Ramiro Diez: All the time in the world.
Name: Ramiro Diez
Occupation: Apprentice Tejedor de Tiempo (Timewarder)
Nationality: Spanish/American
Height: 6'
Weight: 155 lbs
Age: 18
Hair Color: Raven Black
Eye Color: Chocolate Brown
Appearance:
Ramiro was always told that he inherited his 'mother's eyes'. Large and chocolate colored, they have a softness to them that isn't entirely masculine. Nestled in a youthful and faintly olive hued face, they have sharpness, an alert quality that gives Ramiro a calculating look at all times. A warm smile often lingers on his full lips, and he can often be seen chuckling to himself for no apparent reason. But even while his mouth smiles, his mind always seems to be elsewhere, darting about behind his pensive eyes.
Cascading shoulder length ringlets of hair frame his face when he doesn't care about how he looks, but most of the time his ebony locks are tightly secured in a ponytail. A simple black 'jesuit style' cassock is a piece he often wears in memory of his Tío, complete with a cincture about his waist and a ferraiuolo, or cape draped over his shoulders. But all too often robes aren't practical, so Ramiro's cassock stays in the closet while he wears more common clothing. Cargo pants and T-shirts over long sleeves, or loose fitting jeans and some sort of sports jacket, none of his outfits reveal much skin.
With the slender build of a boy who hasn't quite yet become a man, Ramiro's movements usually flow with the grace of a dancer. Until he trips. Or runs into a wall. Or gets distracted and bumps into something. All of which he does quite often. Because whenever something interesting catches his attention, his body loses its graceful poise and the lanky teenager who doesn't quite have control of his body appears.
No matter what clothing he happens to be wearing, certain things can always be found on his person. An elegantly simple pocketwatch dangles from his hip, and his hands are always covered with fingerless gloves. Around his neck is a tight necklace that holds an intricate little cross, and his wrists are adorned with a matching set of silvery bracelets.
Personality:
A somewhat positive person, Ramiro often has a hard time dealing with anything he's unable to change. Very independent, he believes that through enough hard work, anything is possible. While he finds massive amounts of irony in the world and is constantly laughing inside, he has a very dry sense of humor that nearly no one gets. Confident, strongwilled, and intelligent would be the three words he would pick to describe himself, but in reality he's just another kid who isn't quite sure what the future holds.
History:
Crackle. The fire eagerly devoured the small form and the wood surrounding it, its crackling hunger the only sound in the small hamlet. A hushed crowd of villagers stood nearby, their faces grim as they watched the smoke from the flames rise to the heavens. In the back of the crowd, a finely dressed priest shook his head slowly...
The year was Fourteen forty five. The spanish inquisition had swept through the countryside, nine witches burnt or drowned in a mere two days. Magic it was clear, would no longer be tolerated. But only the fools, those less quick to act, were caught. A small smile spread across José Diez del Rivera's face as he stroked the finely groomed mustache there. He was an intelligent man, and those who would have spoken of his abilities to the inquisition had all mysteriously perished. That combined with the fact that he was nobility of the finest caliber, meant that he was safe. For the time being at least. José turned away from the smoking pyre of the woman who had been tried as a witch, his mind already fleeting to the future. He and his family would survive.
It was nearly midnight outside, but inside the dimly lit room, two men toiled by candlelight. Both were devotees of the highest order to the catholic faith. The famed jesuits who had headed the counter reformation, amongst the holiest men outside of the Vatican...
Íñigo López de Loyola stroked his graying beard. The old soldier had the grizzled look of a man who had seen many battles, but a fire in his brown eyes revealed that he had many more. Juan Diez was a much younger man, clean shaven, but with the same fire in his eyes. Both were completely dedicated to their causes. Knowledge and intelligence were of the utmost value to both, and these common values had intertwined their paths in an odd way. Even now, they were forging a document to add an auxiliary order to the Jesuits. A pact of sorts, that would grant protection of the church to this devoted family who had so generously given of their gifts, monetary and otherwise, to the body of God on earth. The candles in the dim room flickered as the two men toiled through the night, perfecting their work on crinkled parchment...
