Matt Pennington (1/15/2010)

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Your actual mode of dress, your speech, your character's place of origin can vary. If you want to play a group of gladiators representing Rome who are made up of slaves from every land you can do so. However that group will be representing Rome and must use the Roman rules, so those who aren't dressed and equipped as Romans will lose some of the advantages they would otherwise have.

Groups that don't gain the benefits of their national armour and weapons will have a natural disadvantage when fighting in the arena and on quests. But if that prospect doesn't intrinsically bother you then I wouldn't expect your enjoyment of the event to be hampered in the slightest.

Marios (1/16/2010)

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There's a cute little example for Greeks and Romans - when the Romans had become an obvious power, effectively involving themselves in all Greek wars, but before they'd formally snapped up Greece - one of the larger Greek coalitions sent one of their sharpest rhetoricians across as a diplomat. So, he kicks off with his best display of Greek philosophy/oratory. On day one, he gives a long speech for the attainability of justice. On day two, he gives a long speech for the unattainability of justice. Standard Greek practice - showing that greek learning is so powerful that you can argue forcefully for both sides of argument.

The Romans, however, are absolutely appalled. These Greeks have just sent - as a diplomat - a man who stands up in front of our most distinguished assemblies and *lies* with a big, fat smile on his face and then congratulates himself on how well he's lied! Similar means, different goals!

Simon (2/6/2010)

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We expect that each nation will expect to camp (IC) quite separately from their rivals. The reaction of different nations to a bunch of enemies/spies/saboteurs camping with them is an IC issue for them...

Tag (2/15/2010)

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I can imagine a few cool ideas with people coming from different cultures but now fully integrated into their chosen one. Slave gladiators were mentioned earlier. My first thought was actually the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire - the personal guard of the Ottoman sultans, composed almost entirely of Christian children, taken from their parents, forcibly converted to Islam, and then trained together to become the sultan's most trusted soldiers, treated as personal possessions of the sultan. I can imagine a good group on that basis - a military unit entirely of Greek origin, but fanatically loyal to the Egyptian king, and fighting in the Egyptian style. But it seems pretty clear that groups without national loyalty aren't a feature of the world - why would they be? Why would you fight for the supremacy of someone else's gods, unless they had become your gods?