What if the Roman Empire conquered the Forgotten Realms?

This takes place in a parallel prime material plane, this parallel plane came into being during the Time of Troubles 1358 DR. In this period the Time of Troubles went differently, the goddess Mystra died, and there was no Midnight to take her place, thus initiated a series of spellstorms that resulted in the reopening of a long forgotten gateway to old Earth in 170 AD during the rein of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, when the Emperor's legions marched through the gate they brought their entire Greco-Roman pantheon of gods with them. The gate opened up onto the Sword Coast, and due to the weakened condition brought on by the struggles between the Forgotten Realms dieties, the Greco-Roman dieties saw their chance and they marched with the Roman Legions and conquered Waterdeep and moved south from there. Some opportunistic wizards and other spellcasters joined forces with the invading Romans and conquer neighboring kingdoms. The Roman priests find that they receive spells from their deities now and take advantage of the chaos during the Time of Troubles to take over.

So lets say the Roman Empire conquers a sizable portion of the Sword Coast, the Moonshaes are still independent and their are plenty of unconquered areas to the north as the Romans are more interested in conquering lands to the south because of the longer growing season. The campaign lasts for about 9 years, and then the gate closes. Emperor Marcus Aurelius is on the other side of the gate, but his son Commodus is ruling the portions of the Empire in the Forgotten realms, and when the gate closes he proclaims himself emperor. In the meantime some of the Forgotten Realms dieties have recovered from their Time of Troubles in some sphere, particularly the non-human ones, while the Roman gods have taken over their corresponding spheres here.

So what do you think?

I think AO isn't going to have it.

Some gods are going to have to go. Who will it be, the Roman gods or the "local" traditional gods that AO put in place himself?

Ignoring the concept of Overgods, what are the planar implications of a new pantheon elbowing into another's territory?

If you go with gods being created by and empowered by the belief of their followers and that there can be as many pantheons and gods as there are believers to support them, then the only thing that is a bit incredulous for me is that real-earth Romans would pose any real threat to the forces that exist in the Forgotten Realms. Those Roman priests would have to find themselves very high-level clerics.

9 years would hardly be enough to pacify the area. Not to mention that the romans would have a severe technological disadvantage. Not that the FR is very consistent with it, but apart from barbarians the romans would be the most primitive force on the continent, at least when it comes to military equipment and ships. Their tight formation tactics also makes them especially vulnerable to magic and larger monsters.

Politically the Roman Empire was very centralized so the loss of the connection to Rome would be especially problematic. A lot of the enslaved people of Faerun would likely have been brought to Rome for the traditional victory parades. In turn that means most slaves would not work on the Faerun side and once the gate closes they probably will have trouble to get the industry there running to keep the troops supplied, unless they can secure more slaves fast.
The loss off auxilliares also means their military capabilities are very diminished. Unless they can somehow acquire replacements from Faerun they would have to radically reform the military doctrine fast to cover the holes in their ranks.

Just as an aside, if the invasion turned northward toward the Moonshaes given their pseudo-Celtic style it'd basically be a straight-up repeat of the real-world Roman conquest of the British Isles - well, if they'd tried to do it in the 13th or 14th century, anyway.
(Although, arguably, the Romans didn't really "conquer" the British Isles so much as subvert the local cultures through a couple centuries of politics and commerce...)

Logistically, though, you'd have to assume that the Roman Empire threw all of their military might into this endeavor, with the active participation of avatars of the Roman gods - most likely each avatar would need to lead their own massive army in order to get enough of a blitz going to pull off a nine-year conquest of a good chunk of the Realms before they stalled out.

Well I assume the Forgotten Realms gods are at their weakest because of their Time of Troubles, and with the Death of Mystra a gate opens and the Roman Goddess of Magic steps in to take her place that would be Hekate. Hekate moves right in and discovers there's magic here, she takes over the weave and magic begins to work again as it should. Also the Roman gods are much more organized under the leadership of Jupiter. The Roman priests have levels, but on their own Earth they had no spells, so they had no magic, now that they cross over to Toril they discover the gods granting them spells. Wizards are somewhat different, the Romans will have to recruit some from the native population, maybe bribe them with positions of power and patronage. They turn our quite a sizable army, maybe some wizards might want to join it for the opportunities it presents.

MNblockhead said:

I think AO isn't going to have it.

Some gods are going to have to go. Who will it be, the Roman gods or the "local" traditional gods that AO put in place himself?

Ignoring the concept of Overgods, what are the planar implications of a new pantheon elbowing into another's territory?

If you go with gods being created by and empowered by the belief of their followers and that there can be as many pantheons and gods as there are believers to support them, then the only thing that is a bit incredulous for me is that real-earth Romans would pose any real threat to the forces that exist in the Forgotten Realms. Those Roman priests would have to find themselves very high-level clerics.

