
Merilee grew up in Mosstone, on the edge of the forest of Tethir. Her fascination with magic began with a circus, amazed by the tall and mysterious wizard on the stage in front of her, manipulating their skeletal creation with cool and haughty ease Though she didn’t grow up poor, her parents hardly had extra money to giving her for incense and magical powders. Luckily, if you’re not too squeamish to do it, you can always can just go and dig up your own spell components at the local cemetery.
Annoyingly, people tend not to look too kindly on grave robbing. Thanks to the valuables pilfered from corpses, she had built up a decent amount of savings, allowing her to take off on the road when she saw people sharpening a few pitch forks. Along the way, she also took up the guise of a traveling psychic, telling fortunes, promising wishes, and speaking to the dead.
There was a time of stability, after she left home. She traveled south, and spent five years in a Calimport earning an actual honest living (mostly) working in a wizardry supply shop, where she managed to devour the tomes on offer on her breaks.
Irophira Themis grew up listening to her mother’s stories of their family long past. The tales of how, eons ago, her family had lived in another plane entirely, in the Feywild. And not just lived, but lived well. A high merchant house now, Phira's family had always occupied a position in high society, a heritage that brought her pride, a sense of belonging, and the feeling of always having been destined for something more.
The problem, of course, was that as wonderful as the life of noble may have been, it was incredibly dull. She loved Waterdeep, it was truly a city like no other, a place where one could live for years and never know everything it had to offer. She was, nevertheless, bored. The urge to leave, to adventure, to exist in some other place and some other time, is what lead her first to the yawning library of her estate, to Blackstaff to pester some sages, and then, eventually, to the Fey.
The Archfey had greeted her with the cordial charm that she was accustomed to, the Fey court not so different to her own. It was strange, the Fey’s handsome faces and sharp teeth, their hands sliding over her skin like silk and feathers, whispering to her in sweet discordant melodies. Yet with every step she took, she felt more sure about the power she was courting. This was, after all, her home, and she a prodigal daughter, claiming a power that her family had left abandoned so many years ago.