Roman Supers: Change and Authority

I’m back today with more Roman Supers! The scope of the setting is starting to take shape for me so hopefully they start to gel for you all too. I don’t want this to be a history lesson (or, more accurately, require lectures for players to engage) so I’ll try to give context somewhat sparingly and rely on the vibes of the setting to do their own lifting (like any other comic book setting).

I’m going to take two focuses on today: Change and Authority. You can see the world build from here (even though there are lots of unanswered questions still) and you can also see a few actual game elements. For sheets and stuff I’m concentrating on things that could be actual useful to a group operating around the time of the New Age (324 CE or so). While it would be fun to make Villains and heroes from centuries earlier, they aren’t as useful to the game I’m envisioning so you probably won’t see them here.

Focus: Change

One of the things I’m going to be talking about this week is Change, the focus I started with last time. This could be taken as “moments of change in Roman history” or it could be taken as “moments that are changed from actual Roman history.” I’m going to be favoring the former in this case, but many could be taken as either.

Mask: Incendius (The Republican Age)

When the Etruscan king marched on Rome, a small group of soldiers was left defending the last bridge into the city. A junior officer of the Horatius family discovered on that day he had the power to send searing beams from his eyes. He single-handedly held off the Etruscans until more Roman troops could rally behind him and destroy the bridge to keep the enemy away. Incendius became an important hero to the nascent republic as the first empowered person in recorded Roman history, and he cemented the role of empowered people in Roman society forever.

Mask: Arestalos (The Expansionist Age)

Once known as Tiberius Baiulus, the “Pall-Bearer,” he was a super member of the Praetorian Guard of Emperor Commodus. What he saw of the “gladiator emperor” disgusted him and he began to resent the corrupt and selfish office of emperor. He had purposefully hidden how much his telekinetic powers had grown and so no one watched him closely, allowing him to murder Commodus. This began the Year of Five Emperors (193 CE) as the Praetorian Guard installed the short-lived Pertinax, but Baiulus himself declined to take the throne. Instead he rallied people to his cause on his way out of Rome, particularly supers, and made his way to Ostia where he commandeered a boat.

With his followers he sailed to the Balearic Islands east of his native Iberia and conquered the garrisons there. With Rome in turmoil, Baiulus renamed himself under the Celtebarian name of Arestalos (the “Masterful Authority”) and began to remake the Balearics into a place for supers. He pulled great causeways of stone from the ocean to join the islands and renamed them Touzum (“territory”). Like Caesar the name Arestalos became a title and in 324 CE (the “New Age” default “present”) the fifth ruler is Arestalos the Ironbound and he is ready to meet a resurgent Rome.

Roman Villain Sheets – Villain – Arestalos VDownload

Cover: The New Rome (The New Age)

Emperor Constantine built a new city which the Greek-speaking people of the east call Kōnstantinoupolis but which Constantine dubbed Nova Roma. This New Rome was situated to be closer to the eastern fronts where the biggest threats to the empire (supposedly) lie but it is also a brand new city for supers to make a difference in. The cover image shows a team of architects in a half-finished tower with a wide city extending beyond featuring flying supers carrying wood beams and strong supers hefting massive boulders.

Focus: Authority

My second focus this week is going to be Authority, a common topic in Roman history and society. There are a few different ways the Romans thought of authority and I’m focused on imperium, the control of an individual due to their rank or title. In the later Empire this happened a lot because people seized power, but they usually had a military command backing that up. All of that is stuff that can fall into this focus.

Cover: The Imperial Crisis (the Expansionist Age)

After decades of rule by the Severan dynasty which was marked by infighting and rapidly shifting focus, the legions assassinated Severus Alexander on the German frontier. Chaos gripped the empire for the next fifty years as generals and strongmen took control for fleeting reigns. Eventually the imperial title was taken by Diocletian who brought with him the tetrarchy and a renewed appreciation for supers. The cover image of this chapter shows Diocletian standing on top of the Capitoline hill, flanked by a Praetorian guardsman wielding glowing energy in his palms and a Greek woman flying behind him and surveying the ground.

Mask: Aequoreus (The New Age)

Once a freedman, Marcus Flucinius Marinis was adopted into the family of Emperor Licinius after his excellent service helping Licinius and Constantine defeat their rivals and become joint emperors. With powers over water, Marinis dramatically wiped out a large section of the enemy army at the Battle of the River Ergenus and afterwards was always at Licinius’s side. Six years later when Constantine and Licinius turned on each other, Licinius was at first made prisoner before Constantine broke his oath and had both the former emperor and young son.

All of this is to explain why the empowered champion who stood at Licinius’s side hates Constantine so much. Taking the new cognomen of Aequoreus (“aequor” referring to both the sea and equality), he has sworn to thwart Constantine whom he sees as an extremist and an opportunist. There’s something to this, of course, as Constantine was an ally of Licinius for years until it was just the two of them left. Nova Roma is, of course, a major target for Aequoreus and the regular citizens of that new city don’t seem to be much of a concern as he pursues his revenge.

Game Mechanics Notes: Aequoreus’s main move is to show up on the scene and cause some trouble with his water control powers, possibly summoning or bringing some water elemental minions along with him. The big guns, though, are to pull in enough water to turn himself into a massive water Titan which involves switching forms. He takes on the new abilities in that part of the sheet. If things aren’t going well he can get a big power boost by dropping the Titan form, making himself a little more vulnerable for a minute before he pulls it back together.

Roman Villain Sheets – Villian – AequoreusDownload