Elariel parents are archaeologists, specialising in forgotten civilisations and ancient burial practices. They've spent their lives travelling from excavation to excavation, opening tombs that had remained sealed for centuries and piecing together the stories of people whose names had long since vanished from history.

Elariel grew up among the dead. She learned to identify pottery fragments before she could properly write. She could distinguish ancient burial customs by the position of a skeleton and spent childhood afternoons drawing bones in the margins of her parents’ field notes. To her, skeletons were never frightening. They were evidence. Every bone belonged to someone. Her parents also taught her that archaeology was about preserving the past. What they were less fond of discussing was exactly how much of their work involved taking things that had been deliberately buried. They considered themselves scholars, not grave robbers, but Elariel gradually learned that the distinction was sometimes little more than a matter of vocabulary.

Then there was Elariel herself. She had never looked entirely mortal. Her skin carried a faint rainbow shimmer, her freckles were as dark as charcoal, and her eyes were unnaturally deep and luminous. Her parents initially believed these traits were simply the result of some unusual ancestry. Years later, they discovered otherwise. While excavating an ancient burial complex, they found references to a celestial guardian known as the Keeper Beneath the Stars. According to the inscription, this being watched over the dead and protected those whose stories had been forgotten. The inscription described a child who would one day inherit its blessing. A child who would be able to “command the bones, yet never forget the people within them.” The description matched Elariel. Her Aasimar heritage had awakened. But the discovery brought another revelation. She had always been able to sense something in bones. She could tell when a skeleton had been disturbed. She could recognise fractures and injuries almost instinctively. Sometimes, simply by touching a bone, she could understand something about the life of the person it once belonged to. Then, one day, the bones moved. At first it was only a finger. Then a hand. Then an entire skeleton slowly rearranged itself beneath her trembling fingers. Elariel had discovered Osteomancy. Elariel doesn't fear the dead, she finally understood what her parents’ work looked like from the other side.

Her Osteomancy became an extension of her archaeology. She could reconstruct shattered skeletons. Restore broken bones. Determine how someone had died. And, when necessary, make the bones of the dead move. Her celestial heritage gave her one command above all others: Do not let the forgotten remain forgotten. Elariel now walks between two worlds. To her parents, she is a promising young archaeologist. To scholars, she is an unnervingly gifted student of ancient remains. To the dead, she may be something altogether stranger. A pale figure with luminous eyes and a ghostly halo, standing among the ruins of forgotten civilisations with a skeleton moving obediently at her feet. She does not believe the dead belong to her. She believes she has a responsibility to remember them and use them to her will.

• The Excavation: While excavating a prehistoric, subterranean tomb, you unearthed the fossilised skeletal remains of an ancient, forgotten celestial being (perhaps a dead angel or a celestial titan from a prehistoric war).
  
• The Spark: The moment you brushed the dust off the bones, a residual spark of divine energy surged into you. This event awakened your dormant Aasimar lineage (revealing your divine heritage) and permanently bound your magic to the structure of bones (Osteomancy).
  
• The Guide: Your Angelic Guide isn't a distant being in the clouds; it is a fragment of the spirit attached to those ancient bones, whispering secrets of history and anatomy into your dreams.
  

When you manifest your Brittle Bone Armor or cast osteomancy spells, the bone looks like polished, radiant ivory not decayed remains.