Cillian was the son of a Hellknight captain. His mother died in childbirth and his father retreated into his work. He spent most of his time in the barracks listening to the stories of the veteran Hellknights while his father worked. The rest of his time was spent on the streets and roofs and docks, running amok and getting into trouble. Being the son of the captain was probably the only thing that kept him out of jail.
He learned that the morality of the desperate is a flexible thing, and that what the law said was not always right. Friends on the streets lost hands for stealing bread so they would not starve. Friends in the guard were too bound by the laws to be able to stop corrupt orphanages from essentially enslaving their charges.
He learned young that the best way to survive was to know more than everyone else, and to be well known. He started trading information to both sides. The criminal element found it hilarious that the guard captain's son was willing to trade copies of the latest guard rotation for something as paltry as a stolen shipment of medicines.
He had a front row seat to the decline of Westcrown. In a way, he was part of it. By the time he was 12 the Hellknight ranks were a parody of their former glory. Corruption took it's toll. Guards died, quit, or worst of all, caved and took the bribes. Even the iron reputation of the Hellknights didn't seem to be beyond tarnish. By the time he was 15, his father was one of the only honest Knights left. The criminal syndicates had become truly monstrous. No longer anything resembling the more sophisticated crime families of the past, the faction leaders were now simply the most cunning and vicious people able to carve out a kingdom inside the city walls. With the night curse, the criminals were forced into the daylight. Crime became brazen and destructive.
In spite of the spreading corruption within the city, somehow it was still a surprise when they killed his father.
The captaincy could have passed to him by right of lineage, but he refused it. Even the men of the guard who helped raise him weren't trustworthy anymore. It was impossible to tell which one had sold his father out, but he knew for certain that any one of them could have protected him and didn't. Cillian was also in too deep with the syndicates himself. They knew him. Any career with the guard would be spent wondering which friend would be the one who suffered because of his actions.
But he couldn't do nothing. They had to pay.
Slowly, a plan began to form. In idea, that could be spread. A symbol that might do more than any one man ever could. The reason the Hellknights failed was because they simply refused to adapt. They played by a set of rules no one else did. They held onto a tradition that no longer served them in today's world. Their ways had become not much more than a joke to the scum of the city. They laughed at his father's code. They laughed at his death.
The syndicates laughed at the suffering of the people, turing misery into a game. They laughed at starving children while stealing their dreams.
Cillian had even laughed with them to keep up appearances, and still sometimes did, but he was done laughing now. The joke was about to be on them.