Also, there's this to consider:(click to show/hide)
A ninja would be awesome in a 17th century Italian game about politics and intrigue.Indeed.
Actual suggestions:I cut out half the quote already mentioned by others, but I like the
Insurrection: a cadre of Black Court Vampires/Red Court Vampires/ Denarians are secretly working to weaken the Church's power base, right under the Vatican's nose.
Overdue Library Book: the Venators are looking for a particularly foul book said to be buried in the Vatican's cavernous archives, but when they pull some strings to gain access, they find it has been stolen! The players are framed for the theft, and must work to clear their name as well as help the Venators recover this evil tome before the White Council gets a hold of it and publishes it.
Four words: Vatican witch hunter assassin.Father Kincaid? I am so using this.
The rosenkreuz literally mean the rose cross, it is an order that is ocassionally linked to the Knights Templar. The rosenkreuz were said to have gained esoteric wisdom from the middle-east and are heavily linked to the world of the occult. It was said that founder of the order lived for 120 years and had prophetic dreams leaving behind all sorts of wills and testaments only to be read at certain points. The order is a myth or at least a legend but there still ocassionally used by fantasy and sifi novels.
With Rome as a setting, there is the Italian Mafia to provide generic thugs also if you want another non-faith power you could create a Millionaire who percieved himself as the 'Prince of Rome' and was actively seeking to gain absolute power over Rome.
Lots of good ideas:
*Definitely using rosenkurtz somehow (akin to Illuminati perhaps)
*Vatican/Nazi involvement- interesting, my team would probably enjoy that.
*Mundane organizations- R.C.Church, Roman Curia, Italian Mafia, Zog's Cadre (Albania nationalists), Filiberto's Cadre (Italian Royalist Movement), Italian Govt., Rome's Municipal Govt, and some terrorist organization. Anyone think of more?
*All of Malivotti's ideas- my team will appreciate religious cynicism and intrigue. I just don't want to overstress Vatican. I need more Rome-sans-Vatican ideas.
My guess is that about 2 of them will be spellcasters (the Dresden veteran and the perennial D&D mage), 1 were-wolf, 1 Pure Mortal, 1 ???. So a diverse bunch- but that'll lend to a more open set of stories.
Ghosts of the past. Rome has enough history (a large amount of it bloody) to have a huge amount of the restless dead. The dead can be window dressing or something more exciting (yay, go team Necromancer!) if you need them to be.
Rome brings people from all over the world so it's possible to do "monster of the week" if you'd want to. Smuggling things into and out of the city could be a series of events/encounters in and of themselves.
You asked earlier about what sort of generic enemy thugs to use. The appropriate type of thug depends heavily on the sort of campaign you want to run, so please tell us more.At least one will be a religious figure (possibly non-Christian), so I want at least 1 group of questionable foes (like, say, Reinfelds). I'm looking for some interesting thugs, but also simple hack-n-slash foes as well.
Do you want the thugs to be slaughtered without remorse or do you want moral issues?
How tough are your players and how accurate/powerful are their attacks?
Is there any particular affiliation or emotion that you want your mooks to represent?
It's possible that the fey might stay away from Rome. Christianity and Paganism have never really tolerated each other. Well, Christianity has never tolerated Paganism....
Don't forget about all of the ruins in Rome, the Colliseum, the Forum, the Trevi Fountain, etc. They aren't associated with the Vatican at all, and have a ton of history.