Nothing is ever quite what it seems when it comes to nobles and Waterdeep. Her mother, Lord Westra Blackwood, ruled the house after her father's passing and was not a Blackwood by blood. But her eldest brother Bran would never rule for the same reason — widows get titles, not their bastard sons. Her younger brother Anders would take the house and title one day and that was perfectly fine by Mara. That was nothing truky unusual among nobles.

The challenging bit was when Bran tried to take the house by force, slowly killing Anders with some chemical agent, and then casually struck up a plague among the poorer districts of the city. That's the part people get stuck on when they hear House Blackwood these days.

In a twist of fate, that hoaxed plague introduced her to Keros, a young fighter investigating the plague with his friends Bonu and Grumbar. With their help, Bran was brought to justice for his crimes. Rather, they killed him before he could do the same, and so Mara simply helped them flee the city for a little while.

But when another threat to the city arrived and this time seemed to have her family on a hit list, she wrote to Keros and hoped he and the others would help her once more. With their success in stopping the assassinations and their assistance in other matters of the city, they were pardoned and put on a type of probation. They were all free, no slaps on the wrist or anything, just asked to serve the Blackwoods for a time if they intended to stay in the city.

Luckily for her, Keros seemed pretty smitten. And he convinced the others to join him in Waterdeep for awhile longer as agents of the Blaackwoods. That was some months ago now and the team has grown a bit, working with and for the Blackwoods on a number of cases around the city and across the countryside.

When the Siege on Waterdeep took place in the late winter, they were among the first to respond to assist not only House Blackwood, but the city itself. While they were able to save the Open Lord and figure out just what Mara's half brother Zymun was up to, the Seige was not without loss. One of the grand castles where many of the city's nobles had gone to take refuge was destroyed by a rogue agent of Zymun's and they reached the rubble too late to save Westra.

It's been a long path of recovery in the following weeks for the family and the city, but there are bigger threats looming. With Zymun's quiet return under the name Zirus, he warned his sister of the threat of Tharizdun. The mess he'd been making of the city a supposed attempt to do right on the larger scale. With the scales unbalanced and the seals that contained the demon god breaking, he came in search of aid. Even he knew forgiveness wasn't quite on the table yet.

Now working on connecting with a larger and older netork of active resistance fighter sorts across Faerun, Mara has been more actively assisting in the missions she assigns Keros and his team too. With so much at stake and so few ready and capable to join the fight, it's all hands on deck as they prepare for the breaking of that third and final seal.