Chrysalis Black was the oldest child of many and his parents' only son, yet his widowed mother ignored him in favor of his young sisters, dressing them like perfectly made-up dolls. Jealous, Chrysalis broke into his late father's alchemy lab and stole a compound that, when mixed with the girls' rouge, would make them break out in a rash. But he misjudged its potency and watched in horror as his sisters' screaming faces melted to the bone. Their deaths cost both Chrysalis and his mother their sanity. First, his mother grew obsessed with porcelain dolls, believing them to be her dead children. This led Black to try creating better and better dolls to replace the sisters he killed. Each new batch would please the unhinged woman only briefly; then, howling with grief and rage, she would destroy the dolls and beat her son savagely for hours. The torment continued for years until Black finally snapped; when he regained his composure, he found his mother laying on the floor, her frail neck snapped. The room was deathly silent-and that's when the dolls began to speak.
To cope with his latest crime, Black developed a second persona - that of his own abusive mother. Now, his fractured mind enacts its own tragic cycle: Black forges animated dolls of porcelain and flesh, only to have his "mother" smash them to pieces at his feet.
For a time, Black worked for the Golemworks in Magnimar where he used his construct design skills to create various constructs and golems. However, Black found himself running low on funds to finance his personal projects. The Aspis Consortium paid Black a generous salary, in return for which he provided them with secrets from the Golemworks and allowed the Consortium to use the Doll House as a front for smuggling relics out of Magnimar and into other cities where dolls wouldn't be searched as thoroughly by customs officers and city watchmen.
In the end, Chrysalis Black was defeated by a group of Pathfinders. Gravely injured from a massive fireball, Black was able to escape to a nearby inn where he had set up a safe house of sorts. He claimed his spellbook and healed his wounds. His madness, however, remained.