Esme Merritt

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Blah blah here's a brief summary about Your NPOC.

## Overview

### **Physical Appearance**

Esme is a pale, tall, adult human. They have a shaved head with buzzed black hair. They are fit and dexterous. They are most frequently wearing studded leather armor with a white, poofy, long sleeved shirt on underneath, one of the sleeves of which is always rolled up to their elbow.

### **Personality**

Having been raised to fight since a young age they are a fearless and tough person, however lacking in social graces preferring to let action speak over words. They are generally blunt and don’t tend to bother with politeness, however when respect is required they have an ingrained ability to give it properly. They no longer believe in following another without question but are willing to listen to others if proven to be a good source of information or advice.

They don’t let other people get too close to them due to first losing everybody close to them as a child and now being hunted down by their second family. Closeness is just a one way street to being hurt for them so they won’t allow it. Loyalty sure, but they prioritize themself and don’t allow intimacy. It has made them lonely, but better lonely than heartbroken once again.

At their heart they are a learner wanting to explore the world and understand it’s greatest mysteries, even if that may bring them into trouble. Knowledge is power is their motto and while they aren’t seeking power it does make it easy to justify the amount of time they spend studying. In another life they would have made a great wizard.

They are honest and stick to the general idea of what a heroic knight should do, however they do not think themself to be a hero in the slightest and denies any claims as such. Arguing most of their pursuits are out of self interest and not benevolence, however they are not afraid to lay down their life for a cause they believe in.

### **Talents and Skills**

Due to their time training with the Templars they are a skilled fighter, especially against magi and any creature that walks the fade. Due to their own research they have developed the ability to augment their Templar abilities with their own blood.

They also also a talented alchemist.

## **Biography**

Born in Ferelden, in the Brecilian Passage area. Their family was nearly part of the noble class, but just outside of the reach of it due to the poor quality of their land and lack of proper connections. They spent most of their time with their mother on the edge of the woods or within them, under the canopy of leaves. Their mother was the local Master of the Hunt and they frequently acted as her squire in such matters.

They were sent to the Templar Order as an eleven year old. Due to a poor crop yield the family had lost practically all their holdings and could not ensure any quality of care so in order to make sure Esme would be okay and taken care of, they were forced to send them away.

In these early years they received letters, starting once a month but slowly becoming less frequent, from their family. They were having trouble adjusting to their new life and the training they were going through so those letters provided a lot of comfort. Another source of comfort was their main trainer, Nicolas, a Templar who after receiving an injury became a teacher. While firm, he was kind and empathic to Esme’s situation.

Fighting was a natural skill to them so they got along well with the teachers, however said teachers were surprised to discover just how bright and curious they were. Nicolas ended up having to frequently take them by Chantry’s with libraries in order to keep them satisfied.

They were a teenager when the letters stopped completely. They were heartbroken and confused about why this was happening, everything had seemed fine from the last letter they sent, there was no reason to stop, unless they simply didn’t care anymore.

Solace was found with one of the fellow trainees, Bennard of Crestwood who had been abandoned with the templars as well. The two could relate to each other and worked well together. As such they became partners, in both senses of the word. Neither had a lot but they had each other.

At the age of 18 they underwent their vigil and took their vows, Bennard did the same not long afterwards and the two were assigned to the Hinterlands area to hunt down apostates and keep an eye open for magical problems. It was not exactly the most exciting position, so they filled their time with researching whatever they could about magic, it was better to understand what they would be fighting after all.

However the fifth blight had other ideas and a horde of darkspawn came down upon the Hinterlands. They and Bennard were roped into helping the people too far from towns to receive help from guards. It was taxing and dangerous but the two managed to survive and do some good.

For their heroic work they were given a new station with more to do, and importantly to Esme, better access to a local tower. Their interest had only increased after the blight along with their willingness to accept danger, they had already faced down unimaginable danger.

Throughout the next five years this interest slowly shifted over the forbidden practices of magic, such as blood magic or possession. Obviously they had no plans of attempting either themself but they could not help their curiosity and interest in the ways people could act against the Maker’s intent.

That idea of certainly not using blood magic remained more or less true, it just also happened they wanted to know how their Templar abilities would mix with blood. The results were surprising as they managed to alter their powers through this and discovered they were the Templar equivalent of a blood mage.

This shook their faith severely pondering how abilities so closely tied to The Maker could be corrupted. With a little more secretive study they came to the conclusion that the Templar Order and Chantry got their ideas on mages and blood magic wrong. Both were gifts from the Maker that the receiver could just choose to misuse. Just as a pair of hands could be used to kill or bake bread. This was all rather incompatible with the Templar lifestyle as they were starting to question whether they were doing any real good or just terrorizing mages who did nothing wrong other than wish to be free.

However due to their ties to Bennard and Nicolas along with their lyrium addiction they remained with the order for a while longer, but were beginning to try to wean off of lyrium which the blood magic turned out to be helpful for. They felt guilty about wanting to leave but knew if the people closest to them ever found out what they had been doing behind closed doors they’d turn on them in an instant. Plus they felt they could do more good on their own where they wouldn’t have to worry about overhead.

Unfortunately for them when they, Bennard, and Nicolas, were sent together as a team after a small group of apostates, Nicolas there to just provide some guidance as they had not had a ton of experience with apostates, things went south. The group turned out to be a lot more dangerous than expected and in order to give them a fighting chance Esme used their blood abilities. It saved their own and Bennard’s life but revealed their secret. Nicolas was disgusted and felt betrayed, tempted to deal with the problem on the spot, but in the interest of their mentor apprentice relationship he told them he’d give them a head start before hunting them down.

They fled into the wilds of Ferelden relying on what their mother had taught them of nature to survive. They ditched the heavy armor in favor of something that let them move quicker and switched up their fighting style to suit their abilities better. With that sorted out they started taking work as a bounty hunter, fighting against monsters, bandits, and whatever else someone was willing to pay to get rid of.

This led them to meeting Lola Darcy, a noble bard looking for somebody to watch over her soon to be apostate sister and keep the young mage safe. It was not Esme’s usual type of job (although that had only been established a couple months ago) but the pay was good enough to make them agree.

The mage was seven years younger than them and in a highly emotional state. Esme had no clue what to do with her so ended up teaching her how to help with the more mundane parts of living on the run, such as how to hunt, take care of a temporary home, and ride a horse. Their partnership was at first unsteady but due to desperation and a shared defector from decadence background (right down to how old they were when they left) they managed to work together well.

Esme continued to do odd jobs which lead to a few encounters with Templars, which they managed to escape from without tipping their hand about Lynette. Then in their free time they were doing more study about magic, bringing Lynette along for that (though keeping her away from blood magic as Esme didn’t feel like they could teach responsible use of it)

When four years after receiving Lynette Lola showed up again with a plan about leaving for an island. Esme was intrigued by what could be on it along with the chance to further evade the Templars so agreed to come along and continue to keep an eye on Lynette.

## **Relationships**

Describe their relationships with established protagonists/characters in the universe. Who are they known to? Who are they loyal to?

## **Miscellaneous**

What else happened, or what else can you tell us about Your OC, bruh? Think of things like likes, dislikes, fears, strengths and weaknesses, etc. This is as close as you'll get to being able to word-vomit about your OC while keeping the article organized and will probably be the longest section. Feel free to add sub-headings as necessary with sub-heading 2:

## **Links**

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## **Gallery**

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