Name:
Ansgar Staudinger

Gender:
Male

Age:
41

Appearance:

Personality:
Ansgar is not one to keep his mouth shut, though not in the way that a braggart or fool might chatter on well past their welcome. Rather, his conversation is usually comments and remarks as much as it is useful information, though the truth of such information is often times dubious at best. Warm and amiable in tone, he often creates this air of trustworthiness in his tone, subtly welcoming the idea of trust in the words of a trickster. However, lies and deceit come as naturally as breathing and sleeping, and he has no qualms deceiving and undercutting allies for his own benefit, should the situation dictate. He certainly won't outright betray a partner, should they afford him the same respect, but earning an extra profit on the side? That is certainly never out of the question, whether his current company approves or not.

Equipment:
Ansgar carries a twin set of decks, commonly recognized by those of his homeland as the two accepted decks of Tarot, the Major and Minor Arcana. Both decks play a very key role in how he utilizes his less than natural powers, mainly his illusion and, to a degree, spatial magics, though he hardly refers to them as such. Beyond this, Ansgar carries several loaded dice, alongside a small, locked journal that requires a cantrip from its owner to open at all. For defense, he has a hand crossbow with quite a few bolts alongside a larger dirk, usually strapped to his leg for ease of access. His gloves are reinforced with iron studs for a shockingly harsh blow, while he wears a lightweight breastplate under his tunic for last ditch defense against slashing attacks.

Abilities:

Illusionary Deception: Referred to as the Lady's Gambit among the guild practitioners, the school of magic utilizes the Minor Arcana to perform various feats of illusion magic, throwing phantom copies of the drawn card to act in various ways. Each suit dictates the effects that the Gambit accomplishes, while the number determines how taxing it is upon the user, the higher the number, the less taxing the magic is upon the caster. Befitting the trickster rogues and thieves that practice the art, the Minor Arcana is often rigged in advance, stacked in the favor of the rogue, often times drawing a 'random' card that helps in a given situation, yet chance is still a problem for the art, keeping its name as a gambit. Each suit, as mentioned, performs a different function for the trickster, listed as follows.

- Wands -
Typically provides an anchor for spatial manipulation, most commonly, the Wand suit is most the second most commonly utilized suit among the four, acting as a grounding agent for manipulation alongside other suits, can be used to project the effects of other suits and, in theory, the Major Arcana towards the card in question. The higher the number of the suit, while it reduces how taxing utilizing the anchor is, does not reduce how taxing the card being used might be. For example, a ten of wands would not reduce the strain of a three of cups, rather, most of the tricksters energy and focus for the given trick could go into the three of cups vice having to strain themselves with both utilizing the ten of wands and three of cups.

- Pentacles -
The Pentacle Suit operates on boundaries and the enforcement and manipulation of such, drawing up illusory walls and misdirection to either attract attention, or divert it. Not only does the number of the suit matter for reduced strain, the effectiveness and cooperation of the illusion also taxes the trickster, the higher the number, the less taxing for more effect is found. For example, used on its on, a five of pentacles could provide a believable doppleganger a few feet away from the trickster, as long as the observer is not too close or unusually receptive of the signs of life in a victim. Coupled with a Wand, one could conjur a mirror image running towards a location, or a diverting event, such as loud noise or bright light, to provide an opening for a cornered trickster.

- Chalices -
The third suit of the Minor Arcana of Ansgar's guild, the Chalice is used to prepare two items for switched locations, taking the contents of one item and swapping it with another, as an example. As such, one has to draw either a wand and chalice, or two chalice cards to effect the spell proper, though mixing other suits can have various effects, not all intended. As such, placing a wand upon an item or foe and then drawing a chalice could allow a Trickster to swap places, drag part of whatever the wand is attached to and trade positions with the chalice card, or otherwise swap something of the two given cards positions or holders. The most taxing of the four suits to use, often times, tricksters rely on drawing high suit Chalices to take burden off their spell, though it still is taxing by most standards.

- Swords -
The most common of the four suits to see use, the suit of swords allows a trickster to imbue the card with the offensive properties of one of their weapons, then either hide the card as a trap, or throw it for a surprise ranged attack. The number of the suit not only defines its cost, but how strong the copy of the original weapon's damaging properties is. A two of swords would be weaker, but in a rare switch of states, less taxing than a king of swords. A six of swords is often described as equivalent to the weapon it mimics, though the trickster must either be deeply familiar or in possession of the weapon in question for the sword suit to mimic its effects.

