Defenders of the Realm
Alrighty, here are the houserules for prospective players to read through. It is a lot, and I apologise for the length, however it will clear up most of the important elements.
CAMPAIGN
Ancient Rome. The Empire covers most of Europe, half of Africa and over a quarter of Asia. It is the most powerful Empire ever to exist, and it is not due to collapse at the hands of barbarian forces unless the Empire were to fall into a civil conflict so bad that the Emperor himself were rendered completely incapable of making any decisions on its solution whatsoever.
However, there are darker threats to the Empire. Monsters, both within and without its borders, seek to manipulate the Empire for their own dark motives. Some seek to enslave its people and establish themselves as the new Emperors. Other seek to cause its people to become degenerate and act as such whilst using the move as a distraction, drawing attention away from them whilst they prey on the innocent. And then there are those who simply seek to tear the Empire apart – creating chaos and strife never before seen – purely because it is what they were born to do.
However, that is why the Legio Athena exists.
The Legio Athena are a secret unit of the Roman Army which seek to battle these forces which would destroy the Empire, and protect the Empire, the Emperor, and the people. Very few outside of the unit know the Legio Athena, and those few who do think it is merely rumour with no basis in truth.
The Legio like to keep it that way. For the best way to strike against the dark foes of the Empire is to hit them with what they aren't expecting. After all, a vampire will not know that hunters seek to destroy him if he does not know that those hunters exist, and a demon which possesses and controls the innocent to commit its atrocities won't see the scout which belongs to a unit that it has never heard of.
The Legio are the perfect embodiment of their ideal. Never before has an organisation remained so pure to its goals. This is implemented in equal share by both each member's dedication to protecting the innocent and the magical oaths of loyalty which completely stop them from betraying or harming those they are charged with defending. And no member, past or present, has ever found a way to go against their oath – nor have they ever desired it.
SETTING
The setting of the campaign is an altered history version of the ancient Roman Empire. In the real world history of the empire, it only existed between the eighth century BCE and the fifth century CE before it fell through an indirect rise of Christianity and a direct involvement of the barbarian lands' armies wars against the empire. Below are details on the altered history of the Roman Empire in the campaign:
Time: the Roman Empire has existed for over three millenia, and is still as strong as ever through a combination of military prowess and conquest and the supremacy of Roman culture offsetting any other religions or cultures taking prime place.
Expansion: the Roman Empire has expanded to extend as far as the western borders of India, the northwestern reaches of Russia, and the central regions of Africa.
Barbarian Lands: the Barbarian Lands, as they are called by the Roman Empire, are now the southern regions of Africa, the closest parts of Siberia to the borders of the Roman Empire's hold in Eastern Russia, and the lands of India and East Asia.
Culture: the culture of Rome is now fused with the various cultures throughout the rest of the Empire – so, in Rome the culture has remained mostly pure to its origins, whilst in Egypt the cultures of the natives and the Romans have blended together and Roman culture has taken a major grip in Central Africa.
Religion: the pantheons and religions of the lands of the Empire have not changed with any new religions coming into the scene due to the fact that new religions have not risen. Christianity and Islam, being religions which came with the Current Era in real world history, have not been born yet, to use the two most important examples. The adoption of existing faith across various lands has occurred in small scales – so whilst the Egyptians still worship the Coptic Pantheon their rituals have taken on subtle Roman ceremonial elements, whilst a few tiny tribes in Central Africa have adopted the Greek gods and goddesses (along with their ceremonies) wholesale.
Folklore and Superstitions: folklore and superstition have a more prominent place in the game setting that what they did have in real world history of the Empire.
Languages: Latin is the common tongue throughout the Empire. Most of the population of every land know at least the basics of Latin, if not more. However, knowledge of native tongues of other areas of the Empire are restricted to characters who come from those lands in their background (so all characters know how to speak Latin, however only Greeks know how to speak Greek and only Egyptians know how to speak Coptic).
Terminology: due to the influence of Roman culture over many millenia, there are unified terms of Roman origin which are used across the lands to describe varying events and locations (for example).
