Elbaren was born in the Warrens. He has only the vaguest memories of his parents, a guardsman and an actress/singer fallen on hard times. When he was three, his sister Elani was born. Three years later, his parents were dead, victims of the random crimes that plague the slum district. With no family, the two children were left to fend for themselves.
Even at such a young age, Elbaren was impetuous and bold, and large for his years. After a dark but short period where he and Elani barely managed to escape the horrors that the Warrens could have inflicted on helpless children, the boy found work as a servant with a tough but humane tavern owner, Pug. Pug fed and housed the children, but both of them had to work for him from dawn till dusk (at least), take care of themselves, and cause no trouble.
Elbaren's favorite part of working in the tavern, the Blue Lion, was undoubtedly the music. While proper bards were unlikely to frequent a place like the Blue Lion, many local folk musicians, mostly amateurs, played their music their from late afternoon till well into the night. One evening he helped a whistle player who had taken the worst of it in a bar brawl. The thankful (and drunk) musician proclaimed him an "angel of Jode", and gave him a small holy symbol of the Guardian of Song, a wooden lyre painted in gold.
Over the following weeks, Elbaren asked questions from anyone he could about Jode. He soon found out about the Joden Templehall. The reckless child that he was, the nine-year-old boy presented himself at the Templehall to audition for tuition. An amused Knight of the Chord entertained the enthusiastic boy, who regaled the Knight with a bawdy sea shanty often sung at the Blue Lion. The Kinght, Mardun, praised the boy's confidence and ear for a tune, but told him they didn't take on waifs as students like the Imperial Academy of Music, and that he couldn't afford to go there. Still, Mardun allowed the boy to hang around sometimes, setting him odd jobs in return for the odd copper bit. On rare occasions he was even able to share a meal, or sit with some Knights while they drank and talked.
The boy grew bigger and stronger, and by the age of 14 he was already six feet tall. One day, hanging around the Templehall, he encountered a yound nobleman of House Kath, Ingram. Impressed with Elbaren's confident and cheeky manner, he offered him the chance to join the City Watch under Ingram's sponsorship. Elbaren quickly agreed. Though he was sad to leave Pug's, it meant that he and Elani could get their own quarters somewhere, hopefully not in the Warrens. Sure enough, his work as a squire meant that the siblings were able to rent a room in Midtown shorlty thereafter.
Ingram was never very present in Elbaren's life, but he would ocassionally visit the lad, asking questions about what was going on in Fort Dalenguard. The nobleman kept his enquiries conversational, but Elbaren got the sense that Ingram's curiosity was more than idle. Still, he was ever thankful to the scion of Kath, and saw no harm in their conversations.
Shortly after his 17th birthday, Elbaren was promoted to constable. Shortly after that, preparing to upgrade he and his sister's lodgings, he returned home to find his street in flames, apparently as a result of some out of control battle involving a wizard. He stumbled over the body of an old, dying woman, and knelt over her, holding the holy symbol he'd treasured for years and praying to Jode. To his amazement, the old woman was healed, not completely, but enough to avoid death and walk away. Then he realised his building was still burning. Bursting in through the smoke and heat, he found Elani, dead in their room.
Heartbroken, he continued his work as a guard, but also threw himself into the worship of Jode and the study of her teachings. He became more and more of a presence at the Templehall, not a member of the Knights, but as a welcomed student of their goddess. Three years later, when offered a position as a junior sergeant with the Watch, he decided to leave its employ. The time had come to help the downtrodden and fight evil as an individual, and Jode would have it, rather than as part of a sometimes frustrating and inert organization such as the Watch. This decision was met with a cool reaction from Ingram, his sponsor from House Kath, but the nobleman wished him his best wishes and stated that he would keep an eye on the young man's career in the future.
