[hider=Ricardo Alcazar, Master of Assassin][b]Name:[/b] Ricardo Alcazar Gallardo de Segovia (Also goes by Rick, Richard in English speaking countries, or Alcazar depending on the situation)
[b]Gender: Male[/b] 
[b]Age:[/b] 28
[b]Height/Weight:[/b] 5’9’’ (1.75m)/ 160lb(72.5kg) 
[b]Birthplace:[/b] Segovia, Spain.
[h3]Appearance[/h3]Ricardo has a healthy build with a good amount of muscle and lightly tanned skin. His hair is dark and wavy, of medium length and often pulled back, leaving his forehead and alert brown eyes unobscured. Usually keeps handsome features clean-shaven, but a stubble may show in particularly stressful weeks. 

His wardrobe tends to be simple and sharp, largely consisting of dark cloth pants, button-up shirts, and a tan overcoat. He largely foregoes ties. There is a noticeable vanity to his general appearance.

[h3]Character[/h3]Confident and easy with words, Ricardo’s demeanor tends to come off as wry and vaguely aristocratic. Certainly, he is proud of his lineage.

He prefers wit in humor, along with dry understatement, and admires people that make use of both in speech. However, he finds it difficult to respect those who don’t take care of themselves or their appearance.
 
Ricardo strives to be perceptive and cunning, and often fancies himself the smartest man in the room, giving him a manipulative streak. ‘Fortune favors the prepared mind,’ and while he enjoys games of chance, he is not fond of losing them.  

He also has an interest in foreign curses and superstitions, and enjoys giving explanations as would a lecturing professor. That said, he quickly loses patience when asked to repeat himself.

One should note, however, that no matter how affably he might behave in the day to day, he is a magus born and bred, and his moral choices may not always accommodate to what is ethical so much as what is convenient at the time.
[h3]Background[/h3]Ricardo’s family can be traced back 500 years ago. During that time, his ancestors had recently acquired a noble title, and the family spread and prospered throughout the years. The introduction of magic to the family itself came 300 years later, in the 1800s, and from then on, as if struck by a curse of misfortune, the family had begun a slow decline. Part of it could perhaps be attributed to the common policy of mage families of keeping only a single successor, but regardless, by the time Ricardo had been born, much of the land and properties owned by the Alcazar family had been lost.

That is not to say he was raised in poverty. Far from it, in fact. Ricardo lived most of his early life in a villa with his mother and a number of servants. His father officially led his tutoring, and would impart several unorthodox skills and interests for mages such as his love of games and his preference for sleight of hand, but it was not uncommon for him to be absent in extended trips outside of the country. This meant that his mother oversaw much of his education. 

Eventually, Ricardo matured and, having completed his formational education, was accepted into the London Clocktower, were he continued his studies for several years. During this time, rather than subsist off his family’s money, he took to earning his own using some of the tricks he had learned in casinos. At the time, he saw it as a means to both test himself and to become independent, but earlier attempts typically saw him drawing the eyes of the management for these establishments. He clawed his way out of several ‘problematic’ situations before he learned the value of restraint.

He was eventually forced to return home at the news that his father had taken ill after one of his travels and was at his deathbed. Ricardo returned to Segovia to put his father to rest, and to take care of the Alcazar family’s affairs as the heir. 

That should have been the end to that transition, but not long after his father passed, several strangers began approaching his estate, often magi themselves. Many claimed that his father owed them certain debts and promises, and often brought out contracts signed by the man’s own hand. These rarely proved illegitimate after inspection, and he was often forced to pay them in his father’s stead, using the family’s remaining assets. The varied and unpredictable backgrounds of these characters made it difficult to plan for them, and even when going through his father's belongings, for every contract of the sort he caught wind of, another found him by surprise.

The deluge of debts seemed interminable. This was when a line of magi from a neighboring country came to him with a proposition. If he married into their family, giving up his last name, they would take on his debts. 

Ricardo did not accept, but neither did he decline the offer, instead urging them for time to think. They agreed, but during that time the wealth and reputation of his family continued to steadily decline.

It was at this point that by unlikely coincidence he became embroiled with a very particular ritual just then beginning to take place in the city of Rome. A Holy Grail War, like the rituals that had once taken place in the Far East.

Not long after, he was approached by another family that had managed to catch wind of his situation. They, too, offered him a deal to solve all his family’s problems, but this one had a surprising twist to it. 

If he took their youngest daughter’s hand in marriage, uniting their families as allies, they would help shoulder his burdens while assuring the continuation of his line. 

But only if he brought them the Grail.
[h3]Magic Circuits[/h3][b]Circuit Quantity:[/b] B+
[b]Circuit Quality:[/b] B-
[h3]Skills[/h3]Deft with his hands, Ricardo can do much with simple sleight of hand, from magician card tricks to picking pockets.

Ricardo is trained in basic self-defense techniques and has found use for them throughout his life. Should a fight devolve into a brawl, he would be far from helpless, particularly if aided by strengthening magic. Of course, this only applies to fights against human beings.
[h3]Magecraft[/h3]A properly trained mage with access to a Magic Crest, Ricardo knows several general purpose spells. Basic strengthening of objects and body parts, repairing damaged objects like shattered glass, and creating lights and sounds to distract or disorient are common cantrips among magi.

