Aria Snapdragon

When trapped between a rock and a hard place, Aria’s the type of girl to build a trebuchet to launch said rock into the hard place. Aria Snapdragon, the latest in a long line of eccentrics and madmen, takes her love of engineering and magical tinkering to amuse herself. She is currently a citizen of the Osterion, and is in the process of restoring a town on the eastern peninsula of Lverstrwynn.

Early life
Aria was born into the Snapdragon family, comprised of wealthy yet eccentric aristocrats. Her father, Dorian, was a famous botanist who was renowned for his expeditions to find, study and grow plantlife. These expeditions served as the bed time stories for a young, wide-eyed Aria, tales of flowers that glow like the full moon, or plants that grow next to lava itself. Her mother, Melody, was a collector of exotic and sometimes particularly dangerous creatures from across the world, many of which were probably too dangerous for Aria to interact with at a young age.

Aria had also begun her work as a tinkerer at a very young age. Due to the abundant amount of unique and peculiar life forms surrounding her, Aria had become obsessed with the concept of replicating life through machinery. While her first few work’s were merely tests and puzzles, made to tease the brain, clockwork creatures began to wander around the family estate. However, perhaps Aria’s creations had enjoyed the gift of an artificial life too much, and killed her parents in an act of self-preservation. Aria was absolutely devastated by the loss of her parents, but never had the time to process the event as many suspected her as the culprit of the deaths.

As a teenager, Aria lived with her aunt Belladonna in her both literal and metaphorical ivory tower of academia. Aunt Belladonna was a Meyderlie Dryad, or rather a family of Meyderlie, but due to how communal Meyderlie are, they’re treated as one entity. Belladonna was a sorceress, incredibly secretive in her work, yet was revered by the local village for her work as a doctor. While she never quite became proficient, Aria would learn the very basics of nature magic here, and would learn to infuse it in her creations. Then, due to mysterious circumstances once again involving Aria’s work, Belladonna passed away, leaving Aria once again on her own.

Drifter
Aria’s first work after Belladonna passed was under a luthier, in which she spent the time learning how instruments are crafted and maintained. She also learnt the violin during her apprenticeship, and would busk around the city streets to make a small amount of money. However, eventually Aria would leave, and begin traveling around the world by stowing away on ships. Sometimes, the musical performances and/or clockwork contraption would be enough to pay for her voyage, but other times she would have to work as crew to the ship to avoid being thrown off.

Artificer
Aria has spent most of her life as an artificer, meaning she delves in the creation and maintenance of both magic and non-magic machinery. While she has enough experience to be able to work on any scope of project, Aria specializes in mechanical creatures as well as what she describes as ‘miscellaneous gizmos’. Aria often uses magic to bring convenience to her creation, for example her preheating tea set that refills itself whenever it is running low. Aria cannot manifest her magic in physical form like most magic users can, however, instead only being able to imbue it into pre-existing objects.

Additionally, Aria keeps many of own creations with her at all times. Her mechanical spider, Dusk, typically rests on her hair, disguised as a flower. Dusk is made from an intricate system of a clockwork apparatus placed inside a copper shell. It’s fangs are generally spiked with a paralyzing substance, allowing for a quick escape for Aria should things go sideways.