Solomon Page
Mercenaries, condottieri, landsknecht– there’s a dozen words to try and dress up what you were: a career murderer. Things were so much more chaotic back then, though: the moon falling; the shelling and endless fire; the awful silence. So with the world torn asunder, maybe no one really blinked twice when they let you, a boy of just fourteen years old, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with men twice your age as you soldiered off to war’s ‘great adventure.’ As you charged unto the breach. You were good at what you did, after all, and besides: nothing made sense back then anyways. A lot of kids lived through the Calamity and had it far worse. The world needed order... and sacrifices had to be made.But no one expected your knack for ripping things from between worlds: reaching into the Pit... and pulling them squirming and shrieking into the meat and noise of the Source. Peers pretended they didn’t notice the way your eyes grew a little more sunken every time. Superiors were happy to let you learn your own lessons and make your own mistakes, so long as you gave them that eager smile, so long as the killing continued.The problem with mistakes of these stripes is that they have a way of lingering and coming back again and again and again.
| Ethnicity | Kokkish miqo'te |
| Gender | Cis male |
| Age | Twenties |
| Orientation | Pan, polyam |
| Archetype | Well-meaning demonologist |
| Profession | Celebrity adventurer |
Traits
Arcanima prodigy, but are demonologists meant to be this adorable; scholar on ‘Nymian Post-Convention Diplomacy,’ ‘Mathematics on Universal Structure,’ and ‘Metaphysical Architecture & Sacred Forms’; will talk your ear off about his interests if you let him; prepare for the deep inhale before he answers even simple questions; prone to wanderlust and uncovering secrets best left buried; oscillates between being a wet noodle; and unexpectedly competent; quietly thinks he’s hot shit (finger guns); protective of his arcane ‘intellectual property’; very driven and passionate but tries not to step on anyone on the way up; but sometimes he gets tunnel-visioned; and sometimes things break.Mother is the exarchos of a Sharlayan island; writes extended letters home where he talks all around the issues; able to return whenever he wants to, but can't bring himself to do it; Calamity trauma, probably; likes to keep busy so he's always finding new projects to work on and rarely stays in one place for any time at all; spent his childhood in warzones so his grasp on morality is skewed, sketchy, and tenuous at best; maybe he never left— in heart, in bones; maybe that’s why arguments leave his hands shaking for hours or why it feels like he’s trying to kill you during them; subtly obsessive tendencies; curiosity will one day kill this cat; he knows this, and he's weirdly fine with it; “everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”
The scenarios below come off as quite specific, but that’s only to make them atmospheric and cinematic for sparking creativity in myself and others. They’re there to be tweaked to better fit your character! Or, if you're an altaholic like me, to brainstorm a new character! However, the ‘A Jumble of Sparknote Hooks’ at the bottom are a bunch of brief sentences alluding to a potential hook-theme that I just... didn’t do a bigger write-up for, mostly for quick and accessible reading.
Demonologist: Humble Beginnings
You’ve been with Solomon since the beginning. You are the first who bore witness to him pulling demons into the world. Were you an early mentor that guided his hand, or the first demon he’d ever opened the door for? Either way, you probably nurtured this skill, most likely for your own aims and personal gain, but it’s not like he didn’t flourish, and he’s probably even grateful.
Demonologist: The Courteous Leash
Secretly, Solomon keeps a handful of Outsiders as... retainers, carefully thrice-bound to a host of his make. It might be a little humiliating, being coaxed around by someone who looks like a particularly aggressive spring breeze might knock him down, but he’s polite and respectful and asks surprisingly little. He also doesn’t egotistically punish you for getting snarky like many demonologists like to do, just to remind you of ‘your place,' either. He even talks to you like an equal– though maybe that’s pretty unintentionally insulting for someone of your lineage. He does, however, expect you to behave out in public.
Once More, Unto the Breach
Maybe you’d met him once, several years ago. He was so young then – too young to be serving in the same military free companies of the time as you, but that was the way of the world. Maybe the two of you kept in contact the entire time and served as a role model or simply an older friend who probably often gave him a good ribbing. Or maybe you lost contact only to sign up for a job years later and find him in the same squad as you. Just as beaming as before.
