Why are there so few settings in fantasy versions of Ancient Rome...

Why are there so few settings in fantasy versions of Ancient Rome? I can think of a million medieval or Renaissance settings, but nothing in Antiquity.

Codex Alera?

Because the Empires of old built the Dungeons. At least that's what I've always assumed. Dark Age and Medieval Fantasy is Post Apocalyptic in nature where Adventurers loot remnants of the old world for treasures and wonders unmakeable by modern hands.

Except there were ruins even in Roman times, such as those of the Myceneans or Minoans.

Then go ahead and do that of course. It's just me perpetuating the pop culture vision of the dark ages rather than the supposed reality of stuff being pretty much the same.

I must stress the pop culture thing beause if you imply that maybe the fall of Rome was bad for civilization and the dark ages sucked even for narrative purposes some people sperg.

people don't really like people who don't wear pants and consider them barbaric

hard to be a hero with no drawers on

Try RuneQuest, I think it's settings assume antiquity.

I though about it also and there is a big issue. People want to make it sympathetic, hell one guy I know even tried to run with it LG.

The real Rome was very much a asshole by the standards of its own era till you move past the parts of Roman history most people know. Like around Trajan. However that is a Rome at peace.

how would a roman style legion go up against some D&D orcs or fantasy monsters?

>poor-ass non-steel iron
>weaker than bronze, but lighter and cheaper
>against creatures that survived and evolved in the world where everybody is trying to kills them with actual good steel and magic
romans would get owned. hard.

The same way Rome went against everything

>Get their shit slapped
>PANIC
>adopt new strategy and technology
>Conquer everything

A continent spanning empire losing or winning a battle or two doesn't feel like it has the same stakes as a small kingdom trying to survive a barbar invasion or an aggressive but also still relatively small neighbors ambitions.

Which part of 'Ancient Rome'?
Imperial Roman timeframe analogues are not uncommon. However it would be more fun to go back to the overthrow of the monarchy period. Republicanism is still a new thing, people still identify more with tribes, much like their barbaric ancestors. Much of the world is still unknown, and the few large urban centres that exist are shitting out semi-independent colonies all over the place. And religious syncretism is in fashion, where everyone is stealing their favourite parts from other religions and thinking they're original.

This, the Romans used "Noric Steel" for their weapons which, while high-quality iron, was not quite the real steel you'd see from good smiths in the Middle Ages and *absolutely* not the god-tier stuff modern foundries spit out.

>how would a roman style legion

Legions changed over time. A late second century legion would do alright against army of D&D orcs. Earler ones like what everyone thinks of not so much. Their kit was based around the limits of metalworking at the time. The Gladius Hispaniensis could stab thru mail in a 37 BC source and in a 120 AD source it could not. It is very likely that mail improved during that time. Lorica segmentata started to be phased out later in that same century because the gap in what it and Lorica hamata could protect from had gotten smaller.


The take away from that is old school early empire era legions would get their asses kick in most verses questions.

Which would be fucking fantastic if it had a game.

Hell, I'd settle for an author-apporved ludus set.

Same reason you don't see much wild west fantasy or India fantasy. The main fanbase is less open to fantasy.

>adopt new strategy and technology
More like
>Toss another dozen Legions at it
>Doesn't work
>PANIC
>adopt new technology, mostly the same strategy.

Like other anons have said, most fantasy settings are based in medieval times and the "big" civilization preceding them was the Roman Empire.

But there were many other civs before the Romans. The Romans around Caesar's time viewed ancient Egypt as we do the Romans today--ancient and impressive as fuck. Same would probably be said for the Minoans, Myceneans, Phoenicians, Jews, Persians, etc.

I think it's more accessibility. Medieval shit is everywhere, and although most people know what a Roman legionary looks like, their knowledge is just broad strokes of the history.

I'd love to make a Mediterranean-inspired setting with Romans, Greeks/Hellenistic Kingdoms, Egyptians, Gauls, and Phoenicians. When I tried making one where each ethnicity was a D&D race, it just felt forced "because tabletop RPGs" and the feeling of having to add fantastical races.

