Pyramid Review
Roma Imperious: Alternate World History
Published by HinterWelt Enterprises
Written by William Corrie III
Cover by S. A. Skinner
Illustrated by Mark Roman, Jesus Carmona Esteban, Javier Carmona Esteban, Terry Pavlet, Eric Pommer, Erik Roman, S. A. Skinner, & Grey Thornberry
Cartography by Clayton Bunce
338-page b&w hardcover; $39.99
All of a sudden the gamer has lots of choice when its comes to Rome-set RPGs, whether the exquisite FVLMINATA: Armed With Lightning, the solid GURPS: Imperial Rome, the Mythos-instilled Cthulhu Invictus, or the quick and simple 1PG from Deep7, Pax Gladivs -- Epic Swords & Sandals Adventvre. The addition to the range is HinterWelt Enterprise's Roma Imperious: Alternate World History, which shares comparisons with FVLMINATA in that it projects Rome into a future where magic is prevalent and firearms known. But where FVLMINATA plays it straight, Roma Imperious radically increases the arcane quotient, adding combined doses of Gary Gygax and Ray Harryhausen-style fantasy.
The year is 1461 A.U.C. or 708 A.D. Rome has expanded its borders West into Hibernia, North to encompass Germania, South in North Africa to the borders of Ghana and Abyssinia, and East to the Kushan Empire of the Indian sub-continent and the powerful jade Empire rules from China. In 1065, civil war in the Empire was ended when Constantine beat his opponent using the Celtic magic of the Druidic traditions. In the centuries since, this magic has been studied and assimilated, so that . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: March 25, 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.