Children of the Calamity
You knew Solomon before the collapse. Maybe you went to the same school as him or maybe you were simply a childhood friend that used to write to him when he was studying abroad. One day, though, it happened: the letters stopped or you watched as he marched off to war at fourteen, and in the blink of an eye... he was gone. Years later and out of the ether, though, there the two of you are again: face-to-face in a borderland tavern; disembarking from different ships on the same pier; or… unknowingly hunting one or the other down.
A Jumble of Sparknote Hooks
Solomon the Exorcist; old ex-lovers or recurring tristes prone to bickering; the demon he'd bound into a severed hand / mirror / dinner fork gets unruly and wouldn't you know it, you're right there when it happens; family members; Solomon the Tutor; university study-buddies & rivals; the witch-hunter gets wise to Solomon’s bullshit.
Characteristics
| Scholarly | Opportunistic | Curious | Overthinker |
| Show-off | Playful | Pervy | Polite |
| Deceptive | Goofball | Shrewd | Ambitious |
| Famous | Tainted | Clumsy | Traumatised |
General Details
Has an unhealthy understanding of many occult traditions and a knack for ritual. Continues as an adventurer in part to uncover many of these mysteries. Demonology is his ‘special interest’ subject.
From a respectable Sharlayan family with branches seeded on a couple of its islands as well as one in Ul'dah. His mother is the Exarchos (governor) of an island in the Northern Empty. He has two younger sisters that he thinks will surely invent time travel since they clearly went back to put the sun in the sky.
Spent the first several years of his life studying aetherology, some with mentors and tutors, some in Sharlayan preparatory schools, and some abroad at the La Noscean Admiralty Academy of Arcanima and Natural Philosophy.
Began working for military free companies at the age of fourteen due to the Calamity which landed him suddenly far from home in a sundered world. He's served a number of them by now and still offers his services as a contractor for many.
While stationed in western Othard, apprenticed directly under a Dalmascan-disciplined demonologist where he learned most of that side of his trade, and the importance of the school for preventative and defensive means.
( note ) Solomon is a student of 'Dalmascan-disciplined' demonology, which is an IC philosophy I've headcanoned for him regarding how he categorises and approaches 'Outside' forces, which divides them into the 'Upper Hells' (what most would refer to as the Void) and the 'Lower Hells' (pretty much any other alternate dimension, even potentially including some shards). He refers to all of these entities interchangeably as demons, daemons, outsiders, neighbours, or whatever sounds coolest at the time (I'll probably be using pretty much all of them). I also tend to play fairly fast-and-loose with the lore because I don't like the 13th-shard 'they're just like us' reveal.
Additional Writing & Links
A Broken Nose and No Family. An alternate carrd for a series of bite-sized vignettes detailing Solomon’s days spent soldiering with military free companies as a “young man," and his work beyond.A Demonologist's Appendix. An alternate carrd for the slowly-updating almanac of 'Neighbours,' 'Outsiders,' daemons, oddities, and their hosts ambiguously associated with Solomon Page. These are works of personally-created headcanon.
yes, please
brainstorming & gushing about character stuff together
horror, ritual, horrific rituals, nasty no good characters that you can't help but get swept up into
headcanon and worldbuilding
maturity, kindness, and enthusiasm
being 23+ irl preferred; i don't care what your character's age is, but it might understandably limit the ways emily interacts with you depending on that age
please, no
ooc capitalists/libertarians, fascists (this includes being pro-Israel or pro any current government really), misogynists, transphobes, you get it
being way too discourse-heavy about rp; most of my characters are not good people, i know that, there's nothing to discuss there
acting like solution 9 and other sci-fi or modern tech is commonplace and normal; it ruins this character's vibe; kinda goes for glams, too
miscellany
i have a few alts, and so although not necessary, i like adding people to discord if we vibe; it's just easier to get in contact with me!
sometimes i will drop words like 'try' and 'attempt' because i think it's linguistically clunky; if i do this, i'm not godmodding, just explain what actually happens in your post and i'll roll with it
also be nice to me, it's the law