If I ever do a Roman or Roman-inspired campaign, I'd stick with humans for player races. I'd probably use Green Ronin's Game of Thrones RPG and just change the names of some setting-specific things. The PCs are all supposed to be with one House, which for the Romans would be a specific patrician House or a gens/clan. The combat in the system is deadly fast, and it has mechanics for intrigue/persuasion. The intrigue system is a bit complex, but a bit of streamlining can help.

You can't play as a good guy in those times. Everyone was an slaver and genocidal asshole. Their system of morality is completely alien to us.

Because the Romans had a culture that absolutely required its upper class to make war on the surrounding polities in order to advance their status within their own class.

They also were headhunters and practiced human sacrifice as part of their ancestor cult and people below the upper class were locked in a constant war with each other over the nation's limited resource basis and the use of black magic was rampart among them.

So you got an upper class who have cities razed so that they can one-up their peers and a lower class that's basically made up of gipsy scum.

Elder scrolls pulls this off perfectly

...

>Romans were headhunters who practiced human sacrifice.
Fucking hell.

What's notable in Caesar's commentary on the druids is he makes a big deal about the Celts and druids doing human sacrifice and being headhunters to justify his actions in conquering them. Romans thought human sacrifice was disgusting, nor did they really have much of what could be called a real 'ancestor cult' beyond typical belief that the departed had to be looked after and remembered for a good afterlife. Hell they claimed Christians were cannibals performing human sacrifices due to the 'body and blood of Christ' thing.

>Romans thought human sacrifice was disgusting, nor did they really have much of what could be called a real 'ancestor cult' beyond typical belief that the departed had to be looked after and remembered for a good afterlife.

user, the upper class had semi-public atriums that had lifelike wax portraits and spoils of war won by their ancestors on display. They paraded those through the streets of Rome every chance they got, to the point where laws were written to regulate the frequency of such parades. Rome had a festival specifically dedicated to the ancestral cult during which all classes visited the graves and offered sacrifices and during which state affairs were shut down.

Their policy on which spoils could be displayed and thus offered to important gods was rather strict too - they had to be taken in single combat from a notable enemy. Now I dunno what you'd call somebody gaining political pedigree from having killed just one notable enemy if not headhunting.

Also gladiatorial fights were first part of the ancestral cult and then transformed into part to the general roman state cult. Central American cultures too practiced glaidatorial fights as part of the regime of human sacrifices, so I see no reason to not call a spade a spade here.

I've said this before, but Rome totally ignored the manpower rules during that part of the game, though history's GM got wise eventually.

circa 400ad
GM: Say Rome, where do you keep getting all these armies from?
Rome: Uhhhhhhhh... Foederati?
evilGMsmile.mosaic

"They make a desert and call it peace."

Nonsense.

Their morals were not "alien" simply more self centered overall, that's the key.

Because every setting has a not!Rome already.

t. Judean Insurgant

Romans, at multiple points through their history, performed human sacrifice in times of immense disaster. This was done multiple times during the Carthaginian wars. The practice had ended by the end of the Republic, but they definitely did it.

> roman dwarves
> worship terra, not!gaia, the earth
> tfw dwarven gladiators
> tfw dwarven mohawk helmets
> tfw dwarven emperors, grand statues, armored skirts

One day, when I work on my fantasy setting, they will be there. But it is not today.

At first the Roman soldiers would flee in terror and killed piecemeal. Then, a grizzled veteran manages to stick a pilum in. What's this? They bleed, just like any other animal. Others see it as well. A trumpet call is heard. Reform the lines, fall back! Raise the shields! Shoulder to shoulder! Drums are beaten. The Centurion, battered though he may be issues the order. Now the monsters face a much bigger, faceless, remorseless creature than them. One with a thousand fangs and shining impenetrable shell.They will rue the day.