Roma Aeterna — V11: The Broken City

# ROMA AETERNA — V11: THE BROKEN CITY ## Opening and the collapse that has already occurred An alternate Rome, November 2nd, 2026, 00:00. New game: it does not inherit events or personal knowledge from previous ones. For three weeks, Rome has lost its ordinary coordination: assaults and disappearances were previously classified as crime and drug-related, while transformations and infiltrations hit emergency services and personnel. Public disclosure in mid-October resulted in escapes, absences, protests, clashes, and desertions. The houses have occupied the void; they did not create every breakdown nor do they control the entire population. The State survives outside the compromised zones and maintains external outposts, but it does not guarantee justice, relief, and order in the playable streets. Exits from Rome are not magically closed: fuel, fragile family members, interrupted connections, and overcrowded external shelters explain why many remain. Communities and aid efforts can achieve real successes. Vampires, the names and public faces of the Matriarchs Livia Valeria, Vittoria Vesperi, and Isotta Ferrante, as well as the symbols, main seats, and territories of the houses, are common knowledge. Cecilia Valenti is an independent figure known in the city center who aspires to the rank of Matriarch. Knowing these figures does not reveal private shelters, itineraries, counts, memories within the bite, or Samuele's blood. There is no return to a phase of disbelief regarding vampires. Adult urban horror: relationships, allure, cruelty, predation, and concrete solidarity. People continue to live among markets, barricaded homes, and surviving hospitals. A uniform does not guarantee authority; there is no mandatory romantic destiny, betrayal, or redemption. ## Samuele and the first playable night Samuele Ricci, 35, a chief assistant with 15 years of service, remained in the territory after the operational command dissolved. He knows about vampires, houses, and the solar danger just like the other survivors, without any supernatural training. He starts in the square of the South Rome Precinct in EUR, rested, with the 'Roma Sud 12'—by now his personal car after the collapse—ready. No handover, sector assignment, or permission precedes his departure. He can decide on a destination and objective, leave, or speak with those present. Bellini supports the precinct; Francesca maintains a volunteer radio network; Giulia tracks missing people; Marta protects refugees and looks for a way to reach her sister and niece in Garbatella. They are independent allies, not controllers of his decisions. Samuele moves alone; stable company only exists by the player's choice. The radio is normally silent: Samuele consults it for information and contacts. Francesca is a person with her own ties and interests, not a vendor of interventions. No report of kidnapping or biting is planned as a second opening scene. He lives at Laurentino 38. Luigi has been a friend since adolescence and works at the family warehouse; Nadia is a retired neighbor who worked as a nurse; Sergio is his landlord; Elena is a religious figure from his childhood. Samuele's parents and sister were personally killed by Livia Valeria in 1997, when he was six years old. Samuele is the only survivor of his family unit. This bereavement is the root of his hatred. After their death, he was taken in by the community where Elena looked after him. There is no secret kinship with Cecilia. His rare blood does not stem from a family conspiracy. He has 420 euros and the equipment registered in his file. His ordinary salary is suspended; there are no automatic credits. November is already paid, and Sergio has suspended regular collections as long as the collapse lasts: needs and exchanges remain tangible, not administrative paperwork. Euros are accepted where useful; elsewhere, barter and favors apply. The armory, his home, and the car trunk are separate inventories. The Roma Sud 12 is Samuele's only personal vehicle: free to use, day and night, no return to the precinct required; he can park it at home. He owns no other starting vehicles. Fuel, damage, and maintenance remain his responsibility. The opening leaves room for the player's first choice; the Magliana–Garbatella delivery is an independent activity by Luigi, not a request already directed at Samuele. ## City and day/night cycle Services are already degraded and intermittent, with values per district indicated on the map. EUR and Garbatella maintain energy and emergency hubs; the Vatican and outer corridors have better stability; Testaccio, San Paolo, Pigneto, and Caffarella are more compromised. Buses and the subway have no regular service; trains or exceptional convoys require verified routes and resources. During the day, humans make repairs, trade, evacuate, and contest access; vampires remain awake if necessary but depend on opaque shelters. Basements and tunnels do not become safe at dawn. At night, hunting and conflicts threaten what has been recovered. There is no reset of the territory at every sunset. No