Perildius was born in a small peasant village in the highlands of Astrya with nothing to his name and a dozen or so elder siblings. His mouth was last to feed so from an early age he'd gotten quite good at getting his own food, swiping stale bread and old vegetables from home, hunting for morels and shooting squirrels with his slingshot while outside. When he was seven, a plague swept through his town, leaving most of his family dead, including his parents. Bandits and robbers razed the town shortly thereafter, and though his remaining elder brother tried to fend them off, he too was killed and his sisters were kidnapped. It was then that Perildius decided to leave his childhood home behind and travel south, to the warmer midlands.

Through his travels as a young boy, Perildius worked odd jobs as a farmhand or laborer, never staying in one place longer than a winter before moving on. He'd always had to work harder than his late siblings, so naturally he excelled at what he did and was rewarded with food and lodging. By the time he was twelve he could pass himself off as a blacksmith's apprentice with his strength alone. In a small village he'd even been offered to be wed to a poor farmer's daughter. He didn't stick around long enough to find out what the dowry would be, though he suspected it was the family's elderly goat. By the time Perildius reached the age when another of his upbringing may choose to settle down with a wife on a nice plot of land, he knew no homeland nor comfort in ordinary life. He felt endlessly restless, always searching for something beyond the horizon, always traveling from place to place and never turning back.

It was at this point that he decided to venture to the capital Windell to try his luck in the big city. He had heard tales of it from the people he had encountered in his travels, the grandeur and opulence, the poor eating like the rich out of bowls of pure silver, immaculate clothing and fineries on display for all to see. One can hardly imagine his shock and disappointment arriving at the Fading-stricken city, streets littered with refuse and dying paupers, the walls dingy with soot and grime, even the light dimmed with a noxious miasma of decay. He searched in vain for answers, but just as his home village was once taken by a mysterious plague, so to it seemed Windell would be. Perildius did not want to witness another razing, and so he departed, going further south in hopes of escaping the reaper's pale shadow. But no matter where he went, the Fading seemed to creep in ever quicker.

Arriving in the port city of Caldris, Perildius found work in the docks as a longshoreman, hauling spices and trade goods to and from day in and day out. More and more he saw ships departing Caldris and less arriving. More and more he saw the streets of the city grow quieter and quieter in the daytime. More and more the din of nightly tavern brawls turned into a murmur of disquieted patrons seemingly eager to move on. The winds of change were upon the world, Perildius felt it in his heart despite his mind's unwillingness to give up on this land. Eventually, having saved up enough coin for passage elsewhere, Perildius bid farewell to the few fellow workers who had remained, boarded a ship, and by age 20 he'd left the whole world he knew behind. Now a refugee seeking an adventure that never came, he was, for the first time in a very long, hopeful that this voyage might bring something new, something novel, something exciting.