Starting Story

A last chance for condemned men comes but once.

As Ceasar prepares to invade Britain, his army gathered on the coast of Gaul, more men are needed.

Weather has delayed his invasion, and desertions are sapping the men's morale

Salvaged from the pens, a replacement Century is created from condemned men - deserters, cowards, thieves, cheats, frauds, psychopaths, murderers - the Dregs of the army.

These men given one more chance to serve the Republic, to redeem themselves (if they believe in redemption) on blood-soaked foreign shores.

And so they were pulled and thrust, out of the barred wagon, blinking and staggering, hands tied, dirty, exhausted, expecting to die.  First was the disgraced scion, scuffed but  intact, blond hair naturally curled at the ends of a center part, framing a face built to support armored cheek-flaps.His name was Gaius Fabius Maximus, and chains ran from his wrists to those of a small dark man, falling to his knees off the wagon behind him.  Others followed behind, in the same chain or in others thrown from nearby wagons pulled up in parallel to the first.  They were in a grassy sloping field. A road across them, a forest behind, and beyond the fields in front, a massive army. Organized, armored, fit to raze a country. And beyond that, a blue sky and wine-grey sea.

“Up and move!” yelled a legionary waiting for him.  Maximus was hooked around the wrists by something like a shepherds hook with a weight on the bottom end, and yanked forward towards another roman who repeated the motion down a chain of soldiers. this was repeated across the field. Ten chains of eight men each, pulled out of prison wagons like intestines from a sheep, while all around them ten thousand men prepared to invade.

    Maximus was pulled up straight at the end of a stagger by the final military police in the line.  Sore, hungry, thirsty, and out of breath, he finally saw in front of him another worthy of his rank, another tribune.  He had endured a horrible journey under mistaken circumstances, and now here was a patrician of commensurate rank and understanding, obviously arrived with the horribly overdue missive from Gauis Fabius’ father to correct the situation.  He pulled himself up to be face to face with Flavius Strabo a piggy-eyed prune of a man he had known his whole life and tortured most of his childhood. The officious little shit shoved a centurions helmet into Gaius’s bound hands and snarled “welcome to the ranks, asshole I hope you fucking die!” before storming off.

    Maximus spat on the ground and looked around at the dirty, chained men of his new command. Criminals, every last one of them; And here he was, consigned to lead them for no other reason than doing his duty.  He had led his men on a glorious charge into the breached wall of a gallic fort and shortened the siege by several days.  The high casualties amongst his men were irrelevant. It all came down to the bloody stupidity of his junior tribune, a chinless wonder from the patrician Valerius family, who went and got himself killed trying to keep up with the charge, and paused at the top of the breach, silhouetted for all the Gaul archers to see.

    So now Maximus had to wait and hope his family could get him out of this mess. It was so unfair! It wasn’t him who had turned the General’s nephew into a feathered pin-cushion.  None of his successes, his blood, or even his callous charm was enough to stop the Generals wrath from stripping him of his rank and throwing him in with the common criminals.

***Centurion - Roman - Gaius Fabius Maximus - disgraced for leading his century into a suicidal Forlorn Hope in a Gallic fortress - usually a commendation, but got a Patrician's son killed -  caught by politics. Selfish, callous, charming sociopath***

Archelaos Xenophon was greek, well educated, erudite in many subjects, cultures, and sciences both physical and social He also happened to be a slave who expected to be assigned to the General’s personal encampment as a tutor to the great man’s son.  He was therefore rather surprised to find himself chained up with many uncouth men, shoved into carts, and then herded into rough formation.

“There’s been a terrible mistake”, he tried to explain to the grim-jawed legionary in front of him.  His appeal was cut short by a casual back-handed blow that staggered him forward. He fell to his knees, vision swimming, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth.  The man behind him in the line grabbed him and pulled him roughly to his feet.

“Keep fucking moving or you’ll drag the whole bunch of us down with you” hissed the fellow prisoner.

Xenophon tried again with the next legionary, “I’m meant to be teaching in exchange for citizenship.”

