Appearance

Physical Description

Very tall, with beefy arms and shoulders and very strong grip. Her legs are a little underdeveloped in comparison, but not weak. Overall, a big gal.

Apparel & Accessories

Wears a black tank top and baggy brown trousers with lots of pockets. Has a sturdy belt with all manners of tools and doodads hanging off, and a thick leather apron covered in scrapes and burns. Bulky black steel-toed boots also.
Covered in jewellery she's made herself: ear piercings, a septum piercing, a lip piercing, necklaces, bracelets, rings. She also has a few plaits in her hair that are sectioned off using intricate rings and beads.

Mentality

Personal history

Early life

Nina grew up in a small village of Orcs called Malenkeselo. From an early age, she showed an interest in the work the village crafter would do - starting from nothing but a few animal hides, sticks and a couple of simple tools, they would create armour and weapons that helped to keep the entire village safe. Inspired by this, she worked as hard as she could to learn from this crafter - and before long she had almost matched them in skill. Seeing her drive and passion for her craft, Nina's parents decided that once she turned 12 (age of adulthood for Orcs), she should travel to the town of Rustel to study under someone more knowledgeable.

 

Adulthood

After walking around town for a while, Nina eventually found the dwarven blacksmith: Atlas Brimstone. He was a little reluctant to take her on, but after inspecting some of her work (and not an insubstantial amount of pleading), he agreed to teach her what he knew.

It was a tricky situation to get used to - partially due to the differences in lifestyle, but mostly due to height differences. Being a dwarf, Atlas' house and furniture were designed with 4' 0'' occupants in mind. Being an Orc, Nina's body was designed for 6'6'' person sized living spaces. The situation was much like Po in the noodle shop (or Stoic in Hiccup's workshop), but they both eventually learned to live with it.

Nina spent much of her time working, whether it was smithing at the forge or manning the shop. She took to the workshop like a dragon to a hoard, but the sales side of things wasn't exactly her forte. Her main strategy of promotion was to dress a volunteer in her armour, and then punch them as hard as she could. This usually led to one of two outcomes - either she would hit a place protected by armour and hurt her hand, or she would miss the armour and punch them in the face. Neither eventuality did much to help sales, but it greatly entertained the passers-by.

Outside of her time spent working, Nina enjoyed tinkering around with jewellery. At first, she started with simple pendants and bracelets - but after years of teaching herself, the detail and complexity of the projects she undertook increased vastly. She incorporated clockwork into her designs, bringing life to the otherwise inanimate, and elevating their beauty to new heights. These skills also came in handy for creating things with more utility - one of her favourite designs so far is a bracer with a hidden catapult arm that can launch small objects great distances. She keeps the more functional jewellery to herself, but she sometimes sells the conventional stuff alongside the other wares. This does mean that the shop has an interesting dichotomy in its customer base - the gruff and gnarled adventurers looking to protect themselves, and the dainty townsfolk wanting to look pretty.

 

Present Day

She’s spent 15 years working with atlas at this point and shares a decent amount of responsibility for the shop. When atlas started to give her more responsibility, he suggested she also become a member of the merchants guild. This means she has business relationships with people who buy her wares to sell themselves. She occasionally visits the guild hall in Hartrime to advertise her wares, but they sell mostly because of their reputation of quality, rather than anything she says - see above her advertising strategy.

Recently she’s been wanting to improve the user experience of the equipment she makes – comfort, ergonomics etc. The best way to do that is by using it in real life situations for extended periods of time, so she wants to join the adventurer’s guild. She’s also aware that her parents are getting pretty old, so she hopes the adventuring will give her an opportunity to visit them.

Education

Nina has a pretty solid education. She's obviously well versed in the crafting techniques of armour, weapons and jewellery, but her more recent endeavours have led her to research the arcane - Looking to see how she could enhance her creations with magic.
She also enjoys collecting random facts, so she has a decent amount of general knowledge.

Employment

Has worked as an apprentice blacksmith for Atlas Brimstone for 15 years.

Intellectual Characteristics

Frequently spaces out, thinking of new ways to modify her designs or pondering the mechanisms behind another's contraption.
Will happily talk at length about the intricacies of her designs - often unprompted.

Morality & Philosophy

She endeavours to use her talents to help people however she can. This often means that she will over engineer a solution to a simple problem - If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.

Personality

Motivation

She loves creating things, and wants to improve her skills as much as possible.

Likes & Dislikes

Likes

• Learning random facts


• Making jewellery


• Giving gifts


• The smell of freshly oiled metal

Dislikes

• Heavily crowded areas


• Cleaning

Vices & Personality flaws

Can get pretty shy and withdrawn around people she doesn't know well.

Frequently doesn't pick up on the more subtle jokes.

Has a habit of tinkering long past bedtime.

Personality Quirks

Has a habit of absent-mindedly fiddling with her jewellery. Occasionally, she accidentally activates whatever contraption is hidden away inside.

Social

Birthplace

Malenkeselo

Current Residence

Rustel

Contacts & Relations

Knows a few people at the merchant's guild.

Social Aptitude

Not great. She takes a while to warm up to people, so first introductions never tend to go well. She can be quite endearing once she gets to know someone, though.

Speech

Speaks with a moderate Malenk Accent (Russian)