| The Lives of the Brutii - Introduction |
| The Lives of the Brutii is a tale told against the backdrop of
a Rome: Total War succession game (Brutii/Hard/Hard/patch 1.1) played by myself
and Marechal. The idea is that one of us plays out the role of the
current faction leader of the Brutii until that character dies in the
game, then passes it on to the other player, who does the same thing and
passes it back. Thus each chapter of the story is loosely based
around the life of the current faction leader, but plenty of other
characters are given depth as well. The goal is to bring the
Brutii world as completely to life as possible.
To that end, we have compiled a family tree for the Brutii family, complete with biographical notes for the major characters. There are a few things to be said about historical accuracy. Both Marechal and myself are students of history, and will attempt to the best of our ability to keep all the details accurate. Thus, faction leaders are referred to as "paterfamilias" or "king" or other appropriate titles. Dates have been written using an approximation of the Roman calendar (see below) with the BC/AD dates in parenthesis. There are other small details that will hopefully enhance your enjoyment of the story. That having been said, this is a story based on a game, and not everything in that game necessarily meshes with reality. Roman government and the great patrician families in the game, for example, bear only passing resemblance to reality. Lastly, a few notes on the dating system used in the story. Dates in the story are written as years "AUC" or ab urbe condita, years from the founding of the city of Rome, which by legend took place in 753 BC. Years AUC can be found by adding 753 to the BC/AD year, so -270 (270 BC) + 753 = AUC 483. Months are mostly similar to our own months, with a few exceptions: Januarius
In addition, because the Republican calendar was a lunar one, an additional month was inserted every few years at the decision of the Pontifex Maximus. In practice, this proved to not work so well, and by the late Republic, months may or may not have meshed correctly with seasons. For the purposes of the story, we'll pretend that the years and the months perfectly correspond to our own, even though they may not. That having been said, we hope you enjoy the story. |