@Zevran Arainai was born around 9:05 Dragon to a Dalish woman who fell in love with an elven woodcutter. His elven mother abandoned her clan and moved with the woodcutter to Antiva City. Zevran is unsure whether the woodcutter is indeed his father. After the woodcutter died suddenly - presumably from disease - Zevran's mother was forced into a life of prostitution in Rialto to pay off the woodcutter's debts, and died soon after giving birth to Zevran. He considers himself lucky for a boy who grew up in a brothel.
In fact, the woodcutter was a contract kill by the Antivan Crows in 9:04 Dragon. Along with other elven orphans, Zevran was raised communally by the sex workers in the brothel until the age of seven. His cunning and skill in stealing had brought him to the attention of Guildmaster Talav of House Arainai who paid the remainder of the debt his mother had been forced to repay. As such, he was considered compradi (purchased).
He and Taliesen were both purchased in 9:12 Dragon and out of eighteen recruits bought that year, they were the only two to survive. Despite a promising start, however, neither boy showed any real talent until Rinna was introduced into the House. The trio complemented each other well, Rinna overseeing planning, Taliesen providing the physical strength and Zevran handling both poisons and seductions. Indeed, they worked so well together than Eoman Arainai trained them together as a unit within House Arainai. This eventually led to the trio becoming romantically involved.
In 9:28 Dragon, Zevran and Taliesen were tasked with killing Rinna, whom the Rosso Noche were trying to put forward as an heir to King Natale. Following her murder, the heart seemed to go out of Zevran. Indeed, it appeared that during later missions, Taliesen was covering for Zevran in order to keep up the appearance that Zevran was still a loyal member of the Crows. His later bid for a contract to kill the two remaining Grey Wardens in Ferelden was interpreted by some in the Crows as an attempt to attain the rank of master, but was in actuality a suicide attempt.
Zevran is hired by @Loghain Mac Tir and Arl @Rendon Howe to assassinate @Alistair Theirin and any surviving Wardens.
Confident and eager to put his abilities to good use under the player's employ, Zevran is easygoing by nature. Though many of the party members have their doubts about whether or not he is trustworthy, he takes their suspicions in stride and deflects their accusations with wit. He has no reservations about what he does for a living, nor does he try to dress up his role as a Crow. He acknowledges freely that he is a killer and that he cannot picture himself doing anything else. Even so, he does possess a somewhat slanted sense of morality that guides his actions.
Zevran is among the least judgmental of companions. The players decisions, for good or ill, rarely affect his disposition by more than a few points (if at all), though there are some exceptions.
Despite his Dalish lineage and the fact he briefly lived with a roaming clan, Zevran thinks of himself primarily as an Antivan. He claims to feel no collective kinship to other elves, those in alienages least of all; Zevran believes that too many of his kind have accepted being considered inferior as a fact of life, and thinks they have to fight to earn a higher level of respect.
In time, if the player has garnered a sufficient approval rating with Zevran, he will reveal the specifics of some of his missions as a Crow. The last job he performed in Antiva was to be carried out with the assistance of his fellow assassins, Taliesen and Rinna. Zevran explains that he had become genuinely smitten with Rinna in a way that directly conflicted with his assassin training. But as the trio planned their attack, Taliesen learned that Rinna had accepted a bribe from their mark and was planning to betray them. Zevran watched Taliesen kill her, callously mocking her pleas of innocence and dying declarations of love for him, and the two men carried out the mission on their own. Only after their target was dead did they discover the real source of their victim's information, which in turn proved Rinna had been telling the truth. Heartbroken and disgusted by his actions, Zevran returned to the Crows and made a bid for what many believed was a suicide mission: kill any remaining Grey Wardens in Ferelden. He took the job hoping to die at the hands of legendary heroes. The truth of this final mission is that Rinna, a bastard daughter of Prince Estefan, was working with the Rosso Noche (Red Night), an organization with the goal of presenting Rinna as a legitimate heir to King Natale of Antiva. When a member of House Valisti, Claudio Valisti, discovered this, he bribed Eoman Arainai to have Rinna killed to allow a member of the Valisti family a better chance of royal succession. Zevran and Taliesen were informed that killing Rinna was a test of their loyalty but the act left Zevran feeling wracked with guilt and self-loathing.