Balcésar Cruz

* IC Info
* Appearance
* OOC Info

## Description

Balcésar is a heavy-browed, fairly tall, well-built man with a substantial, but lithe musculature maintained for practical, athletic purposes. He's not prone to being especially showy but maintains an intentional appearance: a slightly unkempt but absolutely manicured Neo-Noir aesthetic in the fashion of a short beard, only-just-mussed but styled hair, v-necks, jeans, shades, and a black leather jacket. The salt-and-pepper's crept into his hair and beard a bit--a highlight he embraces.

Appearance: 4.

## Personality

A longtime cynic, Balcésar is an often brusque and thorny man, impatient with the niceties of social interaction and disdainful of high society. Generally an independent loner, he prefers to keep his own counsel and lose himself in either his work, drink, or memory, whichever is the most satisfying at any given moment. He is confident, self-assured, and deep into the acerbic-but-handsome Neo-Noir aesthetic.

A professional observer, the man can be very thoughtful and insightful (if you can get him to talk) and dependable (if you can get him to act). He's far from lazy, but his attitude routinely conflicts with those in authority, and he has no compunctions against speaking truth to power, so he's prone to ignoring authoritative directives that don't come with good and solid attendant reasoning.

And "good" here is not a flippant use of the word. A benevolent man at his core, he will not act contrary to his sense of justice and humanity, even if that puts him in conflict with the powers that be (and sometimes especially; he is not above employing spite to test boundaries). He is also emphatically opposed to producing art, setting him as a Toreador apart. That said, he can usually be found observing the banal and the mundane--the small, often forgotten moments that collectively illustrate the real, human value of life and living.

## History

Balcésar was born during the Restoration period of Spain in the early naughts of the 20th century. He spent much of his early years in his native Cádiz of Spain's Andalucia region, traveling between there and Barcelona--his wife's hometown--where he mastered his art. After his wife's death due to health complications and seeing to the establishment of his children, he would travel abroad, especially in Latin America, during which time he crystallized his style. For a good decade, he produced a substantial amount of critically-acclaimed but understated work, until his Embrace and the attendant promises that came with it.

More recently, and due to some... disagreements with his sire, Balcésar denounced her, her cadre of Toreador, and the very idea of eternal unlife for the sake of art, turning his back on the Old World and coming to the U.S. to get as far away from that circle as possible. His present identity is that of a Puerto Rican private investigator.

## Sheet

Template:Vampire Sheet

Specialties
*Talents*
* **Empathy (Affairs of the Heart)**: When it comes to reading people, Bal has a particular talent for glimpsing their emotional states, and determining in particular what might be causing them pain (because of love, listlessness, grief, etc.).

*Skills*
* **Craft (Painting)**: Despite any present aversion to the craft, Bal's master-level skill hasn't diminished.

Knowledges
* **Investigation (Evidence)**: Be it through photography or careful evaluation of a crime scene, Bal has a practiced eye for the collection and evaluation of evidence.

Techniques
Unnatural Grace
Spend 1 Blood and expend a simple action to activate Unnatural Grace. For the next hour, your character can stick to solid surfaces, maintaining her balance at angles up to 90 degrees. Thus, your character can stride up a wall or saunter across a miniscule tightrope, but she cannot walk upside-down on a ceiling. When you employ Unnatural Grace, you land silently from any fall and take no damage from falling up to one mile. Regardless of the circumstances, you always land perfectly on your feet.
Backgrounds* Alternate Identity: The present identity Bal lives under was not his original one.
	+ Previously, a magic realist painter: Miguel Salazar Alvarez de Cádiz.
* Contacts: As a PI, cultivating a strong network of contacts and goodwill is essential.
* Herd: A number of thankful clients who are willing to donate a little extra something to have a PI on retainer.
* Resources: Solo PIs often don't make a lot. :(

Merits & Flaws
*Merits*
* **Acute Sense**: As part of his artistic talents, Bal has a very refined sense of color, aesthetic, and sight in general.
* **Blush of Health**: Closer to humanity than most, this expresses further in a physical approximation of life.
* **Calm Heart**: Despite his spicy attitude and confrontational sass, Bal is at heart calm and slow to true anger and rage.
* **Eat Food**: This really exists entirely for booze.

*Flaws*
* **Disgrace of the Blood / Sire's Resentment / Unconvinced**: When Bal's sire, "Bailey," initially Embraced him, it was a means of preserving the man's master talent. Bailey considered his art breathless, a genius merging of harsh realism and soft fantasy, capturing the banal and overlooked and framing it as something magical with impressionistic skill. At first, and as an observer of human nature, Bal found the thought of perpetuating his art forever rather appealing. However, he quickly became disillusioned with the hedonism and politicking, determining he had stepped further away from the human condition than he had realized. He quit producing art, uninspired, unfulfilled, and very publicly denounced Bailey's attitude and Toreadors in general. Then, he left. Bailey has never forgiven him.

## Additional Pictures

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