Backstory

Baiyu Mochizuki is a daughter of the Mochizuki royal family - one of the twelve royal familys of the Starweaver Empire. She is the second oldest child of the matriarch of the family, with her older brother set to inherit the noble title of the household. Being a Fuu royal family, they are one of the smaller and least powerful of the families, but their history is noble and full of honor. Baiyu hates almost all of her relatives and thinks they are stuck up pricks.

As soon as she possibly could, Baiyu left the family and went to train in one of the northern Temples - the Temple of the Verdant Wyld. It was a smaller temple halfway up a mountain, with only a handful of monks and acolytes. At the base of the mountain was a small village that enjoyed the temple's protection and sanctuary while tithing to it enough meat and grain to keep the monk's fed. It helped that the monk's spent significant amounts of time helping in the fields and going into the nearby forest to hunt game as well, always giving the majority of their spoils to the village. Baiyu became an acolyte and was incredibly happy, growing up doing hard work, meditating, and practicing martial arts to hone her body and bring it into harmonious balance with her mind and her magic.

However no place, however peaceful, can remain blissfully untouched forever. When Baiyu was in her forties, a few years after she became the Master of the Temple, a group of enterprising Starshooters attacked the village. The monks all poured out of the temple to do battle, and they pushed back the invaders - but not without casualties. Three villagers had been killed before the alarms went up - one young man who had been in the forest plucking mushrooms, and a couple who wove and created clothing for the village. Their young daughter, only 5 years old, was left alone, and they had no other family to take her in. Several in the village were willing to help, but Baiyu decided to take the little Fuu girl into the temple instead.

And so Baiyu became the adopted mother of Ke Orbei, a rambunctious little Fuu girl who enjoyed nothing more than running through the temple at breakneck speed and getting into fights. Baiyu despaired that she would ever tame the child of her wildness, but she couldn't deny that Orbei made a fantastic Temple Guardian. The girl was fiercly loyal to anything she loved and a superb fighter. Baiyu realized that when it came time for her to pass on, her adopted daughter would take up the mantle of the Master of the Temple, and she was content with that.