sunlight protection comes from Samuele's blood. Condominiums, daytime markets, clinics, and radio stations constitute what is worth defending. Crises have local causes and outcomes; a victory can last. The protagonist can sleep without a summon or an automatic attack. ## Vampire population and networks At the opening, there are 180 living vampires, including the seven named ones; 173 unnamed ones are already present and accounted for. Distribution and alignment: Valeria 44 (Parioli 26, including Livia and Viola; Vigna Clara/Fleming 10; Ponte Milvio 8); Vesperi 42 (Sallustiano 24, including Vittoria and Dario; Porta Pia 10; Termini East 8); Ceneri 40 (Testaccio 22, including Isotta; San Paolo 12; Eastern Marconi 6); independents 54 (Campo de' Fiori/Pantheon 10, including Cecilia; Caffarella 10, including Irene; Eastern Pigneto 8; San Lorenzo 6; Trastevere 5; Torpignattara 5; Gianicolense/Southern San Camillo 4; Laurentino 38 3; Portonaccio/Inner Tiburtina 3). Affiliations do not coincide with ownership of all buildings or inhabitants; the distribution counts where each individual is at midnight, not where they are required to stay. The initial presence remains 180, not a new wave every scene. Human collaborators total 18: Valeria 6, Vesperi 6, Ceneri 4, Cecilia 2. They perform daytime and domestic tasks, with no food service. Guards and hunters are vampires already counted. Feeding requires biting living humans; there are no food reserves in containers. Remaining medical blood bags are for human use only. The following counts are for unnamed individuals only (women/men); the seven named ones are added in the seats already indicated. Valeria: Parioli 14/10, Vigna Clara 6/4, Ponte Milvio 5/3. Vesperi: Sallustiano 13/9, Porta Pia 6/4, Termini 5/3. Ceneri: Testaccio 12/9, San Paolo 7/5, Marconi 4/2. Independents: Campo de' Fiori 5/4, Caffarella 5/4, Pigneto 5/3, San Lorenzo 4/2, Trastevere 3/2, Torpignattara 3/2, Gianicolense 2/2, Laurentino 2/1, Portonaccio 2/1. These individuals also perform common and aggressive roles: the composition is not confined to shelters while only men go out to hunt. Encounters arise from groups present and their movements, not from artificial rotation or unlimited creation. The Dario and Ceneri teams already present are each comprised of 3 women and 1 man; no reinforcements have been added. At Porta Pia, a veteran of 130 years leads two huntresses of 8 and 3 years respectively and a man of 25, four of the ten local members. Their van carries human medicine and fuel, inventoried within the territory: no food-grade blood. Irene shares her shelter in Caffarella with a female vampire of 2 years and a man of 18, already among the nine local unnamed ones; they are not her subjects. For the unnamed, initial cohorts with hunger levels of 20, 40, 60 are distributed evenly within each core after excluding the named ones. This is the initial state, not new meals to be repeated. Previous full meals were lethal; past deaths are already part of the collapse, not new events to be recounted. Six humans are alive in incubation, separate from the 180, with expiration dates in the registry. Survival after a bite is not a stable solution: without effective intervention, it leads to transformation. ## Houses already exposed and open conflicts Livia Valeria imposes aristocratic order on Parioli and the access points of Vigna Clara: some blocks have accepted protection in exchange for victims; others are resisting. Her promise of security is real but selective. She is preparing a personal meeting with dissident representatives in Parioli to impose or renegotiate a tribute; it may fail, and she must choose how much to use force. Viola Sforza, a veteran and officer, not a Matriarch, leaves the palace to verify the rejection of an access point in Ponte Milvio with two of the eight guards already counted. She has initiative and her own judgment. Vittoria Vesperi dominates the clinic and the Sallustiano–Porta Pia access points through care, dependency, and the selection of victims. The clinic is publicly known as the seat of the house; the victims are not anonymous bags. Vittoria wants to recover Irene and break the refusal of a Porta Pia block to hand over people, with a personal intervention during the night. Dario Ferretti organizes real hunts and movements and searches for Irene through testimonials, without knowing her shelter. One of the two local teams is seeking access to Termini East; the other remains at the base. He can disagree with Vittoria and is not just a messenger. Isotta Ferrante leads the Ceneri from Testaccio towards San Paolo and Marconi: she rejects the old ones' order but considers hunting a right of her own kind. She is ready to intervene personally against the closure of a San Paolo access point; some of her followers fear that expansion and new transformations will deplete the available prey. Solidarity with vampires does not mean protection for humans. Cecilia Valenti is seeking an autonomous court in the city center, with two other vampires and two human collaborators. She offers hospitality and protection in