New World of Darkness Vampire set in historical Rome. This sounds like a great idea for all those fans who felt like White Wolf forgot about them and their various Old World Dark Ages games! I have really missed a game with a historical edge and I can't wait to play. Thanks

Oh, wow! This is going to be awesome!

The question, however, is what era of Rome it's going to be. Are we talking like 12th Century Rome or like... ancient Rome with phalanxes and crazy Ben Hur stuff?

Personally, an ancient Roman sourcebook would rock my socks off. It'd be cool if they broke away from the old 'Dark Ages' theme and broadened their historical timelines a bit.

That said, they can probably do without making Vampire: The Requiem - Pangaea. ;)

This is what Vampire developer Will Hindmarch said about it:

"For what it's worth, Requiem for Rome is technically "set" between 313 AD and 363 AD, using the rule of Constantine I and Julian the Apostate as backdrops for both convoluted and bloody political strife and an epic secret war for the fates of Christianity and paganism in the Western world. (Though Rome is a more violent and shamelessly hedonistic setting, it's still Vampire: The Requiem, so we're looking at some of the core themes of the game in a new context.) This is also so we can transition easily into the companion book to Requiem for Rome, which I don't think we've officially announced yet, but will soon.

This pretty late date on the timeline also lets us look back at the history of Rome and its vampires, so you can set your own chronicles over a nice wide swath of years if you want. The hope is that the official "now" of the two Rome books will give you an usually strong ability to foreshadow and play with all the great dramatic potential that comes from augury and doomsaying when setting your chronicles in Julius Caesar's Rome (or whenever).

This is also because, really, the era when the Camarilla was truly in power is kind of boring, from a Kindred perspective. Though some of what you see about the Camarilla in Vampire: The Requiem (p. 43) is propaganda, the idea that the Camarilla's rule of the undead was utter (and homogeneous) is fairly accurate. It really is a shining example of Kindred influence and social infiltration -- the bright light that we use to get a lot of contrast in every era afterwards. But all that stability isn't real dramatic, so we're setting Requiem for Rome later on, when the cracks in the foundation of the Camarilla are deep and wide enough for vampires to fall into and never get out again.

All of this stuff also changes the light source from which the Kindred can regard history until the brightness gets swallowed by the fog of eternity in the distance. What do the eldest vampires of the Roman age recall about the past? You'll see some hints and ruins of what there was before the Camarilla and Rome, of what the Requiem looked like for vampires prior to their first great shadow society, and you might be surprised by what you find . . . and what it means for the future of the game line."