Name: Don Bertran Casimir Guiate Alcaçar (al-ca-zar), called Casi by his friends.
Age: 37
Race: human
Height: 5'10"
Description:
Bertran is quite obviously of Corezan descent, though his skin trends a bit darker than most nobility. It is a sign of his family's lesser standing in a political sense, though he has done quite well for himself as the years wear on. As a result, he dresses as extravagantly as any other noble peacock, perhaps as a way of making up for his inabilities and heritage. He keeps his hair at a fashionable shoulder length, either letting it hang loose for more informal events or having his servants tie it back in a queue or some other suitably masculine style during more formal events.
Though Bertran tries to hold himself straight, he inevitably cannot. A birth defect causing a twist of his spine has altered the shape of his back, traveling down his right leg and ending in a club foot that was never able to be healed. But why not? Isn't that what magic is for? Well, yes. Consider this: Bertran's family line has had their own brand of magic, part of what has kept them in the Guiate family tree for so long without being pruned out. However, the manifestation of Bertran's magic makes it so that others' magic will not interact with his own. Sure, it's great that most direct magical attacks will not harm him -- but it also means he cannot be healed by magical means. The birth defect stays.
It's a rather bitter thing for Bertran, even though he has for the most part accepted his disability. You see, his parents gave him the names Bertran Casimir with the idea that he would be a militant man with a steady presence on the battlefield of his choosing: constant as a raven, destructive as any true warrior. Alas, that will never happen except in the most metaphorical of ways.
Ah well, at least he has his collection of magnificent hats and canes to keep him company, along with his marvelously styled goatee.
Possessions:
Three horses: one bought and two gifted (though the gifts are, as such things go, part insult).
Soplo de Invierno (gift), a fiery grey barb stallion trained as a riding horse. Currently considered unsuitable for Bertran.
Varado (bought by Bertran), black mérens mare trained specifically for Bertran's use. Praised for her smooth gaits.
Jota (gift), bay andalusian gelding trained in dressage, presently being retrained to respond to Bertran's ability and cues.
Two sturdy carriages.
Permanent (as permanent as anything is in Morua) suite of rooms within La Estrella, as well as his eldest younger brother's main estate.
A personal tailor -- necessity given the unusual shape of his body.
5 runners under his employ, often sent to all manner of places to gather information, hold dealings under Bertran's name (or, sometimes, anonymously) or to carry important messages.
2 staunch and loyal bodyguards.
A personal physician.
Due to his expenses, he could be considered among the lowest ranks of the wealthy, if that. Bertran is not unwise when it comes to money, however, and he lives modestly within his means.
Strengths:
Networking
Networking is a necessity for any man interested in trade, and Bertran is a man well practiced in it. He could be considered very highly ranked when it comes to betweenness and degree centrality, making him an underling with much to offer. His connectivity puts him in constant contact with an innumerable amount of people. Due to this, he is very well informed in matters of trade, though he is specialized in inter-Corezan negotiation and paper from the Mediterraneus trading circle.
Skilled negotiator
Bertran is a fairly good judge of character and nuance, as any good Corezan should be. More than that, however, he is astute at handling the desires of clients in such a fashion that more often than not he is able to reach a satisfactory agreement between all parties involved. He is a man who is typically capable of procuring the results Ramiro Guiate desires.
Softspoken
Between being a cripple and a mellow, quiet man, Bertran is the sort whom others do not feel threatened by. That isn't to say he accepts disrespect -- he holds himself with dignity and demands the respect of his rank -- but rather that the very things that make him unacceptable as a man of power lend themselves towards his career path. Though he might be looked down upon in the sense of what is considered masculine in Corezan culture, he is usually honored and respected for his status as a Guiate Merchant Representative.
Well liked
Reliable and honorable (as far as Corezan honor goes), Bertran's reputation is quite healthy. As with the above, the fact that he isn't exactly a threatening figure means that he is usually warmly received. Not to say that he is typically underestimated -- merchants are not so stupid -- but rather that he is easy to get along with. Bertran easily modulates his behavior depending on location and circumstances. Beyond that, he is even-tempered and patient. It is safe to say that only a handful of people have ever seen him visibly angry.
