Rival: Keve Kornel, Prince of Coffins

 

Rank 6: Great Lord.

The Great Lords do not need your love, nor your loyalty. They don’t even need your obedience. They don’t expect it. How could they? 

They want your awe. This is how they survive: cultivated unassailability. Not of the men and women (who die like anyone dies) but of the Fourteen, and the Seventy-Seven.

As well oppose the rain or the dark. As well rage against death than against the Great Lords. Imagine Zarkany burnt to the ground or slid into the sea–do not imagine it without the Council. Bring one down and sixty-two salivating suzerains line up to fill the seat. Kill one and take their patent and their place. Why wouldn’t you? Do you know what you’d be throwing away?

So the bulwark has held for centuries. But Keve Kornel (Fourth Great Lord of the Day Council) has noticed the spiderweb faults in the foundation. The hellish exhalation of the Fabrication district. The nascent eighth ward. The constant cancer-growth from which the Council fancies itself detached. The hissing peerage, the bleating people, the capering devils, his bickering peers. The red door, its seven failing chains–that most of all, pressing against the back of his eyes.

He closes them, Great Lord Keve, and steeples his fingers, and visualizes stillness. A city swaddled in acquiescence. Restful. Accordant. Governable. This was only a fond image for him, once, to keep his hands from trembling.

Now it is something more.

Beliefs

• If the city is to survive, it must be brought to heel (this belief cannot be modified or removed).
• My foes are unpredictable–even cunning–but fundamentally idiotic and deficient.
• The magic of Orc and his children is a plague. Magicians are arrogant fools

Traits

• Occultist: Keve is well-acquainted with his enemy, and prepared to use its strength.
• Politician: Of course.
• Staffer: The force of human toil—for now—outstrips that of Hell’s magic.
• Proselyte: It would be better if Keve was mad, but he isn’t.

Keve's designs

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

• Destroy Great Lord Vorben, Prince of Shields. Vorben is Keve’s opposite on the Night Council, and has rallied her faction against him. Keve is gathering blackmail–involving a disastrous massacre in Chalktown–to topple her, and replace her on the Council with one of his agents. 2-in-4 chance Vorben resigns. Otherwise, the blackmail emerges, ruins her, and causes riots in Chalktown. She is found hanged by her own apparent hand days later.
• Begin forging the Eighth Chain. Keve will see an eighth chain cast across the door. Once he has the majority he needs on the Council he initiates this, incensing the magicians of the city and expropriating a vast swathe of the Fabrication District. He is fully aware that this won’t stop Orc (and will in fact weaken the magically warded door); he’s counting on it. 4-in-4 chance.
• Denominate the Other. Keve’s thaumaturges are toiling to find the name of the Other, antithesis to Great Old Orc–the suppositional king of Order, Law and Slavery. They will find that such a being does exist, and they will find its name: URIZEN. Keve begins an Ex Cathedra cult to URIZEN immediately–the city is irreversibly changed and URIZEN'S eschaton immanentized. 4-in 4 chance.

Keve's knights

Keve has five knights.

• Barna: Sleek. Beautiful. Merciless. Murderer, Daggertwist.
• Mercedesz Laszlo: Tall. Beautiful. Implacable. Minister, Mystic.
• Zalan Csatar: Fibrous. Beautiful. Emotionless. Defender, Quartermaster.
• Bolga Csatar: Ancient. Beautiful. Imperious. Logistician, Badge.
• Fenwick du Reathe: Compact. Beautiful. Alien. Shadow, Roofrunner.

Great Lord rivals

So Great Lords are tricky. Perhaps they're better understood as natural disasters--not so much to be opposed as weathered. Keve's designs can be stopped, but not by the PCs as they begin the game, and not by them alone regardless. Including him and his design for Zarkany is going to have an outsized impact on your game.

Keve's plot is a hyperobject: grand, sweeping, and slow. If run as a standard rival, his high rank is going to mean that his projects move with an inordinate speed. Instead, consider running him like this:

Each of Keve's designs, once initiated, takes 1d4 weeks to resolve (reshaping the city all the while) before the next one can begin.

(This is a format of design I want to investigate further and codify; as it stands the designs are best for personal goals but not sweeping shit like this.)

You might recognize Mercedesz here from the book;
she's the poster-knight for KNOWLEDGE traits