Christian Rosenkreuz

* Independent King

**Christian Rosenkreuz** is a legendary 14th-century wizard and founder of Rosicrucianism. He is an Ultimate-class Rating Game champion affiliated to the Iron Bank and is the supervisor for Team Trump Card of Heaven in the Azazel Cup.

## Overview

**Christian Rosenkreuz** (also spelled **Rosenkreutz** and **Christian Rose Cross**) is the legendary, possibly allegorical, founder of the Rosicrucian Order (Order of the Rose Cross). He is presented in three manifestos that were published early in the 17th century. These were:

* *Fama Fraternitatis*.
* *Confessio Fraternitatis*.
* *The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz*.

## Appearance

Rosenkreuz appears as an attractive young man, with collar-length silver hair that is longer on the left side-bang, and lime-green eyes. During Rating Games, he wears an ornate set of crimson robes beneath gleaming light armor with the sigil of the Mammon Clan engraved breastplate.

## Personality

Rosenkreuz is bizarre and unpredictable, doing what he pleases without much thought or restraint. He tends to have a meaningful smile on him and behaves and speaks mysteriously, though those who know him can tell they don't actually hold any deep meaning. While he dislikes obligation, he can work very earnestly if he focuses on it, though it's unknown what he thinks during these moments.

He is often praised for his elegant mannerisms which is like an art form to which his body exudes a sense of dignity, giving him strong stateliness. However, depending on the people he's talking to, his behavior may vary, from distant to elegant to playful, all based on his relationship with the ones before him and how serious the situation requires him to be.

He enjoys using his seemingly mysterious reputation for personal entertainment, playing with his words to make them sound metaphoric or sometimes sarcastic to some while completely normal to others. As such, he can be quite secretive and difficult to read.

He is very cunning and intelligent, and is known for his mastery of a hundred different forms of hybrid magic, many of which he personally created by combining his background education in Catharism with the knowledge he gained from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, especially Kabbalah mysticism and Zoroastrianism.

He is a good listener and a positive thinker, and despite his tragic upbringing, he is kind, caring, and loves to see people smile. He values little things in life and believes every day that passes is important, no matter how seemingly ordinary it may seem. He is thoughtful, considerate, and cares for the bonds of people he considers friends, and can be very protective of them in face of danger.

## History

### Early Years

Christian Rosenkreuz was born in 1378 as the only son of an old aristocratic family of wizards in Germelshausen, a small region in Thuringia state, who also descended from the Teutonic Order. While their status as wizards remained a secret, they were known for embracing Albigensian doctrines, which ultimately led to their death when he was only five years old.

However, before they were captured, his parents were able to save him by sending him away with an old friend who was a monk, sending him to live and be raised in a small monastery in Languedoc that also served as a secret school for the local wizarding folk.

### Pilgrimage

For twelve years, Rosenkreuz lived with the wizard monks, but when he was 16 years old, he decided to leave Languedoc to go on a spiritual journey to discover himself. And thus, in the spring of 1395, he went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and learned many esoteric wisdom along the way from Turkish, Arab, and Persian sages, as well as Sufi and Zoroastrian masters.

### The Rosenkreutzer

After his pilgrimage, Rosenkreuz returned to Europe, wanting to spread the knowledge he had acquired to the wizards, scientists, and philosophers of the time, but due to his hidden background, he was often dismissed. Frustrated, he gathered a small circle of loyal disciples and around 1407, he founded **Rosenkreuz** (薔薇十字団ローゼンクロイツァー, *Rōzenkuroitsā*), or the **Rosicrucian Order of the Rose Cross**, a spiritual and cultural movement "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past".

At first, the order had no more than eight members, but as time went on, the group began to slowly gain more and more followers and influence in the supernatural world. After nearly a century since its foundation, the order began to expand in size and influence, slowly gaining more secret members due to the attraction that Rosenkreuz's many forms of hybrid magic brought. Since then, that had been the foundation of their order's special magic system, which combined Christian Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Christian mysticism, and Gnostic traditions from Catharism.

Originally, he was heavily invested in the order's business, though as time went on, his involvement became less and less until he eventually passed on the position as chairman to a chosen successor in around 1484, faking his death and entered a life of anonymity at the age of 106. Sometimes in his retirement, he met and fell in love with Lorath Mammon, Lord of the Mammon Clan and head of the Iron Bank, before accepting his proposal and was reincarnated as the sole [Bishop] of his peerage.

### Mammon Bishop

Due to his pre-existed reputation as a brilliant wizard and his own of the magical arts, Rosenkreuz quickly rose through the ranks, winning one Rating Game after another, and became one of the first reincarnated devils to reach Ultimate-class. And while it infuriated the pureblood devils that a reincarnated devil surpassing High-class devils like them, his status as the Prince-Consort of Lord Mammon prevented them from doing anything, especially when the Devil Civil War had just ended less than a century ago.

In late 1980s, he and Lorath adopted a human child named Rudiger, though due to incompatibilities with his Sacred Gear, his life was greatly shortened, not to mention the same "blessing" that was killing him also prevented his fathers from reincarnating him as a devil. Due to their son's admiration toward Dulio Gesualdo, who once saved his orphanage from a terrorist attack, they reached out to him to see if his son could meet his hero at least once before he died with no hope of success, yet to their surprise, Dulio did arrive and visit Rudiger frequently until his last days.

## Equipment

**Bishop Pieces** (僧侶の駒, *Sōryo no Koma*): Rosenkreuz was reincarnated using two Bishop Pieces, which grant him an immense increase in his magical power as all of his pre-existed magical powers and skills were greatly enhanced. In addition, they also act as a pseudo-magical foci that allow him to wield the Mammon Clan's magic circle to cast his demonic magic.

## Trivia

* Rosenkreuz is the [King] of his own independent peerage.
* Most modern members of Rosenkreutzer believed Rosenkreuz to be an allegorical figure.
* Despite the three manifestos "Fama Fraternitatis", "Confessio Fraternitatis", and "The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz" are said to be pseudo-biographical records of his life, only a couple of details in there are true while the rest were written based on rumors surrounding him, with many key details such as the day of his birth or even the order's founding date wrong.
	+ According to Rosenkreuz, the last manifesto was true... in the sense that it was based on the strange visions he had written down in a journal after spending an entire night using "wizarding proto-LSD".
* Historians and occultists believe Rosenkreuz to be a pseudonym for a more famous historical figure, usually Francis Bacon, an English philosopher and statesman whose works are seen as developing the scientific method and remained influential through the scientific revolution.
	+ Later on, it's revealed that Francis Bacon was his descendant through his maternal line and was one of his apprentices, among them was the Count of St. Germain, a figure also attributed as the supposed historical inspiration for him.
* It's believed that Rosenkreuz was the descendant of St. John the Apostle and Lazarus of Bethany.