Varis is a wiry elf with skin the color of parched earth and sharp, narrow eyes. He keeps his silver hair cropped short and messy to stay out of his face. He wears darkened studded leather that has been silent-stitched with owl feathers and keeps his hands wrapped in thin, supple silk for better grip. His movements are predatory, always keeping his back to a wall.

He is cynical and speaks in short, clipped sentences. He views the world as a series of locks waiting to be picked and people as mere obstacles between him and his next meal. Despite his hard exterior, he has a strange softness for street urchins, often leaving gold in places where only a child would look.

Varis was born in the gutters of a gleaming elven citadel where his kind were expected to be artisans or poets. Lacking the status for education, he learned the geometry of rooftops and the rhythm of the city guards. He spent two centuries living in the spaces between the light, perfecting the art of the 'invisible elf'. To Varis, a locked door is a personal insult. Over the years, he graduated from stealing loaves of bread to liberating crown jewels from high-security vaults. He survived the underworld through a mixture of extreme paranoia and a talent for being exactly where no one is looking. Now at the pinnacle of his craft, he no longer steals for survival, but because the world owes him a debt for every cold night he spent in the rain. He is a ghost in the machine of civilization, a man who has mastered the art of being anywhere and nowhere at once.