Although most of exitium's members have long, colourful, perhaps chequered, histories, the dour and solemn Opeth is the one to buck this trend, having been created, not recruited, relatively late in exitium's early history. Conceived by Firstfire as the ultimate weapon, with which he would finally be able to seize control of the unit from the domineering Dreadspawn (then known as Vertizor), Opeth was delevoped in secret under the codename "Violence-5". At the time, Vertizor had been led to believe that the project was in fact devoted to creating plasma weapon technology for for the unit, and did not think to question its secrecy and expense.