Minerva is the third child of well-off trader. Her education early in life focused on those things a daughter in the middle class needs.

Around the age of fourteen, she observed a distinctly supernatural event. Not coping well with the sudden and jarring change of her world, she had a mental breakdown. Her vivid "hallucinations" and sudden change in character led her to be institutionalized. After seven months, she seemed to recover inexplicably.

Unbeknownst to the alienist treating her, she did not recover in the traditional sense. To make sense of what she experienced, she had rejected the notion that there was anything supernatural at all. To her, nothing was supernatural, all other people simply failed to properly understand what could be seen.

To persuade her alienist that she was fully recovered, she pretended to understand that she hallucinated everything. She understands that not everyone is prepared to see the world as it is, and makes accommodations to not upset others unduly.

Back at home with her parents she begged them for educational books on physics, medicine, chemistry, and religion. Glad to have their daughter back, they allowed her to spend her time as she saw fit. She started researching the occult, taking a meticulous and methodical approach. She neatly classifies things and observed behaviours, and takes notes on any significant observation. Her younger years are filled with experiments on all kinds of subjects.

She gradually drifted away from the commonly accepted view of the world. There were a few times where she scared or embarrassed her parents with her behaviour, due to being engrossed in a macabre subject or a topic that is not fit for polite company. To further her understanding of the world, no experiment is off-limits.

Over time, she has become an astute observer. Minvera writes in factual sentences. When she speaks, she does so in a calm voice, clearly distinguishing fact from opinion by her wording. She does not seem to get angry at things that fail, nor very excited by succeeding. To her, both are things that happen.

She found a member of the Malificae Nocterna by observing that they did not drink nor breathe. After observing for a few weeks to determine character, she simply inquired as to their state of being for her research.