What if the Roman Empire conquered the Forgotten Realms?

The Forgotten Realms have their own version of "Native Americans" in Maztica. Also the Romans don't evoke a lot of sympathy, no one's going to say the Romans were misunderstood or mistreated. Romans were conquerors not the conquered.

Shasarak said:

I would guess that as the Red Wizards struggle to deal with Rashemen they would have no chance in invading Earth Prime.

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Thay's inability to deal with Rashemen is because of plot armor and not because of any rational balance of power.

MNblockhead said:

This does have me thinking...I'm kinda more interested in what would happen if some force from the FR, e.g. the Wizards of Thay, invaded our world.

In the nuclear age, are we more than a match for the magical powers of high-fantasy FR evils?

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When IRL dumps poison gas on you, Dispel Magic does NOT make the "Cloudkill" go away.

Statistics favors the side with a machine gun (or lots of them) - sooner or later the guy pulling the trigger has to roll a '20'. Red Wizards, like most other wizards, are not bottomless pools of HP.

Here is the first Greek/Roman god that enters the Realms that I stated out in 3rd edition. She is very popular with the Roman soldiers.
This goddess is in direct competition with Sune.

In case your wondering, I started out with the 1st Edition Deities and Demigods, I tried to get the 3rd edition download PDF, but all I got was the first 5 pages and a whole lot of blank pages after that, so I began the work of converting the 1st edition god entries into 3rd edition. I doubled the levels of character classes for Aphrodite, so instead of being a 10th level cleric, a 12 level magic-user, a 15th level Illusionist, and a 10th level bard, she became a 20th level cleric, 24th level Sorcerer (her prime attribute is Charisma, so I figure a sorcerer is a more natural fit than wizard), 30th level Wizard (specializing in illusion spells), and a 20th level bard. I used 3rd edition because it has rules on creating epic level characters, so Aphrodite turns out to be a 94th level character, she also has an at will power of Greater Teleport, Shapechange, and Mass Charm Monster, She has spell slots for each character class she has, but instead of having to prepare her spells ahead of time, she can pick her spells at the moment she decides to cast them, she carries no spell books, all of her spells are in her head, when she casts a spell as opposed to an at will power, she uses up a spell slot and she requires 8 hours to regain that spell slot that she used by casting that spell.

As for her immediate history, the avatar she uses, originated on the other side as a camp follower, a priestess of her faith and also a prostitute, when she stepped through the gate, the wild magic shaped by the Roman soldier's beliefs swirled around her, either the goddess already existed and on a plane with magic saw this opportunity to take her over, or a goddess was formed in the spot by the soldier's beliefs and all the wild magic swirling around when the Faerunian deities got cast down from the outer planes by the overdeity Ao. The girl who found herself becoming Aphrodite's avatar suddenly found herself with two sets of memories, that of her mortal life that preceded her crossing through the gate, and them memories of the goddess, whether preexisting or created on the spot. This goddess avatar has since kept a low profile, the Roman soldiers don't know she is there, at least not right away! If the situation warrants it, she may choose to reveal herself. Aphrodite continues to act as a priestess of her faith, and she can cast cleric spells, she pretends not to know why she can cast them, other priests have been able to cast spells as well, but most are starting off at a low level. Aphrodite has healed a number of Roman soldiers, and has also healed the prisoners the Romans have taken as well, she is an equal opportunity goddess, and seeks the opportunity to spread her worship outside of the Roman legion regardless of whether they militarily successful or not. the Roman Legion for her is just a beach head onto this plane of existence.

Derren said:

Thay's inability to deal with Rashemen is because of plot armor and not because of any rational balance of power.

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The reason That can't take Rasheman is because They has too many enemies and few allies in the region. If they commits it's full forces to war with Rasheman then Mulhorand and Aglarond will take advantage and attack Thay and soon Thay is fighting a War on 3 fronts. Thay could beat Rasheman if he tried hard enough, it would struggle more so with Aglarond, but Mulhorand is what truly scares Thay, Mulhorand has tons of magic, a large army, Chessentan Mercenaries, oh and Gods to lead it's armies. The only way Thay would be willing to risk a all out, protracted war with the other regional powers is if it had a powerful ally, like it did when the Hordelands invaded Faerun.

MNblockhead said:

This does have me thinking...I'm kinda more interested in what would happen if some force from the FR, e.g. the Wizards of Thay, invaded our world.
In the nuclear age, are we more than a match for the magical powers of high-fantasy FR evils?

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It depends on how cunning the invading supernatural forces are, and how slow the modern society is to accept the reality of them. Come in quietly, reconnoiter invisibly, polymorph to infiltrate, and then charm/dominate/replace key people? Apart from some logistical concerns the world is yours, no one even notices.

Encircle a major city with your undead horde, and cackle your demands for surrender from a conspicuous promontory?

Might not go so well.

