Vala Silverton was born into the highest echelons of Neverwintian nobility. The sole heir to the houses of Everfall and Silverton, she spent her childhood flitting between her ancestral manse and Castle Never, where she was doted upon by her betrothed, Prince Bann Alagondar III, and much of the royal court. Her future as princess ended abruptly when her Sight manifested with a vision that saved King Bann Alagondar II's life. At the urging of Edda Everfall, the king dissolved Vala's betrothal to his son and instead named her his future High Oracle, infuriating Vala's scheming Papa, who had long intended to make House Silverton a royal branch. He spent the rest of his life trying and failing to marry Vala off to a slew of potential suitor, deciding that if he couldn't have the crown, he could still have a fortune through the right match. Edda warned against this repeatedly for the rest of her life, claiming that any match from Lander Silverton's hand would lead to ruin for all, but Lander had little love for prophecy and continued his work.
Vala served the Alagondar crown dutifully, first alongside Edda, then in her place after her grandmère's passing. Her new position led Lander to demand even more as a dowry, and without Edda to shield her, he finally succeeded. The morning of The Ruining, he disclosed to Vala that he had made a match and she was to perform her duty. Greatly distressed, Vala begged her father for mercy, reminding him of the fate Edda had whispered of, but Lander would not be moved by tears or threats. He would not even tell her the mans name. That afternoon Mount Hotenow erupted and Edda's final spell sealed Vala in magical stasis and within that arcane cocoon, Vala alone was saved while the rest of Neverwinter fell to the Ruining.
Vala awoke twenty years later on the winter solstice, alone in her moth-eaten bed, buried alive in the remains of Everfall Manor. It took weeks to claw her way free from the rubble and month to dye her hair, disguise herself as one of her Papa’s many bastard children, and learn what she must.
First, she reclaimed what fragments of her arcane talent remained, discovering that while prophecy was gone, she could now wield the fire she had watched consume her beloved city while she slept and slept.
Then she took her lap harp and every filthy song and silly love ballad she had learned in her childhood and played nightly at a nearby inn, listening to the drunks talk and learning all that she could of New Neverwinter. Vala discovered the city was no longer ruled by the Alagondars she had served, but by Dagult Neverember, an upshot Waterdhavian lord who claimed to be of a bastard Alagondar branch. Neverember, it was said, governed the broken city with an iron fist, via Mintarn mercenaries he paid to prowl the streets and enforce his brand of justice.
Last she managed to force a single hazy vision from the ruin of her divination magic, a vision that led her to Gomlee Moonstagg, and through him, her comrades.
Still disguised as her father's bastard daughter, Vala fled the city and is adventuring as a hedge witch, searching for the identity of the mysterious man to whom she was promised while struggling to find her place in the brutal, post-ruining world.
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