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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 5465370" data-attributes="member: 40177">Let's use some real Roman history here:1)  Ever hear of "Decimation"?  Basically, the word comes from an old Roman military action - when a legion broke discipline in a particularly harsh way, such as by fleeing, mutineering, or breaking lines, they would be dishonoured.  The officers would often be hung, while the remaining soldiers (those who were not the instigators of the act), would draw stones from a bag.  One stone out of ten would have a black mark on it.  If your stone had a black mark on it, you were put to death.  The other nine either remained in the legion, or were sent to other legions with their honor more or less kept intact.  Now, imagine if Zacris, a well-known military leader, became the new leader of a bunch of sad sack soldiers.  Imagine if the first thing he did was decimate his unit to put them back in line... and then he rewrote Caprian law so that rather then those corpses being buried, they were instead "put to service as slaves" in an undead state - a state worse than death!  That's the stuff legends are made of - even better if the undead slaves were vital in future victories.2)  Zacris could get involved in one of the numerous plots to oust the emperor that always seem to pop up.  Of course, he'd gather together all of the offenders, and then backstab them all at once in the name of the emperor, and spend the better part of a week torturing them on a hill that overlooks the city so that future conspirators would think twice before betraying the emperor.3)  How did Zacris get his initial wealth?  He used his armies as fire brigades in the city.  What did he do?  He'd wait until there was a fire, send his fire brigade, and they wouldn't put out the fire until the owner sold the house to the brigade at a very low price (and if the owner didn't, remember he'd be legally liable for any damages should the fire spread).  Then Zacris would sell the property back to the owner, at the street value - unless the property was quite profitable, in which case, he'd keep it.  (This is how the roman senator crassus made a lot of cash).4)  I think Zacris needs to be responsible for developing some of the more deadly spells in your campaign.  I don't know what game you're playing, but imagine if the spell, say, Slay Living was developed originally by Zacris?</blockquote>

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