Speaking of gaming, btw, I hadn't played GW2 for a bit and just remembered I'd made a proper necromancer awhile ago, and in the process discovered they have a new hairstyle in the character creator! Totally forgot how much fun I had with her early leveling up look:
And yes, I've thought through her full backstory and place in the PC!Gwen universe. She might be envisioned as another Orrian (shh) who's even more secretive about it than Xiulan—all the more as she was raised after her parents' deaths in Queen's Heart Orphanage and later in a very normal Krytan home by Andrew the innkeeper, puzzled by the few enigmatic belongings of a family she half-remembers.
Despite her love for him and Petra, she spent years trying to figure out what happened to the birth parents whose stories linger hazily in her mind— it's why she pursued necromancy and the first reason she so fervently worshipped Grenth. Her name is Ana but she's almost sure it was longer once— and once she does discover her parents' fate, she feels lost and rootless apart from her faith, alone in a way that few understand except Grenth himself.
She's wavering between becoming a priestess of Grenth or fumbling for some other meaning to her life, when a strange Ascalonian woman in black and red shows up at the inn and offers her the chance to pit herself against a greater foe than she's ever imagined, accomplishing a greater dream than even her parents ever had. We're going to fight Zhaitan and reclaim Orr.
Ana prays that night, and even for a favored servant of Grenth, the answer is cold and clear as ice:
It's time for you to go home.