Game in the Brain

I wasn’t satisfied with the hooks in the GURPS hotspots:

The Nika Riots
Wiki the Nika Riots and you have the understanding of the Race Factions that practically controlled the city. The Colors were used as a “Proxy” war and frequently escalated into Riots and real war. The cycle continued because the hippodrome was one of the best sources of distraction Politicians can get in those times.

1. PCs are part of a Gang Turf war
2. One of the Colors gets the PCs involved in their Political maneuverings. It begins with some honest races, then escalates to a hedonistic crime spree. 

The Roman Intelligence Service
If you’ve not read the Strategikon then grab it from your local library because its one of those vestiges of the Roman CIA. If you’ve read about Leo the Mathematician in GHS:Constantinople then you’ know about the extensive logistics and infrastructure of the Romans (AKA bysantines). If you’ve read about the way they’ve dealt with their enemies (like Alexius capturing cities with diplomacy when his armies were at a march) then this is enough of a picture of how extensive and organized is the Roman CIA. Of course you can only use this when you have leaders like Justinian, Basil the Bulgar Slayer, and Alexios.

1. Alexios – pre Crusades Intelligence Gathering. Advanced and Scouting Party, weeks a head of his force. 
2. Justiian – Pre Reconquista Intelligence Gathering (like above, about weeks or months ahead of Belisarius’s attack)
3. Basil – rinse and repeat. 
4. Justinian’s time and keeping everything under control during the Belisarius wars. he was also fighting the East – Sassanids. 
5. Alexios – Post crusades and dealing with the future crusaders. The instability the crusades have made has made such services more important. 

the First Crusades… 
Too long to explain, but this has so much things to do that I’d rather save my energy and just ask you to wait till my Ancient Era: The First Crusade is done. About 8 crusader armies and what to do… what to do…

In a Poll I did a long time ago

1. Diocletian – The Divided Empires. Rome is divided into Two empires and what bunch of high stakes adventures can you have here??? Two super powers… think Cold war and apocalyptic possibilities. Throw in supernatural to make it even more fun: Shadow Empire, Zombie Apocalypse, Sparkling vampires Emperors with teen hormones…  
2. Constantine – The New Rome – The rest of the world awaits conquering and christianize-ing. Its like WH40k ultra-lite… For the Emperor 
3. Justinian and Belisarius – The Reconquest… Keeping an Empire Together at the same time Fighting the Sassanids Etc. etc… this is the most busiest times of the empire no wonder it was a “two” man operation. 
4. Heraclius – The Greek Empire – Pretty much a repeat of above, another good try to rejoin the empire.. but as Greeks instead of Latin. You can go for Alexander’s second coming for the greek theme. . 
5. Basil II – Total War – you have a shiny new army in the deep dark ages guess what I’m gonna do with it…
6. Alexius – The Crusades…
7. Andronicus – The Dark Ages – this is actually the most depressing part. A lot of RP and existential crap can be plaid out because its just so damn depressing. Exploring what makes for a “fall of an Empire”.,
8. Palaiologos – The Nicean Empire – This is an alternate universe… what if this Dynasty can do it, incorporate all the lessons in the past and all those failures and rebuild the empire. if Palaiologos had some help *cough*gunpowder*cough* excuse me *cough*citizen army*cough* and a new republic state entity. 
9. Constantine XI – The Fall of Constantinople. Also depressing but an exercise of saving what you can. Still a worthwhile adventure. I find the part about studying more about Turkish culture and the Characters then a very good thing to take out of it. Specially in this Islamiphobic times.