The City of Rome

Rome is divided into four main parts: the crowded shores of the Tiber; the rural vineyard city; the Leonine Walls of the Vatican; and the Trastevere. Like other medieval cities, it is overcrowded and cramped, abundant with merchants, opportunities, and prosperity. Rome is also thick with greed, violence, and filth. The majority of the city's 35,000 inhabitants live near the Tiber River, along the east bank between the bend at Sant' Angelo's and the island, and a little further south on the west bank in a region called Trastevere. Cramped and overcrowded, both regions are filled with winding narrow alleys, busy streets, hawking merchants, penitent pilgrims, bustling clerks, and swaggering nobles. The human tide flows outside Rome's gates into a suburban sprawl of cottages and small farms that line the old Roman highways. Half of Rome is densely crowded and bustling with activity.

The other half of Rome, the vineyard city, is agricultural land, fenced pastures and plotted vineyards, allocated to various parishes and individual farmers. Standing among the hills, one would hardly notice being in a city at all, surrounded by fresh air, grazing goats, and buzzing bees. Small cottages and huts sit haphazardly throughout the area, interspersed with a small parish house here and there, but for the most part, this region of Rome is vacant.

Ancient ruins abound in both halves of Rome, sticking up like the bones of a

fallen giant. Sections of ruined masonry lay everywhere and many of these have been incorporated into contemporary city life. An ancient temple wall serves as a load-bearing wall for a recent structure. A row of columns serves as a boundary line between two residences, appropriately supporting a line of drying clothes. Other remains have been bricked up and fortified, standing alongside the taller square towers of the noble families.

A major pilgrimage destination and housing many holy buildings, Rome has many areas with powerful Divine auras. But Rome is also a busy city, home to many, many people, and, like other large cities in Mythic Europe, it is a conglomeration of supernatural auras pockmarked with regiones. Areas important to this adventure have specific auras listed later, but storyguides can use the following rules of thumb for other auras in Rome. Most streets and buildings along the Tiber have a Divine aura of 3, which dips to 2 at night. The Trastevere, famous for criminal and illegal activities, has a Divine aura of 2 during the day and an Infernal aura of 2 at night (when the Divine aura dips to 1 and the Infernal aura overrides it). The Vatican has a higher Divine aura, perhaps 4 or 5 depending on exact locations. The vineyard city has a Divine aura of 1 throughout the day which disappears at night. Rome has approximately 400 churches, ranging from huge cathedrals to small parish churches, whose Divine auras range from 4 to 9, depending on the church's importance.