In Between:
Magical field
Some of the Alcaçar bloodlines carry with them a bit of a magical taint not entirely unlike that which plagues the majority of Quijas bloodlines. A type of heriditary magic, it often manifests in predictable ways, with certain tendencies towards perception of magic and awareness. It is for this reason that the Alcaçar family has done so well for themselves: originally a family of wizards, they have since climbed the ranks of noble courts, eventually intermarrying to the point that the family itself is very nearly gone.
Bertran's particular manifestation is aberrant. Rather than an awareness he can control, it instead clings to him like a magical skin. He can sense magic so long as he is within arm's length of it. Due to the way it coats him, it acts as a barrier. Purely magical effects do not affect him. Secondary magical effects (such as conjured fire or telekinetic abilities) still harm him. It is a double-edged sword, since there are many magical things he would love to make use of (primarily healing, though it also means he is unwelcome around magically engineered objects). Still, he does not have to worry about being magically coerced or tampered with, and that is a boon for a man in his position.
Weaknesses:
Cripple
Bertran cannot walk without the aid of a cane. He is incapable of walking very quickly. Climbing is impossible. Due to the twist in his spine, complex movements are impossible. He can twist a little bit, and his strength is small. Though he isn't stupid, he has not a warrior's judgement. He has had to hire bodyguards to keep himself safe, and beyond that he would be quite easy to kill. He cannot maintain perfect posture, which bothers him, and the fact that he is considered less than whole means that he is very unlikely to ever have a wife, or children.
Susceptibility to Disease and Injury
Being in contact with so many people on a daily basis and being immune to magical healings means that if there is a dangerous strain of something going around, Bertran has a higher probability of contracting and falling prey to it than most. He can't visit a local hedgewitch or hire an expensive healer to fix things. Though he has a personal physician, magic's prominence in Eyropa has greatly stunted the study of non-magical medicine. The fact that he himself has a form of magic means that most puradyne doctors -- typically the most advanced in non-magical medicine -- won't touch him. Or, their prices are too steep. Bertran has to be careful with his health, especially if he expects to maintain his employment under Ramiro Guiate. Being considered defective is one mark against him -- he cannot afford to be sickly on top of that.
Being crippled gives him a higher chance of sustaining injury than most, as well.
Political Clumsiness
Maybe it was his upbringing. Maybe it's his fondness for economical maneuvering. Whatever the case, it cannot be said that Bertran is particularly adept at the political play necessary to rise beyond the niche he's carved for himself. Without help, Bertran will remain as someone else's man for the rest of his life. What's more, his inability to stay ahead of the policy-changing actions of the Moruan movers and shakers means that he has to consult others if he intends to keep his job.
Not Taken Seriously
At the table Bertran may not be underestimated, but in a more personal sense his opinions and values are often overlooked or outright ignored. He is often not considered a man, and so his thoughts on martial affairs or sport are typically ignored or laughed away. Bertran, being something of a novel member of the family, has very few people he could consider friends. He has to overcome prejudice (and occasionally bigotry) on a daily basis. It can be exhausting and isolating.
Family:
Mother - Chiteria
Father - Simo
Siblings
1 Bertran +0
2 Esteve +1
3 Nofre +3
4 Caterina +5
5 Nicolau +6
6 Ysabel +10
History:
Having been born to an average branch of the Guiate family tree, Bertran's prospects were exceptionally dismal at birth. Weakness in Morua -- indeed, in most of Corezo -- were not well looked upon, and the twisted shape of the babe was viewed as an ill sign. Being that he was first born, it was not a good sign for the mother. What woman desires such a thing be connected to herself and her fortune? What man would look kindly upon a young wife and his heir apparent, when he had the whole of his future stretched ahead of him? A man had to have full capabilities to be truly celebrated in Morua, and it was obvious even as a newborn that Bertran would not. The doctors and healers all had the same things to say. The babe was poked, prodded, tested; it was aggravating in the extreme to be told so frequently that there was nothing that could be done. Nothing? Bertran's father, Simo, was not a bad man. But despite not being a bad man, he was part of Corezo's nobility, and bound by his ambitions.