The soldier just laughed, “Right, mate! The recruiter probably told you that you’d get land too, didn’t he?”

Archelaos was stunned, “how did you know?”  But the legionary laughed again and pushed him to keep moving, “Should have read the fine print. The recruiters will say anything to get you to sign.”

Muddy, cold, bedraggled and shivering, Xenophon stood disconsolately in line.  What the hell did he know about fighting? What was he going to do? Talk the enemy to death?

***Greek - Archelaos Xenophon - slave - philosopher / teacher - taking a chance to gain citizenship - knows a lot of non-fighting things - great with languages***

Ratio Paulus stood, or rather swayed, in line. He was still drunk off the skin of wine he had managed to win off a guard the previous night, playing dice in the prison stockade. He had barely felt the blows of the soldiers dragging and pushing him, or the cold wind blowing in off the sea nearby.  This was just another event, in a long series of events, that had failed to kill him or even strip him of his rank of Optio.  He smirked to himself under the dried blood and grime caking his face.  Even when you beat a Laticlave Tribune half to death in a drunken brawl, even when you are arrested and thrown into the pens for execution, they won’t dare demote someone awarded for valor by the Consul-Elect of Rome.  He absently stroked the empty space on his belt where the phalera had hung.  The medal was gone now, lost in a game of chance while too drunk to know better. Probably for the best. It may have saved his life and rank one last time, but it wasn’t going to get Paulus out of this latest raft of shit.  He sighed, straightened up, and looked around for who was going to be made centurion of this criminal group, the last-chance Century.  He just hoped it wouldn’t be that prick of a patrician who’d ended up in the pens for getting someone’s noble son killed.

***Optio - Roman - Ratio Paulus - inveterate drunk and gambler, arrested for beating an off duty laticlave tribune half to death in a drunken gambling fight. Experienced.***

Sextus stood as alone as a man can get when chained together with seven others, his chains stretched taught on either side as the men flanking him tried to distance themselves.  The only reason his arms weren’t stretched out was the men weren’t strong enough to pull his crossed arms apart.  He could hear them gagging.

“Mercury’s balls!” The man on his left gasped, “did you bathe in a Gallic latrine?”

The prisoner on the other side laughed, then coughed and spluttered. “This here’s Sextus the Sheep Fucker.  He’s famous for that smell”

The first man leaned forward to look across Sextus at the other. “Sheep Fucker?”

“Yeah, he was caught in with the food supply, shagging a sheep”

The prisoner squinted up at Sextus “For real? That’s a death sentence isn’t it?”

Sextus gave the man a toothy grin “for sleeping with the Tribune’s mother? Probably”

That brought a general round of laughter from others nearby

“Shut your pie holes!” Yelled a legionary walking down the line, “And form up properly! Close your…What in Hades is that fucking smell???” The soldier recoiled from his attempt to push the prisoners closer together

“Why, it is me! Sextus Leofdæg!”

“The sheep fucker? Why aren’t you dead?”

“Because he’s the best damn fighter we got” chimed in the expert on his right, “and despite that godawful smell, our Tribune has a soft spot for him for some reason"

“For your sake, hope you’re right,” the soldier called back as he walked on, “there’s an entire country of angry savages, and you all are the front line”

**Saxon - Sextus Leofdæg - bestiality! - fucking the food - sheep fetish - odious personal habit - sleeps with animals, smells bad, chummy - thick as two short planks, but man can he fight!**

For Caratacus, this would have to rate as his worst nightmare yet.  Chained and visible.  No way to run, and nowhere to hide.  He hunched and tried to sidle behind the men flanking him. A shove in his back from the prisoner behind made him whimper.  He felt sick to his stomach, his limbs weak and shaking, his brain yelling at him to run! Run! Yet he couldn’t.  He found himself unable to appreciate the irony that it was his swiftness and speed that had elevated him to Cornicen, but his propensity for using that talent to avoid danger had brought him so low.

