The Birth.
In the early afternoon of 28 Hammer, in the year 1455 DR, a mother tiefling by the name of Yahala clutched her husband, Karos’, hand as she laboured for the child in her womb to be born, deep within the opulent halls of Minauros. It was a long delivery, but with much patience and pushing, the cry of a baby girl filled the chamber, and Valahiri was born. It was custom in their family to also give a name that was meaningful to the tiefling, usually picked out by the parents in relation to how they wanted them to grow up, but it’s not uncommon for those names to be changed. So they also gave their daughter the name Excellence.
Lord Mammon appeared by Yahala’s bedside as the baby was given to her, swaddled tightly against her breast. Upon laying his golden eyes on Excellence, he declared to her parents and all in attendance that she would be his Scion — his Chosen — and trained as such when she was old enough.
Being declared Mammon’s Chosen changed Excellence’s childhood life permanently, becoming a colourful and bloodied tapestry, woven with the threads of power, privilege, and danger.
Yahala and Karos were thrilled with this immense gift and opportunity. They ensured Excellence wanted for nothing and was given the very best of everything: toys, tutors, food, finery, even playmates. But their temperaments became treacherous, honed entirely on molding their daughter to the name she had been given — excellence. The pride of the family, striking Scion of Mammon, Lord of Minauros. Yahala and Karos saw their daughter as the key to newfound wealth and power.
Failure and mistakes were not tolerated, Excellence learned quickly. The punishment for either of these was always a long lecture after a switch to her calves or shoulders, dressing her up and down in condescending and venomous remarks about her intelligence, looks, and upbringing. Despite this harsh upbringing, Excellence become the embodiment of elegance and knowledge as her parents had intended, earning the envious ire of her peers and the greedy eyes of those who sought to use her for their own purposes.
She learned very early in her childhood that she could trust no one, not even her parents, after overhearing several adults telling their children to use her as target practice with the endorsement of Karos and Yahala. By the time she turned nineteen, Excellence had survived murder attempts on numerous occasions, disarmed magical traps intended to kill her, and on one occasion, silenced a would-be assassin — she also discovered that she had a knack for healing, which she thought was ironic, as she so often had to tend to her own injuries.
Excellence had become hardened to her family’s ways, and forged her own existence with her parent’s wealth, unbeknown to them. She hired undercover bodyguards disguised as members of her personal staff, bribed nobles for favours and blackmail, had enemies either incapacitated or banished, and spent a fortune on updating her wardrobe to her own tastes, moving away from her family’s purples and golds for blues, silvers, and blacks. But while Mammon’s greed ran quick in her veins, she wanted to pursue it on her own terms: outside the circles of Hell.
By Asmodeus’ decree, no planar portals could connect directly to any layer of Hell besides Avernus. Excellence scouted Minauros for weeks in search of the portal that would get her to Dis, the second circle of Hell. Word had begun to spread that she was leaving, and an increase in mercenaries sent to kill her only encouraged Excellence to keep pushing forward. When she finally found it, crackling with energy, she leapt inside with a bag of her things, without a backwards glance.
Almost two months after Excellence had first decided she would leave the Hells, she finally reached the surface. The sheer relief and joy that she had made it had her laughing aloud to herself, leaning against a tree as tears ran down her cheeks. When she had composed herself enough to walk, Excellence started down the dirt road with a spring in her step, unaware that she had pointed herself towards the rich, rolling, and formidable, landscape of Baldur’s Gate.
Background: Noble
Her upbringing in Minauros, whether Excellence wanted it to or not, had equipped her with the skill set needed to walk the walk and talk the talk among other nobility. This became especially handy upon moving into the Gate and needing residence: decorum, grace, eloquence, manners, and of course, the unspoken tutelage of manipulation, observation, and subterfuge, all served her well as she began making connections and a name for herself.
Background: Urban Hunter
While being a cleric is a fulfilling path, Excellence still needed food on the table, and that required money. In the first couple months of being in the Gate, before becoming a cleric, she took on a job as an urban hunter. Runaway heirs, adulterers, fugitives, and estranged family members were the most she had to deal with, in return for handsome purses of gold from influential (and wealthy) families, along with their trust.
