Name/Nicknames: Francis Cain
Race: Human/Mage/Pyromancer
Age: 69 (Physically - 39)
Appearance: 6 feet 3 inches tall, with an overall understated toned figure. Light, rosy skin. Short-ish black hair with grey mixed in, intense iceblue eyes. A thick, well-kept black-and-grey beard covers most of his face. The wrinkles around his eye and grey hair reveal his true age, despite his otherwise almost youthful appearance.
Francis wears a dark grey suit with a matching trilby and beige trenchcoat. Underneath these clothes, he has two scars: One on the left side of his chest, just above the heart, and a second one on just an inch to the right of his belly button.
Personality:Francis has seen quite a lot in his life so far, leaving him calm and collected in virtually all situations but also disillusioned about many things. Where some cling to moral concepts that are black and white, he has shifted into the grey. Granted, he wouldn't stand idly by while somebody was murdered but given the right incentive, he doesn't shy away from brutality. His cynical humor and a tendency towards self-destruction make him an 'interesting' companion. But underneath a thick, rough skin, he still wants to believe that people can be good - his loyalty is difficult to earn but almost unshakeable.
Bio: Francis Cain grew up in one of the darkest corners of Santa Somabra, son to a prostitute and an unknown john. Surrounded by poverty, hopelessness and violence from day one, he got used to yelling and sobbing as a part of day-to-day life but also learned a fascinating truth: That even at their absolute lowest, some people, such as his mother and a few of the women around her, held on to their kindness. Their efforts might have made his childhood almost happy if not for a particularly unfortunate circumstance to add to the long list: Around age 4, he displayed first signs of a magic affinity; fires flickered when he as much as looked at them or flared up when he was angry and his eyes glowed like embers as it happened. Rumors spread in days and branded him as an outsider who, as luck would have it, instilled just a little too much fear in the people around him to be picked on or killed, as magic users often were. It gave him the time he needed to learn how to not only control flames but summon them at will, though the full extent of his powers remained his secret.
Once he was 17, he lingered not a moment longer and left the city, drifting from town to town, looking for friends, love, a purpose, knowledge both magical and mundane, in a word: A life. He found some of these things here and others there but they fell to pieces every time and so he stayed on the move for almost 15 years until Francis caught wind of his mother's death. Granted, they had been distant due to his absence but their relationship had always been cordial and her death hit him hard. With her death and his return to a city that might as well have been a warzone, he thought he had finally found a purpose when he decided to join the Santa Somabra Police Department.
It seemed like that was the place where he could make a difference, where knowing how bad life could be in this town would allow him to help those in need. But he soon had to realize that the police was too corrupt to do their work when the rich and powerful were involved, looking the other way when city council members kidnapped little girls for their own sick pleasures, but also were too powerless to fight the gangs and their own brand of justice on their own turf. He caught a bullet in the service to the city that birthed him, worked on the murder cases nobody else was interested in, tried to do good however he could but after 20 years, he gave up on the force.
Instead, he opened his own detective agency in an attempt to do some real good, or so he told himself. A few years down the line, his past assignments covered the classics - shadowing unfaithful spouses, finding missing persons et cetera - but also some less-than-legal ones like contract killing, avoiding jobs that would get him in trouble with the major gangs or that would be undeniably evil. Avoiding... but not always managing to - a fact that weighed heavily on his conscience and fueled drinking and smoking habits.
To him, finding the reasons behind the string of murders was a little bit of both - a regular job to make ends meet and an attempt to get back in touch with what he had originally set out to do as a private eye.
Other:- Possesses a pistol and is an excellent shot with it.
- Knows his way around a fistfight.
- Pyromancy (creating and controlling fire at will) - his pupils glow bright gold and orange when he uses his power.
- Extensive Knowledge about the occult, spells, charms, rituals, wards and potions that require preparation but usually prove a powerful asset.
- Keen observation and deduction skills.
- Has connections to all gangs and some friends on the police, giving him an advantage when it comes to gathering information and wiggling his way out of trouble but making any direct conflict extremely risky and something he avoids whenever he can.
- Chain smoker.
- Heavy drinker.
