In Fine, Solum Est Tibi (A Quest in Rome, During The Fall of the Republic)

100 B.C.E

Rome, once an insignificant city-state on the Italian peninsula, a place insignificant in historical records, has clawed, through the will of its leaders, its senate, its people, to the height of its grandeur, its power, and its international influence. It stands, in the eyes of its leaders, and to many of its enemies uncontested in the West. For nearly a century since the defeat of her archenemy Carthage, and her greatest leader, Hannibal, the might of Rome has been unquestioned on land or sea, as city-state after city-state crumbles before the legions' unrelenting tide.

Her reach stretches from the shores of Greece to the deserts of the Levant, and there is no power in the West that might hope to stand against The Republic.

But not all is well within Rome. But like all great civilizations, the Republics' greatest threats are not from without, but from within. Greed, lust, and power poison the hearts of its citizens, its leaders forget their oaths. Blood waters not the crops but the Streets of Rome with the iron of the fanatics, the foolhardy and the Ambitious.

It was said of old that the house divided cannot stand, and yet again it is proved true.

Italia burns.

You are a child of Rome, raised in the looming shadow of the city now at war with itself. Your tutors, skilled men all, say you have the potential to be a Roman of no small worth, a figure who will shape the very history of the Republic itself.

But to be a powerbroker of note in the Republic is no small task. To simply survive in Rome, you must discard what you think is good and virtuous, you need to not have the skill, but cunning, brains yet brawn. You need to become something more than a person in this city. You must become a Legend.

Trust is a commodity you cannot have, for your back will just be as exposed as any other. Friends can become enemies and an enemy can become the most steadfast of allies like a flicker of a candle, with the right words, the right promises, the right will.

The Senators have long memories, and they will remember your trials and tribulations… and to the Masses of Rome, their minds are fickle and easy to be brought to the highest of heights or depths of hell itself!

You must be as skilled on the podium as on the battlefield, you must balance love and hate in equal measure, you must watch your foes closely and your friends closer still.

To misstep, to err, to fail is death. You will lose your wealth, your love, and your life. Your name will be ground into the dust by your enemies, and the crows will feast on your flesh just as others feat on your wealth. You will join countless thousands in the gutters of history, lost to time and memory in the growing shadow of Rome.

To succeed is to rise above just the footnote of history, to tread the world beneath your feet as if you were Jupiter himself. It is to rub shoulders with titans and decide the fate of untold millions alive, and millions more yet to be born. It is to make your name a legend to outlast the very gods themselves. It is to become immortal, remembered in tongue and song for as long as men walk the earth.

To Become a God, in a sense, for all of Mankind.

In This Tale, This is How A Republic Dies.


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Alrighty everyone, let's talk about the brass tacts that seem to always come from me starting another quest.

This quest was inspired and heavily influenced by, Res Publica, By @Telamon, if that wasn't obvious already. Just Like La Chanson. Along with @Teen Spirit's playthrough of Expeditions Rome, along with my own playthrough of the game, along with Battle Brothers.

This is a quest, where you traverse one of the most dangerous and interesting periods in Western History, that being the Decline and Fall, and replacement, of the Roman Republic, and its transition into an Empire.

Unfortunately, the Damage is done by the Merian and the Sulla's civil war, and the mounting problems that the Roman Government has not been able to address. With mounting corruption, military reforms, wealth and income inequality, and the degradation of Rome's Republican traditions due to the increasing autocratic tendencies and power brokers that are moving through the Republic.

You are not the only person who has the dream of becoming a leader and a survivor of Rome's political machinations, and you will meet many of history's luckiest and unluckiest politicians, soldiers, and entertainers who have ever graced this cruel and unusual time period of change and chaos.

Make no mistake, you are in a time where one mistake can possibly lead to your death, or loss of personal wealth and political power.

But remember this one statement:

Retinue:
Cossus Tettius Gallio.
One of your Fathers eldest and most trusted comrades in the Legion, Both men have served together for nearly twenty years before your father retired, first to the Senate, then to his family.