And outside in the dark streets, a grizzled old man smiled. José Díez could finally end his time on this earth. The next day his family held a private funeral. Juan Díez blessed his grandfather's body before the other family members lowered the simple wooden box into the unmarked grave. The clouded grey sky overhead was the only witness outside of the Diez family to see the burial of José, after all, who could accept a two hundred year old man? After the initial waves of the inquisition had swept through his home, José had negotiated tirelessly to maneuver his family into the church and out of any suspicion. His efforts had only come to fruition when the charismatic soldier and a longtime friend, Iñigo, had nearly died on the battlefield and converted to Catholicism. Within a year his order had become prominent and respected, the perfect place to hide...
Another hundred years.
Juan smiled as he came over the hill, the hints of age just beginning to show in his weathered face. The simple grey monastery of his auxiliary unit calmed his stormy brown eyes, it was a bastion of safety for him and his family. The Diez's were much greater in number now, filling the stone building with quiet murmur of their voices. Their auxiliary order, los vigilantes de las horas del más alto, or "the watchers of the hours of the exalted one", had been extremely successful. Tucked away in the remote hills of spain, they loyally sent their dues to the Vatican, but aside from that, had little contact with the outside world. No one suspected that behind the long columns of grey stone, the very thing that the inquisition had sought to extinguish, flourished. And now, with it on the decline, they were finally safe...
Four hundred more years...
A bitter smile touched young Ramiro's face as he leaned against the weathered stone. At least, that's what they had thought. Pushing away his fanciful imaginings, the young acolyte focused his mind on the present. If one could call it that. Trudging through the empty halls, Ramiro wished yet again that he could go back in time. After all, that was the magic his family had practiced since ages past. If he could, he would go back to the day before it had happened... The day before everyone had disappeared. Neither Ramiro, nor his Tio, Eric, understood what had happened. But one day they had been part of a bustling community, and the next, they were the only ones in the monastery. And now, they would be leaving the building that Ramiro had known as his home for his five short years of life.
They were moving to America.
Snap. The same bitter smile touched Ramiro's lips as it had twelve years ago. Snap. Another good shot. Lowering his pistol, the young man set it on the gun-rest, next to its twin. The twin Kimber Eclipses had been a goodbye present from his Tio. Ramiro had always loved guns, and to receive such a nice custom set had made him smile, even at the funeral of his beloved uncle. Along with a thick book labeled La época del Dios, a plane ticket, a letter, and enough money to get where the letter directed him. Ramiro's Tio had run out of time only three days ago. Three days which Ramiro had spent out here on the gun range, with no one else around for miles. The battered old pickup with its camper shell that Ramiro and Eric had called home sat a few feet away. It and the long line of targets were the only witnesses to the hours that the pair had spent out here, training. After moving to America, the pair had made their way to a desolate corner of Nevada, where no one would bother them.
Working on an indian reservation as a priest, Eric had managed to provide them both with at least the basics of life. And then, Eric had taken it upon himself to give Ramiro the knowledge of centuries. In the years they had spent together, many of the simple Diez family spells had become second nature to Ramiro, his intelligent young mind eagerly grasping at anything it could get. But now.... Well, now he was the last Diez that he knew of. And without a teacher except for this musty old book...
The battered pickup spluttered to life, and the line of targets grew small in the rearview mirror. With the two guns tucked in his belt and his Tio's last letter sitting on the passenger seat, Ramiro sped along the dirt road away from his past. A place he desperately wished he could change. Hopefully, the future would prove easier to influence...
