Vladimir Pavel was born in Korvosa in 4693 to parents of very little means. As a Varisian family, they were second-class citizens—bordering on undesirable—and had few prospects for escaping poverty. It had already been difficult for Imana and Danio to maintain their meager apartment in the Bridgefront ward of Old Korvosa, and adding a child, and specifically an unplanned one, did nothing to improve their station.

For over a decade they tried to stay afloat. Imana spent six days a week cleaning houses, and Danio took whatever work he could find. His jobs were mostly hard labor, poorly paid, and seasonal, which meant that most months they were just scraping by. In Vald’s twelth year, Danio tried to change their fortunes by working as a drug mule for a gang under the auspices of the Cerulean Society, often taking Vlad with him to deflect suspicion. On a run to a new gambling hall in the remote community of Turtleback Ferry, they were caught in a flash flood. Vlad nearly drowned, marking his first brush with death.

His father died later that year in a conflict with a rival gang, leaving Vlad with his mother and her growing addiction to Cabble-Weed. They spent the next year living among the Shingles, and Vlad frequently resorted to theft to keep them both alive. He quickly learned to favor students of the Acadamae, as they were not allowed to leave the campus grounds and thus could not risk reporting the thefts. They also tended to carry books on arcane magic, which Vlad kept for himself in hopes of learning magic, himself.

When Queen Ileosa took the throne, life among the Shingles became exceedingly dangerous. The populations of imps, stirges, giant spiders, and other horrors swelled under her influence, and it was an imp that gave him a second brush with death. Only the last-second intervention of one of the few remaining pseudodragons in the city saved his life.

With Korvosa no longer safe, and his mother all but lost to addiction, Vlad ran from the city, making a long, slow, and difficult trek to Magnimar. There, he found refuge in Ordellia in an unofficial home for runaway children of various races known as Tineri House. It was run by other runaways in an abandoned building on Kyver’s Islet, and more or less tolerated by the district because it was better than urchins living on the streets. He spent the next several years unlearning the lessons of his youth, as well as shedding his anger and penchant for theft. He grew to care for others in need, both more and less fortunate than himself.

In 4713, Vlad was helping run Tineri House when he had his third brush with death. Magnimar was struck by an earthquake, and though the city was spared widespread damage from it and the resulting tsunami, Tineri House was not so lucky. The decaying building collapsed in the quake, burying over three dozen in rubble. Vlad was one of only four that were found alive by rescuers.

It was Chadali’s faith that helped him move on after this tragedy, and eventually to see the connections in his own past. The flood near Turtleback Ferry, the earthquake which brought down Tineri House, and (albeit, indirectly) the miasma of Queen Ileosa’s rule: all these events which nearly claimed his life were rooted in Thassilon and its Runelords. This wan’t coincidence: it was a calling.

To understand it, and be prepared for where that calling took him, he needed to resume studying magic. He still had the books he stole years ago, but what he needed was time and fewer distractions. So in 4715, he left Magnimar and moved to the community of Roderic’s Cove. It was close enough to a large city to not be isolated, but small enough and quiet enough to meet his needs. To support himself, he used his experience from the mills on Kyver’s Islet to get a job at Meir’s Sawmill. In addition to his ad-hoc training in magic, he spent his time learning more about Thassilon, and the adventurers and heroes who confronted the Runelords as they awoke in modern times.

Most importantly, he learned that some of them still slumbered.