Arturos

Arturos
Arturos, from Ultima VI
Species:	human
Appearances
Ultima VI Location: Trinsic Transcript: Arturos The Ultima 6 Project Arturos, from The Ultima 6 Project Location: Britannia

Arturos is a self-proclaimed "king of the gypsies" who is encamped north of Trinsic with his children, Andreas and Wanda.

Description

When met by the Avatar in Ultima VI, Arturos announced that his name meant "foolish monkey" or "he who sells cheese," depending the translation, but insisted that the hero could call him "Uncle Arthur" if so desired. He denounced Zoltan, another man claiming the title of "king of the gypsies", as an impostor.

The charlatan also claimed that he was able to tell fortunes through the use of the tarot, although his readings seemed to be little more than literal interpretations of the pictures on each card. His divination came across vague and bore little, if any, relation to the hero's current adventures. If given the chance, Arturos would take the opportunity to put his arm around the Avatar - which later elicited comments from Shamino that indicating that he suspected Arturos to be a pickpocket.

The Avatar eventually learned that Arturos had a piece of the treasure map of Hawkins which he had reportedly stolen from Sylaina Moorehead. The clownish man, seemingly unsure of the map's significance, offered to sell the piece for a sum of one hundred gold pieces.

The Ultima 6 Project

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This is an Ultima 6 Project-related NPC article or section. The information within may not apply to Ultima VI or other Ultima games.

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In The Ultima 6 Project, Arturos and his band wandered in a large circle throughout mainland Britannia, never staying in one place long. He was willing to go into much greater depth of his own variety of tarot reading.

When asked about Zoltan, he openly dismissed the man as a fraud.

Trivia

• Arturos' real world counterpart is Ultima VI artist, Jeff Dee.
• The character has an exaggerated, anachronistic Brooklyn accent, seemingly out of place in the high fantasy setting of Ultima VI.
• Technically, one of the stranger parts of Arturos' improvised tarot reading does come true. The Avatar, does, in fact, eventually meet a hierophant.
• A story, told by Culham, seems to indicate that Arturos at one point embezzled Immanuelle out of a horse. In Culham's story, two gypsies devise a trick in which they feed one of the stable-keeper's horses a noxious swamp plant and then claim to her that the creature is ill with an epidemic disease and that if it is not taken away it will infect her other animals. While the two gypsies in the bard's tale are unnamed, the name of the fictitious plague is "Arturosis."
• In reality, the historical title of "King of the Gypsies" was a claim with different ramifications depending on regional and cultural norms. It was certainly not uncommon for the title to be claimed by multiple persons. In several instances it seemed to be taken purely as a means of stabilizing relations with antiziganist gaje, who could use the "King" as a scapegoat rather than punishing Romani communities as a whole for individual slights. In actuality, most Romani groups have no cultural notion of kings or inherited rulers.

See Also

• The Ultima 6 Project Gypsy Calendar