Nanim Part 2: History
(Part 1: Nanim intro!)
Pictured above are Nanim's mom (Lady Clarinda Exeltis) and dad (Varaen, formerly of a lower house in Menzoberranzan)
Ignore the Dream Guardian getup. If I had my way, Clarinda would be wearing an expensive dress and Varaen would be in a swashbuckling pirate shirt. Like those oil painting books.
On Nanim's family:
Lady Clarinda Exeltis inherited the Exeltis estate in Baldur's Gate after her father passed away, leaving her as an only child and head of the family's Baldurian affairs. The Exeltis house is fairly well off, but their hold on power remains shaky due to exorbitant debts that were accrued in the 14th century DR; they're not a low noble house, but they've never quite fully recovered after the brief stint in which their house was run by a spendthrift.
Clarinda manages the Baldur's Gate branch of her family's vintner trade, selling Exeltis Ice Wine. She's known as a clever businesswoman, and most people in the upper circles associate with her to know what she thinks good investments are. She, in turn, uses those interactions to network friendships and keep up to date on the trades. She's VERY sharp.
Varaen is a runaway Lolth-sworn drow that made a name for himself as a seabound silver merchant. Silvered weapons, silverware, jewelry, mirrors, you name it, he's got it in stock. He owns a ship that sails up and down the Sword Coast, and he met Clarinda during a chance encounter where he was docking at port and she was overseeing a shipment being unloaded. She didn't recognize him, and wanted to get to know him better, so she invited him over for a private stay at her manor.
It went very well, to say the least.
Rumors of that first visit soured her reputation for a little while, however. House Exeltis, dealing with drow? They trade in blood money now? She had such a positive reputation with the other nobles that it blew over quickly, but the haste with which her fellow wealthy associates threw her a side-eye very much stuck with her, and later influenced how Nanim was raised.
She sent Varaen off with a sizeable investment in his business, and they kept in touch. He visits her every few months. Because of her reputation, it's very much a secret tryst; her most useful gift to him was a Ring of Disguise Self, which they both joke is his wedding ring (which, naturally, he had to reciprocate by gifting her a silver and pearl ring).
The Scandal Child:
Nanim was an accident, but one Clarinda elected to keep. It was a very hard choice for her, though; she wound up talking to her grandfather about her pregnancy, forcing her to reveal her not-quite marriage, which led to tension among her extended family—she associated with a drow? Doesn't she know that the family reputation is a house of cards as it is?
Lord Exeltis put his foot down, however, and said that Clarinda and Nadven had done nothing wrong beyond keeping it secret from him. He insisted on meeting Varaen, and after a few meetings, decided to get a discreet cleric to get them wed.
Nanim was still something of a problem, though. Their being half-drow would be a VERY hard to keep secret, especially with previous rumors. But Clarinda decided she wanted them anyways, and Varaen was more than willing to support her decision. Lord Exeltis offered to house the half-drow and was promptly refused; Clarinda wanted to keep her baby. KEEP, Grandfather, as in MINE to hold. Clarinda knew early on that she'd have to protect her little one from prying eyes and harsh rivals.
Varaen posed—very briefly—as a moon elf lover of hers using the ring. Just enough to be introduced to the inner circles of Baldur's Gate, just enough to start a few rumors and let them circulate. Then Clarinda left for the family castle "for her health," and came back with a child she kept very private. The rumors became that she had a half-elf child with her moon elf paramour, and she let those pervade so they'd never associate her child with the drow they saw years earlier.
Nanim, meanwhile, was kept fully out of public eye, the nobles assuming it was out of shame of a bastard child. In truth, it was initially to keep Nanim from being outed as a drow with an accidental flash of faerie fire or a striking bit of similarity to the handful of Seldarine that roam the Gate (both parents were VERY grateful that Nanim inherited a greyed version of their mother's eyes and not their father's blood red), but then when Nanim turned out to have Wild Magic, it became a way to keep their sorcery from hurting themselves or others.
Varaen was spellscarred. He got a mark on his forearm back during the Spellplague that he kept hidden. Because of that warped magic coursing through him and the inherent magic of his drowic bloodline, his child got Wild Magic sorcery out of the deal. Which is like "great. Now our secret scandal baby can turn the servants into cats and call fireballs with a sneeze. Wonderful." A LOT of Nanim's education was dedicated into teaching them how to deal with their powers (however well that was possible; it's a case of "prepare for everything to go wrong"), and they stayed confined to the house until they got a good grip on it.
Disguise Self (and gender):
Nanim had a fascination with Disguise Self as a child, and when their father would visit, they'd make up all kinds of things for him to turn into for their amusement. That, plus Wild Magic being inherently unpredictable, including in the form it could sometimes bestow upon the user, made them develop a philosophy over the years that gender was more something to pick up and play with when convenient than something immutable.
That's why they eventually went with they/them. No deadname, no moment of clarity, just the occasional "Mother, I'm not a boy, I'm a sorcerer/Am I still a girl as a sheep? I think not." (To Varaen's credit, he kind of encouraged this, because he wanted his kid to defy drow expectations and when they decided "gender is weird, actually" he was like "Yes! Stick it to society! That's my kid.")
As a teenager, Nanim got enough control over their powers to keep them (mostly) under control, and was allowed to roam town as long as they had a Disguise Self spell active. However, because they grew up so very sheltered, they had more a series of misadventures than adventures out in the wild world, and VERY little by means of friends.
This whole well-meant toxic spiral is why Nanim has not-quite-good outlooks and approval/disapproval scores for things:
Have to follow the rules (or else people will find out about them/their magic will get out of control)
People are in charge for a reason (mother can handle things, can't she? If she couldn't, she wouldn't be where she is)
Being overly cautious is ridiculous (because the Wild Magic is going to happen anyways, why bother?)
The rest of it comes from a silver spoon, proper etiquette, loneliness, and a life of luxury.
Part 1: Nanim's Intro