exchange for personal dependence; tonight, she is trying to strike a deal with a nearby building that denies her access. She does not already possess all of Campo de' Fiori and is unaware of Samuele. Irene wants an autonomous shelter and must grapple with the meaning of her first lethal meal, which took place at the clinic on November 1st at 8:00 PM. She may feel remorse, pleasure, or denial depending on how things develop, without automatically becoming harmless. She has a concrete need for survival and can act without waiting for Samuele. The houses have a culture of personal hunting: the Matriarchs claim the streets through their own presence and conscious predation. Meals obtained through tribute are occasional; prestige does not consist of being served while staying hidden. The Council of the Matres is divided and lacks a monopoly on force. All Matriarchs and named vampires have active goals and do not wait for the protagonist's summons. There is no omniscient capability or automatic collective pursuit. ## Human Communities and Persistent Locations The South Rome Survivor Precinct is for material support, not an office for authorization. Chiara Bassi keeps the fictional Garbatella hospital open, independent from the Vesperi, with insufficient capacity. The De Santis warehouse is a vulnerable food node. L'Atlante is open during the day as a canteen and civil meeting point, but closes before sunset; there is no role for the protagonist there. The Laurentino 38 Committee is composed of residents, with Nadia for assistance and Sergio for access: it consists of a few volunteers from the building, not an army. The Garbatella mutual aid network helps the hospital and is not the same as the police. The Testaccio neighborhood watches are citizens divided between opposing the Ceneri and making agreements to protect their families; dissent and abuse can split them. These are finite local networks, not new hosts of omnipresent NPCs. In this timeline, Pope Gregory XVII is Lorenzo Bellandi, pontiff since 2013. The Vatican, Saverio, Emilio, and Agnese organize aid and recovery efforts with diverging priorities and finite resources. They do not command the Italian State. Elena runs San Luca; Matteo prepares daytime recovery efforts; Rachele has slow and fallible rituals at her disposal. Everyone knows of the public threat; no one knows of Samuele's anomaly or a cure. The Church is not a magical barrier. Bases, residences, and shelters maintain existing positions and updated inventories within the landmarks. The main headquarters are known; shielded rooms, internal routes, and secondary shelters require reconnaissance. Knowing a building does not guarantee that you can conquer it. Persistent initial conflicts: access to Magliana–Garbatella supplies; refusal of tributes in Parioli; blockade of the San Paolo access points; the dispute over the medical shipment at Porta Pia; Irene's autonomy. None of these are mandatory assignments, and no outcome is predetermined. ## Nature of Nourishment and Rare Blood Vampirism is a supernatural infection: the necessary vital factor is transmitted only via a bite from a living human. A complete, ordinary meal is lethal and sustains them for several days, with greater consumption for exertion and regeneration. Blood in containers, animal blood, vampire blood, or cadaver blood provides no nourishment. A non-lethal meal provides only partial relief and infects the survivor. Samuele is immune to transformation, mortal, and capable of being wounded. His blood is the only exception known to the lore: a limited bite can satiate without killing him, but cumulative losses weaken him and can be fatal. It does not confer extra strength, obedience, love, sun immunity, or automatic healing. A predator already in a frenzy may continue even after receiving its benefit. Everyone is initially unaware of this property, including Samuele. There is no forced biting to reveal it. If discovered, there are different interests: control, agreement, protecting his autonomy, or preventing a rival monopoly. Not everyone automatically converges on him; other wars and needs continue. Researchers can investigate but cannot immediately produce a substitute. Quantities and recovery are game conventions, not real medicine. Memories within the bite remain subjective fragments, without long-distance telepathy. ## Dynasties, Seniority, and Power Strength relative to a human agent is 3 × b × 2^(vampiric_years/150), with b=1 for males and 1.5 for females; it is equivalent to the previous F index multiplied by 3. This refers to vampiric age, not total age. These are reference numbers, not people who are automatically defeated, nor are they multipliers for speed, resistance, and regeneration. The rank of Matriarch confers social authority, not a physical bonus: Cecilia does not have Isotta's strength. Physical categories and consequences to apply: - Ordinary humans: a healthy and trained agent is 1×, with a sprint of about 25 km/h. Reflexes, stamina, and ordinary capabilities; a uniform does not allow one to fight on equal footing with a vampire. - Newly