Style:
Three styles were developed in the Diez family a "trinity" of schools, each with separate specializations. All centered about the use and manipulation of time, typically as a form of dimensionology using a small amount of wordology combined with symbology to enact effects. Many times the schools could be found to overlap in more complex rituals. Nearly all spells used by Ramiro are of the flowing type, with some sort of object being the focus of a magically created glyph or casting symbol. Unfortunately, due to the fact that time is always passing, doing anything with the past is extremely difficult. Like working in a strong flowing river and facing down stream, taking a step backward against the current takes a massive amount of effort. The future on the other hand is much easier to influence with much less energy. Another aspect of his style, is that many of Ramiro's techniques have a static duration. E.g. The clock ticks 2 seconds for every one second that passes elsewhere, for the duration of 1 minute... And after that duration, it becomes exponentially more difficult to influence that particular area of time with each spell that completes its course.
La Hora del Padre - The Hour of the Father
This school of spells deals with time as a series of interwoven threads. Each of these threads belongs to an actual object or set of objects, and represents the flow of time for that object. By 'stretching' or 'shrinking' these threads, time for that particular object will flow faster or slower, and depending on the level of control of the user, nearby threads may be influenced. For example, a clock's "thread" could be stretched and time would slow down for it, resulting in it apparently not moving to everyone around it. This school is the core Ramiro's power, and the only one he has a strong grasp of at the moment.
El día del Hijo - The Day of the Son
The second school of spells that the Diez family specialized in treats time as a flat plane upon which all things rest. Rather than changing the flow at which time moves, this set of spells would focus where any given thing is in time and on manipulating that. So the same clock from the previous example would disappear at ten and reappear at twelve, not because it actually disappeared, but because it was moved to a different place on the plane of time. Another application of this is moving things 'sideways' along the plane. While it is moving in time, time is also not the same everywhere. So moving something 'sideways' on this time plane moves the object's location in time, not forward or back, but to a different place in time at the present moment. This translates into the object's physical location moving, and while it isn't as effective as directly moving the object, it still can be useful. This array of spells generally takes more energy than the first school, and Ramiro isn't quite as well trained in its symbols and methods.
El Momento del Espiritu Santo - The time of the Spirit
This particular set of spells focuses not on time as it is, but as all the possible times that could be. The nature of these spells however, is that they can only utilize possibilities beginning after the spell was cast. This makes them nearly useless in the short term, but over longer periods immensely effective. An example of a spell from this school would be to cast it on the clock and then ten seconds later call an any given possibility of the clock and replace the current clock with this possibility. In ten seconds though, the possibilities that the clock has are limited, and thus, you might have the clock stopped or you might have it five seconds slow. But if you wait five minutes and then replace the current clock with a possibility, someone could have come and taken the clock and left, and then smashed it. This would mean the clock would be in a totally different location and state. The limits to this school are that the more different or obscure the possibility of any given timeline, the harder it is to influence the current time with the possible time. Ramiro only has conceptual mastery of this school, not knowing a single spell that is based solely in it.
Strengths:
Ramiro's primary strength lies in his strong, intuitive grasp of magic. The ability to shift time means that if he's prepared, Ramiro can be quite a challenging opponent. Even the fastest of beings can have their own time thread stretched so that a movement that would only take a second takes ten. And spells with longer durations don't drain him while the spell is going, only the initial energy spent on the spell increases with the time of the spell effect. After his raw skill with manipulating time via magic, comes Ramiro's sharp intellect. Analytical and intelligent, he's capable of understanding and applying concepts of all sorts to any situation he comes across. Finally, years of casual practicing have made him a decent aim with firearms, usually capable of hitting what he's gunning for (if it stands still).
Weaknesses:
When startled or unprepared, Ramiro's focus is weak and his spells tend to be far less effective and much shorter in duration. While he's well read and very intelligent, he lacks any actual experience with combat or life in general. He also tended to eschew his physical training and health in favor of more academic activities and is resultantly very weak and slow physically, as well as not being able to take a hit at all.
