Biography variant 1 (ZBT).

Raised by her grandparents, noble-born Ciara showed extraordinary talents in magic from a young age and was soon sent to the Magic Academy in the Imperial City where she quickly surpassed her fellow students and even many of her teachers despite her relative youth and inexperience. A groundbreaking career as an archmage within the temporal school of magic was expected by those who knew her. Little did the Academy realize Ciara’s grandparents had decided on a new plan for her life: an arranged marriage with the son of another family of a superior background. Ciara had no say in the matter: her family’s declining fortunes had left no space for her blossoming magical career. Ciara was revolted at the prospect of a loveless match with a man she had not yet laid eyes on and at her family’s exploitation of her marriageable status for their own gain.

What began first as a growing resentment soon blossomed into an outright rejection of her family and everything they stood for. Ciara sought a means of escape, and it is perhaps her desperation that drew the attention of Soulplunder cultists hiding out amidst the citizens of the Imperial City. A cultist sorcerer adept in forbidden magics gained an audience with Ciara and demonstrated the untold chaos power that she could access through the Dark One, far beyond the conception of any of her former teachers. Ciara soon fell hopelessly under chaos’ spell. She attended her arranged wedding to the Imperial Treasury minister, but killed him and several others present in dramatic fashion before fleeing. Hunted by the Imperial Guard, her name destroyed, Ciara has but one path in life: Ciara the Avatar of Soulplunder, and the “Plague of Darkness”.

Biography variant 2.

Ciara’s early life was characterized by an absurd mix of privilege as a member of the nobility and powerlessness as a woman living under the highly patriarchal society of the Hirschbuck Empire. As Ciara noted with bitter irony, commoner imperials and peasantfolk were often blessed with freer, more independent lives than the relative highborn. She came to appreciate this fact through the loveless marriage forced upon her mother and the tragic death of her betrothed sister. Ciara knew that any hope of relieving her plight would have to come through magic – the ultimate meritocracy that allowed spell casters of any background to transcend their circumstances. Ciara spent long nights obsessively studying the magical arts, building a powerful skill set that could realistically grant her an independent life within the harsh Imperial society. Ciara’s drive and determination did not go unnoticed by High Priestess Valeria, who took the most unusual step of seeking a private audience with Ciara in her chambers at the Academy.

Valeria revealed the full extent of the power she could access simply by bending the knee to the Dark One, an offer the desperate and somewhat ruthless young noblewoman was only too eager to accept. Her father’s ham-fisted attempt to cement the family’s fortunes by marrying Ciara off to the same cruel prince whose disrespect had been the original cause of her older sister’s death became the grim occasion by which the public learned of Ciara’s frightening new powers. Ciara played the part of an obedient aristocrat by attending the engagement banquet.

She chose her acceptance speech as the moment to reveal her newly acquired skills, unleashing a hellfire of fire magic against her betrothed’s family which the royal house guards were powerless to prevent. This infamous massacre forever cut Ciara off from the society of her birth. She fled the Imperial Enforcer Mages under cover of night and threw herself upon Valeria, who took the aspiring but rather bloodthirsty young mage under her wing. Ciara has pledged herself to Valeria and to the Dark, and even now works in the shadows on behalf of Nicklaus and his grand plan.