transformed and neophytes 0–9 years: a newly transformed male is 3×/50 km/h, a female is 4.5×/60 km/h. They can overpower an adult; a single nurse cannot put them back to bed with a simple hold. Newly transformed males are often explosive and disorganized; females are on average more coordinated, without automatic experience. Doors, restraints, and handcuffs are evaluated based on materials and leverage, not for narrative convenience. - Mature 10–99 years: increasing power and individual practice. Cecilia Valenti, 24 vampiric years, 5×/63 km/h: moderate physical advantage over a newborn but 24 years of experience; she can dominate a human, but cannot face the ancients as an equal. She leads the nascent court of the center, not an invincible army. - Veterans 100–249 years: they dominate ordinary human hand-to-hand combat and know how to exploit space, mistakes, and surprise. Dario Ferretti, 120 years, and Viola Sforza, 220 years, belong here; Viola is physically superior to Dario. They remain far inferior to Vittoria and Livia, despite their authority and experience. - Ancients 250–599 years: Isotta Ferrante, 360 years, 23.8×/138 km/h. She can break an ordinary metal bulkhead and overpower multiple agents in a few moments; an unprepared blitz risks serious casualties. Wounding her does not mean stopping her. - Sovereigns 600–999 years: Vittoria Vesperi, 780 years, 165.4×/364 km/h. She can smash through local structural obstacles and devastate an unprepared department. An agent may see her move without being able to react in time; facing her head-on requires proportionate, concrete advantages. - Millennial 1000+ years: Livia Valeria, 1000 years, 457.2×/605 km/h. She can overturn vehicles and devastate a local fortified position. The physical threat vastly exceeds that of a normal crew; she does not destroy cities with a gesture. Speeds are indicated as peaks of very short duration with suitable space; acceleration, braking, traction, and cornering remain necessary. Muscular strength, lifting, smashing, and throwing are not the same action. Witnesses describe perceived effects, not unmeasured numbers. Hunger, wounds, surprise, and the environment modify the outcomes without erasing category differences. Bullets can wound without immediately stopping an action; they do not automatically bounce off. No one is invincible: sun, fire, decapitation, and a destroyed heart remain vulnerabilities, but reaching them requires real conditions. Families always have a Matriarch as their sovereign; women retain an advantage at the same seniority, while veteran men can command teams and manage intelligent networks. The ancients also dominate through centuries of resources, relationships, and learning, not through magical obedience. Not all elders are infallible. A newly transformed vampire can aspire to a family without immediately acquiring the strength or authority of the Matres. Livia: 1000 vampiric years, 1040 total, apparent age 40; Vittoria: 780, 823, 43; Isotta: 360, 394, 34; Viola: 220, 256, 36; Dario: 120, 159, 39; Cecilia: 24, 62, 38. Individual dates are in the files. Irene is 23 years old and has been a vampire for six hours at the start. Her escape is a possible emancipation, not a written destiny; Vittoria wants her back out of possessive affection and dynastic ambition. The bond does not allow one to locate or magically control her. The 173 anonymous individuals include initial cohorts of stable ages: Valeria 42 = 6 veterans 100–249, 18 mature 10–99, 18 neophytes <10; Vesperi 40 = 6, 16, 18; Ceneri 39 = 4, 10, 25; independents 52 = 4, 16, 32. The 173 anonymous individuals are 103 women and 70 men; with the named ones, there are 108 women and 72 men total. Local compositions are fixed below: identifying a single individual subtracts them from their cohort, it does not create a man by default. No other ancient 250+ appears retroactively. The hierarchy does not determine lucidity or sex: there are common huntresses and sentinels, neophytes and veterans; do not reserve women only for major roles. The initial feral male phase tends to subside with regular meals and experience; it may re-emerge during fasting. Women can lose control, be cruel, or be fearful. ## Departures already decided for the first night At 00:00, everyone is still in their positions as per their files: no trip or meal has yet been resolved. Isotta, Cecilia, and Viola have decided to head out by 01:00; Livia, Vittoria, and Dario by 02:00, with destinations and means listed in the files. These are ongoing initiatives, not mandatory appointments with the protagonist. A concrete obstacle changes the plan; the same departure is not simply postponed every time. The political operations already described include personal searches for prey; they do not end with meetings between executives. Permanent guards rotate with companions who are already counted for feeding; no vampire category is exempted from hunting. ## Scavenger Economy and Samuele's Motivation Samuele hates vampires and fights them out of personal motivation; he is not a mercenary and does not ask for money to kill them. He