Darikazi pirates has given him rudimentary sea-faring skills. On horseback, however, he has been compared, unfavorably, to a sack of potatoes.

When Erol was 12 his father, Belin Doritar, a well-respected scholar and teacher, moved the family from the capital to the castle town of Medälk to take up a position as touter to the children of the powerful Senator Aric Kenorda. His mother, Norina Doritar (née Velmin), an artist and poet of some repute in the Republic, was less than thrilled with the move, as was Erol.

Norina’s works of art were much sought after in Patrician homes in Delfarin, and she had been asked to read her poetry at the Opening of the Senate twice – an honor that she has twice declined at her husband’s insistence. Erol believed he was jealous of her success, and disdainful of her poetry, especially. He always saw the move to Medälk as a way for his father to distance his wife from the centers of Kildoran culture and influence.

From that point on, conflict with his father grew stinger and more frequent. Belin expected him, like his older brother, to follow in the family tradition, and become a man of letters and knowledge. But Erol was always more physical and extroverted than cerebral and introspective. He always felt that Evol, his older brother, more than made up for his own scholarly deficiencies – tall, slender, bookish and quiet, he was everything their father wanted and expected in a son. Despite their lack of common ground, or perhaps because of it, the brothers always got on fairly well.

It was the same year that the family moved to Medälk that a Korönian fighting order out of Darikaz, The Red Hand of Pain, seized the Republican keep of Bremkin. This was a shocking blow to the Republic, and full out war was avoided only because the Republic was still reeling from the devastating floods of the previous year, which had severely damaged the capital city and much of the fertile farmland of the Molisan Valley.

Erol were as incensed as anyone at this outrage, and furious at his father when he took a longer view of the event, talking about “the inevitable ebb and flow of the tides of history,” and not taking it seriously (or so it appeared to the young Erol). This was when he first began to rebel against his father’s rule, by taking up the worship of Cael, the Immortal Paladin, rather than Shala, Lady of Wisdom and Knowledge.

When, four years later, the Arushali Earl of Somkari sent armed knights to seize disputed manors along the border, Erol rejoiced when the Republican forces not only repulsed him, but seized the castle of Somkari and the keep at Urdol, gaining a whole new province for the People and Senate of Kildora. It also seemed to put the legions in a position to take back Bremkin Keep with luck and bold leadership.

It was then that he decided to join the Legions, although his first impulsive attempt, at age 16, was rejected – the recruiter didn’t believe the boy was really 20, the legal age to join without parental consent. But two years later he had filled out and bulked up enough to fool them. Running away from home that spring, he was soon a raw recruit in the Topaz Legion based in the fortress town of Olyron, on the Darikazi border.

Near the end of his first year in the legion he was part of an unauthorized attempt to retake Bremkin Keep. An ambitious captain, wishing to show up the great Marshal Satirnus, took two cohorts out on a “training mission,” only to turn aside and invade Darikaz.

He did manage to take the Korönian fighting order by surprise, but unexpected reinforcements from Tovasir doomed the expedition. Most of the legionnaires were killed, and many of the survivors were captured. Since no one knew of any family connections Legionnaire Erol might possess, he was one of the few not eventually ransomed.

After several months in the dungeons of Bremkin he was dragged in chains to the slave market in Tovasir, and there sold by The Red Hand of Pain to the masters of the Taruthani Games. For the next four years he was trained and forced to fight for his life as a gladiator in the bloodthirsty arenas of Darikaz.

In the autumn of 3017 he managed to seize an unexpected chance and escape from the great arena in Izmirk, capital of Darikaz. Hiding in the low, deadly dives of the waterfront, he made the acquaintance of a “freebooter” captain, who was looking for a few good men to fill out his crew. Claiming a bit more knowledge of the sea than he actually possessed (which was none), and bolstered by his demonstrated facility with violence, he was accepted into the crew of the Silverfish.

Unfortunately, life at sea was not all that Erol had hoped for, particularly with a band of pirates. He more than pulled his weight, learning the ways of the ship quickly enough, and his fighting skills made him popular with many of his crew mates. But his unwillingness to kill innocent prisoners did not endear him to the captain or first mate.

When it was Darikazi shipping the pirates preyed on, he managed to quell his scruples – four years of listening to the bloodthirsty crowds at the Games had not made him love the Darikazi any better than he had before. But when they captured and butchered the small crew of an Arushali fishing boat, he drew the line.

Having no desire to return to Darikaz, he eventually decided that being the captain of his own ship might be the best solution to his problems. And there were more than a few members of the crew who agreed that Erol would make a better captain than the one who currently held that post. They began to plot a mutiny.

Unfortunately, not all of Erol’s supporters were entirely trustworthy, and his plans were betrayed to the captain and first officer. Fortunately, the captain’s camp was also possessed of those sympathetic to Erol, and he received warning of the plan to seize him.

It was night and the Silverfish was anchored off the coast of a large island, east of Darikaz. No lights could be seen, and it was a fair swim in unknown waters, but really there was no other choice, cut off as he was from his unready supporters.

With a heavy sigh, he stepped onto the starboard rail, then knifed silently into the dark waters, little knowing that that leap had plunged him into a future that would rock the world…