"You," he told his wife, "will bear me more children."
And so she did.
Bertran was quickly overshadowed by his second, and then third brothers. His sister, fourth born, took his mother's attention, though by the fifth born (another son) he was fairly used to being on his own. His last born sibling, another sister, was the icing on the cake. Though the sting of the first son's birth was never quite erased by the following children, Simo was soothed enough to not treat his wife so harshly. Esteve, secondborn, was chosen as heir (appropriate considering the rosy cheeked lad seemed to be everything Bertran was not, at least in physical form; his attention span was abysmal, but it was put to the perils of boyhood, and he was grandly spoiled), and Bertran was left to be Bertran. Which meant, in all reality, that he was strictly trained in the art of mathematics. After all, who better to take over the duties of the family's majordomo of the manor than a son who wasn't much good at anything else? Bertran would have happily provided them with many ideas, but as he was yet a lad of 10 he was much ignored. Which, really, was how his young life went. Still, it helped that his mind had what his body was lacking, and he took well to numbers. Though never as highly celebrated as the rough sport his brothers partook in, genteel though it may be considered, he was nonetheless found satisfactory.
If the lack of accolades and signs of subtle love bothered Bertran, it never showed. He was a quiet child who learned quickly about when and when not to speak. For companions he chose the more scholarly of the servants, and he had a knack of disappearing that prevented him from too often becoming the target of his siblings' cruel jokes. He was smarter than them, of this he was quite sure. Even though he really wasn't that far ahead, it was a comforting sort of thought. Because he had much time for thoughts, and he was older than they, he learned how to think around them. It was a matter of survival. Thus it was that his childhood was not the horror it might have been. He wasn't unhappy. All in all, he had a good education and no lack of intelligent and well-thought adults to talk to. Perhaps because he was not shy in greeting guests and talking to them, the plans his father had worked out for Bertran to be a bachelor for life in the keeping of the manor's accounts went quite awry on Bertran's seventeenth birthday.
Hector was a representative for the Guiate trade interests who was visiting Bertran's father. Bertran happened to catch his eye over dinner conversation. Bertran's enthusiasm when it came to matters of money and economy impressed Hector, especially given that knowledge regarding intricacies of trade and the act of selling merchandise was not highly looked upon in the Corezan culture. An unwelcome necessity, yes, but merchants were never wholly accepted, and most who fell into the trade either did so from family connections or as a last resort. Bertran's own loneliness made him an easy target for Hector's own goals, and as a result and a hefty apprenticeship fee (and some pressure by some of Hector's sponsors, notably Ramiro Guiate's father), Bertran found himself with a new destiny in life.
The following years saw Bertran become as near a son to Hector as was possible without being born of his own blood. They went everywhere, did everything together. Life fell into a routine punctuated only by the highs of success and a few trenchlike lows when the bottom of market speculation fell out (once when Bertran was 24 years of age and another when he was 29, and once more at 31). Hector was not a greedy man; he was careful and thoughtful and well used to tickling correct trends and foreign markets. Bertran became familiar with Hector's contacts and made a few more on his own.
Presently Bertran owes fealty to Ramiro Guiate after contracts were worked up by both his father and Hector; Hector himself has transferred his own loyalties to Ramiro after the sire retired. Bertran stands to inherit Hector's contacts and contracts -- a heady event for any in their profession -- though he has a few rivals in that field. Hector does not have any children (two died young and a third died as a result of a bad investment and a bad rivalry), and though Bertran is perhaps his best pupil, he is not the only one.
Bertran remains determined to rise as a trading representative, even if political appointment is impossible. Bertran enjoys what he does and expects to survive long enough to retire -- no matter the odds.