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One difference between the Forgotten Realms Pantheon and the Roman one is that the former doesn't really have a leader, it is not organized, each diety has his or her own agenda, Jupiter on the other hand is the leader of the Roman Gods. Ao created the Time of troubles in the first place, some of the Forgotten Realms Dieites had their origins on Earth anyway, and also there is a city named Baldur's Gate, possibly named after an Norse deity who is no longer around. Baldur is not one of the current Forgotten Realms deities , so gods come and go over time.

The Romans obviously have a lot to learn, their technology is inferior, but there are a lot of people in the Forgotten Realms who may want to help them, most would not, but there are all sorts of people and creatures out there that may see an invasion as an opportunity. Romans are lacking in wizardry after all, their clerics gain new powers from their empowered gods, but wizards have to learn their spells through study.

No. Let us be clear about something - the *entirety of the Roman Legions* could not pacify Earth when they were on it - they only had the areas around the Mediterranean Sea. So, a subset of that could not pacify an entire planet that has higher tech than they do, plus monsters the likes of which the Romans had never seen. One dragon overhead, and these people are toast.

Doubly so when they leave their entire support structure behind - they can't replace anything. They can't feed themselves. They can't repair armor or weapons. Even if their gods come, they don't have clerics with them (since they didn't have any on Earth). They have to learn about how to use clerical magic, and that takes time.

The only plausible scenario here is less of conquest, and more of colonization - the Romans get stuck, but have sufficient forces to make a settlement, and hold on to some of their culture. Now, there's an anomalous town in the FR that has Roman culture in the middle of everything else going on.

This sounds like it would make an awesome campaign setting. The military of the Roman empire was fairly adaptable and disciplined, I think they could definitely make their mark on the Forgotten Realms absorbing the cultures they conquer into the greater Roman empire. The gods I don't even see as problematic since there have already been plenty of interloper gods into the FR, including some entire pantheons. Perhaps the Roman gods seek out their lost goddess Fortuna/Tyche and find that she has split into Beshaba and the other one, both of whom are invited to join the pantheon as long lost members.

Umbran said:

No. Let us be clear about something - the *entirety of the Roman Legions* could not pacify Earth when they were on it - they only had the areas around the Mediterranean Sea. So, a subset of that could not pacify an entire planet that has higher tech than they do, plus monsters the likes of which the Romans had never seen. One dragon overhead, and these people are toast.

Doubly so when they leave their entire support structure behind - they can't replace anything. They can't feed themselves. They can't repair armor or weapons. Even if their gods come, they don't have clerics with them (since they didn't have any on Earth). They have to learn about how to use clerical magic, and that takes time.

The only plausible scenario here is less of conquest, and more of colonization - the Romans get stuck, but have sufficient forces to make a settlement, and hold on to some of their culture. Now, there's an anomalous town in the FR that has Roman culture in the middle of everything else going on.

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No they couldn't, and Faerun is a much larger continent that Europe, I don't think the Romans could conquer all of it, the only thing that gives them a chance is the Time of Troubles where the gods are cast down and walk the Earth. I think the Roman Gods instead of being cast down are brought into being by the worship of the Roman soldiers in the legions, some of those soldiers worship other gods as well such as Thor and Odin, if they've been recruiting some barbarians. In doesn't really matter of the Roman legions achieve great victories, as far as the Roman Gods are concerned, this invasion is their chance to make inroads, initially they'll be on the side of the Roman Legions, but as time advances they will increasingly pick up worshippers from the natives of Faerun, they are in competition with the Faerunian dieties. So even if the Roman legions are defeated, they will still be there, and that is what's most important for the Roman gods, other than that a few victories would help their cause, it would help them recruit more worshippers. I think the Roman generals are smart enough to attack the weak points first. Because there is magical chaos going on at this time, this reduces the effectiveness of the wizards and clerics arrayed against them. The Faerunian Deities are walking on the Prime Material Plane, and the Roman gods have their avatars as well, they haven't yet accumulated enough power on their own to rise up to the Outer planes yet, so in this situation they are roughly on equal terms.

The idea is to make it interesting. The Romans would take the first towns and villages by surprise and use their superior numbers to overcome the knights mounted on horses, and the archers with longbows and crossbows. They will probably capture some weaponsmiths who are capable of making more of these weapons. I think the Romans will start out slow, they will take a few towns and stop, while they try to gather intelligence on their immediate surrounding area. As you know they Sword Coast is a bunch of city states, Waterdeep being one. The Romans probably would not like the Orcs much, and would probably send their legions after them, and maybe win some support from the various towns and villages threatened by them. The Romans would then have to learn how to use the new weapons they captured and adapt tactics for them, the only question is how much the other powers are going to feel threatened by them and how quickly they will mount a counter attack.

If the hook of the campaign is "Romans conquer Forgotten Realms because their gods work better", what's the role of the PCs in the campaign?

As a setting concept, there is some interesting potential here, but if it turns out to basically play as "run old FR modules only with the Greco/Roman pantheon instead of the Faerunian one", then I'm not sure what the point is.

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Pauper