GENERIC RULES
a) Character versus Character: characters may not act against other characters. The purpose of the campaign is that the characters are loyal to one another in their united loyalty to the Empire and her people. This means anything from stealing from other characters through to attempting to kill them outright is frowned severely upon.
b) You turn Evil, you die: any character who does anything which turns him Evil instantly dies, as the magical oath of loyalty to the Empire and the cause of the Legio Athena causes him to be struck down by the blade of Ares.
c) Play the Character how it was made: if you are going to make the character with high stats where it is a major roleplay factor, make sure you follow it. Putting 18 in Wisdom means that you are one of the best logical decision makers in the party, or putting 18 in Charisma means that you are extremely good at socialising with others in many capacities including getting them to give up the info you need.
d) Roleplay is just as important as Combat: sure, the campaign is a combat-based game. However, the layout of the game relies on you to do your fair share of roleplay as well. Simply killing the crap out of anything which walks and has an Evil alignment, but rarely doing anything else, is not roleplaying – whereas roleplaying your preparations for battle and your reactions to the aftermath is.
e) Try to be interesting: attempt to make your roleplay definitive to your character, and try to add unique elements to your character's motivations and goals. Simply wanting to kill things because they are evil is not really that interesting. Wanting to kill evil things to get to a lich who you found out is trying to curse the Emperor is interesting. Wanting to kill evil things because you believe once they are dead your younger sister's curse of lycanthropy will be broken is interesting. In fact, it gives reason for you to try new roleplay methods and approaches, and in the campaign, those methods and approaches are more worthy of experience points than simply going nuts on some ghoul because “that's the way I am.”
f) New Ability: APPEARANCE: Appearance is the seventh ability. It is different from Charisma, in that Charisma is social capabilities, whereas Appearance is how attractive or appealing to the eye you are. It isn't used in conjunction with skills, it simply helps to determine how others react to you in a social manner when considering your appearance.
g) Lastly, have fun: remember, it is just a game. If you think that things aren't going as well as you would like it to, there are always other things in the works which you will find to be fun and successful for your character.
CHARACTER CREATION
The following rules are used for creating characters for the “Defenders of the Realm” campaign:
Name: characters must take a name which is either Roman or of their own homeland. They cannot have anything which would not logically fit into the setting – so Elven names would not apply for reasons explained below, nor would names such as “Stalker of Nerull” due to the nonexistence of that deity.
Race: there are no races other than humans in the campaign. The world is one occupied solely by humans. Furthermore, characters may not play a monster class due to the nature of the party and the campaign itself. Instead, the character may pick anywhere up to two abilities with which they gain +2 racial bonuses due to upbringing and their native location, with -2 penalties on a number of other abilities equal to the number the player took bonuses for (so, if a character has no racial bonuses he has no racial penalties either, however a character with two racial ability bonuses gains two racial ability penalties).
Class: only classes from the Player's Hand Book may be used for characters. However, they are categorised into several groupings: Gladiator is the name for Barbarian, Councillor is the name for Bard, Priest is the name for Cleric, Druid, Monk and Paladin, Legionnaire is the name for Fighter, Scout is the name for Ranger and Rogue, and Witch is the name for Sorcerer and Wizard. When taking any of these classes, state next to them what “path” is being taken (so, if a character is a Priest he could follow the Cleric or the Paladin path, whilst the Scout could take the Ranger path).
Prestige Class: there are no prestige classes allowed. This is due to the fact that the game has been designed without prestige classes in mind, as the functions of the characters can be served well enough by the main classes.
Level: all characters start at level one, using the standard rules.
Alignment: characters may only be Lawful, Chaotic, Neutral and Good. Evil is banned from choice for characters. Furthermore, playing a Good-alignment character is encouraged.
Abilities: the abilities for characters are automatically rolled up by the Game Master, to make it easier on the character creation process for players. A benefit of this is that no ability can be below 10. Furthermore, the statistic of Appearance is used to separate beauty from social graces (Charisma is not the be-all and the end-all of a character's entire social existence).
Skills: access to class skills are unrestricted except by limitations placed by the character level. Furthermore, the new skills and their adjoining class which have them as in-class skills are: Warfare (Wis) for Gladiators and Legionnaires, Augury (Wis) for Priests, Reconnaissance (Int) for Scouts, Authority (Cha) for Councillors, and Culture (Int) for Witches. However, the one skill which is to be wary of is Sleight of Hand – use of Sleight of Hand to steal, except under circumstances in which the mission is helped or in which those the party defends receive benefit, automatically gives an Evil alignment as the act of theft is one which does not regard the wellbeing or the right of ownership of the former possessor. Lastly, characters may not take cross-class skills at character creation, however they may when levelling.
