In the labyrinthine 'Warrens' of the capital, Elan began not as a warrior, but as a humble field medic. For decades, he mended the broken bones of pickpockets and stitched the gashes of guardsmen, until a revelation struck him during a plague outbreak: the city was not a collection of people, but a single, massive organism. Every merchant was a nutrient-carrying cell; every criminal, a malignant infection. To save the patient, the doctor could not merely treat the symptoms; he had to excise the rot with a steady hand.
Elan's 'Surgical Philosophy' eventually drew the attention of the Order of Mercy, who provided him with the porcelain mask he now wears pushed to his brow. He returned to the slums as an unofficial arbiter, a grandfatherly figure who listens to grievances with a warm purr and settles them with finality. He once famously spent three days nursing a dying orphan back to health, only to walk across the street and wordlessly stop the heart of the slum-lord who had poisoned the child's well. To Elan, there was no contradiction in these acts—only the necessary labor of a gardener weeding his plot.