He heard the others whispering around him, “Coward”, “craven”, “spineless”

A passing soldier looked over at the whispering, saw him and knew him for what he was: Less than a man, a weak-spined yellow-bellied coward who turned tail and fled.  Originally everyone thought he was good luck, the way he always emerged unscathed from a battle.  This had led the Centurion to give him the trumpet and make Caratacus stand next to him.  It was only then, visible to all, at the height of battle, the century sorely pressed upon three sides, that the Centurion turned to order the withdrawal, to see Caratacus’ backside disappearing behind the lines.

So he stood, and shivered, dying the coward’s death a thousand times, knowing he would be pushed forward, inexorably, into the face of the enemy, by the swords of his betrayed companions.

***Cornicen - Gaul - Caratacus the Coward - arrested for cowardice***

***(Hornblower for centurions orders)***

***Apt to run away if scared, intimidated, or just no-one looking - dodges like crazy, runs like the wind.***

Mordred had no fucking clue what was going on.  He hadn’t had a clue for quite some time now.  The last sensible thing he could remember was telling Turo, the other slave, that his idea to run away was a stupid one.  He first realized he had lost the plot as he ran towards the woods, chased by dogs, and following Turo on a madcap plan.  Their master hadn’t been completely horrible, but he hadn’t been at all good either.  There would be no forgiveness if caught.  A series of random events, connected only by the series of chased and chaser like a threaded string through beads of Bad Happenings, led eventually to a tavern, days and miles away. There he and Turo spent some stolen coin for a quiet beer, huddled at a table, anonymous amongst other tables of hunched groups of whispering men.

Just as he thought he might be getting the hang of what was going on, the doors of the tavern burst open and a horde of roman soldiers rushed in and started grabbing men from the tables.  On their heels strode a bull of a Centurion yelling “This is a raid, Deserters! On the floor, NOW!”

Amongst the pandemonium, lying on the floor in the dirt and dust, Turo grabbed him, pulled him close and yelled in his ear “We’re deserters OK? Deserters get to live. Escaped slaves get to die. Got it?!”

Before he could reply, a legionary pulled him up and spun him around. Mordred found himself yelling “Deserter! I’m a deserter!” Into the soldier’s face.

“I know, asshole” was the reply, before his vision was filled with an approaching fist. And then… Black.

And now, for the next shit-stained bead of Bad Happenings on the thread of misery his life had become, he had awoken to find himself, chained, beaten, and yelled at. All familiar, but twisted into a new strangeness. Soldiers yelling commands with strange words, and everyone around him knowing what to do. Including fighting. Meanwhile, Mordred had no fucking clue.

***Gaul slave - Mordred- runaway - not actually trained - caught in a raid on a local bar (thought it better to be a Deserter than a runaway slave) - no military training, but has to fake it - if caught, instant death***

It was a fine day with a bracing breeze.  The smell of the sea wafted around them, the occasional glimpse of sun brightened everything to a glow, and the chains were so light, Cerberus didn’t even notice them.  Not at all like the thick heavy chains he would be bound in for the Arena.  Such a glorious day to be outside. Much better than being in the cells beneath an amphitheater, waiting to fight and bleed for the crowd on an unforgiving bed of sand.  Feeling a nudge, he looked down to see a legionary trying to push him to keep the line moving.

Cerberus smiled and said “I am Cerberus! I fight well! I kill enemy!” The soldier looked up, replied “fucking great mate, now get a move on”

Cerberus did not understand, so he repeated a third of the latin that he knew “I am Cerberus!”

The legionary sighed, pointed up to the lines of other prisoners, and said loudly and slowly “Go..Up…There…Enemy … There!”

He didn’t understand all the words, but he knew to go where guards point.  If he went that way, he would get to kill Rome’s enemies instead of their prisoners. And if he did it well enough, he got citizenship.  It was true.  The greek slave who was also at the recruiter explained it to him as they were signing up.  It was good to know there was at least one other person here who spoke his language.