Feats: all feats are accessible at character creation, with the exception of monster feats.
Hit Points: characters instantly start with the maximum Hit Points for a first level character.
Languages: all characters have the ability to speak the Latin tongue, and their own native tongue. However, to be able to read or write it, two skill ranks must be spent in those languages (and any other languages learnt). Lastly, languages of monsters or nonexistent races cannot be learnt unless there is really good justification.
Equipment: characters, due to their starting location, are equipped with Roman military equipment (weapons and armour). They may, if they are from another land, have one weapon of their home land. However, the weapon or item must be cleared by the Game Master first to see if it makes sense that the weapon would have come from that land.
Money: all characters start with 12 gold pieces, however they do not need to spend money on equipment as a list of equipment given by the party's “investors” is provided at no cost to the character. Due to the average wealth of Roman citizens in the ancient times, 2 gold is more than sufficient in comparison.
Magical Items: no character may start with magic items due to the level and the starting origins of the party – and also due to the fact that magic items, let alone magic itself, are extremely rare.
Background Details: no backhistory is required for characters, however player must provide the name of their home land in the Empire, and what experience brought them to petition for joining the Legio Athena and subsequently being brought to Rome.
NEW SKILLS
The following are details on the new skills given to various classes.
Augury: said to be wisdom passed down from the gods, a character with ranks in Augury can determine the wisest course of action to take in order to get through a task more efficiently. It does not allow the character to predict what steps to take in exactly what fashion in order to complete a task with relatively little difficulty, but it does give characters an idea as soon as they get to a certain part of a task which of their strengths would help them get through. For example, a character with Augury who comes across a merchant who they need to get information out of can roll for the Augury skill and get an idea of whether to use Gather Information, Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate based on reading subtle body language and behavioral cues.
Authority: the most basic and original of social understandings is that of authority, the pecking order which sees the most powerful in society rise to the top – whilst those too incompetent to do anything effectively sink to the bottom. With the use of the skill Authority, a character can apply it instead of other skills such as Diplomacy when dealing with those whom they have something in common with when it comes to various tasks. So, when a soldier posted on guard duty to stop anybody entering a secret tomb is confronted by a military commander who has important business to deal with invoving the tomb, even though the soldier has been given strict orders not to let anybody in (regardless of who they are) the commander – with a successful application of the Authority skill – can use his rank to force that guard to ignore his orders in regard to the commander.
Culture: when you live in an Empire so huge that it covers a fair chunk of land spread over three continents, it helps to have an idea about the other cultures in it. It helps even more to know how to act appropriately in regard to those cultures. A character with Culture has just that knowledge. So, if a Roman travels to a Central African tribe within the Empire's borders, he can use past readings and studies of the culture of that tribe in order to act in a manner which makes the tribe willing to behave cordially toward him, whilst a Bedouin with no Culture ranks who travels to the Spaniard lands is highly likely to make a social blunder and end up getting the crap kicked out of him by some pissed off native.
Reconnaissance: sometimes using short-term methods of information gathering is simply not sufficient in even the slightest. Diplomacy with one person for half an hour to gain details on a single individual does not help if you have a three-week mission with many complicated steps between then and when you find that person – and no idea how to fill the rest of the gaps in the scheme. With Reconnaissance, a character can determine the best means by which to go about succeeding in long-term information gathering tasks which may take anywhere between two days to four weeks.
Warfare: improvised warfare may be all well and good against an enemy who is some amateur merc who has never been in a professional war before, however when it comes to more challenging fights and strategies it always pays to know what measures are appropriate for mapping the terrain of an area in preparation for a battle and marking out the vantage points so you can gain the upper hand. This skill is not a rolled skill, but instead the character – with sufficient detail outlined to the Game Master – can divide up ranks between various elements of a battle. He can even divide them up amongst his allies for their own benefit.
Example: Marcus, a Gladiator of the Legio Athena, needs to take measures to ensure his squad wins a battle against a tribe of barbarian werewolves on their own turf before they can mobilise against a village they have been terrorising. He has twelve ranks in Warfare.
With three ranks, he uses it to add a +3 to Move Silently whilst he tracks the werewolves and finds out their most common routes on a hunt, and successfully avoids being sighted or picked up by the senses of the werewolves. This allows him to figure out what their most common routes are and then return to his squad unseen.