Spatial Manipulation:
Called the Lady's Bluff amongst the Guild, Ansgar and tricksters like him utilize it in conjunction with the wands suit previously described to appear to teleport. Without the Minor Arcana, tricksters could only shift a few feet in a given direction at a time, enough to maybe evade a blow, but not enough to reposition effectively to counter said blow. With the wands and chalices suits from those normally used with the Illusionary Deception, a trickster typically can shift themselves as far as they can throw said card, though their momentum is preserved including direction, which can both benefit and harm as shifting position at full speed, and slamming into a wall full speed, would be harmful indeed. Beyond this, understanding of spaces and dimensions comes with studying for such short hops, making such things easier to understand, and allows any sort of utilization of the Chalices suit within the Minor Arcana at all.

The Major Arcana:
Twenty Two Cards, each with a unique effect bound to them, and no matter how much shuffling or stacking of the deck Ansgar might do before, he never can predict what he would draw. Which means he has only ever utilized the deck in a serious situation once, and only once more outside of that, and as such has to figure out what each card might do as he draws them. The most obvious downside of this is that, beyond the unknown involved, manifesting the effect of any given Major Arcana would greatly tax Ansgar, to the point that he would be barely able to utilize his other magics for a decent time while he recovers his energy, and no amount of restorative tools could counteract this down time. Knowing only what two of them do, Ansgar refuses to use the Major Arcana outside the most dire of situations, though what the two do are noted in his journal as follows.

- The Tower XVI -
"It was a desperate day, the governor's guards had me and my task mate cornered in some gods forsaken farm house. We both had our minor Arcana's, but he was spent already, and I was not much farther behind. If he had survived, he would have reported the Major Arcana I drew from to the Guild right off. When I drew the Tower, I damn near blacked out. Far as I could tell, it swapped the locks of every single thing that had one in the entire building. Any door that had been locked, was unlocked, and vice versa. Left him trapped, but I was able to get out of a trap door that had been padlocked beyond our ability to open. Poor bastard probably suffered quite a bit before they put him out of his misery."

- The Fool 0 -
"Name was fitting, considering curiosity drove me to draw from Major Arcana again. Yet, felt no drain or pull on me when I pulled it, yet I felt this fleeting sense of foreboding, like something was in the works now, wheels of fate spinning madly when before, they merely were turning as usual. Hope I never see that bizarre card again, the jester looked like he was laughing madly at whoever was holding it..." It should be noted that, shortly after drawing the Fool, Ansgar would vanish from his world completely, noted as missing by the Guild and completely undetectable or reachable by any normal means used to track or confirm the deaths of those withing the Guild that simply vanished.

Strengths:
Ansgar has a knack for manipulating odds and things that are normally considered the domain of fortune, such as drawing cards and things that should be outside of his grasp to control to any degree. Whether its as benign as stacking a deck or loading dice, or as involved as rigging an area prior to a fight, just to draw the enemy into it for a home field advantage, Ansgar never fights fair. As a fighter, he is quick, dirty, and experienced with his knife and crossbow alike. Fittingly for a rogue, his ability to move fast and quiet is often second to none, while merging his trickster magic with his normal methods comes naturally, as he had grown up with doing such things.

Weaknesses:
Ansgar is not a durable man, and while he is made of sterner stuff than a mage might be, he certainly pales in comparison to a proper mage. Fittingly, due to his use of chance in his magic, sometimes he wont quite draw what he needs, forcing him to improvise or throw away a spell, taxing him to a degree for wasting the spell for nothing. He also rarely will win a straight up, no nonsense fight with a warrior or mythical beast, either having to evade and rely on tricks, traps, smoke and mirrors to prevail, or survive long enough to actually be able to win the day through outlasting a foe. Without the Minor Arcana, focusing his illusionary magics and even spatial manipulations is incredibly difficult, allowing only brief shifts and basic illusions at best.

