A Return to Long Forgotten Rome

After a hiatus of 2 years and 8 months, we finally returned to Long Forgotten Rome. In the real world we'd experienced covid, George Floyd's murder, a worsening climate crisis, global supply chain disruption, Elon Musk purchasing Twitter, and a good chunk of the Russia-Ukraine war. For our characters, though, a mere six days had passed. Funny how time flies.

Finding our character sheets again was a minor miracle. We weren't entirely sure how much gold we had or what our work-in-progress queue was up to, but we made enough sense out of the scraps we still had to play a game.

The scenario was a fancy dinner at Octavius's estate. Octavius wanted us to mingle with the upper crust of Aquilea and to use our charms to impress upon them the severe nature of the Gallic threat. Octavius knew that he could raise a small army to defend the city, but it was insufficient: He could muster 5,000 soldiers, but the Gauls had anywhere from 9,000 to 15,000. If we wanted to survive, we'd need help.

It was a lot like this, only with boxed wine and DiGiorno's

For this session, I played Vorenius the Fighter. He was the only one of my characters with any sort of Charisma score, and he was also a native Aquilean. It seemed like a no-brainer. Dave played Septimus the Fighter and Dakota played Atemnus the Archer. 

Borrowing a page from Storybrewers, our DM assigned us three NPCs apiece. We were rewarded with bonus XP for our characters if our NPCs attained their goals also. I liked this mechanic. Once our characters were assigned and we had a chance to get familiar with them, we sat around chatting for the better part of five hours.  Our session didn't involve a single die roll. 

We were so immersed, in fact, that I took terrible notes. So I'll post the highlights and the outcomes here, just in case society collapses and we need to wait another year or two between sessions.

THE OPIS FAMILY
Ammulius Opis, young head of the Opis family, resigned from office with Octavius' blessing. His mother Herrenius insisted that he join the Stonehell expedition as a co-owner. However, Octavius refused. Instead, he offered him the position of Master of Horse for the upcoming defense of Aquilea, which Ammulius accepted.

THE DOMITIUS FAMILY
The Domitius family asked to meet the dwarves, and the dwarves made quite an impression. Tadia and Caprenius were fascinated by the treasures we'd wrested from Stonehell and offered their full support.

MATELLIUS
Matellius and Octavius came to an understanding. Matellius would accept lowered taxes and tarrifs, but Octavius would not reinstitute Mattelius's judges.

BONUS CASH: 29,000 silver (for a grand total of 56,874 s.p.)

BONUS TROOPS: 2,000 heavy infantry, 1,000 spearmen, 1,000 light infantry (for a grand total of 9,000 troops)

BONUS XP: Dave +60%, Dakota +65%, me +75%

Gwen, Macreus, & Vorenius spent 5,875 s.p. and collectively leveled up. Gwen took Control Weather as her spell for reaching Level 6.

Our group spent 31,600 s.p. to hire and equip 100 scouts. Each scout was armed with two javelins, a spear, light armor, and - of course - riding horse. The scouts were then sent to strategic points in the wilderness with instructions to report back to Stonehell. With any luck, we'll be able to attack the Gauls in the field before they can lay siege to Aquilea. How this all plays out will be a story for another time.