Merlin Lamb

Merlin has long, straight, somewhat messy brown hair and brown eyes. Her lips are pink and plump and her face is oval-shaped. She has a dragon tattoo on the right side of her ribs (positioned and drawn so that it appears to be moving whenever she does) and a triskelion tattoo on the inside of her left forearm (and is a member of the Crystal Ferns, as the marking implies), and she stands at five-foot-eight-inches tall. She tends to wear jeans and t-shirts, as well as a worn leather jacket and beat-up black high-tops that are nearing the end of their lifespan.  She's got a few piercings in her ears — needless to say, she's a bit of a punk.

Her Epicurus Number (EN, more commonly known as a Magic Number) is ten — which is the highest you can get on the scale.

## Personality

Merlin is a woman that's full of snark.  She always has a comeback for any insult that's flung her way, no matter who the insult in question comes from.  She tends to treat everyone around her like the common man: as such, she can be bad at paying respect when respect is due, such as to her boss or anyone else in a position above hers.  She's also got trouble with authority, and is likely to do the exact opposite of whatever is asked of her unless she has good motivation for not doing so.  When she gets angry, though, she tends to get reckless and will toss caution to the wind; though it does take a bit to get her worked up.  Most of the time, Merlin is friendly and open to the people around her, and with the way that she treats everyone she has a bit of charm to her, as well — people tend to just *like* her (unless she gets on their nerves), and her natural clumsiness also helps to endear her to some.  Indeed, she's a naturally friendly and kind person, and if she can help someone else, then she will — but at the same time, she isn't one to give out second chances.  She also tends to be easily suspicious and overthink — she leans into paranoia, and there isn't much that can be done about it.  No matter how much other people try to talk her out of it, she tends to assume the worst and doesn't really consider anything else as an option.  When it comes to people she's close with, though, she isn't one to turn away from them for anything, or even think something bad about them — she's loyal to a fault and will fight to the death to defend her loved ones, if it comes to that.  By nature, she's a defensive person and tends to leap to that first before anything else, whether it be in verbal arguments or physical fights.  When she sets her mind to something, it's nigh impossible to dissuade her from it, as she can be stubborn beyond belief when she wants to be. In general, though, she enjoys spending time with those close to her — she isn't exactly an extrovert, but she's plenty social.  Whether it's simply lounging around with them or sharing a meal, she likes to spend time with other people; but in particular, she has a fondness for bad movies.  Because of her magic, and in particular the strength of it, she can't do much with modern electronics: her phone is an old flip phone, she owns a VCR, and that's about as far as she can go technology-wise.  When she's more relaxed, she can be around more complicated technology, but the stronger her emotions are the more likely her magic is to mess with any kind of machinery — she's learned to love b-movies out of necessity more than anything else.  While she isn't the smartest person the world (though, rest assured, she can definitely hold her own), she's more wise than she is intelligent — she's liable to spit off some kind of wisdom at opportune times if she thinks that the people around her need it, or if they ask her for advice.

## History

Merlin was born in Eastern London, where she lived with her mother and spent most of her time drawing and playing with her magic, when she wasn't in school or out playing.  Unbeknownst to her, however, her mother was sick, and ended up succumbing to her illness when she was seven.  With no father to speak of she was thrown head-first into the foster system, typically spending a few years at a home when she was younger before being moved.  As she grew older, though, that time shortened.  Most of her homes treated her just fine, even if they acted distant, but others were... worse than that.  When she was seventeen, she finally met her father and half-brother she apparently had (who had come to London to try and visit her mother, only to discover that she was dead and he had a daughter), and as he was now her next-of-kin she was placed in his care.  She went back to the US with them and gained dual-citizenship from him being her father, too.  They also started teaching her magic — it was his side of the family that she got it from, she learned, and most of her talents had been learned as she went along, but now she was actually getting to *learn*.  When she went to her new school, she got tangled up with the Crystal Ferns after she protected a child of a member from a rival gang, and when she was eighteen she met Grove, who quickly became her closest friend; he was the one who nicknamed her Merlin.  Currently, she works as a waitress, but she has aspirations to become a tattoo artist.