Darchen Yioun when he was about 19 years old or so. This is probably only days before he left The Shadow Realm (The world that the Shadow Elves live in) and came into Luthian to learn from Degon, his teacher, who lived in Netherith.

A few years later, Degon goes completely out of his mind, and his dying wish is that Darch becomes Leader of the Council of Light when the leader finally resigns (which was in about a week at that point) The leader, who was a great friend of Degon's, honors his wish, and declared Darch leader.
Edmire Rashel, who was suppose to become the leader, of course was furious, and made it her duty to hate Darch, who gave up everything to honor his teacher's wish.

He ends up doing unbelievably awesome things for the council and Luthian, including granting all council members immortal lives until they resign their station or choose it to be taken away, and of course, it was his idea to begin The Xoan. (Ethic and Essuna being reborn every life time, and all that jazz)

Of course, with this great status and responsibility, Darch has given up so much more. He gave up his birth right of becoming King of the Shadow, his family, and his best friend ( ), who is still waiting for him to return. And over the thousands of years he has lived in Luthian, he has sacrificed and risked nearly everything.

Yes, there you go. To all you Darch fans, there is some back story about him. Not all of it, of course. (His is actually kinda still in the works) but that kinda explains somethings that may be unclear in the book. (Like why Edmire hates him so much)

Thanks to ~Alune for all of her fabulous contributions to his life... like Aonwin.

And of course, just in case you are wondering, Darchen Yioun is from The Gathering Novels which start here.