Early on, an assassin comes at me; at this point I've done nothing...I kill it. I read the note on it's corpse, aahh, Dark Brotherhood sent it. Fast forward many hours later, kill orphan lady, in shack w/ Astrid...You would think I could get a question in edgewise about the attempt on my life, or better yet, challenge the Dark Brotherhood!!! Hey, I could've been pledging for a Morag Tong revival....DBH twits, caffiene will kill ya!!! So, who wants to take on a guild, as opposed to joining one...or all of them??

It's a completely random encounter. It's up to you to have theories and guesses but there are no answers.

Yeah unlike "hired thugs" the letter the assassin has does not list a name. and the assassin is always a lone argonian. I wonder when they will get the hint they need to send more then one? Unless they think their argonian is more powerful then Alduin himself... he needs all the help he can get.

The assassin attaccks are just there to advertise the presence of an assassin's guild in Skyrim. True story.

It's a scripted encounter to inform you that the DB exists so you can be alert to starting that quest thread if you wish to.

Judging by his effectiveness, that's some really BAD advertising

Mine are mostly Khajiits or Dunmer. You know how they say there are so few Khajiits in Skyrim? That's because almost all are assassins, and get killed by my characters. (Ok, a few are thieves. But they end up pretty dead, too.)

Most of the hold ups I get are with Khajiit. And I hate having to kill them or bandit ones... cause there are so few of them... Every one I kill, I feel as though thats one less that could have been marriable.