Session 0: Building Your Character

This campaign’s structure is set. Five sessions, 175 AD, the Germanic frontier, the spear. What is not set is who you are inside that structure. Session 0 is for building a character whose interior life is interesting enough to make the campaign’s fixed events matter. That is a different thing from designing the campaign together. Both are legitimate; this is the former.

Read this before you build your character. The questions here are not character sheet fields. They are the questions that make character sheet fields mean something.

What Session 0 Is For

You will not be asked what kind of campaign you want to play. The campaign’s tone, setting, and structure are already determined. You are Roman soldiers on the Germanic frontier in 175 AD. The world reacts to your choices. Characters can die or be permanently changed. Magic is real and occasionally terrible. These are not adjustable.

What you will build today:

A character whose past explains their present
A character with relationships to the others at the table
A character with something they care enough about to be tested by

Before the Legion: Who Were You?

Your character has a past. The legion is not all of it. Answer these questions in your own head (or aloud, if the table wants to hear): you do not need to write them on your sheet, but you should know the answers.

Province and family: Where did you come from? Not the city name: the texture of it. Was it a city or farmland? Was your family poor, comfortable, or something more complicated? What did your family do, and are you following that path or cutting away from it?

Before the oath: What were you doing when the recruiter found you, or when you walked to the recruitment office yourself? Did you enlist voluntarily, or did the alternatives narrow until service was the remaining option? Was there something you were running toward, or away from?

What you regret: Not your character’s biggest mistake: the one they return to at the third watch when sleep does not come. Something small is often more revealing than something catastrophic. The thing you said that you did not mean to say. The thing you failed to do when you had the chance.

What you love that you do not talk about: A person, a place, a practice, an idea. Something that would surprise your century if they knew. This is not a secret weapon; it is a dimension. Characters who love things are more interesting than characters who only want things.

What you would die for: This is the question that defines behavior at the decisive moment. Name it specifically. “Rome” is too large; “my unit” is closer; “the person in the tent next to mine” is better. The more specific the answer, the more useful it is when the campaign provides the test.

What you would refuse to do, even under orders: There is a line. Every soldier has one, even if they have never stated it. Knowing where your line is before you approach it changes how you play the character when the campaign pushes you toward it.

What honor means to you: And whether life has already tested that definition. The word is easy. The application is where characters become real.

The Unit: Who You Were Before You Met

You did not assemble yourselves. You were summoned, each of you separately, to the anteroom outside the Legate’s office. The letter you received gave no explanation. When you arrived, there were others waiting. Some of them you recognized. Some you did not.

You are not a standard contubernium (the eight-man tent unit that forms the basic cell of Roman military life). You are a vexillatio extraordinaria: a special detachment. Corvinus pulled one specialist per critical function from across the fort and the surrounding region. The official paperwork calls it a construction oversight assignment. You will learn what it actually is in Session 1.

Some of you have crossed paths before. Some have not. For each other player character, decide: do you know this person from the fort, from previous service, or not at all? If you know them, select one event from the list below that describes your history with them. If you do not know them, your first meeting is the anteroom outside Corvinus’s door.

Not every pair of characters needs a shared history. Strangers thrust into a dangerous situation together is its own kind of story. An asymmetry (you know them; they barely remember you) is also a story.

Each player selects one event from the list below for each other player they have a prior connection with. You do not all need to agree on the same event.

Shared event options:

Acts of help: - You pulled them out of a collapsed trench during construction work on the northern watchtower. They were not all the way in, but they would have been. - You covered for them when they missed a patrol. You do not know why they missed it. You never asked. - You shared your rations with them during the three days the supply cart did not arrive. You told yourself you were not doing anything significant. - You sat with them the night they received bad news from home. You did not say much. Neither did they.

Acts of witness: - You watched them do something under pressure that you could not have done. You have not told them you saw it. - You watched them do something under pressure that changed how you think about them. You have not told them this either. - You were there when they made a decision that cost something. You still think about whether they made the right call. - You were the only other person present for something they clearly do not discuss. You have respected that.

Acts of friction: - You reported them for a minor infraction that cost them a week’s pay. You had legitimate reasons. The relationship survived, technically. - You argued with them during a situation where argument was the wrong choice. You were probably right. The timing was wrong. - You know something about them that they do not know you know. It has not come up. It will.

Acts of nothing in particular: - You have stood watch with them enough times that silence between you is completely comfortable. - You taught them something practical: how to waterproof a boot, how to identify a specific herb, how to estimate distance by sound. Small. Remembered. - You have heard them pray. You did not acknowledge it. You do not know if they know you heard.

Selecting Your Role

Every member of this unit holds a formal position with defined duties, specific pay, and access that other soldiers do not have. Your role is not your D&D class: it is your function within the fort’s institutional structure. It defines who you talk to, what you know by default, and what you are responsible for when things go wrong.