The practice trial:
Ansgar strolled into the arena, having had little time to acclimate this far to the abrupt shift in location, having went to sleep in the guildhall he was hiding out in after the near capture on his last job, only to find himself awake in someplace completely foreign, being shuffled off against his will for some trial or another. But, hands resting in his jacket pockets, he quickly analyzed the situation. Big lizard, dragon if his mythology was on point, and it certainly looked angry. Dragons were not something of a thing commonly seen outside fairy tales from his home, but as commonplace as trickery and godly divinations were, something like an overgrown lizard with a serious case of bad breath that could burn your nostril hairs, literally, wasn't terribly out of the question. The thing hadn't made a mad rush for him yet, as he stood squared off with it and weighed his options. First one, kill the dragon. Well, he was no warrior to begin with, nor was he even an assassin by any right. And he doubted a crossbow bolt would do much more than anger it, so unlikely there. Two, steal its egg. Probably his best option, he was a thief by employment after all, stealing things from under the noses of others was certainly a job requirement. Three was survive for an hour. Simple, but he doubted that merely evading a dragon for an hour was all they had in store. "Well big green, suppose we have an hour to play, don't we? Let us dance then, overgrown lizard."

A feint, fleeting smile as he withdrew his hands from his jacket, palming two cards from his Minor Arcana. The dragon roared and lunged forward, jaws snapping forward as Ansgar's palm flicked to the right, a faint copy of a card flying out of his hand and, mere moments before the jaws snapped down on the trickster, he vanished into nothingness, causing the dragon to snap its fangs down on nothing but air with a rather loud noise. About a dozen feet to its right stood Ansgar, having palmed a six of wands and five of chalices. Warping himself with the air present where he threw the wand card was a common trick for avoiding such massive attacks or pursuers. Drawing his hand crossbow, and firing off a shot to get the dragon's attention, he watched as the bolt failed to do more than irritate the beast, scales readily protecting it from the weapon. Unsurprising, really, as he secreted the hand bow back under his coat, not bothering with his dirk yet. The dragon turned, opening its jaw and the heat of fire was apparent. Ansgar dove sideways, barely avoiding the blast of fire that incinerated the spot he was standing not a few moments prior, hitting the ground with a roll, dancing onto his feet with a practiced motion, hand appearing to flail towards the egg in a wild motion that, to a casual observer, might appear to be a side effect of the desperate roll. The heat had him sweating, but he was unharmed otherwise, a small miracle indeed.

The dragon seemed displeased, as Ansgar might put it, the thing lashing out with its claw, forcing him to roll forward, pulling his dirk and slashing upwards against where the tendons should have been for its clawed forearm. And indeed, it would have hamstrung the beast if he had something capable of punching through its hide with a slash. Well, that was going to be a problem, Ansgar frowned, dancing back from a retaliatory strike with its tail, having to dive over the spinning motion the dragon's tail had. Time had been going rather fast, and a second growling was the only warning Ansgar had that trouble had arrived. Spinning low, he narrowly avoided the gnashing teeth of a smaller, white dragon, easily the size of a bigger horse, and a swift upwards punch kept the thing moving just long enough to not land on him. It landed rather deftly, spinning around to meet a flashing card, a keen eye catching that the card was a seven of swords, slicing into the small white dragon's eye, rupturing it and half blinding the beast, eliciting a pained, angry roar that was matched by the green dragon. "Now don't go getting mad, ol' whitescale. You're the one who jumped me from behind, I'm just defending myself!"

One might call Ansgar's grin at the dragon half mad, and his hand slipped into his jacket, while the white dragon and green one had him backed against a wall. He had time for one card, and as he drew, he glanced at the suit, his grin only growing as he flashed the card at the two dragons, regardless of whether they understood or not. A fist grasping a wand, known as the Ace of Wands, and with a deft motion, he sent the ace hurtling into the pod. The dragon's saw the card fly, turning their gaze back to the trickster who's grin had turned sly instead of anything else, his fingers primed to snap. "First rule of a game, boys. Never take your eyes off the dealer." Snapping his fingers, the ace of wands allowed him enough energy to be able to move the dragon's egg that he had tagged near the very beginning of the trial in the arena. A careful, sharp eyed observer would have noted that a certain flailing motion was nothing more than sleight of hand, tagging the egg of the Dragon with a two of chalices. It would have taken a high suit wand to move the egg with such a low chalice, but fortune favored him. With the egg suddenly in the pod, it sealed and closed, and before the dragons could lunge forward and exact their revenge on the trickery and wounding insult, Ansgar vanished, teleported away just like that.

"Well now, whatever the reason, this just might be interesting enough to see through..." The trickster mused to himself in the darkness, awaiting whatever was to come next, shuffling his Minor Arcana deck, knowing each card that passed through his hands by feel alone.