[hider=Meredith Ettie Hildegard]

[h1][b]Meredith Ettie Hildegard[/b] | 26 | Female [/h1]

[h3][b]Home Universe[/b][/h3]
[indent]Steam Herald[/indent]

[h3][b]Species[/b][/h3]
[indent]Human[/indent]

[h3][b]Appearance[/b][/h3]
[hider=Meredith][img]http://safebooru.org//samples/1374/sample_827c32550c44d62173b81e0f1e12cb0b1dc21d96.png?1439877[/img][/hider]
[indent]As far as looks go, Meredith got rather lucky in the gene pool. Where the looks from from, her parents can't say. She doesn't really take after either of them, and she wasn't adopted either. Not that Meredith herself particularly cares about her looks. She spends more time with machines, grease, pipes...and steam, to even really pay attention to such things. Most often, she's covered in grime and muck that any mechanic might.

Standing at a fairly tall five foot seven, she has a somewhat slender though not unfit frame. Her skin is pale, as she spends most of her days in doors working on mechanical, steam powered (and other) contraptions of all kinds. She has azure blue eyes, framed by a head of long blonde hair. Really, she should probably cut it but she says she can't be bothered to do such a thing. Besides, she says her hair is her best feature. The guys who stare at her rather decently sized chest and admire her legs tend to disagree, but she seems oblivious to that fact.

Speaking of her hair, she actually bothers to take care of it. When working on any mechanical contraption, it will often be tied up into a bun, ponytail, or otherwise be restricted from flowing freely in order to prevent accidents. Its surprisingly soft and the first thing she'll do after a long day of work is to make sure its cleaned, scrubbed, washed, and taken care of in any manner.

Oftentimes, she wears a friendly warm smile that belies her rather...eccentric nature. Or maybe its a clear tell? Can't really say.

In terms of dress, she comes off as somewhat refined. Long, comfortable black pants tucked into comfortable leather boots. On her torso she most often wears a black vest with gold trim over a white button-up shirt and skirt. Around her waist, she usually wears a belt with a few pouches to store variety of tools in. She cleans up pretty well, as far as grease monkey's go.

The last thing to note, is that both of her arms are usually covered in a metal plating. The metal plating covers her entire arms up to her shoulders, a metal clasp connected to her back connecting both sides. Each arm has a number of dials, gauges and other instruments that give readings to any who might understand them. Aside from the steam-hammer, they are the only methods of attacking someone she has.


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[h3][b]Personality[/b][/h3]
[indent]As far as Meredith goes, she's somewhat of an...eccentric.

Meredith is by far, friendly. A bit overly so, some might say. Indeed, she's quick to give people her affections in the way of hugs, compliments, and otherwise just general somewhat overly friendly personal space invading behavior. Obviously, this sort of thing can be a major put off to most people, but she doesn't seem to care one way or another. Indeed, she seems to take a small bit of delight in making people just a tad bit uncomfortable in such a manner.

Additionally, she tends to be somewhat lazy and doesn't like working a whole lot, unless its for her own pleasure on her own terms. Likely a result stemming from her days in youth working her ass off. She views that now she has herself a rather comfortable set up, she can afford to be well...lazy, and somewhat hedonistic in her behaviors. After all, being all wound up and serious isn't fun, is it?~

That said, her work is still her life, and she would do anything to further her own somewhat...shady goals.

Similarly, she dislikes violence. While she's not adverse to fighting or conflict, she will always opt for a peaceful method if possible. That peaceful method might be in the form of intimidation to get one party to stand down, (no good automaton maker can be a good business person without a bit of intimidation or charisma) but she will never truly resort to violence unless pushed into a situation where she can't escape from it.

As mentioned above, all makers and merchants need to have some form of charisma in their work, in order to be able to make a good living and sell their wears/inventions to the populace. Not to mention, insight and intelligence to determine what exactly someone would need to sell or make. In Meredith's case, it was a fascination with both the human body and...steam. And how one might be able to augment one with the other.

Its very rare you'd see her sad or upset, but when she is its fairly noticeable. Tends to get nervous when someone asks her about her past, as she has done some less than reputable things at the spur of the moment. While she doesn't necessarily regret her actions as she would do anything for science, she does know that quite a few people would disprove of human weapons, testing, and other similar things.
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[h3][b]Backstory[/b][/h3]
[hider=Bio]
[indent]Born into a wealthy family in the Capitol city, Voliwall in AV56 (Anno Vapor), fifty six years after the King made the massive effort of steam industrialization of the Bepren Empire. She's had a fairly decent life growing up because of it and many considered her to be the perfect example of a wealthy, eccentric noble whose had everything hand fed to her. Its true, really. She's never really had to struggle for much growing up. Her parents, both intelligent doctors who were one of the best in Voliwall.

As such, from an early age she was introduced into medical practices and human anatomy. She was fully expected to follow in her parents work, after all. For most of the time until she was sixteen, she was pretty sure that's what she wanted to do as well. So, she studied. Burying herself in both books and apprenticing at her parents hospital and became quite knowledgeable at a young age about many medical practices.

However, when she was sixteen, something changed. She wondered into a mechanics place of practice by accident looking for a place she might find a delicious vegetable to munch on. The rest, as some might say, is history. She forgot completely about becoming a doctor, following in her parents footsteps and took a much less glamorous job as a mechanic.

this, well, ended getting her shunned from the family and her younger sister being named the inheritor to everything they had. It was well, a bit of a shock, but she buried herself in learning mechanics, steam, and physics. It was well, the first time she ever had to struggle for anything in her life. Mechanics didn't exactly get paid much, and apprentices? Well, they didn't get paid. So she had to take a job in a rather shady factory in the docks.

