[attr="class","field"]

[attr="class","field"]

[attr="class","field"]The Fraoude family line is over two hundred years old with a record rich with prestige, resources, and magic circuits.  Their estate has been located in Rhineland dating back to the oldest documents on them.  Their estate is located near the Rhine where they benefit from powerful spiritual lands due to the fertile soil and nature spirits.  The Fraoude family used to utilize nature-related magecraft, but the wars in Europe has made the land equally powerful in regards to death magecraft.  Their focus has thus changed in recent generations.

Members of the Fraoude family have always held some role of nobility.  They've fiercely held onto their title of Marquis in Clocktower since they're inclusion into the Mage's Association.  While they lack the prestige and power of the Lord families, they still hold considerable power in comparison families without rank.

Luciel inherited the title of Marquis from his father.  The family has an air of aristocracy to them.  All member of the Fraoude receive basic training in the ways of magecraft along with all etiquette before they go to Clocktower to begin their studies.  They are considered advanced students upon enrolling.

Luciel had received his family's basic training in magecraft and inherited their family seal by the age of sixteen.  He was trained in both herbology and necromancy.  He took classes in many different studies of magecraft, but he eventually settled into necromancy.  He has not focused enough in his studies to reach the level of Department Head, but it is not uncommon for Luciel to teach low-level classes on the subject.

He took up the name of 'Tier' while he attended Clocktower.  Those who only knew him professionally called him Luciel, but his close colleagues knew him as Tier.  His true passion is curses.  He learned these in secret because practitioners are often looked down upon.  His favorite was always the Geas spell and how often it was used in dealings.

Luciel works closely with Clocktower, but leaves to perform his research.  His work toward Curses cannot be seen within Clocktower.  His official interest is researching ancient artifacts.  The Mystic Codes of old or even legendary Noble Phantasms.  He has done work on mostly disproving their existence.  He has a small collection trinkets he's found in his travels.

This very interest is why he was chosen to assist the Red Faction and try to get the Holy Grail back from the Yggdmillenia Family.  His official duty is to help Red Faction win the war and retrieve the Grail for Clocktower.  It is unspecified at this time if Clocktower will return the Grail to the Einzberns or try to steal the secrets to the Heaven's Feel for themselves.  Luciel has his own interests in the Grail though.

[attr="class","field"]Luciel is what you would expect out of a man who has limited power with the mind of a nobleman.  He wants more of it.  He wants to gain a higher title in the Mage's Association.  He wants to become a Department Head.  He wants to bring his family higher and get added to the Lords.  He believes that he has the drive, but not the means to do so.

He's a man who spent his younger years researching endlessly to push his magecraft to new heights, but eventually plateaued in his research.  He focused more on gaining more power rather than pushing his scholarly limits.  He accepted his height as the maximum he was capable of.  While he still researches and works on new spells, his primary objective is to gain more power.

His way of acting in the Mage's Association is very similar to the other power hungry magi.  He is kind to those with power and follows their lead.  He has moved in and out of many groups of lower Lords in hopes of gaining their favor.  He secretly hates every single one of them and would step on each one to reach the top if he got the chance.  He equally treats those below him like lesser beings and they grovel to him.

He is a calculating man who tries to find other ways to handle situations outside of fighting.  Politics is the battlefield he is a master on.  He has purposely left his combat capabilities low because he has no need to waste his time with that.  He could easily enlist someone else to do it for him.  He'll keep his hands out of all of the fighting.

Contracts are a favorite thing of his.  If he were to explain it it would be along the lines of "Nothing is better in the world than two humans who puts their hearts and minds out on a piece of parchment and respect it."  He is one to speak of how wonderful it is for people to work in favor of one another while benefiting themselves as well.  He truly believes that 'contracts' are synonymous of 'promises' and promises are the basis of community.

He loves nothing more than to turn a contract around on someone.  He rarely signs a contract where he isn't ahead of someone else in the end.  He is also one to not allow another to get out of it.  He has dedicated much of his research to perfecting the Curse of Geas for this very purpose.  A contract signed in blood that was created by his hands is something not even a Magician could break, or so they say.

[attr="class","field"]

• Physically weak with little offensive capacity, Luciel avoids direct confrontation in every circumstance.  He will only battle with his words, never with his fists.  He will resort to underhanded means to wear down those who seek to do him harm.  He possesses many means to debilitate others to the point where they are not a threat to him.  He also utilizes others to protect him while he simply sits peacefully.
  
  
• Fraoude Family Crest: Luciel inherited the Fraoude Family Crest just as any heir to the family does. The years of scholarly research that came with it was the basis of his trump card magecraft. It holds a mild blend of Herbology and Necromancy magecraft. Unlike typical Herbology and Necromancy, the focus of the Fraoude family's research was to connect with nature spirits. The fertile lands they lived were host to many vibrant nature spirits. As war gripped the land, the spirits too changed to more morose versions of themselves. While the magecraft can rapidly grow plants or revive dead organisms, it is more suited for getting responses out of spirits in life and death.
  
• Familiar - Ravens: Luciel's familiar of choice are ravens.  He has roughly two dozen he has meticulously worked on to be the perfect sentries.  The ravens all have a spark of independence in them removing the burden of Luciel having to keep track of each one.  When one views something of interest they activate a shared perspective to allow Luciel to watch.  He uses them to cast magecraft and curses from a safe position as well.  He keep them all in a suitcase trunk.  It's almost ceremonial when he opens it and they all fly out.
  
