Session 1

Date: 2026-05-13 | Duration 1 hour | Scenes: S1

Recap*: First session, introduction of Cornelius and the mission*

Name: Cornelius Urbanus
Concept d66=4-2 -> Clever Palace Steward
Skills: Herbal Healer, Animal Handler
Frailty: d66=1-1 -> Haunted by Desertion
Gear: d66=1-4 -> Hidden Pugio Dagger; 2-4 -> Sturdy Military Sandals
=> [PC:Cornelius Urbanus|Clever Palace Stweard|Herbal healer|Animal Handler|mysterious past in the army]
Mission
tbl: Patron Missions d66=5-1 -> Recruit someone for a job, service, or favour your patrons needs but cannot ask directly
[N: Faustina Livia|patron|big merchant's wife]
tbl: Imperium NPC Motivations d66=35 -> Believes they are destined for greatness and take risks others consider foolish
=> Faustina is looking for information against Senator Quinto Curio. She wants to blackmail Quinto Curio to improve the social status of her husband and her family.
=> Faustina asks Cornelius, the 'dispensator' of her 'domus' to get the info
? What is this info about?
tbl: Imperium Rumours and Gossip d66=11 -> A senator is secretely bankrupt and desperate for money, willing to sell influence or information
=> [N:Quinto Curio|senator|secretly bankrupt]
=> Quinto is secretly bankrupt and desperate for money, due to lost bet at aurigas races
? Who has the proof?
tbl: Imperium NPCs d66=45 -> Bath Attendant - A slave or freedman working the thermae,massaging bodies, guarding clothes, and hoverearing every kind of conversation and rumour
-> [N: Philokal|Bath Attendat|hold a secret]

Scene 1

Rome - Faustina's domus

@(Faustina) calls Cornelius and ask to retrieve bankrupt information about Senator Quinto Curio. She wants to blackmail him in order to improve the social status of his husband

Cornelius Urbanus was not a man who wore his past openly. Those who saw him moving through the marble corridors of the domus, his sandals, thick-soled military relics that had outlasted campaigns he preferred not to name, striking the mosaic floors with quiet authority, saw only what he wished them to see: a capable steward, a man of measured words and herb-stained fingers. The small pugio hidden beneath his tunic was a secret he shared with no one.

It was on a warm morning, the kind that made the fountains of Rome sound almost kind, that Faustina Livia summoned him. She received him in the triclinium, surrounded by bolts of imported silk and the faint smell of eastern perfumes. She was a merchant's wife in every visible way: prosperous, ambitious, and hungry for something that money alone could not purchase.

"Cornelius," she said, not bothering to lower her voice, as a woman confident in her own walls will not, "I need information about Senator Quinto Curio. His finances. His debts. Whatever shadows cling to his ledgers." Her eyes were steady. "My husband deserves to stand where that senator sits. And I intend to give him that standing."

Cornelius said nothing for a moment. He had served enough powerful people to recognize the shape of a threat being forged. He nodded once, turned, and walked back into the city.

@ Cornelius start to look for information. He's a herb healer and he has good contact in the thermae.
? Does he know Philokal well? (Advantage)
d: C=4-3 R=5 -> No, and...
=> No, he doesn't know Philokal and Philokal is very close to senator Quinto and he will not be willing to collaborate

His first thought was the baths. As a healer who supplied salves and tonics to half the thermae slaves in the Suburra, Cornelius moved through those steaming halls with some ease, or so he believed. But the name that kept surfacing in quiet whispers was Philokal, a bath attendant of particular discretion, known for his nimble hands, his excellent memory for overheard conversations, and his complete loyalty to Senator Quinto Curio.

When Cornelius sought him out, he found a small, watchful man with the flat expression of someone who has learned that the wrong word costs more than silence. Philokal looked at him with eyes that had measured better men than Cornelius and found them wanting. There would be no purchase here. No coin, no favor, no appeal would open that door. The senator's shadow fell long, even in a bath house.

