Raised at the base of a remote volcano in Albathia's spine, Elil left his home as a young teen to pursue a long-held (but naive) goal of becoming the ideal knight. Starting his journey in and around Ishgard, he was conscripted into the Dragonsong War, and found himself forced to contend with stifling racism in a world still unfamiliar to him.

Ever slaving to find a proper life for himself, his efforts were undone after he contracted the voidsent equivalent of lycanthropy from a void-ling possessed miqote. Promptly excommunicated and hunted as a blight, Elil has taken the mantle of dark knight not only to keep the dark aether within him in check, but to search for some means of fulfillment, and possibly, a cure.