Merrill Reyes

Doctor Merrill Reyes, DThaum

Basic Info:

Player: Sax

Position: Thaumaturgical Engineering Doctor

Demeanor: Spooked, wraith-like, otherworldly beautiful. Seemingly aloof of everything happening around her, and snobbish to people she perceives as below her.

Nature: Beyond the mask, cheerful and amicable, easy to make friends. Insightful and introspective.

Description: What your character looks like, etc.

Stats:

Health

• Physical Health: 7
• Mental Health: 7

Basic Skills

• Physical Defense: 3
• Mental Defense: 3
• Perception: 4
• Agility: 3

• Persuasion: 4
• Intimidation: 3
• Bluff: 4

Pseudo-Specialty Skills

• Academics: 4
• Science: 4
• Engineering: 5

Specialty Skills:

• Sophisticated Elegance: 4. Merrill, having been raised in the company of nobles, has learnt a thing or two with respect to carrying herself in an uplifted manner. (Persuasion when dealing with high-class)
• Arcane Engineering: 5. Merrill is a master in deciphering the flow of the infused energies of mundane and magical objects - measuring the exact amount and type of energies and mystical quantities required to reverse-engineer and craft wondrous and ominous items. (Engineering when dealing with magical objects)
• Arcane Knowledge: 3. Merrill has spent many years of her life studying and working on proto-theories and theories with regards to thaumaturgy, and has some sort of theory and manner of practice when it comes to any so-called "unexplainable" phenomena. (Science when dealing with "magical" anomalies)

Possessions:

• Ash cane, capped with a ruby gem and silver caps;
• Stationery tools;
• Wand of unknown crystalline construction;
• Charms;
• Tags and chalk necessary for creation of wards;
• Purple-tinted glasses;
• Special goggles for her work;
• Ceremonial armor-robes with runed mask;

Room:

• Even more jars of assorted parts;
• Watchmaker's lathe;
• Microscope for fine work;
• Papers with scribbled ideas and writings scattered everywhere;
• Pots of small trees;
• Ashes of her father.

Personal History:

+ Official File

Merrill was born on April 3, 1928, to ailing mother Florence Wright and industrious father Gordon Reyes, as part of an illicit affair. She was born in Nice, France.

Staying with her father, Merrill quickly picked up on his father's designs, learning to tinker and construct trinkets and curiosities at a young age. As she got older, she also learned a thing or two about beauty and social standards from her father's various mistresses, of which there were many.

When Nazi Germany invaded France in 1940, Merrill and her father attempted to flee north, towards Belgium. Cut off by Nazi armored movements and captured, Merrill was separated from her father, who was initially sent to Natzweiler concentration camp, then later numbered among the murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943.

Merrill, because of her American descent and accent, was able to escape extermination, and was aided by her father's lovers in his escape from occupied France towards Belgium, and from there, to either Great Britain or further up north to Sweden. Along his journeys, one of her father's lovers, Lady Gaile of Arden, noticed young Merrill's fledgling ability to build and her affinity for knowledge, and offered to tutor her in the art of magic and thaumaturgy.

Merrill's mother was never informed of her daughter's disappearance, and eventually passed away from congenital heart failure in 1944.

From that point on, Merrill would be studying at what is now known to Foundation scholars at the Kaliento Academy, a hidden academy for the instruction of thaumaturges and other manipulators of arcane energies. This academy is known for its affiliation with the Wanderer's Library, and is rumored to be an active recruiting ground for Serpent's Hand operatives. Merrill would study here until 1949, where she went to the International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology. In 1953, the ICSUT appointed her the equivalent of a doctoral degree from this academy, with a specialization in arcano-mechanical device design and construction.

A lab accident in 1949 affected her eyes, with the raw stuff of a thaumtological process splashed in. Although her sight was restored, the essences infused with her irises, granting her a permanent purple coloration. Lady Gaile designed glasses and lenses to cover up the condition.

Walking around in postwar Europe, Merrill would eventually locate her father's final resting place among the ruins of Auschwitz. One of her first uses of thaumaturgy outside of academia was to use the ashes and the remnants of suffering to form her own wand - she has named it the Remembrance of Innocence.

Eventually traveling to America in 1954, Merrill was initially hired by Prometheus Labs as a contracted specialist, to assist in augmentation of some of its experimental alloys and materials, a job in which Merrill performed admirably. Within two years, her contract with Prometheus Labs expired, and Merrill continued to seek employment in the arcane and anomalous.

Eventually, Merrill applied for a job with the Foundation. After a thorough interrogation, Merrill was offered a position that she wouldn't, in good mind, refuse.

Languages

• English
• French
• Italian
• Passable German

Miscellaneous:

Merrill wears a silver ID bracelet on her left arm. This is written in an unknown language -only the agents of the Serpent's Hand are able to understand it, as well as acquaintances in the Library.

XP: 13.5

Name of Source/Purchase	XP Change	Date
Transfer from Forrest	4.5
Blackshields	3	05/17/17
Sparkle And Shine ✨ Sequin And Glitter ✨ Hopes and Dreams	2	05/20/17
Witch Hunt	2	05/26/17
Raised Academics	-8	05/26/17
Stitched Souls	10	06/14/17