Arcadius
Sobriquet: Der Verräter (The Betrayer) -- Prince
Appearance: Arcadius' form is thin to the point of emaciation with slug-like pale skin, a hairless mien, and rodent-like features. The Betrayer's eyes are the color of piss and are faintly florescent. He dresses perpetually in mourning black against which his varicose veins standout. Like his rodent pets, he is bucktoothed with long thin fingers adorned with ragged claws. A powerful odor of human feces clings to Arcadius regardless of how often he bathes or sprinkles himself with cologne. His only adornment is an ancient gold wedding band with which he fiddles endlessly.
Behavior: Arcadius is a creature divided. On the one hand, he is a being filled with both bile and rage, finding fault with everyone except himself. Thus his only close companions are rodents: mice, rats, squirrels and voles which he uses equally for food, companionship, information and as shock-troops. Yet from within, Arcadius loathes himself most of all and often projects his feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy onto those around him. In truth, Arcadius longs for death as he sees undeath as an eternal punishment leveled against him for past transgressions. And like so many of the children of Caine, he fears that whatever lies after the final death might be worse than his current existence and thus he has faltered in taking his own unlife or allowing others to kill him.
History: Arcadius was born to a prestigious Bello-Roman family in the last years of the Empire. His grandfather (Sidonius Apollinaris) had been the most respected scholar and cleric of his time and his father (Apollinaris) was proud warrior who perished in battle between the Visigoths and Franks. Arcadius rose to become governor of Clermont (in southern France) and upon hearing a rumor that his liege the Frankish King Theuderic I had suddenly died, switched his allegiances to Childebert I (another Frankish king) and in doing so betrayed the city of Clermont for Theuderic was not dead. The Frankish king brought his army to Clermont to punish Arcadius and the people of the city, when Arcandius' request for aid from Childebert failed to produce results he fled leaving his mother and wife to face the wrath of Theuderic. For these crimes he was known and reviled, being refused entry into every city or town that he came to until he arrived at Mainz.
Once again he was refused entrance during the day, but after the fall of night, the southern gate was opened to him and thereafter he joined the ranks of the damned. Although the method by which Arcadius rose to become Princeps remains a mystery, he has been undisputed master of the city since the middle of the sixth century. Other mysteries surrounding Arcadius and the history of the city include who his sire might have been and who was the previous prince of Mainz, if indeed the city had an undead ruler before the Betrayer.
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