In the next week or so, I need characters from the lot of you!
This includes your name, background, personality, etc. Remember that the 13th Legion has been fighting in Gaul for nearly seven years now, so you've likely had a lot of combat experience, depending at which point you joined up. As you're all Legionnaires in Caesar's army, you're all citizens, albeit plebeians. The year is 52 BC.
The equipment you start out with will be your standard fighting kit, weapons (gladius, spear, knife), breatplate, uniform (cape, sandals, etc.), helmet, and other knick-knacks of your uniform (most of which are ornate)...
And our Centurion gets a fancy helmet and a whistle. (seriously).
Other than that, you have your personal rations and extra clothes.
Often, before an assignment, Mark Antony himself will provide you with gold, for expenses or bribes (while often taking a cut for himself), though the rest of your money is personal wages (most keep their stock in slaves, but that's up to you).
While you are an elite branch of the 13th, the other Legionnaires are not technically your underlings - though you are generally respected by the Legion. However, your little cell reports directly to Mark Antony. In other words, you don't take orders from some Centurion in another cohort, etc. As such, you might not always have the ability to call on other Legionnaires to help, but it is likely that you'll often be assigned some extra hands (sometimes from your own legion, sometimes from the non-citizen legions, or perhaps Ubian cavalry).
Feel free to be creative with your backgrounds (as always) - the only things you all have in common is that you're all soldiers in the 13th Legion and you're all Roman citizens. And as of the start of our game, you will just have returned from the Battle of Alesia, the last major engagement with the tribes of Gaul, and Vercingetorix, the King of all the tribes of Gaul, is about to surrender to Caesar.
Here is some historical background about the start of our game, from wikipedia (I know, I know...
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Julius Caesar had been in Gaul since 58 BC. It was customary for consuls, Rome's highest elected officials, at the end of their consular year, to be appointed proconsul and assume governorship of one of Rome's provinces by the Roman Senate, and following his first consulship in 59 BC, Caesar engineered his own appointment of Cisalpine Gaul (the region between the Alps, the Apennines and the Adriatic), and Transalpine Gaul ("Gaul beyond the Alps"). Although the proconsular term of office is normally one year, Caesar was able to secure his post in Gaul for an unprecedented ten years. With a proconsular Imperium, he had absolute authority within these provinces.
One by one Caesar defeated Gallic tribes such as the Helvetii, the Belgae, and the Nervii, and secured a pledge of alliance from many others. The ongoing success of the Gallic Wars brought an enormous amount of wealth to the Republic in spoils of war and in new lands to tax. Caesar himself became very rich since, as general, he benefited from the sale of war prisoners. But success and fame also brought enemies. The First Triumvirate, a political (although informal) alliance with Pompey and Crassus, came to an end in 54 BC, with the deaths of Julia (Caesar's daughter and Pompey's wife) and Crassus in the battle of Carrhae. Without this political connection with Pompey, men dedicated to the Republic like Cato the Younger started a political campaign against Caesar, arousing suspicion and accusing him of wanting to overthrow the Republic and become King of Rome.
Shadows of the Empire Q&A
Shadows of the Empire
Shadows of the Empire - R
Reralae's A'niorna
, it's nice to have something to do.