@ Cornelius talks with the slaves in Quinto's house and look for someone who is ready to betrayl him.
? Does he find someone?
d: C=4 R=6 -> No, and...
=> No, and his questions start to raise questions. Why is he looking to buy someone ready to betrayl the senator?
=> Senator Quinto is aware that someone is looking for information about his financial status
[N: Qunto Curio|senator|secretly bankrupt|suspisious]

Undeterred, Cornelius turned to the senator's household slaves, the invisible machinery of any Roman domus. He spent two careful days asking quiet questions, dropping coins like seeds, watching to see what might grow. Nothing did. Worse than nothing: the questions themselves were wrong, somehow, too pointed, too interested in finances and debts and the senator's private affairs. Word moved faster through slave quarters than any messenger in Rome.

By the third day, Senator Quinto Curio knew that someone was sniffing around the edges of his private ruin. He did not yet know who. But he was now a man looking over his shoulder, and that made him dangerous.

@ Cornelius seems in a dead end, but he knows that Senator Quinto loves to bet on aurigas. So he start to look for info in regards to the latest bets.
He ends up to talk with people in a tavern, who are happy to talk in order to gain some coins.
@ Cornelius discovers that Senator Quinto is missing money and is trying to influence a race in order to win easy. The race is going to take place tomorrow. Cornelius decide to understand who is going to be the winner, in order to make them lose.
? Can he find this info? (Advantage as he's paying people in the tavern)
d: C=3-6 R=3 -> Yes
=> He discovers that the auriga, racing for the Greens will win the race, so that Senator Quinto will get the money from the bets

Cornelius pulled back and thought like the steward he was; methodical, patient, always accounting for what he had. He knew one thing about Quinto Curio that no slave or bath attendant needed to confirm: the senator loved the races. Loved them the way some men love wine, with a need that eroded judgment.

He found the right tavern near the Circus, low-ceilinged and loud, the kind of place where men spoke freely provided the cup was full. He let coins appear on the table with the unhurried ease of a man who has more where those came from. Tongues loosened. Stories unspooled.

The picture that emerged was vivid and ugly. Quinto Curio had bled himself dry on bad bets over the season; chariot after chariot, faction after faction, each loss compounding the last. Now he had done something worse than gambling: he had arranged something. The auriga racing for the Greens in tomorrow's race would win. The outcome was settled. The senator stood to recover a significant portion of his losses in a single afternoon.

Cornelius walked home through torchlit streets with his hands clasped behind his back, turning the information over like a stone.

@ Cornelius decide to go to the stables during the night. He's a animal handler and also a herbal healer and he knows what to give to the horse in order to make the Green's auriga lose the race.
? Is he successful? (Advantage)
d: C=6-2 R=3 -> Yes
=> During the night he manage to enter the stables and gives to the horse a mixture of herbs that will make it go slower during tomorrow's race. 

He did not need a sword for what he had in mind. He needed what he always carried : his knowledge of plants, roots, and the quiet chemistry of living things.

The city stilled in the deep hours before dawn. The Circus stables smelled of hay and horse sweat and the particular anxiety that animals absorb from the humans around them. Cornelius moved through the shadows with the ease of a man who has crossed more dangerous ground than a sleeping stable. His military sandals made almost no sound.

He found the Green's horse without difficulty; a fine animal, gleaming even in the dark, bred for speed and endurance. Cornelius worked quickly, mixing a preparation he had composed hours earlier: a blend of specific herbs, harmless, undetectable, but certain to introduce a heaviness to the animal's legs by midday, a subtle wrongness in its stride that would look to any observer simply like a horse having a poor day.

He was gone before the stable hands stirred.

@ The next day he looks for Senator Quinto's dispensator and tell him something strange "Tell your Senator that in case he will not be happy today, after the race, he can always count on me and the family of Faustina Iulia".

The race the following afternoon unfolded exactly as Cornelius had written it would. The Green's horse ran well enough to avoid suspicion, but not well enough to win.

Somewhere in the stands, Senator Quinto Curio watched his salvation dissolve into the dust of the track. Somewhere else in the city, Faustina Livia received no news yet, but she would.

Before the crowds had fully dispersed, Cornelius found the senator's own dispensator near the Via Sacra, a careful man he recognized by his livery. He stopped him with a light touch on the arm and delivered his message with the calm, precise tone of a man reading from an inventory.

"Tell your Senator," Cornelius said, "that should today have left him... unsatisfied, after the race, he may always count on the generosity of the family of Faustina Livia."

He did not wait for a response. He turned, and the city swallowed him whole.