Also, his style of magic has some inherent drawbacks, the primary one being the more he manipulates any given part of time, it becomes more and more resistant to subsequent manipulation by him. The effect fades after a certain amount of time, so causing a clock to slow down or stop may not be successful three times in a row, but once or twice, and then an hour later, another time or two. Another of its drawbacks is the fact that the larger an object is, the more difficult it is to influence. A pocket watch would be easy to stop, while the entire london clock tower would take much larger amounts of energy. Due to the fact that once he casts a spell he has no further link to it, he is also unable to change spells of any difficulty once he has started them.
Spell List:
La Hora del Padre - The Hour of the Father:
* La Paciencia del Padre - The Father's Patience. Appears as a single even armed cross glyph marking the object and its thread, with a faint horizontal casting circle enclosing the object. One of the simplest spells in Ramiro's repertoire, this is also one of the most effective. By stretching the thread of time he has selected, Ramiro effectively slows down time for the object that is tied to the thread. The exact amount of time stretching and the duration it occurs is dependent on the size of object and amount of energy used. As a side note, by stretching the thread, this extends it further into the future, making it last 'longer'.
* La Voluntad del Padre - The Father's Will. Appears as a single even armed cross glyph marking the object and its thread, with a faint vertical casting circle encompassing the object. Much like the previous spell, this is simple and effective. It basically compresses time for the selected object, making time pass faster for it, or making everything around it seem slower. These two spells are the only ones that Ramiro can influence while their duration is running.
* Intercession de los Santos. - Intercession of the Saints.. Appears as one large even armed cross glyph surrounded by numerous triangles, marking an object and to a lesser extent, surrounding threads. Three interlacing circles encompass the caster. Very similar to the first two spells, this is simply a more advanced version with side effects. It actually takes less energy, if a bit more practice and knowledge to use. What happens is that all the threads surrounding the object Ramiro has marked are stretched or compressed. But instead of supplying the power to do so himself, Ramiro redirects the stressed threads onto the target thread, causing it to do the inverse action. I.e. if the target's time is sped up, the area around the target slows down. This tends to cause a 'frazzling' sort of effect, as the edges of the object are moving at a radically different time rate than the object itself. Things caught in-between the two different speeds at which time is passing typically suffer deterioration due to this type of stretching, the greater the difference between speeds, the more likely and the larger amount of deterioration may occur.
El día del Hijo - The Day of the Son:
* Camino del salvador - Path of the Saviour. Appears as twelve glyphs which are in a circular pattern around the caster. This simply is a 'sideways' shift in time which results in the caster appearing in a different place. Very difficult to control precisely where it shifts you to, as well as being rather draining. The difference between a large shift or a small one though makes no difference in the amount of energy exerted and if mastered, this spell could allow Ramiro to travel great distances with ease.
* Ojos del Martyr - Eyes of the Martyr. Does not 'appear' as anything. This spell shifts incoming light rays to less than an millisecond later, in an area around Ramiro. The result is that no light is obstructed by him or bounces off of him, so for all practical intents, he becomes invisible. The drawback of this spell is that his eyes receive no light and thus he becomes totally blind while in this state. He is still detectable by other means however, since Ramiro hasn't managed the same trick with sound waves or smells.
Weapons/Gear:
Two Kimber Custom II 10mm handguns (Sans the skull)
Two spare magazines (8 10mm cartridges apiece)
Three boxes of spare cartridges (50 10mm cartridges apiece).
Items:
(None)
Note: Ramiro's family did not randomly disappear. Little hints of the past and the true story will eventually come out in the form of character development. ;D Just a disclaimer. Regarding the names of his spell styles and spells themselves, their titles have very little relevance to the spells themselves and were used initially to mask the magic of the Diez family, and then later only as part of tradition. Anyways, many more spells later. He's still learning, and his book only has basic techniques. It's up to him to find applications for those.
Starting Stats:
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 6
Endurance: 6
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 11
Energy: 18
Little Miss Mai Community Member 
|
|