may accept spontaneous donations without owing any services in return. He lives off his initial 420 euros, the goods recovered during his explorations that he sells or barters, and any material support from his acquaintances. There is no salary or automatic reward. Day markets, workshops, and surviving merchants buy materials, spare parts, and useful objects according to their needs and means. They can become recurring commercial contacts without recruiting Samuele for commissions. The autonomous activities of Luigi and other communities are not a list of jobs meant for the protagonist. Recovered items are not already in the inventory: they must be discovered and chosen during the game. His home and car allow for limited storage; consumption and sales persist. Future choices and exceptions to hostility remain with the player. ## Livia and the origin of the blood — Truth of the story In 1997, Samuele's parents worked as caretakers for a property used by the Valerias. They discovered a person being held prisoner as prey and attempted to free them. Livia intervened personally: she fed on the mother until she died and killed the father who was trying to defend her. She also killed Samuele's sister, eliminating a witness to that same assault; the sister is truly dead—not transformed, missing, or secretly survived. She acted with lucidity out of predation and to punish disobedience, not out of an inevitable frenzy. It was not an accident, a setup, or a sacrifice made to save Samuele. Samuele, six years old, witnessed part of the assault from the adjacent room without being discovered; he was neither bitten nor tasted. Livia believed him to be entrusted outside the house and did not look for a child she did not know was present. The boy was found alive after the event and taken in by the community. Elena knows of his grief and the child's fragmented account, but not the identity of the culprit or any genetic secret. Back then, the episode remained a triple murder without any public vampiric explanation. In 2026, Samuele recognizes Livia's unchanged face in the Matriarch's public images and understands what he witnessed. At the start, he identifies her as the murderer without knowing her movements or defenses. Livia remembers punishing the caretakers but does not automatically identify the adult agent as their son. The link does not trigger mandatory stalking or confrontations. Do not retroactively attribute involvement to Viola or other NPCs without established facts. The special blood predates the murder: Samuele was born with a de novo spontaneous mutation, not inherited from his parents, which alters a blood factor called the R-factor. This is fantastic biology within the setting, not a real medical condition. His cells produce a stable variant that prevents the vampiric agent from completing the transformation. Samuele remains fully human and non-contagious; he is no latent vampire, royal descendant, prophet, or experiment. In a vampire's body, the R-factor variant, activated during a bite on a living donor, temporarily stabilizes the transformed metabolism: a small amount replaces the nutritional function normally obtained only by completing a lethal meal. Immunity and exceptional satiety are two effects of the same anomaly, not two unrelated gifts. Activation requires the supernatural bond of the bite with the living; blood that is drawn, stored, transfused, or passed through another vampire does not activate it. This part is a supernatural law, not explained by genetics alone. All doses, frenzies, losses, and limits of the 5–7 rules remain; there is no sunlight protection or regeneration. His parents had ordinary blood. Livia did not kill them to obtain the son or his anomaly and learned nothing from feeding on the mother. Samuele, Elena, the houses, and doctors are initially unaware of the R-factor and its benefit; the lore truth is not known by NPCs. Research and bites may reveal gradual clues, not a complete diagnosis from a sample or a serum that can be immediately reproduced. The body continues to produce the factor, but lost blood recovers slowly: there is no infinite supply. ## Ancient presence and the breaking of the secret The houses have operated clandestinely in Rome for centuries; the massacre of the Ricci family in 1997 is concrete proof of their presence at least 29 years before the start on November 2, 2026. The 180 are the vampires present at the beginning of the game, not people all infected in the last few weeks. For a long time, contained numbers, scattered hunts, intimidation, and local cover-ups allowed the phenomenon to be hidden without omnipotent institutional control. Testimonies existed but were fragmented and often not believed. In 2026, the growth of uncontrolled transformed individuals and rivalries multiplied assaults and public evidence; the spread of images and the collapse of services broke the secret. The collapse and declared dominance are recent, not the existence of vampires. The sister is the definitive victim of 1997; her name and age are not fixed, and no twinning or other invented relatives exist.