Excellence uses this fully to her advantage, obtaining information on just about anyone or thing that resided within the walls of the Gate. She built herself a reliable network of contacts throughout Faerûn, ensuring she has access to news just about anytime she needs it.
Background: Sage
Once settled in both home and heart, Excellence could finally turn to the things she had truly enjoyed during her childhood — reading and learning. Her interests in Weave manipulation, animal handling training, and languages were hers to delve into, and delve she did. Excellence became well acquainted with the staff at Sorcerer’s Sundries, the folks at the Society of Brilliance, the Stormshore Armoury people, and the Rivington General trader. She also created a magically sealed journal that requires her blood to open it.
Background: Researcher
After a long and gruelling realisation that her childhood was not, in fact, normal, Excellence looked to her beloved books to enlighten her. She quickly fell in love with folklore and mythology, falling upon any fairy tales and so-called legends she could get her hands on. Among those that caught her eye were the rumours of Barovia and its mysterious protector, Strahd; every scrap of lore she could get on Balduran and Ansur, the heroes of the Gate and its namesake; and anything related to her twilight and healing abilities she could have procured.
Background: Haunted One
When Excellence first stepped foot into Barovia, she had gone in as an eager scholar, in a hurry to catalogue everything she saw, read, and experienced. Unfortunately for her, Barovia is very rarely kind to its guests, and she was no one special.
Death within Barovia for a citizen of that plane results in a recycling of their souls: when one body dies, its soul is born anew into someone else, effectively keeping everyone within the realm. Spend enough time in there, and you start to become a part of its ugly cycle.
Excellence started to become integrated to Barovia the third time she died inside its misty boundaries, evolving into a Haunted One — a semi-permanent soul-resident of Strahd’s hellscape. With this dreadful knowledge mounting, she learned the streets and roads of each city she visited, committing faces or names to memory for later, doing so knowing full well that she was probably being watched.
Class: Twilight Cleric
During the limbo period of waiting to be approved for citizenship inside Baldur’s Gate, Excellence spent most of her time either in her room at the Blushing Mermaid, or riverside with her tent, reading books and fishing for her meals. It was on one of those mornings she had walked a bit further down the river, scouting for a new spot, when she heard battle from across the river.
Twelve clerics robed with the goddess of magic’s insignia emblazoned on on their backs had been attacked by a pack of gnollhunters, falling upon them far too easily. If Excellence ran to the bridge to cross, she’d be too late to help and may attract them towards the Gate and innocents; if she tried to cross the river, there was a good chance she’d be swept away by the deep currents in the middle.
Unable to see a way to help, Excellence fell to her knees and prayed desperately to Mystra to save her cleric’s lives, wishing she herself could do something about it.
A blaze of starlight from the heavens crashed down upon the gnolls, charring their flesh from their bones in screeching howls of agony. Excellence used the bought time to sprint over and across the bridge to the downed clerics, and was able to save seven of the twelve’s lives with her healing. An orb of blue light appeared on the shoreline, and the voice of Mystra echoed out of it, beseeching her surviving clerics to take Excellence up as one of their own, to train her in the ways of the twilight cleric.
In agreement with their goddess and with heartfelt thanks, the remaining clerics and Excellence lay to rest those that didn’t make it, before returning to their temple. As Mystra had asked, the seven priests and priestesses explained what had happened to the head priestess of the temple, who gratefully thanked Excellence as well, and offered her a spot within the temple. She accepted.
A year and a half later, with a great deal of wisdom, knowledge, and training under her belt, Excellence was ordained as a cleric of twilight in service to Mystra.
CLASS: LIFE CLERIC (ALTERNATE)
Excellence becomes a Life Cleric when she doesn’t have access to her Twilight abilities in special circumstances (Baldur’s Gate 3), but she still remains faithful to Mystra.
Background: Reborn
After succumbing a (frustrating) number of times within Barovia, Excellence’s soul is now a permanent fixture within the plane’s whirlpool of resurrection: unless she can save Ireena from history repeating itself, and dethrone Strahd, whatever that looked like.
Being a Reborn, however, is not like a Haunted One. She can recall details of her past lives that had an emotional impact: things that made her skin crawl, places and things that had ended up killing her, past companions that had died trying to make it out, and horrible, horrible monsters.
Seren J.H. Wolfe 
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