Tess grew up in Linhythe as Agnes Van Adel, to a family that prided itself on its pure dark elf heritage. Their efforts at amassing power and wealth had fallen short, and unsatisfied with their minor noble standing, her parents set out to give Agnes a strict upbringing in order to raise a strong heir capable of bringing prestige to their name. She was shadowed at all times by staff meant to serve and guide her, but their eternal presence and the smothering pressure from her parents only caused her to chafe and become increasingly resistant as she grew older. One of the few studies of her choice was her pursuit of magic, which she slowly honed into sagecraft. Agnes spent many hours poring through dense magical texts and building her skills, which she clung to as a lifeline for agency. She further personalized her studies by practicing fencing, and immediately seizing upon the opportunity for a little rebellion, learned to cast using her saber. 

Eventually  while traveling through the city, Agnes slipped away from her family and went exploring in areas they never allowed her to visit. She had her first encounter with the shipyards of Linhythe, and was captivated by the glimpses she got of a rough-and-tumble life with little authority to answer to. After being brought back home and placed under stricter studies to try to rein in her behavior, she convinced her maid to start bringing her any books she could find on seafaring and nautical history. She began to build an idealized vision of the world on the high seas, and obsessed with the possibility of a future of her own design, began preparing to run away on a grand adventure.

Her chance finally came at 56, when her parents were attending a gala with the Linhythe nobility. Agnes went for a walk in the city and then escaped from her escorts, vanishing into the docks. Here she paid her way onto a merchant ship, eager to get as far away as quickly as possible. Under a series of different names, she spent the next few decades dodging hired hands searching for her and flitting from crew to crew across Empire waters, learning seafaring and how to navigate a social environment so alien yet exhilarating. She also explored this new world's finer pleasures, particularly alcohol and women. She quickly found she had a taste for both.

As time passed Tess drifted closer to the darker depths of the sea trade, in search of high adventure and distance from her parents' reach. In the process of poking her nose into places it didn’t belong, she was impressed into a privateering company in the Jewel Sea Corsairs. Deciding to just go with the flow, she threw herself into this  new life, relishing the greater degree of freedom than her previous more above-the-board employment. She honed her sagecraft for naval battle, foundering magical attacks from rival vessels and ricocheting cannonballs with well-angled shields. She felt the most alive she ever had, storming the seas with nothing but the ocean to answer to. 

Tess eventually found her way into the crew of one of the most notorious pirates on the sea, after challenging him to a bar fight and getting her ass handed to her. Under his employ, her skills grew tremendously. She found affection in several of the crew-- particularly Reza, an intoxicating woman who made her begin to question her carefree bondless lifestyle. All good things must come to an end, however. In 8270, a series of events and backstabbing ended in the ship breaking under the onslaught of pirate hunters. Despite her best efforts, Tess and several others were carried away from the carnage by Uru's familiars. 

After making it to shore alone, Tess feared she was the only one to survive. Months later, after crawling through bars in Linhythe, she stumbled on Reza again. The two immediately fell back into their romance, and it quickly gained heat and intensity until Tess found herself in her first serious relationship in decades. They stayed together, two pieces of driftwood untethered but to each other, until Tess' unwillingness to compromise and sacrifice for their relationship drove a wedge between them too wide to mend. In the summer of 8286, she left. She was once again adfrift, but free, and spent the next several years flitting about wherever caught her fancy.

In 8291 the storm of war caught her by surprise as it raged directly into Linhythe, ensnaring her in a fight for survival as Miras drove its sword into their midst. With the Corsairs splintered as most ships aligned with Miras, Tess found herself in the minority and it was all she could do to stay alive. When the smoke cleared, she had been branded a turncoat and was forced to fall back on her surviving connections to clear her name. Now indebted to the rising criminal powers in a shattered Linhythe, she did her best to distance herself at sea and began mingling again with the legal side of maritime trade.

After two years of delicately walking the line between lawful and criminal, Tess was caught in a whirlwind of conspiracy as the Crown Prince of Koben was kidnapped.  In the midst of the confusion some ships turned against each other, aiming to plunder their competition under the false banner of rooting out the perpetrators. In the dead of night her ship was ambushed, chaos breaking out as spells flew wildly. Tess tried to redirect a massive spell from the opposing mage, only to recognize the magic as Reza's at the last second. But then she hit the other mage's suicide string and the spell went wild under her hand. A tidal wave capsized the ship, and the only thing that saved her was the gentle wave pushing her back to shore.

By the time day broke, Tess had once  again been branded a traitor. Feeling the ocean's once warm breeze  growing cold on her back, She spent the next few days trying to quietly call in favors with the few connections she thought she could trust. She was continually rebuffed until finally one meeting was met with a face she never thought she would see again. Her mother, surrounded by a band of mercenaries. Her message was clear: come home willingly, or she would be taken back by force. Tess barely managed to escape and vanished into the alleys of Linhythe. Entirely fed up with Linhythe politics, she saw only one option: escape inland.

And so under her newest alias,  Tess Vossen, she stole across the border with the help of the Silver Syndicate. By the time her head had cleared and she realized how unprepared she was for the desert, they were far into the journey with no way to turn back. So she arrived in Tusa, ragged and penniless and seeing knives in every shadow. She played it safe for a while, and when no one came after her she emerged from hiding and took up any jobs she could find. Unable to leave behind the persona she had fought so hard to build, she kept up her old fashions and started building a new life. She would wait out the fallout of her flight out here where she was nameless. Perhaps the war would conveniently solve her problems for her.