***Carthaginian - Cerberus - slave - gladiator - taking a chance to become a citizen - barely speaks Roman, but can kill almost anything... even when he should run away***

Terminus Consus hoped and prayed to every god he could think of, that no-one would recognize him; that no-one in this crowd of miscreants had been a victim of his swindling.  He hadn’t meant to. He loved money, thought it was his dream job to be put in charge of counting it. But it wasn’t his, was it? And he could make better anyway.  The local whores and bars where the soldiers spent their pay couldn’t tell the difference between real and fake sestercii. His were works of art too.  Thats ultimately how he got caught.  His one fatal mistake - not realizing the soldiers were paid with the worst coins from the mongers.

Those around him had been mostly respectful. He still had his Signifer’s rank, and everyone knows to be nice to the man who counts your pay.  If only they knew.  Terminus suppressed a shudder.

When the Armicustos and the guards came for him, it had not been pretty.  Dragged from his bed, trying to make excuses and stories while held suspended between two hard legionaries, and the Quartermaster dragging out his sins.  First, the chest of stolen money; then, his forgery tools; then the fake books; then the personal items. Bags of small trinkets, medals, rings, shiny toys, junk jewelry, random glittering belongings he had pilfered from his own men.  Finally he slumped, defeated, no explanation to give.  It was just in his nature. He couldn’t help himself.  He tried not to want things, but the fever of avarice would grab him.  Even when he didn’t even consciously want something, he would still return to his tent of a night to find his pouch full of random items he had no memory of collecting.

His only hope lay in two things - that no-one else here was from his previous century - and that whoever was centurion would see his worth, the skill of his rank, and let Terminus be the Signifer for this crew of the damned.

***Signifer - Roman - terminus consus - arrested for swindling the pay***

***(Carries the spear shaft + does the banking)***

***Greedy kleptomaniac, but great at fiddling with paperwork, hell of a forger***

Inigo Salazar strode calmly up to the line, and settled in to wait.  He knew how this game was played.  It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last that he found himself in such a predicament.  The army always took his money and “acquired” merchandise - but someone had always owed him a favor before that got him out of it.  This time, he wasn’t sure who he could call on.  But no matter.  That too had happened before.  Salazar was not one to exert himself without gain.  After all, he hadn’t built a mini-empire of corrupt trade and favors within the army by rushing around and getting into fights.  All he had to do was wait. Sooner or later there would be an opportunity.  Somebody would want something and he would get it for them, and then a favor would be owed, and his rebuilding would begin….

***Iberian - Inigo Salazar- arrested for stealing equipment and selling it for gain, and for bribing his way into the guarding the baggage train every battle - lazy Spaniard, smuggler***

“I’m so sorry Medicus, I don’t want to do this, I’m only following orders”. The legionary helped Lanzo down from the wagon, the wrist chains dragging behind him to the next man, who was roughly pushed out, others tumbling behind him.

“It’s ok Fusticus, I brought this upon myself.  How’s the arm healing?”

“Almost as good as new Medicus, thanks to you.”  The two strolled almost arm in arm up the hill, while the other prisoners chained to Medius Karl Lanzo were shoved along behind.

"How did you get yourself into this mess, sir? This seems so.. out of character for you. Arrested for desertion in a gallic tavern?”

Lanzo sighed, “I had to. I need to get back to my family.  My wife is due to give birth and I promised I would be there.  Our first two were very difficult, and if it wasn’t for my training, I would have lost her to blood loss during our daughters birth”

“Well you won’t do them any good dead, sir” Fusticus turned back to pull the next prisoner along by the chain

“I don’t think I’m going to do them much good in this century either, Legionary”

“Oh I don’t know, everyone’s glad of a Medicus” Fusticus replied, gesturing to his mended arm

“Yes, but I doubt anyone in this crew is going to like a law-abiding soldier who has a history of reporting infractions to the senior officer.

As he was pushed into line with everyone else, Fusticus leaned in close, “my advice to you sir.. learn to lie and cheat really fuckin’ quickly”

***German - Karl Lanzo - Medicus- desertion - trying to get back to pregnant wife - has dependents - stripped of rank - honest and truthful, but a fantastic medic***