"Beneath the newer mausoleum of some unnamed emperor, he uncovered the tomb of Ne'Zuk." Riot's biography of the Prodigal Explorer is a missing-persons case dressed as an adventure serial, and that is the sentence where the boy finds what his parents could not. The gauntlet in the sarcophagus is the weapon; the empty sarcophagus is the story. Ezreal has chased fame across Runeterra since, and the text says why: so that his parents will hear of him and come to find him.
Who they are
He grew up in a wealthy neighbourhood of Piltover, the son of renowned archaeologists who were rarely home, and spent his childhood wanting to go with them. He was left with his uncle, Professor Lymere, who set the strictest tutors on him: cartography, hextech mechanics, the ancient histories of Runeterra. The boy absorbed it without studying, passed every assessment cold, and spent the freed time evading the campus wardens, running the tunnels beneath the lecture halls and the library rooftops, picking his teachers' locks to rearrange their offices.
When his parents were home his father talked of expeditions, and of one above all: the lost tomb of Ne'Zuk, a Shuriman tyrant said to be able to jump instantly from one place to another. If he could learn that sorcery, his father joked, he could drop in for dinner every night. Then the visits grew rarer, and one year they stopped. Lymere admitted, tearfully, that they had most likely died somewhere in the desert. Ezreal could not accept it; they had been too careful. He gathered celestial diagrams, translations of runic sigils, guides to Shuriman burial rites and a pair of protective goggles from the university, left his uncle a note, and stowed away on a supply ship to Nashramae.
Following his mother's field notes, he crossed the Great Sai with merchant caravans and spent months in ruins beneath the sand, facing the horrors that guarded them. Then, under the mausoleum of an unnamed emperor, he found the tomb. The sarcophagus was empty except for a bronze gauntlet with a crystalline matrix at its centre. The moment he touched it, the tomb's ancient traps and wards turned on him; he put it on, blasted his way out and teleported the last hundred yards before the structure collapsed. The gauntlet hummed with his heartbeat, siphoning and amplifying his own essence, a weapon fit for a god-warrior of Shurima. Back in Piltover his adventures multiplied, lost cities and temples, and his reputation with them, which gave him an idea: if he became the greatest adventurer in the world, his parents would surely come and find him. He now chases fame from the borders of Noxus and Demacia to Zaun and the Freljord, never answering his critics, who are clearly just jealous.
Where they belong
Riot places Ezreal in Piltover, where he was born, schooled and is based; the biography's turning point is in Shurima, in a tomb beneath the Great Sai.
Riot lists three related champions:
- Kassadin: not named in Ezreal's biography.
- Lux: not named.
- Rek'Sai: not named. The text names only his family, his uncle, and a dead tyrant.
In the Riot MMO, as a guess
This is speculation. Ezreal is a quest-giving character, and a mobile one, since the biography has him everywhere from Noxus to the Freljord; the shape that fits is the rival explorer who reaches a ruin just before or just after the player and offers the next lead. A tomb full of ancient traps that the hero blasts through is also the most conventional dungeon in the roster, and his parents are a missing-persons chain that runs across regions. He is not a boss; the text gives him no enemies except critics. Whether any champion is playable is the question in will champions be playable; a boy with a god-warrior's gauntlet is also a reminder of what the lore lets a mortal pick up.
What we do not know
Whether the game's era, the open question in when is the Riot MMO set?, finds him alive and still searching. The biography ends with the search ongoing and no date on the tomb.
Whether his parents are alive. The text says most likely perished, in his uncle's words, and Ezreal does not believe it.