Dhalia knows little of her own story other than… it begins with her mother. Her mother, Taelyn Falmar, was in the ranks of the elves’ Shining Crusade. She came to Ustalav in one of the final waves from Kyonin during the great war to drive back the Whispering Tyrant. In one of her first major encounters, Taelyn was held enthralled and taken captive by a vampire, Cronin Ebanuschloss. He kept her as a pet for many years, unnaturally lengthening her life, keeping her in a enthralled stupor. Considered a spoil of war and a symbol that the elves lacked the stomach to truly cleanse Ustalav, Taelyn was kept close to Cronin as a trophy. Eventually Dhalia was born. Once Taelyn had Dhalia Lord Ebanuschloss lost interest in Taelyn and her life was spent as a ghost of her former self wandering the manor in a stupor.
As Dhalia grew she spent her days as her mother’s shadow, collecting tidbits her mother seemed to covet and squirreling them away. The fateful night for all of them came when Dhalia was little more than a youngling. Cronin returned to the manor weakened and mostly dead. He commanded Taelyn to help him to his crypt, but his ability to control her was gone. She led him down a tunneled passage into the depths below the castle’s mountainous towers. Among the many trophies he had kept was Taelyn’s blade, and it was to Dhalia’s little nested trove of forgotten things that Taelyn stumbled with Cronin. While she drove a stake into his heart, Dhalia hefted the blade into the air and severed his head from his body. As he died the enchantment he had cast upon Taelyn faded and her full age withered her into nothing.
Dhalia fled taking little more than her mother’s blade and the clothes on her back. She knew the hidden ways in and out of Ebanuschloss and with her mother and father dead she no longer needed to be their shadows. She spent her youthful years wandering Ustalav hating herself for what her father had been. The young dhampir made a pledge to herself to never allow his evil taint to change what she held of her mother. Taelyn had never told her anything of her elven lineage and the little she knew came from Cronin’s taunts at her mother. She knew they would never accept her in Kyonin in any case. She learned to survive and live off of the land. Her swiftness and natural stealth helped her evade much harm, and her lust to destroy her father in her own veins gave her a passion and uncanny knack for finding and destroying all those foul things that shared his undead nature.
The rumors of Lord Ebanuschloss’s death and Dhalia’s apparent quest eventually reached the scouts of Professor Lorrimor. Sending those out that might find her, he invited Dhalia to come and stay with him and share her story. Dhalia stayed with him for many years growing from haunted wastling into a competant young woman. Ever fascinated with her ability to suppress the natural evil of her birth, Lorrimor promised she would always have a place within his home should she choose it. Despite her fondness for the aging academic and the help he gave her in continuing to hone her natural skills she could not remain. Her drive to cleanse Ustalav and finish what her mother’s kin would not drove her back out into the wilderness. When word reached her of his death, her sorrow was great. Dhalia felt her only ally and true friend was gone.
