Little Wretch was born to a family of New World Harpies in the west of the Great Desert. Though when they were young they all started covered in downy feathers, where Wretch's siblings grew true flight feathers as they got older, all of Wretch's down fell out, and her wings became covered in hard scales instead.
Due to her mutation and inability to fly, before her tenth birthday Wretch's mother cast her out into the Great Desert to die. It is only by the good fortune of being picked up by a group of Hobgoblin slavers of the Tribe Threefinger that Wretch survived, kept as a curiosity to sell on to the highest bidder. Wretch spent several years with the Hobgoblins, growing up amongst them and learning the language more fluently than her native Harpy tongue. Though the majority of the tribe treated Wretch as a freak or slave, and gave very little thought to her existence, one Hobgoblin - a small, twisted hunchback of the name Wretch - spent time with her, teaching her herblore and survival in the desert. By Harpy tradition, Wretch had yet to be given a name, as she had not yet fledged (and never would), so she instead took the name of the only person who had ever been kind to her, and claimed the name of Wretch to honour her Hobgoblin friend and teacher.
Wretch was eventually sold to the Haseem Travelling Circus, against the complaints of "Big Wretch" as she called her namesake. She travelled with them for a while as a slave, performing in the freak show as the featherless Harpy. During the events of And the Freak Shall Inherit... Wretch, alongside some other slaves, made her escape from the circus, aiming to escape somewhere to the east - whether the Imperial Troll Empire, The New Republic of Bēti, or dead in the desert somewhere, it is currently not known where the escaped slaves eventually wound up.
As part of her escape, Wretch discovered that she had sorcerous powers, able to manifest illusions, lightning and fire. Unbeknownst to Wretch, she is part of an ancient bloodline of Blue Dragons who interbred with harpies, causing her feathers to come through as scales, and, as she aged, for her to develop magical power. In some Harpy cultures such Dragon Sorcerers are revered, despite their lack of feathers, but Wretch's tribe lacked such traditions, being a minor and remote tribe in the far west on the edge of Hobgoblin and Beastfolk territory.