Rival: Cintia Nemeth, Prince of Torches

Rank 4: Courtier.

Cintia Nemeth is the eye in a storm of bachelorettes, giggling fops, and court scandal. Her immediate impression puts one in the mind of a painted sky lantern. Gorgeous, conspicuous, paper-thin, and entirely weightless. Catch her at a ball and speak to her for an hour and neither of you will have said anything at all. She has worked tirelessly to cultivate the talent.

She’s an excellent dancer, a talented chanteuse, and a much-extolled lover. All of this she approaches with a falcon’s eye–crisp, clear, and detached by miles.

Cintia’s a thin lacquered candy coating on a lead bullet.

In the back of the carriage at the end of the night, on the ride home alone (always alone) she is still as death.

When Cintia moved into Torchglow (as the House of Torches has dubbed its tacky villa in Blood Ward) she tore the four-poster bed from the prince’s chamber and replaced it with a dueling platform and a rack of rapiers. She sleeps on an unfurled mat on the floor.

Beliefs

• With enough training and discipline, any obstacle can be overcome.
• Forgiveness is foolish. A person cannot change their basic nature.
• “Friendship” is cheaply used in Zarkany. The word has lost what should be great gravity.

Traits

• Gossip: Cintia has an encyclopedia in her head of petty scandals and who's kissing who.
• Seducer: Cintia does not feel sexual desire herself, but she knows how to manipulate it.
• Honeytrap: Cintia is well-practiced at seizing and holding attention.
• Duelist: Cintia trains with the rapier and main-gauche every day. She's killed before and doesn't fear it.

Cintia’s designs

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

• Kill Arpad Budai, Prince of Amber. Cintia lives for revenge against Budai’s entire conspiracy; he is first. She pursues this single-mindedly until it’s done, and will grow enraged if it’s done by someone besides her. 2-in-4 chance.
• Obtain the Selemik Saber. The Selemik Saber is a weapon first wielded in the Great Old Orc rebellion, centuries ago, by the devil knight who beheaded the Lama-Prime of Yorri. It’s charged with hellish magic and seeks necks with magnetic accuracy. Cintia wants this sword badly. 3-in-4 chance.
• Marry a fool. Cintia is at marriageable age, and in order to keep up her vapid pantomime, she’s looking to wed. To ensure that they don't interfere with her ambitions, she’s resolved to find the dumbest, most malleable bachelor/ette she can. A partner-in-crime would be acceptable, should they be willing to enter into a strictly loveless bond. Cintia isn't aromantic, but she doesn't have time for affection yet. 3-in 4 chance.

Cintia’s knights

Cintia has two knights.

• Sanaa Juhasz: Gangly, wooly-haired, flippant. Sanaa’s a middle-aged magician with a herd of competing addictions. Considers Cintia’s life unhealthy, but who is she to judge? Mystic, Mirror mage.
• Kev Orsos: Vaguely equine but not unhandsome. Gray at the temples. Former Knight of Cintia’s mentor, the previous Prince of Amber, whose throat Arpad Budai slit. A slow and deliberate talker. Badge, Poisoner.

Using Cintia in your game

Cintia fits as a player character, though to start, she’d be rank 3 and only have one knight–you’d need to pick between Sanaa or Kev. She’s 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 Torches that’s 4. 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.

An isometric view of Cintia's villa, Torchglow