Rival: Arpad Budai, Prince of Amber

Rank 5: Lord

The House of Amber

Arpad Budai’s mother was gentle and kind. But she dreamed too often, and too boldly, and Zarkany is no place for the dreams of a glass-blower’s daughter. When his fellow nobles make awkward conversation with him at the parties into which the Prince of Amber muscles his way, they hazard sometimes a guess that Arpad–risen as he is from the deprivations of Chalktown into the halls of the princes–is living a dream come true. But Arpad Budai is not his mother; he is not gentle or kind, and he never dreams.

Arpad Budai’s father was tall, broad, and strong. Arpad would be, too, if his father had lived, and if his mother hadn’t taken the bottle as her consolation. But he didn’t, and she did, and Arpad Budai is not his father; Arpad’s physical heritage was overwritten by the starvation’s stunting quill. Hunger robbed him of at least a foot. He walks like he's as tall as nature intended.

Arpad became the Prince of Amber two weeks ago, by slitting the throat of the old Prince deeply enough to nick the vertebrae. He dug the heart from his victim, pried the patent of nobility from it while it was warm (hot even) and swallowed it. His blood turned violet and his touch turned golden. A prince is immune to common-folk law; murder a prince and move quickly enough to swallow their patent, and the Ordinancers can’t punish you.

(That’s left to the dead prince’s friends and allies. Cintia Nemeth was old Amber’s, and he had more.)

Now the House of Amber is overrun with traffickers and hooligans, drinking Old Amber’s wine and smashing the china. The neighborhood Amber lorded over has descended into anarchy, they say. Prince Budai walks on shaky, disintegrating ground, but he walks with swagger. He leapt from gang-fodder nobody to Lord, and no one knows how.

The thing keeping him alive at the moment is unfathomability–questions are asked of and to him constantly. What does he want, besides the hors d’oeuvres he scarfs by the fistful? Is he a sacrificial lamb, or is he the wolf his grin suggests? How did he kill a Lord? Who helped him, and what will they do to his enemies?

Arpad smiles, and drinks more wine.

Beliefs

• All this “prince” pretense is gold leaf on a dog turd. None of these people are better than me and they know it.
• You may think you’re righteous and just, but that’s just because you’ve never been starving.
• It is impossible to know the true nature of someone else until you have seen them at their absolute most vulnerable point. Until then, it’s all bullshit.

Traits

• Daggertwist: Arpad's fingers and arms are covered in scars. He learned from each of them.
• Lockpick: Arpad was the locks guy in his first criminal outfit. He rose quick, but never stopped plying the trade.
• Populist: Arpad's complete lack of social graces extends only to the gilded ladder. To those below its bottom rung he's got a silver tongue (and golden pockets).
• Streetsmart: You can take the gangster out of Chalktown, but etc.

Arpad’s designs

In order of priority, Arpad wants to do the following.

• Make allies. Arpad has to consolidate his position, and quickly. He has none of the charm or manners the old Prince of Amber did, but he has a valuable dockside neighborhood under his control and a lot of stolen funds. He is smart enough to know the kind of person that attracts, and will move quickly to enter alliances with them. 4-in-4 chance.
• Reshape Quayblock. Arpad grew up in Quayblock, the Chalktown neighborhood once controlled by the Prince he murdered. Now it’s his. He’s hard at work using his newfound power to establish a strong syndicate presence in the neighborhood and convert it into a kleptocracy. If he’s successful, the quality of life there improves dramatically, and break-ins increase in the more moneyed districts. 3-in-4 chance.
• Complete the Work in the Basement. Arpad has three magicians working around the clock in the basement of the House of Amber, lured by coin and kept by blackmail. They are working on something down there–at street level you can hear hammering and hissing like it’s a forge. Nobody is sure what’s going on. 3-in 4 chance.

Arpad’s knights

Arpad has three knights.

• Grimok: Huge. Scarred. Bald. Grimok is Arpad’s old bruiser from his gang days. His loyalty is uncomplicated and absolute; the boss clearly knows what he is doing. Defender, Insurgent.
• Drimok: Huge. Tattooed. Bald. Drimok is Grimok’s older brother. He bodyguarded Arpad at the prince’s first sinfonietta, and upon hearing Lady Bianca, the famous chanteuse, found himself weeping for the first time in his life. He knows nothing of opera but he is falling in love with it (and Bianca). Murderer, Fence.
• Stuzsek: Grey, wispy hair, filmy eyes, trembling knees. Stuzsek is an ancient magician, and was one of the old Knights of Amber. Arpad made his options very clear to him when his master died, and he chose wisely. Now he labors in the basement with two of his old apprentices, working on… something. Shape mage, Occultist

Using Arpad in your game

Arpad fits as a player character, though to start, he’d be rank 3 and only have one knight–you’d need to pick between Grimok, Drimok, and Stuzsek. You’d also need to decide just what it is he’s working on in the basement. I suggest something catastrophic to the city’s current order.

Arpad is designed primarily to be a rival. You can read more about these folks in the rule book, but here’s a brief.

A rival is an NPC prince, designed to add time pressure to your games. Rivals are represented by the rival die, a d20 roll at the end of each in-game day (recall that in VICIOUS PRINCES a turn is a day).

Each day, a rival has a number of ambition points equal to their rank to put into their designs. For our Prince of Amber that’s 5. As the GM, you may distribute the points among the designs as you see fit. Should a rival have a trait that lends itself particularly well to a design, add an extra point whenever they pursue it.

At the end of each day, you’ll roll the rival die once for each rival. If the result is equal to or below any of the prince’s designs, then they may pick one to complete; as the next day dawns, the rival makes their move.

Each design a rival pursues has a chance-in-4 of success; default to 3-in-4, but drop to 2-in-4 for rash plans or raise to 4-in-4 for calculating ones. You’ll roll that d4 when the rival strikes to see if they were successful; if they weren’t, come up with some juicy aftermath.