  
• Magecraft - Illusion/Mental Suggestion: A personal hobby of Luciel.  He favors minor illusions or mental interferences and has worked on several to benefit his relations with others.  He usually casts them through one of his familiars or through a bounded field.  The basic effects include making others feel like they're being watched or that he is more trustworthy, encouragement to forget or obscuring something from sight, and alter perception on words either through sight or hearing.  The nature of these illusions makes them incredibly easy to dispel, to the point of being almost accidental for a magi, but often they are overlooked by not being invasive.
  
  
• Curses: The secret obsession of Luciel.  If curses were more acceptable in Clocktower, he may just be the Department Head.  He has researched and learned many different forms of curses through reverse engineering and knowledge sharing.  He is a member of a secret society within Clocktower that promotes the use of curses.  The effects vary from decreasing health and causing pain to outright forbidding certain actions.  Luciel's specialty is applying curses through visual or vocal triggers and weaving them into contracts.  The curse he has the highest aptitude with would be the Geas Curse
  
  
• Mystic Eyes of Contract: A deeply held secret of Luciel.  He didn't realize he had these eyes until his mid twenties.  It could be said that his unnatural obsession with the idea of contracts is a very part of his being and manifested in his eyes.  Never the less, their effect is minimal alone.  When they are evoked, any sort of dealing or agreement must kept.  A 'promise' or 'deal' made either to Luciel or in the presence of Luciel while making eye contact with him puts the one making the promise under a spell that compels them to make good on their word.  However, they merely 'want to' or feel they 'must' do it.  They may break their promise and within a day the feeling of intense guilt and compulsion leaves them.
  
  
• Master Retainer Contract: Luciel's trump card.  This spell is a curse in nature and is on the level of High-Thaumaturgy.  It is built around the concept of the Geas and incorporates everything he knows.  It begins by establishing contact.  Luciel must invoke his Mystic Eyes to begin their connection.  Then by speaking the conditions of the contract aloud and the recipient accepting, he is able to solidify their connection.  He then provides them with a scroll written with the conditions again.  They both must sign in blood.  This invokes an effect similar to a Geas that connects their souls to one another.  Luciel then performs the incantation atop a evocation circle.  
  
  

  "Words that guide us."
  "Oath, unraveled not by time or distance."
  "Blood streams and binds life"
  "Our souls intertwine and our lives bound."
  "I, Luciel Toale Fraoude, am keeper of the contract."
  "<Recipient's name>, become bound by my word."
  "None may break this union."
  "When the sun fades and world is dark,
  Our oath will persist."
  "By my word and my hand, you shall keep thy word."
  "Loyalty and Honesty, Treachery and Deception."
  "Rhetoric is my weapon, dashing away delusion."
  "Spirits bear witness, the soul branded."
  "Contract granted, thy life is mine."
  

  
  
  After the incantation is spoken, a black stylized tattoo appears around the recipient's neck as proof of their contract.  A similar mark appears on Luciel's chest as proof of their union.
  
  The effect of the curse has multiple stages.  Each stage must be advanced by another union and contract, though they need not be as ceremonial as this.  Each stages adds another stylized tattoo that travels along their body.  The first stage causes intense emotional pain when the recipient attempts to betray Luciel, triggered when they think of having ill-intentions for him.  The next stages introduce rewards, a sense of fulfillment by follow his word, and punishments, physical pain for disobedience.  The final stage allows the two to share prana and knowledge, similar to a familiar. 
  
  The nature of the spell is a curse.  Even after the predetermined conditions are fulfilled, the two are bound until the curse is dispelled.  Dispelling this contract is just as difficult as dispelling a Geas.  Luciel suffers no negative effects from the contract.  The stages of effect fall only on the recipient. 
  
  
• Familiar - Hakuzo & Kojoro: Two kitsune spirit that has been bound by Luciel.  He specifically traveled to obtain these spirits.  He spent days binding these spirits to him.  Hakuzo appears as a black fox while Kojoro appears as a white fox.  They fundamentally hate one another, but are forced to cooperate as part of his contract.  They are held by the Master Retainer Contract to its highest severity.  Their spiritual bodies are wrapped in marking that bind them.  They reside in a jade statuette of a two headed fox.  Luciel uses them to possess people for a variety of purposes, only using them to put someone under a Master Retainer Contract under one circumstance.  A magus may resist possession in a similar way to avoid mental interference and a particularly pious human can chant to ward them away.
  
  
• Mystic Code/Conceptual Weapon - Miran, Bearer of Burdens: Another case of Luciel's spirit binding.  Luciel lost his first wife, Miran, to illness when she was only in her late twenties.  Luciel couldn't bear to live without her.  He utilized summoning and necromancy to bring her spirit before him and he bound it to an amulet.  He spent months binding her spirit with his curses to connect them.  The ghost within the amulet was hardly a shell of her.  He much of his time for many years to soothe and seal an Elemental for the purpose of implanting her spirit.  The ritual was successful, but bear few results.  It took years of work to bind the Elemental to the amulet and to accelerate the process of merging Miran with it.  Luciel has put twenty years of his life into trying to bring forth his wife.  The Guardian Spirit within the amulet resembles his wife, but she is different.  Luciel can only give her a temporary illusionary body to be perceived by others.
  
  The proximity of their souls grants Luciel some protections.  The amulet is warded with spells of anti-magic that protect him and Miran against spells to a degree.  When he wears the amulet, most effects that target him target her instead.  Sleep, coercion, mental interference, curses.  They fall on Miran instead.  Physical spells are only affected by residual anti-magic that hardly weakens them.