Noelle Meinhardt

## Appearance

**Hair:** Chestnut Brown

**Skin:** Light brown/tan

**Eyes:** Brown

**Height:** 5’9”

**Weight:** 120lbs

**Noticeable Features:** A number of long, thin scars lining her back and her thighs, as well as a brand on the back of her neck which she hides under her hair. The toes on her right foot are gone, replaced instead with a wooden plate to help with her balance, and her left pinky is also missing.

## Personality

For those who meet Noelle, the most common first impression is one of awe. Not of her abilities, her charisma, or even her confidence, but rather her sheer lack of tact. She doesn’t appear to care much for wealth, family, heritage or social status, instead treating everyone around her as though she were on their level regardless of their position.

Aside from her lack of tact, Noelle also appears to be relatively confident in her abilities, and honest about everything she does and doesn’t know. However, despite this perceived honesty, she refuses to provide straight answers to almost any question regarding her past or how she does her work, preferring to answer with “It’s a trade secret” or “Classified” and quickly move on to another subject.

Internally, Noelle is an insecure mess. She’s paranoid and constantly looking out for any sort of danger or threat, especially in the new country she has found herself in. She has few friends, never letting people get close enough to even know her last name.

## Abilities

Red Herring - Noelle is adept at deception, mainly focusing around the use of her words. She can build and maintain a web of lies for most people she meets, misleading them and allowing them to come to their own false conclusions about who she is and what she does

Third Eye - A metaphorical, non-magical sense of deception. She has an uncanny ability to tell when someone isn’t being entirely truthful with her.

Pickpocketing - As the name implies

Mechanics - Her history of being a sort of roaming handyman/mechanic has led to her being proficient in mechanics and repairs of mechanical objects.

Knock - With a wave of her hand, Noelle can unlock most any door or lock provided it isn’t magical.

Minor Mending - Just as the name implies, Noelle can essentially repair any broken object so long as it isn’t very complex or magical in nature.

## History

Noelle was born Ari, a sort of slave caste in the country of Mirewood to the south of Ashmoor. The Ari had no name to speak of and lacked even the most basic of rights or agency, everything they did was based on their Master’s wishes. Noelle was no exception, constantly treated as though she would never amount to anything more than a plaything for the rich. And, oddly enough… she was fine with it. After all, she knew nothing else, and clearly, if she was being treated like this she deserved it. That is until she felt the first flicker of something inside of her that her masters hadn’t told her. Something alien, that she had no real choice but to direct outside into the world: magic.

She was stunned, for the first time in her life she could do something she wasn’t told to. She could feel something that wasn’t ordered, she could break the rules of her house and do something only she could do. It was freeing. It was exhilarating! It was terrible. Mirewood culture despised magic as a gift from demons and devils that only the truly depraved could possibly comprehend, and so the nameless Ari became something less than a slave. She became a Noel, a witch.

She was burnt, whipped, and beaten day after day by the public, shamed for becoming something she had no choice in, but for her, it didn’t matter. Eventually, the pain stopped, and all she had to do was wait for the right time to escape. With a snap of her fingers that they had thankfully left her with, the locks to her chains came undone and she limped her way out of Mirewood, lying and stealing her way out of that horrible country. Ever since she’s been drifting, cautiously studying her magic in secret and learning how to repair machinery with as little magic as possible.