Ricardo’s family research had largely been devoted to the study of rituals and curses affecting luck and fortune, but these tend to take a long time to prepare, are unpredictable, and are difficult to quantify, making them largely impractical. Owing to this, it was not rare for the family’s research to branch out into fields that sought to achieve knowledge and control of an environment. There are some notable treatises on precognition authored by previous leaders of his family, for example. ‘Fortune favors the prepared mind,’ after all, and other such ventures were made by generations who sought a more practical way to tip the scales in their favor.

His own abilities lean towards the use of hypnosis and suggestion magic (the control of people, one may say), techniques often used to prevent the detection of magic in modern society, that he instead found useful when acquiring funds. Changing memories, extracting them, implanting them, altering behavior or commanding another. However, the use of these abilities on other magi are rarely practical due to their inherent magical resistance. Lacking explicit permission to work this magecraft on them, it is often necessary to restrain them for a significant amount of time for the spells to take root successfully.

When in direct confrontations, Ricardo often relies on a set of Mystic Codes commissioned from a family of artificers, and previously belonging to his father. This takes the form of a Spanish Deck with 4 suits of 12 cards, and two Jokers, totaling 50 cards.

Each card comes with a specified enchantment determined by their suit: 

Swords: Strengthening is applied to the cards themselves, making them as hard as diamond and sharper mundane blades. A levitation enchantment is also activated, making it possible to launch and direct them like guided missiles. 

Clubs: They can be used individually or in conjunction to create magical barriers of varying strength. Placing them in key points in the terrain can create a deployable barrier that prevents exit or entry.

Cups: The Cup suit allows for the usage of healing spells. As long as a wound is not instantly fatal, the spells held in these Mystic Codes should be able to repair the damage so long as the mage provides sufficient magical energy. However, healing of the body is not the only thing the cup represents. Some of the cards allow one to cure certain poisons (though poisons belonging to some phantasmal beasts cannot be purified through this method) and simple curses, such as the debilitating disease of the standard Gandr curse.

Coins: The amplifier Mystic Code of this deck. Essentially, these cards are tools which incorporate themselves to an existing Magecraft to regulate the amount of magical energy consumed while maintaining the effect at a weakened or strengthened form. Such a thing is unnecessary when considering casted spells, but it allows him to bend the limitations of specialized Mystic Codes to control the power output of their effects. 

Jokers: Ricardo’s deck holds two Jokers, two irreplaceable cards that were meant to be his ace in the hole to open new doors should the worst circumstances come to pass. 
-The first features a laughing jester dressed in a vibrant, attention grabbing orange. Brushing the surface of the card allows one to feel a fleecy texture. This card was made using a phoenix’s feather, and will bring the user back from the brink of death. Even should the owner’s head be severed or destroyed, the Phantasmal’s beasts power will prevent them from dying and restore their body. However, the card can only do this once before it crumbles to ashes.
-The second card has a jade-colored frame surrounding it, but its face remains blank. Perhaps the artist forgot to include the jester. In reality, this is tied to the specific enchantment imbued in this card, which connects to an empty white space objects and people can be brought into, taking the place of the jester. Those within can hear and see the world ‘outside’ the card from a ‘window’ in the space looking out through the card’s face, but they cannot be heard from the outside nor seen beyond an image of them at the face of the card. They may only leave with the blessing of the one who placed them there. There are limitations to this, however. Only one person or object can be brought into this space at any given time, though what counts as a single ‘person or object’ can vary slightly depending on the user’s concept of the given ‘thing’. A full suitcase may fit within the space, but a pile of its assorted contents may very well not. Moreover, consent is required from living beings to place them in this space, making it a poor prison. It mainly sees use as a way to smuggle specific objects or people undetected. As a side note, destroying the card will dump out its contents.  

The main practical advantage of using such a set of compact Mystic Codes comes from their activation speed, as well as the inherent energy efficiency of the spells housed in the cards. As a side note, the idea of cards being used as weapons appeals to him on a personal level.

Due to the sorcerous nature of this deck, any card or selection of cards can be drawn at will by the owner. Also, should these cards be cut or shredded, they can be restored by Ricardo in a moment of calm, provided he recovers the pieces. Burning them is a sure-fire way of destroying them, however, and Ricardo lacks the knowledge or skill to reproduce them.
[h3]Weaknesses[/h3]While Ricardo is proficient in the use of magecraft for diversions and manipulation, he typically suffers when it comes to direct, offensive curses. He largely relies on specialized tools for encounters that require violence, such as his deck of cards.

Regarding his Mystic Code, fire. While his deck has been invested with some wards to prevent an easy destruction, the fact that fire remains a way to permanently destroy the cards and their enchantment remains. Particularly so if the flames are sorcerous and intense enough to overwhelm the wards.

It should also be noted that, while the barriers he can make with these artifacts can indeed stop flames from reaching him, they cannot stop heat. In the worst of cases, a particularly intense and continued gout of flame may ruin the card behind the barrier (and him with it).
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