Warning: It's quite a bit dark, but that's how it goes for evil necromancers.
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He was the son of a fisherman in a very small fishing village somewhere (around? nearish?) Hollin. His father fell on hard times due to taxes, a fish shortage, and bad weather, and decided that he and Aeris' mother could not afford their children anymore. So they took young Aeris and his younger brother far inland, into the woods, telling them they were on a hunting trip to catch a pheasant to eat. The boys were excited, but Aeris' father left them in the darkest middle of the woods. After a full day had passed, a storm and their hunger forced them to look for food and shelter. They wandered, through the woods and the storm, for days on end. Eventually his younger brother fell, and died, to exhaustion and hunger. Aeris was forced, in his great hunger, to feed off of the flesh his younger brother. Eventually the corpse attracted wolves and other dangerous animals. Young Aeris dragged the body until he found a woodcutters hut, buried his brother's body as best as he could, and took shelter in the hut, where he was found a day and a half later by woodcutters returning to their work.
Aeris, at this point unable to speak clearly or communicate who he was or where he was from, was sent to an Orphanage in Hollin. There, over many years, he regained his ability to speak, and even learned to read and write from a local Cleric. He soaked up knowledge and information like a sponge. Dedicating himself to the solo arts of science (and secretly the workings of magic).
When he was fourteen, he escaped the orphanage and returned to the forest where his brother had died. After a great deal of difficulty and bribing local foresters, he found the hut where he was rescued. Shortly after, he found where he had hastily buried his younger brother. Most of the body had been dug up by animals and removed, but the skull remained. Aeris took it, gently, and hastened all the way back to Hollin, where he took up apprenticeship with a local scientist/mortician. Using his brother's skull as a way to direct and implement his emotions, his magical power greatly increased. By day he learned science and the mortician's arts. By nights he practiced magics of all sorts, from the inane cantrips to the dangerous magic of the dead.
When his mentor caught an idea that he was practicing magic, he was ejected from his apprenticeship. Unable to acquire the knowledge and implements he would need to continue his research, he started taking on any work he could find to one day build his own laboratory, where he can freely study his interests, and one day take revenge on such a spiteful world.
This is where we were introduced, on a potentially lucrative mission to the tundra, as an impressed sailor.
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In-game terms, I was having him use his younger brother's skull as a magical implement (an orb). Is this fine with you?
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Also, the orb implement... so far he's been keeping it wrapped in a burlap sack when he uses it. Aeris believes that if people saw that he was carrying around a child's skull, well, it would raise some rather pointed questions.