It was beneficial, in the end though. She learned how to build things, weld, and things otherwise related to her chosen craft. Indeed, she had very little time for herself in those days and spent most time either working or studying. After a few years, when she was eighteen, she effectively lost all contact with her family and was more or less and had gone from apprentice, to mechanic/tinkerer in her own right. She even helped her mentor create the first steam-augmented combat gear to be used by guards and soldiers and was renowned among the community as a bit of a savant.

When she was twenty, war broke out between the Empire and a neighboring country. Tensions had been high for quite some time, and the King didn't want another protracted war like the previous one. He wanted this to be dealt with swiftly, and decisively before they had a prolonged violent war on their hands. All the best mechanics, engineers, and visionaries in the empire were called to the castle in order to do one thing: Create tools and weapons of war. 

And Meredith did just that. After two years of using her vast knowledge of medical skills, mechanics, steam, physics she created what many would say was the deciding factor in the war. A fully, somewhat self sentient, Steam powered Automaton. These metal creatures, resistant to all forms of gunfire, weapons, and anything other than strong weapons built to pierce armor were a complete terror to face on the battlefield, and after about two more years of war after they were built, it was swiftly ended with Bepren as the victor. Not to mention a multitude of weapons for them to use.

Of course, no one questioned how she and her team of people made these things. Not until nearly a hundred had been made, actively used, and many more in production. Eventually though, as with all secrets it got out. How exactly did she make them? Well, around the start of this project a few criminals were told they were going to be able to redeem themselves by 'Serving their Empire for a greater good'.

Not exactly a hard guess to imagine where they went. She managed to replace most of their organs with clockwork, metal, and other steam-powered technology. With the heavy use of pumping drugs and other things into their system, she effectively, created a metal-clad super soldier. Considering the temperatures some of their weapons and things got too as well...its a wonder they could even be alive without the aid of constant cooling mechanisms.

As soon as the news was out, well, she knew how to make a swift exit. No doubt the King, despite knowing, would turn on her. She was labeled a war criminal, and a warrant for the war criminal was issued.[/indent]

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[h3][b]Abilities/Skills[/b][/h3]
[indent][b]Scientific Knowledge:[/b] While some might rely on magic and the occult to gain their power, she has only one thing she has ever relied on. Science, physics, and what she can [i]see[/i].

[b]Hammer Skill:[/b] To put bluntly, Meredith is no battle hardened person. That said, she has carried around a favored creation of hers for some time. The Steam Hammer. While she has never actually used it in a life or death battle, she has trained with it a bit on the off chance she might ever need to defend herself. As such, she's fairly proficient at using it...in theory.

[b]Physical Strength/Stamina:[/b] While she's not some master weight lifter, lugging around heavy chunks of metal and plating in order to get them fastened somewhere, tends to need a bit of arm strength to be able to happen. Plus, she's always tested her own experiments and items on herself first...well, the ones that didn't obviously have the potential to have a life threatening outcome. Not to mention, she liked staying in at least some form of physical shape. As such, she can hit surprisingly hard and her muscles have a bit of definition to them.

[b]You want a steam automaton robot? You got one.[/b]
She's made steam automaton before. She could probably do it again, and likely will do it again if given the chance. While a somewhat time consuming process, its not that difficult to do when you understand the basics. Also could probably jury-rig some sort of automaton from some other place.

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[h3][b]Weapons/Tools[/b][/h3]
[indent][b]Steam-Hammer:[/b] A simple, but effective tool of her own creation. Its a hammer designed to cause blunt force-trauma to whoever gets whacked with it. It weighs around four pounds in total. However, what makes this a somewhat devastating weapon is the inner workings of the hammer, and has several other functions aside from the basic hammer. It has a piston, powered by steam as its head. When activated, the piston will slam into whatever its target is with the force of one might expect of a piston. It can also release scalding hot blasts of steam at a foe. Such hot blasts could also be theoretically used to propel the hammer at faster speeds. 

One should keep in mind though, its a limited resource and best used sparingly. The hammer has no way to replenish the water that was lost without manually adding more.

The hammer itself is made out of a strong metal that is found in Bepren, that conducts heat rather well, has a high melting point and can withstand strong blows. Packs enough of a punch to dent the same material its made out of without much hassle.

[b]Mechanical arms:[/b] A covering she has on her arms. Aside from acting as armor for her arms, they have a few different functions they are capable of. Firstly, the knuckles of the arms are actually steam-driven pistons. Meaning, they gonna cause some fairly bad damage if someone gets punched with them and she uses it. Can also heat up the external metal to cause severe burns to any who touch it. The inside is padded against this, to prevent harm to the wearer.

Has a gun built into the right arm as well. A high-powered, penetrating bullet designed to pierce armor at precise targets. About five bullets in total before needing to be reloaded.[/indent]

[h3][b]Weaknesses/Limits[/b][/h3]
[indent][b]Limits:[/b]
All of her equipment is steam-powered. Meaning, water. If she runs out of this at any point during combat, her combat effectiveness tends to drop...well, a lot. Fairly heavy contraptions as well.

[b]Weaknesses:[/b]
Gets distracted very easy by anything of the scientific and biological nature.[/indent]

[h3][b]Other[/b][/h3]
[indent]Aside from anything stated above...she's well, your average squishy little human. She's nothing special.[/indent]
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