Thomas Bowman said:

Really? Romans are quite human, and it doesn't require disfiguring the entire globe of Toril to introduce them. I'll tell you what got me started on this. Just look at the two pantheons above. The Roman Pantheon consist of the following:
Roman God -------------------------- Faerunian equivalent
Juno the goddess of marriage
Jupiter the God of Rulership (Possibly Ao, but Jupiter takes a more active hand)
Vesta the goddess of home and hearth
Neptune the god of the sea: Umberlee
Pluto the god of the underworld: Kelemvor
Ceres the goddess of agriculture: Chauntea
Vulcan the god of craftsmen and the forge: Gond
Mars the god of war: Tempus
Diana the goddess of the Moon and hunting (Also Hekate): Selune for the Moon, Mielikki for the forests, Mystra for Magic, Sylvanus
Apollo the god of the Sun, Music, Healing, and Prophesy: Milili for song and poetry (No god of the Sun or prophesy)
Minerva goddess of war, crafts, and wisdom: Oghma
Mercury the goddess of trade, thieves, and travel: Mask for thieves, Akadi for movement, Waukeen for trade
Bacchus the god of wine
Venus the goddess of love and beauty: Sune
Notice something? Faerunian deities tend to be more specialized. Also the Romans don't have a god of Murder, There is no Faerunian god of the Sun. In the Roman Pantheon Neptune is a greater deity while Umberlee is a lesser one. Diana and Apollo have large portfolios covering many areas, they are twin brother and sister after all.
Apollo doesn't have much competition if he were to enter the Forgotten Realms, it has no Sun god after all, and no god of Prophesy either. Venus and Sune are rivals. There is not a forgotten realms equivalent for every Roman god, nor is there a Roman equivalent for every Forgotten Realms god. Minerva is more good aligned than Oghma, and she has wisdom while Oghma is just a god of crafts and invention.

One thing I should add is that the Roman Pantheon was an actual pantheon of gods that real people worshipped and believed in, while the Faerunian deities are made up for a role playing game. Another advantage the Roman and Greek gods have is they come with a series of stories and myths, the Forgotten Realms gods just have portfolios, and a few novels in the present time. The Roman and Greek gods are also more familiar to most people as well. You talk about Mercury and most people know who he is and what he does, that is an advantage in a role playing game.

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It's really more complex then this, while the Romans did see Minerva as a War God, it was largely thanks to her link to Athena, the Romans tended to focus more on her other attributes.

Jupiter is a God of storms, but also rulership, and at times the sun.

Hermes was seen as an underworld God, a psychopomp.

Diana was equated to Artemis, but Artemis was equated in mythology with Bastet in FR terms Sharess. Saline would be more likely compared to a more primordial moon goddess.

At times Bastet was worship by the Romans, second most popular "Egyptian" (but really a heavily Grecoegyptianized version) Goddess in Rome.

The most popular one was Isis, as in Isis was more popular among the Romans then she was among Egyptians. She was huge in Rome, but her mythology was a blend of influences in Rome, not just Egyptian.

Because of the Greek Influences, Romans saw Bastet as the daughter of Isis and Horus as her brother, because some (but most certainly not the virgin part) of Bastet's mythology got mixed up with Artemis/Diana.

Here is how Roman builds an Empire in Faerun.

Under Emperor Julian the Philosopher Romans start appearing in Faerun, returning their Gods to Faerun, not just native Roman Gods, but many adopted ones.

Instead of replacing the Faerunian Gods with their own the Romans employ the practice of buying the support of their enemies Gods with generous sacrifices (buying the support of the Gods of Romes enemies was a common Roman practice).

Isis gets a massive boost of power, becomes the most powerful God in Mulhorand. An Alliance between Mulhorand and Rome is forged, and later expands to include Tu Lung in Kara Tur.

Empereror Julian brings his best Diviners, Auguries, and Thuergist Philosophers to do magical battle, and they are very good at it. With help from Mulhorand Empereror hires Chessentan Wizard mercenaries.

Over time (more then 9 years, more like a couple centuries), Rome conquers the Western Faerun, Mulhorand takes Eastern Faerun, and Tu Lung takes most of Kara Tur except Island nations and Malatran Nations. Then the real fight begins as this Alliance turns it's eyes towards Zakhara and its Caliph.

For your campaign I suggest to add four new classes.

- Augur: practically the urban druid from Dragon magazine #317.

- Haruspex: The biopunk version of necromancer, magic manipulation of living tissues. Do you remember the prestige class "fleshwarper" from 3.5 "Lords of Madness: book of aberrations"?

- Bellonarii: warpriests who worship Bellona, goddess of war, as rival or Minerva and love-hate relation with Mars.

- Bustuarius: "tomb fighters". The origin of the gladiator games was the fights replaced human sacrifices in funeral ceremonies. I imagine this class like the necromantic version of the paladin.

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As hook of adventures and to creation of new stories my advice is a rivalry conflict between two classes: warmages and gunfighters, in a fantasy version of arms race.