Born Cassinius Osiander, “Recovery” was the child of a mixed coupling. Despite the heavy Tiefling population in the area he was born, there was still some less than pleasant views of their kind. Nevertheless, they did everything they could to live a peaceful life and get him a good upbringing, including magical tutoring when it was discovered that he was born with some magical skill.
From a port town called Ventus, along the southern coast of Aglarond, Cassinius grew up in very rural surroundings. The family thus did not have much, but still managed to get him enrolled in the local magical school. It was not received well though, as he was seen as unwelcome due to his low standing in society and the abundance of rich aristocracy prevailing the ranks of students in the school. To make matters worse, he was a very charismatic individual and while some could look past these differences and appreciate his wit and charm, others saw it merely as more fuel to the fire.
Life in school was always a struggle. In Aglarond, there was a sense of hoarding secrets, at least in Cassinius’ perspective. People were paranoid, and understandably so, considering the long-standing rivalry between Aglarond and Thay. Despite Thay’s view of Tieflings and their adamant view of slavery, it did not keep the people in Aglarond from thinking all sorts of horrible things about him. Already demeaned and mistrusted for simply being a Tiefling, there were many who thought Cassinius was a Thay spy. Because of such, there was much resistance to actually teaching him anything.
When he was in his teens, he started to catch on to the actions of a few of the members of the faculty and students, involving rituals and experiments on tapping into the Weave more directly. He was contacted to be involved, but of course, the whole extent of the efforts was not fully divulged to him. There was no immediate result of course, but for years he became involved with the crew. He was not the only one lied to, and in this group, he met a young half-elf named Keyliel. The two were wed in a quick manner, and the whole of their group was in attendance.
Their study took them to all ranges in the world, seeking out colleges of study in all manner of realms across Faerun (except Thay). A year would be spent in study in each location before returning to Aglarond, and all seemed to be going well. Because of this focus, he took the virtue name Aspire.
Thirsty for power, the members of the group revealed they were after means of tapping deeper into the Weave for more control over magical power. This involved tapping directly into something inside people that allowed them to connect to the Weave and of course, to do so, meant to steal someone’s connection to magic and in the process, kill them. Cassinius and Keyliel were bound and restrained and so the process began. Subdued magically and physically, there was nothing Cassinius could do, and in fact, he was rendered unconscious when the ritual was conducted upon Keyliel, killing her. Whether it had worked or not, Cassinius did not know but the group promptly began to repeat the process for him. However, something different stirred this time, and a devastating eruption of power and force blew out the walls of their hideout. This brought about attention from the rest of Ventus and when that happened a great majority of the group fled from the city. While this occurred, Cassinius had the chance to escape his bondage and flee the city as well.
The members of the guard, as well as the aristocracy and nobility of the city, were completely unaware of the goings-on as well. While they went off in pursuit of these men for devastation to the city and investigation into the experiments done, Cassinius got lumped in with them as it was well known across the city that he and Keyliel had been members of the group. Her death would be placed on his head and without any argument, he was lumped in with the rest of the group as being at fault. The guard even put out bounties on his head for the murder of his own wife. Therefore, Cassinius fled Ventus, Aglarond, and ventured elsewhere.
More than once, he questioned life as a whole and changed his virtue name to Vestige as a representation of his feelings and a reminder to try and press on because Keyliel would not want him to just give in to the pain and torment of what they had been through.
Despite the failure in the ritual on him, it would seem that it still had an effect. It took time, but slowly Cassinius began to feel the difference as less energy came to him when he tried to use any magical abilities. He began to label this as a severing of his ties to the Weave and began counting the days till he’d die. However, he wasn’t dying. No matter what, his love of magic and its use began to be realized. He’d grown so attached to it that without it he began to dive into other habits in order to fill the void so he would not think of it. That did not work as his addictive habits began to include magical items in it. He began drinking and smoking heavily, and with his smoke, he would include arcane dust. He knew he was going down a bad path and that Keyliel would want him to make changes to that, to preserve himself, but he was not sure if he could.
Eventually, he changed his virtue name again and took the name Recovery as a means to remind himself and push himself to not fall deeper into the hole he’d found himself in.