My name is Rania Amara Pendleton

I was born in the city of Lentia, in the south of the Empire where Moonview River drains into the bay, in the year 1853.

My father's name was Amar - my uncle doesn't recall his surname (my mother generally refuses to talk about him), Pendleton is my mother Alicia's maiden name, which she returned to after he left. He was some sort of mage in the service of the Kingdom of Paldia, who was working for the Kingdom at their embassy in the Empire when they met. They met, married, and within a year my mother was pregnant with me. Three years later, shortly after my mother fell pregnant with my younger brother, my father was called away, returning home to Paldia - leaving my mother heartbroken, and forever resentful of foreigners and mages. Not wanting to give birth to a child while alone in the vast capital city, she moved in with my our uncle in the area around Whithill, where my brother was born a few months later, in the autumn of 1856.

My uncle Alastor is a few years younger than my mother; he's a railyard engineer at the central station in Whithill; I have him to thank for the profession I've pursued in adulthood.