Cossus instead found luck and prominence, not as a politician, or in the Senate, as he despised politics and all who sought power in it, but as a lawyer and writer. He is considered one of the greatest in living memory and has spent much of his time, when not composing many of the contemporary histories about his own personal campaigns, he instead focused on your father, who was the subject of many stories and histories, with his missions and memories being popular tales among the elite and the roman plebians alike.

Your father's reputation was secured by way of legacy and lies.

But then again, Cossus believes that history is just lies agreed upon.

A man of 45, he is a bachelor and unmarried and prefers to remain that way until he meets a woman that can match his wits with tact and grace.

He currently lives in your villa, as an honored guest, and spends much of his days writing. Sometimes he can write three hundred scrolls in a month.

He is so prolific in his writing, that there are men trying to get commissioners for their own stories.

And there are many who wish for him to be killed for his truth does not fit the narrative.
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Fabia Ecdicia

A teenager that ran away from her home to work for your father, from a Senatorial house no less. There was nothing about her that was amazing or important.

Save for the simple fact she was pregnant, and that child was evidence to a grand conspiracy between her father, and his brothers, not only to murder each other, but to blame it on her, and the father of her unborn child.

However, she escaped with the evidence of foul play and hid in your home. Offered herself as payment in exchange for her sons life. Your father did not use her as such, and she remains a free woman, working for your family as a hostess, and a highly skilled agent and spy.

A woman of 18, she is a mother of one child, from a man she does not wish to reveal the identity of, for both his own safety and her honor, as she believes he will return to her soon.
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Mettius Servilius Metellus

A Centurian of the Roman Legions, and one of the more, colorful men your father made friends with his life. A born soldier, he is nevertheless obsessed with prophecy and fate and is deeply religious not only to Jupiter, but to many other foreign war gods he has come into contact with over his career.

A Silly man perhaps, but there is nothing that this man would not do on the battlefield. Kill, destroy, and lead men with such conviction and grit that he could turn one hundred men into a thousand, and turn a thousand men, into, in the eyes of the enemy, a million.

Currently, he is on leave, his legion having allowed him to return home to his family in Rome, but there is one thing he always, and always does when he is in Rome.

He comes to visit his oldest friend and his family.

A man of 30, he is the Prime Preaitorian of his legion and the highest-ranking and longest-serving centurion of his legion. There are many in Rome that want to make him a Legate, both to see support from the Marians wain and so that Sulla can have another key ally in the army.

He is the father of 4 children, three sons, and one girl.
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Caius Spurius Polybius

A Priest of Jupiter, and a man who has, for his entire life, been obsessed with the future, both of himself, and those around him. An Auger of great skill, he is known to, at least on reputation and his claims, see a potential for the future, and his prophecy has always been seen as good ordered, and accurate.

As a priest, he dedicated his life to the Gods, and while he is no true roman soldier, he is known to travel far and wide to the legions, when called upon, to give council and see the signs of the gods.

However, he has become friends and allies with your father, for numerous positions, and many think he wishes to become Pontifex Maximus, by any means nesseicery.

But considering his religious duties, and the love that the troops and the People give him.

However, Sulla considers him a threat, as he is an outspoken, and loud critic of his power grab, and he needs to retire from public life, him and Marius, if there will ever be peace in rome.

A man of 36, he is childless, and has devoted his entire life to the gods, but if asked, he will help you out of a promise he made to your father.
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Caepasia Furia

A Plebian Woman and widower to a soldier and equitii that was under your father's command, and also, curiously enough, a blacksmith of some note.

She was not a brilliant woman by any means, at least when you first met her, but she had an understanding of metalworking that few smiths ever had, and even with her sons taking over the business, or going off to join the army, to become equitii, and to become senators, or to survive long enough to get land for their retirement, and move her out so she can work without the busy hustle and bustle in Rome, or the insane work orders that she makes for Roman nobles and the legions themselves.

She primarily is an armorer, with her sons being skilled swordsmiths.

Your father was one of the earliest investors in her business, and now, her swords populate the legion and private buyers alike.

She owes you much and is willing to work many favors to see her debt paid.

A woman of 40, and the mother of 5 children. She is a smith of great renown, and wealthy enough to leave her home to commission, and to help you, if you help protect her sons.