At Session 0, select one role. The full list is in the Unit Roles chapter. Each role has prerequisites: citizenship status, ability scores, and skill proficiencies. These must be met. If two players want the same role, the player whose character better fits the prerequisites takes priority; if prerequisites are equal, discuss and decide.

If you do not select a role, Corvinus assigns you the closest match to your skill set. You still hold a role; you simply did not choose it.

One role note before you look at the list: The Aquilifer position is visibly vacant from the first scene (Gaius Metellus is dead; his role is the first thing Corvinus mentions). The Flamen Martialis position is also vacant, but Corvinus does not announce this or explain why; that information is Session 2 content.

What to do with this information now: 1. Look at the Unit Roles chapter 2. Check prerequisites against your character’s planned ability scores and proficiencies 3. Choose a role that fits, or ask the DM which role fits best 4. Note your role’s pay grade, duties, and starting mechanic on your character sheet

You will not know your colleagues’ roles until you are all in the same room. Some combinations of roles will reveal things to the unit that no individual could have seen alone.

Character Creation Notes

These are practical reminders, not restrictions.

Class choices: The setting grounds well in Fighter (the obvious choice and a good one), Ranger (scouts, border patrol), Rogue (frumentarii intelligence network, urban operators), Cleric (the haruspex role, or a devotee of a specific god), and Warlock (divine pact with a specific deity: Mars, Jupiter, or one of the Germanic gods). Barbarian works as a Germanic-born or frontier-raised character. Wizard is unusual but not impossible: a scholarly tribune, an Alexandrian-trained physician, or a member of a secretive Roman magical tradition.

Background: Soldier is the mechanical fit. Folk Hero works for a character from a rural province who enlisted. Sage works for the scholar-soldier type. Noble works for a character from a senatorial family who has been assigned to the frontier (this is a common imperial practice for young men needing military experience before their political careers begin).

Latin names: Optional but evocative. A three-part Roman name (tria nomina) consists of the praenomen (personal name), nomen (family name), and cognomen (family branch or earned nickname). Examples: Gaius Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. If you want a non-Roman character (a Germanic auxiliary, a Gallic soldier, a Greek physician attached to the legion), that opens different naming conventions.

Starting equipment: The party begins with standard legionary kit. Individual characters may have a personal item from their pre-legion life that has survived to this posting. One item, small enough to carry in a pack. What is it and why does it still exist?

Setting-Specific Questions

These questions help establish how your character fits 175 AD Rome and the Germanic frontier. Answer them before Session 1. They will come up.

Roman Identity

Is your character a Roman citizen, or a non-citizen serving in an auxiliary unit? How does this affect how they see themselves and how others treat them?
How does your character feel about the Emperor and Rome as an institution? True believer, pragmatic loyal, quiet skeptic, or something more complicated?
Does your character have family back home? Are they sending money home? Is there someone waiting for them?
What does your character want when their service is over: a plot of land, a return to a city, money, rank, or something else entirely?

The Gods

Which god (if any) does your character actively worship? What does their relationship with that deity look like in practice: daily prayer, offerings before battle, a vow they have sworn?
Is there a god your character fears or avoids? Why?
Has your character ever personally witnessed something they believe was divine intervention? How did it change them?
Are omens and augury something your character trusts, dismisses, or is conflicted about?

The Frontier

How long has your character been posted to the frontier? Is this their first remote posting or have they done this before?
Has your character had personal contact with Germanic tribespeople: as enemies, traders, allies, or something else?
Does your character speak any Germanic language or Latin as a second language? (Relevant for roleplay and social encounters.)
What does your character think of the frontier posting: temporary hardship to endure, the real edge of interesting work, or something they have made peace with?
How does your character see the people on the other side of the frontier line? Not the political answer: the personal one. Contempt, curiosity, respect, or something in between?
What is your character trying to get out of this posting? Not the official reason: the real one. Promotion, money, distance from something at home, proof of something to themselves?

Character Hooks

Answer these for your character. They do not need to be stated aloud, but the DM needs to know the answers.

When the Legate summons you specifically for a dangerous task, what is your first instinct: obey, find out more, look for a way out, or see opportunity?
You are told the ruins beneath the fort have killed four men. What does your character do the night before they descend?
If you discovered that an officer you respect is corrupt, what would you do with that information?

The Three Questions

At the end of Session 0, each player answers these three questions aloud. The DM writes down the answers. They will matter.

What does your character want to prove on this campaign? Not “survive” and not “become a hero.” Something specific to who this character is and what they feel they have not yet demonstrated.
What are they afraid will happen? Not a monster or a battle. Something about themselves, or the people they care about, or the kind of person this campaign might turn them into.
What will they protect, no matter what? The thing they will not sacrifice even when the campaign offers them a reason to. The line they will hold even if everything else moves.

Write a one-sentence version of your answer to each question on an index card and give it to the DM. These become the basis for your character’s personal arc across the five sessions.