Aranthaes Palace is the Crown Jewel’s great rival, and makes no attempt whatsoever to disguise the fact that it considers itself superior.
Where the Crown Jewel offers polished grandeur, Aranthaes Palace embraces extravagance without apology. Its entrance hall rises through several storeys beneath painted ceilings and cascading chandeliers, while marble floors, gilded columns and vast arrangements of fresh flowers announce immediately that restraint is not part of the experience.
The guest suites are enormous, with private salons, dressing rooms, heated bathing chambers and balconies overlooking the Restaurant Quarter. The finest occupy entire corners of the building and are furnished more like private residences than temporary lodgings. Even the cutlery in the principal dining rooms is gold.
Its clientele includes foreign royalty, ambassadors, High Aranthaen families between residences, merchant princes and anyone wealthy enough to regard several hundred gold pieces as an acceptable price for avoiding inconvenience. Staff can arrange private carriages, personal chefs, guards, secretaries, musicians and almost any luxury a guest might reasonably — or unreasonably — request.
Aranthaes Palace is also intensely conscious of status. Guests notice who occupies which suite, which entrance they use and where they are seated at breakfast. Entire diplomatic messages have been inferred from room allocations.
For visitors with sufficient wealth, however, there are few places in Aranthaes more comfortable. The Palace’s guiding principle is simple: if something can be made more luxurious, then it probably should be.
Encounters
Aranthaes Palace is one of the grandest inns in the city, a place of gold cutlery, private suites, diplomatic breakfasts and discreet but relentless status games. Most encounters here involve wealth, influence, vanity or intrigue rather than open violence, though trouble can still be ruinously expensive. Roll d10 for possible encounters…
- A richly dressed merchant family from overseas is loudly admiring the lobby, to the visible irritation of several older High Aranthaen guests who feel they are enjoying themselves too obviously.
- A footman accidentally delivers the wrong tray to the wrong private salon. By the time the mistake is noticed, a guest has already opened a sealed note meant for someone much more important.
- A noble guest is causing a quiet scene at the front desk after discovering that a rival family has been given a better suite. The staff are trying to smooth things over before the dispute becomes public.
- A jeweller has arrived in a private sitting room to show a selection of gems and finished pieces to a wealthy patron. The collection is worth a small fortune, and several people nearby have begun taking an unhealthy interest in it.
- A senior servant discreetly asks whether the party might help locate a missing lapdog that belongs to an extremely influential guest. The animal was last seen near the kitchens and has a diamond-studded collar worth more than many city homes.
- A visiting ambassador and their aides are taking breakfast in tense silence. Everyone nearby can tell that negotiations have gone badly, and the smallest perceived insult now threatens to become a diplomatic incident.
- A celebrated singer is due to perform at a private supper on the upper floor, but has not yet arrived. Their patron is growing increasingly furious, while servants race through the Palace trying to discover whether the performer is delayed, drunk or missing.
- A professional gambler of impeccable manners is entertaining a table of wealthy guests with cards, wit and ruinous charm. One of the players appears to be losing far more money than is wise, and may soon try to recover it by less elegant means.
- A plainly dressed guest in an excellent suite attracts quiet attention from the staff. They arrived without escort, carry themselves like old nobility, and seem determined not to be recognised. Unfortunately, several people already think they know exactly who they are.
- In one of the Palace’s principal dining rooms sits a striking and unmistakably important trio: Fayett Trallias, travelling under a quieter name but impossible to mistake for anything other than high birth; Lord Kanzar, elegant, vain and watchful; and Eliran, the elven mage whose calm presence suggests both refinement and danger. Officially they are merely dining, but every servant in the room knows this table matters.