When you were born, the night was filled with the death of stars and light, a moon that was full of the unbridled majesty of the great world and the heavens beyond, as if the Gods themselves were witnesses to your arrival onto this mortal plane.


You are a Child of Middling status, hailing from the rolling Southern Peninsular countryside, a child from just beyond the old Magna Gracea Frontiers, the lands of your mothers family, prior to being of Roman countryside proper, our father, who hailed from these same hills, served in the legions in years long gone by, and, before his retirement to the hills of Italy, rose to the most august rank of Legate, commander of his own legion. Your Grandfather, according to the many stories, was an aide of Scipio Africanus, though the rumors are unfounded and hearsay. No man ever spoke of your family highly within the same breath as Scipio.


In his youth, he won great wealth and glory in the distant fields of Greece, wealth with which he built a respectable estate for himself and his family. For years, he eked out a comfortable life amidst the hills of his childhood ---And then you were born, a child that would have the stars themselves.


Who are you? The One whom Destiny calls?
[]Write in

What will you Look Like, in the Future?:
[]Place image here

And you Were His noble and True:
[]Son: Ah, a Gift from the Gods themselves, a man to carry on your Family's name and Legacy.

[]Daughter: The Gods cursed him for a time, with an only child being a daughter. But soon he forgot such majesties and treated you not as a girl, but as his heir.


Were you an Only Child, or did you have siblings?:
[]You are an only child. The Gods cursed your Father, and thus, made you alone in your family name.
[]You have siblings: Your Mother survived your birth and gave your father more children (Will roll a d8 for the number of siblings that you have.)


But Roman though you may be, not all are equal in Rome -- or rather, some are more equal than others. Rome is divided into the upper aristocratic class, the patricians, and the common class, the plebians. They are split like night and day, but the single similarity they share is that neither may serve on the Senate unless they are nobilis, descended from one who has previously sat on the Senate, or unless they have earned their way onto the Senate through sheer skill and prestige. In Rome, your class decides your name, your marriage, your duty -- your very life.


[]The Patrician You are a patrician, the true nobility of Rome, the upper class of the Republic. Yours is an ancient family, hailing back to the very founding of Rome itself, and some would say even older than that, following Aeneas, all the way from Troy. Once, your family had numerous branches across the Republic, and were respected and held in high regard by the people and the Senate of Rome alike. But one by one, your line died out and your name fell into disrepute, from the plague, from war to Hannibal's butchery of Canne massacring several lines all at once. The name you have quickly devolved from respect to something of the dredges of society becoming associated with flesh merchants and slavers. A member of your family has not held the Consulate, or even sat in the Senate, for well over a century. Your father, through his actions, has started well on the path to restoring the long-lost honor of your name, but with him dead, the legacy of your family rests upon your shoulders.

[]The Plebian You are a plebian, one of the common folk. Your family is a family of soldiers and has been for as far back as memory can reach. The most famous of your family, a respected hero Flavius, won laurels for his service in the Punic Wars against Carthage over a hundred years ago, and even rose to sit on the Senate. He rose through glory from his actions and deeds in service to the Republic, a soldier to the bone, and that legacy still runs in your family. His achievements were the very apex of your family name, and are the reason you can count yourselves among the nobilis of Rome, those authorized to sit on the Senate. His glory was a height your father strove to reach but could never match. As a soldier and a plebian alike, you will have more support among both the army and the people, facilitating a rise through the ranks of Roman government, but you will be looked down upon by the largely patrician Senatorial class -- the very class you seek to join.

[]The New Man Your father was the first of his name, gaining enough prestige and renown that his once plebian family has become part of the equitii, the aristocratic class of officers and cavalrymen. However, as no member of your family has ever sat in the Roman Senate, you are not considered nobilis, and as such, are looked down upon by both patricians and nobilis plebians. Yet Rome in her heart has always admired men of ambition and talent, as she always needed new Blood to weed out the week and the desperate. And those who come from nothing noble and yet manage to gain the prestige of the Senate are thus known as novus homo, or 'new men', and their families are automatically added to the ranks of the nobilis. Your path will be the hardest yet, but your rewards many -- for the new man, once he has risen, is held in higher esteem in Rome than the patrician and the plebian alike.

AN: Enjoy, and Vote in Plan Format.