When his squad then moves into position for an ambush a short while later, he uses four of his ranks to situate them in such a formation that they are harder to detect when the werewolves come through next. Since there are four members of his squad, he divides up his four ranks and gives each member of the squad (including himself) a +1 to Hide.
Whilst the squad wait for the werewolves to next come through, he uses the remaining five ranks to advise his squad on what are the best methods of combat to take down the werewolves. He bestows +1 upon each of his squad mates, and +2 on himself, and when the werewolves finally come through and into the ambush, the predesignated ranks give the squad mates a +1 to attack against the werewolves when the squad triggers the ambush, and gives Marcus himself a +2 to attack against the werewolf lord leading the pack. Soon all of the werewolves lay dead due to this bonus, except for the werewolf lord – Marcus' own +2 to attack against him gave him the means by which to knock out and capture the werewolf lord with far less damage to himself than what he would have suffered had he not used his Warfare skill ranks as he did.
TERMINOLOGY
Here can be found a list of some of the terms used across the Empire regardless of land.
Amphitheater: the stadium complexes (commonly oval in shape in the central competitor area) where pageants, beast fights and gladitorial competitions are held.
Aqueducts: the water supply of any major population centre. Whilst in Rome they describe the massive stone canals used to channel water to where it is needed, in other lands the term describes anything from fresh-water springs tapped by wells for desert villages through to dams constructed to store water for the populace in small towns.
Baths: public places where the population (both male and female, excepting sex-based discrimination in some cultures) go to clean themselves and recline in the comforting waters.
Catacombs: any underground system of tunnels, usually linked to places of burial and funerary procession.
Cauponae: the taverns found through the Empire. The barkeep of a Cauponae is called a Caupona. Many are found in the ground floors of Insulae, however some can be found attached to Baths.
Cellae: the main room of a temple where a statue of the god is housed.
Centurion: the title used for a soldier belonging to a smaller fighting force, normally a force numbering one hundred (or thereabouts) soldiers. The title Centurion is used over the title of Legionnaire if applicable.
Circus: places where chariot and foot races are undertaken by competing sides and individuals. There are spectator stands along the entirety of the outside of the circuit. Chariot and foot races usually go (by standard rules) for seven laps.
Emperor: the title of the ruler of the Roman Empire. Only the ruler of the entire Empire can rightly take this title.
Forum: the key locations where the senates of varying regions throughout the empire hold debates and formal discussions, although there are a few found throughout the Empire that are used by both senators and non-senators for public debates. Additionally, each Forum has a temple to a god or goddess, and many furthermore have one or more shops as commerce is a major function of Roman existence.
Insulae: originally used as the name for an apartment block, it is now used to also describe any house or place of residence where people live. Insulae which are called such, due to their abiding by the original reason the name was applied to them, tend to have shops in the ground floors (and some have a Cauponae attached as well).
Legion: the name used for any large fighting force numbering between one and ten thousand soldiers.
Legionnaire: the title for a soldier of a Legion.
Mausoleum: the terms used for tomb complexes.
Orgy: a party where those in attendance revel in dancing, drinking and light-hearted socialising. Not to be confused with the modern equivalent.
Palace: a home of the richest citizens and residents of the Empire. Whilst never capable of being bigger or most lavish that the Emperor's Palace, they are still the envy of most who look upon them.
Pantheon: temples where all of the gods and goddesses are worshipped, rather than just one select god or goddess.
Porticus: the market where the Dole is issued to those who present their metal card (each card indicating on which day of each month a resident of the Empire may collect the Dole).
Praetor: the title for the commander of a legion or fighting force in an army or military.
Serverium: the name for a slave market. Here, those who own slaves can market them to other prospective buyers, as well as buy new (or more) slaves from other owners and traders.
Spartan: the name of any soldier belonging to an elite fighting force.
GODS AND THEIR FOLLOWERS
For Clerics, as the gods are highly powerful across all of their lands, they have no alignments which restrict the followers, nor do they restrict Cleric Domain access to a mere two or three. Therefore, Clerics in the party may be of any neutral or good alignment, and they may have any domains of magic bestowed by their god (provided the domain makes sense in some way as to why it would go with the faith - so, having a Cleric of Hades with the domains of Life and Luck would make no sense, as Hades is the god of the underworld).
