As the son of two of humanity's earliest Practitioners, who were also part of the first wave of colonists on Hope, Gilliam has been surrounded by magic for most of his life. Fascinated by the wonders of his parents' research, he began studying magic himself at an unusually young age.
His parents lost their lives along with his home, in one of the first five cities destroyed during the Invasion of Hope, but they first managed to help Gilliam escape with his life. Trapped behind countless battle lines of demons, eleven year old Gilliam used his wits, sneakiness, and sheer dumb luck to make his way to the besieged Elysium, where he delivered some intelligence on enemy troop movements and then evacuated alongside other civilians.