actually realised i never spoke about how violante is a noble who also isn't, perfect excuse for lore dump of her sick sick childhood, tw for mentions of abuse

Violante's mother is a moon elf noble, lady Nalviel of house Waesphine, a powerful family of Waterdeep. The origins of the family's fortune come from textiles, specifically their trading, and later expanded into money-lending and, currently, into banking. Nalviel is the only heir of the main branch of the family, she's The heiress. Her father's aim, if not life goal, is to join the council of lords of Waterdeep and later become the open lord. He has been planning a marriage of convenience between Nalviel and one of the masked lords since the day his daughter became of age. Her father instead is a modest human trader from a small village near Baldur's Gate (where he conducts his small business), Erlan Riverstone.

The two meet when Nalviel comes to Baldur's Gate with a small entourage sent by her father to deal with some of the family affairs. They meet by pure coincidence around the city: Nalviel is drawn to Erlan for the excitement of having an affair with a commoner brings and a sense of freedom mostly, Erlan by the fact that such a rich lady of enchanting beauty could ever spare him a look. In a couple of weeks they decide to marry in great secrecy. Nalviel is naive and thinks that her parents will simply scold her but ultimately accept the union. She's always been spoiled, very much spoiled, and she's used to have everyone let her get away with most of her whims and tantrums, so she genuinely believes that marrying a commoner will be accepted as just any other of her desires. Erlan is ecstatic to say the least. I wouldn't say they were exactly in love, they both lived the story like it was a summer love, intense and fleeting, bound to end but Nalviel always had the tendency let things end by her own decision.

She leaves for Waterdeep again and brings her new husband along. Her parents reaction is far from accepting, they are furious, but no one knows about the marriage yet outside the family so they order to Nalviel to simply leave her husband (they would have him killed ofc) and never mention this whole story again so that her father's plan could still move along as planned. Nalviel is stubborn and at this point the whole story has become a simple childish desire, she wanted to win at all costs, so she tells them the other news: she's expecting a child (hiii fetus violante). Her parents orders still stand, but in addition they're asking for abortion too. Nalviel fights back and she's put in front of a crossroad: either forsake her foolish actions or become disowned, lose all her privileges and her birthrights, become an outcasts to the family.

Nalviel refused. Stubborn as ever, she was sure that her parents would back down and accept her back into the family and she believed so for months. She was sure that once her child would be born their hearts would soften and everything would go back to normal. It never happened. Instead her parents cut her off, told everyone in high society that she was dead to them, that they never had a daughter, her father took under his wing one of her distant cousins to become the new heir. They forced Nalviel and her new family into one of the minor manors of the family, run down and almost out of the city, there they are all confined by a pact: her parents would still give her a monthly revenue high enough to survive but she would never come back in society nor speak to them or call herself a daughter of lord Waesphine.

This is where Violante's family downfall begins. Nalviel ignored Violante most of the time during her early childhood, probably held her in her arms two or three times total after her birth. I'd say Violante always was a bit of a gloomy child, which is no surprise if you think not only of the people who lived with her but of the environment too (the manor was basically crumbling, dark and dusty and decadent, it could almost resemble a haunted castle where only spirits live. It was chosen to humiliate to Nalviel), but she was quite curious and playful as a kid. Her mother didn't stand her when crying or playing or talking in general so with time, after getting shouted at and beat, she began avoiding to speak altogether when her mother was around. Her only happy memory of childhood is her father reading her a book of fairy tales when she was little.

Erlan tried to be a father at first but it didn't really last, especially because Nalviel hated to see him interact with their daughter. Erlan and Nalviel discovered that the love between them was a fleeting thing now that they lost all the privilege and riches for it, they began resenting each other soon enough. Nalviel hated her husband more than anything in the world but she did hate her daughter just that touch more. She used to say that Erlan was her second biggest mistake while Violante was her first. She resented her birth and Violante began resenting it as well.

Sometimes Nalviel just needed someone to let her anger out on and ofc her daughter was the easiest target. She would hit her for the tiniest of the slips, lock her into her room for hours, sometimes a full day with nothing to eat, she was also a cruel teacher - Violante knows how to play the lyre (other than the lute) but under no circumstance she's willing to play. Her mother would use a cane to hit her fingers or arms every time she played the wrong note which made her hate the instrument immediately. Violante spent most of her days avoiding her mother when possible, she would either sit somewhere in the library and stay there reading for hours or stay in her room. When she was a teen she began desiring of dying, that's when her infamous perfume story begins. She read about poisons, recognised the belladonna that grew in the garden and began using the berries for her perfume. It never really worked, cruel joke of destiny she developed a resistance to poison instead. She never stopped drinking them though, to her it was still a taste of death.

Nalviel's aim never changed, she wanted a way to return into the high society but never really succeded. Her parents threatened her a few times but they never managed to stop Nalviel from doing what she wanted. She began planning of marrying Violante off to some lord (smth Vio hated with burning passion, always lamenting how her mother was trying to get rid of her like she was useless wares) so that she could waltz back into noble life in some way, it was a difficult plan since Violante wasn't the most...amicable. Her mother teached her every single detail on etiquette, no one could say Vio isn't refined but that coldness in her usually frightened most of the people around. Plus there were quite some rumors surrounding her involvement with Ruven (bastard son of the fallen drow house DeVir) and the fact they were barely ever seen without one another since they were teens didn't help.

Violante dreamed of killing her mother, she wanted to see her suffer, she wanted to torture her. She hated her father as well: while he wasn't as terrible as her mother, Violante always resented his indifference. He was a prisoner just as Vio was under Nalviel but he never tried to stop her, nor he ever spoke up when Nalviel abused their daughter. Vio daydreamed of what she would do to them with Ruven. Kill her mother and maybe let her father live, gauge out his eyes after watching her torture and murder Nalviel so that he could sit in his blissful indifference for the rest of his days, then they would run somewhere together and be together for the rest of their days. It never turned into reality since Ruven attempted to murder Violante first: a sacrifice to sign a pact with a powerful entity. He chose to offer Violante's life. Vio killed him in retaliation and she was the one to form the pact instead. With Ruven's murder it's like the world came crushing down on her so Violante, shocked and dismayed, fled from Waterdeep to hopefully never come back