Eli's brutal appearance belies his gentle demeanor, but exposes his past. His muscled and scarred body stands as a testament to his previous life as a petty thug in the dense sprawls of the macro-city that he called home. As a boy Eli grew accustomed to the everyday violence and misery that human beings inflicted on one another, and as violence was the only perceived way to secure a future, he became a man of violence. Honing his martial skills, he was employed by the resident organized crime syndicate as a high level bodyguard. Life settled into a seemingly interminable cycle of perpetuating violence, until the 14 Red Dog Triads came to roost. They systematically bought/wiped out the local syndicate, including the people Eli was assigned to protect. Severely injured and left for dead, Eli turned up in the Church of Humanity Repentant's newly established welcome and outreach center. There he lay for several days, drifting in and out of consciousness, until he was visited by an epiphany and subsequent convalescence. From that moment on Eli was a man transformed, visited by an experience of the oneness of beings while he languished on the threshold of death. Vowing to dedicate the rest of his life to the church, and this new understanding of life, he set of on the pilgrimages of the church. Now after a few years on pilgrimage Eli puts his misfortunate youth to use by using his skills to protect pilgrims on their journey, and his experiences lend a strangely engaging tenor to his recruiting attempts (especially to those from troubled city backgrounds).