Fvlminata: Armed With Lighting - Romans With Guns!

Has anyone played this? It sounds fucking awesome! :eek:

www.fvlminata.com/About.html
FVLMINATA is a historical fantasy roleplaying game set in a world not quite like our own. It is AD 248, exactly one thousand years after the founding of Rome. The Imperium Romanum is in no danger of crumbling. FVLMINATA features extensive research of the ancient world and unique game mechanics designed to capture the flavor of adventuring in the Roman Empire.

Vesuvius erupted and buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under tons of ash. In our world, a young boy decided to stay at home and was killed in the disaster.

In the world of FVLMINATA, he lives to discover the substance that changes the course of history: an explosive black powder he names terra fulminata or "earth armed with lightning."


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Hmm...been skimming the source book and it seems a friend of Pliny the Younger becomes obsessed with alchemy and trying to recreate the divine might he witnessed.

He invents gunpowder in 96AD.

Primitive cannons are introduced in 133AD.

Antonio Pius conquers Caledonia and Hibernia in 148.

Lucius Verus invades Parthia in 151 AD and just takes fortresses and sacks cities left and right, plunging deep into the Iranian plateau where he gets killed.

Marcus Aurelius manages to consolidate Roman control over Mesopotamia, Assyria and Armenia. Repels the Marcommani invasions, raids Germania but nothing is gained on that front.

Marcus Aurelius lives until 185, and when he dies Avidius Cassius succeeds him. Commodus is assassinated by the Praetorian Guard.

Avidius Cassius reigns from 185-201, spends much of it fighting border wars with the Parthians.

His protege Clodius Albinus succeeds him and reigns for 29 years. The highlight of his reign was the invasion and conquest of Germania Magna in 209.

Nonius Festus, a grandnephew of Avidius Cassius follows him in 230 and campaigns against the Aethiopians with the aim to annex the trading cities on the Red Sea coast.

Succeeded in 246 by Avidius Maximus a distant relation, age 21. A playboy who defers to the Senate his first two years have been uneventful. Not a stable situation... I imagine that a lot of gameplay metaplots would center around scheming generals and senators.

Has you can see from the map, there's been some redrawing of provincial borders since the POD, and as the frontier has moved outward some provinces have been transferred from Imperial to Senatorial authority.

Rome Fvlminata.png
 
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No love? It's got muskets and magic!

Magic, divine intervention, secret societies both mystic and scientific.

The muskets are smooth bore and the heavy stocks and barrels look as primitive as you'd expect, like something from the turn of the 17th century. However the firing mechanism is absolutely brilliant, a flintlock breach loader that looks something that would be designed at the turn of the 19th.
 
Been reading the core book pretty thoroughly and there's some interesting stuff. There's a powerful secret police force that answers to the Emperor, the Brotherhood of Smoke.

At the same time the Senate seems to be working more effectively with the Emperor and has been giving a bit more power. As the frontier has moved outward, some of the older frontier provinces have been made Senatorial provinces. This seems to have kept them distracted from plotting overly much as they compete against each other for power and the Emperor's favor.
 

Zioneer

Banned
Wow, I can't believe I didn't see this before now; this sounds amazing. I might have to get it soon.
 
Rome invents gunpowder and doesn't take over the world? Oh my god, yes, bless them for that. Whoever did the setting did a pretty good job on that front.

No idea about how it works as an actual RPG, though. What ruleset is it based on?
 
Rome invents gunpowder and doesn't take over the world? Oh my god, yes, bless them for that. Whoever did the setting did a pretty good job on that front.

No idea about how it works as an actual RPG, though. What ruleset is it based on?

D8 to simulate Roman knuckle bone dice, with two 1s, two 3s, two 4s, and two 6s.
 
Have read the book a couple of times now and I've got to say that the magic systems are probably the best thing about it along with the incredibly detailed layout of Rome.

The magic systems are incredibly varied, there's Mithric, Thracian, Pharonic, Greek, Zoroastrian, and more and they all work how the people of classical antiquity believed. A good number of the spells are just sick and depraved, involving among other things child sacrifice, communing with dark gods, demon summoning, necromancy, etc.
 
Hmm...been skimming the source book and it seems a friend of Pliny the Younger becomes obsessed with alchemy and trying to recreate the divine might he witnessed.

He invents gunpowder in 96AD.

Primitive cannons are introduced in 133AD.

Antonio Pius conquers Caledonia and Hibernia in 148.

Lucius Verus invades Parthia in 151 AD and just takes fortresses and sacks cities left and right, plunging deep into the Iranian plateau where he gets killed.

Marcus Aurelius manages to consolidate Roman control over Mesopotamia, Assyria and Armenia. Repels the Marcommani invasions, raids Germania but nothing is gained on that front.

Marcus Aurelius lives until 185, and when he dies Avidius Cassius succeeds him. Commodus is assassinated by the Praetorian Guard.

Avidius Cassius reigns from 185-201, spends much of it fighting border wars with the Parthians.

His protege Clodius Albinus succeeds him and reigns for 29 years. The highlight of his reign was the invasion and conquest of Germania Magna in 209.

Nonius Festus, a grandnephew of Avidius Cassius follows him in 230 and campaigns against the Aethiopians with the aim to annex the trading cities on the Red Sea coast.

Succeeded in 246 by Avidius Maximus a distant relation, age 21. A playboy who defers to the Senate his first two years have been uneventful. Not a stable situation... I imagine that a lot of gameplay metaplots would center around scheming generals and senators.

Has you can see from the map, there's been some redrawing of provincial borders since the POD, and as the frontier has moved outward some provinces have been transferred from Imperial to Senatorial authority.

so they have guns...and they still cant conquer the germans properly?...youd think with muskeet wielding legions they wouldve pushed further into northern nd eastern europe by now...even india
 
so they have guns...and they still cant conquer the germans properly?...youd think with muskeet wielding legions they wouldve pushed further into northern nd eastern europe by now...even india

The German border has been moved to the Elbe. While Germania Magna has developed since the days of Augustus, beyond the Elbe it's still mostly wilderness infested with restless tribes. Why bother?

There are these things in Persia called mountains. They're going to make conquest very difficult given the logistical challenges of supplying an army so far from the Med.

In the 150 years since the development of gunpowder they've conquered Scotland, Ireland, Germany (including Macromannia [Bohemia ] if I'm eyeballing the map right), Nubia, Ethiopia, and retained the provinces of Mesopotamia and Assyria that Trajan conquered. That's pretty good. The Emperors have been concerned with stability as well as growth. Trying to reach India in one push would not be conducive to stability.
 
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