Asta Ragnarsdottir was born in the Irriseni village of Redtooth. Her father was an Ulfen man known as Ragnar Worgskin, whose family line has counted more than a few werewolves among its number over the generations - though he himself never suffered from the curse of lycanthropy. A hearty man known for his almost feral charm, Ragnar had a love for ale and women; he was thought to have had relations with several of the village women over the years - including, if rumors are to be believed, a few of the skin-changing winter wolves that inhabit the region.
As the identity of her mother has never been established - the infant was found bundled up and left in a basket on his doorstep early one morning as Ragnar was leaving for a hunt - this naturally gave rise to questions regarding her nature. Though Asta has never shown any evidence of being anything less, or more, than human, her father became unnerved by the growing scrutiny of his neighbors and rightly feared that sooner or later his supposed indiscretions would draw the attentions of the province's Jadwiga aristocrats and their winter wolf allies.
Striving to forestall any unpleasantness, Ragnar packed up his few belongings and smuggled himself and his daughter across the border into the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, where he promptly managed to join a band of mercenaries leaving for distant Taldor and boarded a ship sailing south to the Inner Sea. After a few years of loyal service to the Grand Prince - during which time, his daughter was cared for by the wife of one of his fellow mercenaries - Ragnar eventually retired, married a young Taldan woman named Viniana, and settled down in the village of Heldren near the border with Qadira.
Asta had a relatively uneventful childhood, growing into a scrawny, but fierce girl who frequently accompanied her father into the Border Woods on hunting expeditions, joined before long by a pair of half-brothers named Kriger and Origen.
At the age of fourteen, however, she accompanied a small band of youths from the village on an unsupervised trip into the forest, where she was separated from the group and became lost. Unable to find her way out before nightfall, Asta made camp in a small clearing and spent the night listening to the howling of wolves all around her and watching the full moon looming large overhead. When she was found the next day, she had lost the ability to hear, though upon examination nothing seemed wrong with her ears, yet something had awakened within her - an affinity for magic that had never made itself known before - and clutched in her arms was a newborn wolf pup.
