Dragon Princes

Recently, my book club members expressed an interest in trying D&D! I started writing a new adventure for them set in the marble quarries of Camarma, but the silly season is a busy time! Then I realised that I had an adventure already: Fiumenze Nights, about the death of the artist Michele di Lodovico. I've given up on finishing that game (sadly - it was going in a very interesting direction!), so it seemed the logical choice to play it with a new group and maybe reach the end at last! This first session covers the same basic ground as the first two sessions of the previous play-through, although a few details have changed. In Fiumenze, it is the dury of the sbirri  to maintain public order. They are the city guards who defend the people - since most of the guilds and the wealthy merchants maintain their own personal forces, which are better paid and equipped. They report to the Gonfaloniere di Giustizia,  a public official selected by lot who serves for two months at a time.

A confraternity is a voluntary organisation of lay people who are gathered to do good deeds (as defined by the church). Working together, they are able to accomplish greater things than they would be able to do individually. For example, the Confraternita di San Camillo sponsors a paupers' hospital in Vanzenia, and ensures that there is care available to even the very poor in the city. Others sponsor festivals, offer charity for the poor, bury paupers, pray for the souls of the living or the dead, or encourage the arts. Some confraternities are powerful social organisations, whose members reap immense benefits from the connections that they make, and may also engage in trade or other enterprises together; others have anonymous membership. A confraternity may be open to all, or it may be restricted by social class, sex, age or citizenship: however, they tend to be one of the more 'open' institutions, where people of all parts of society can work together for the public good.