Lorenzo's Blessing

• UK Freeforms

RPG system: LARP
Participants: 26-40 players, Male characters: 17-22, Female characters: 9-17, Characters that are not strictly defined as male or female: 0-1

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UK Freeforms

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Description

Italy - 1492 The Italian city states, with Florence to the foremost, have led an artistic and cultural revolution. Humanist philosophy and a reborn interest in Classical society have spread throughout the elite. Great artists are famous and in heavy demand, with states vying to have better painters, palaces and philosophers than their neighbours. But Italy is under threat from without. The young French King, Charles VIII, desires the wealth of Florence and the other city states and has laid claim to the Kingdom of Naples. His armies are ominously poised in nearby Savoy. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, although distracted by tall tales of a new way to the Indies, also claim Naples as their own. To the East, the Ottoman Empire continues its relentless expansion, with only Venice and the Knights of Rhodes slowing its progress. And Italy is more a fashionable address than a united entity. The rulers of the City States are as liable to side with outsiders as each other and more often reliant on hired mercenaries, the Condottiere, than their own troops. The recent surprising election of the Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia as Pope has increased the uncertainty, but it is events in Florence itself which may trigger an explosion. Lorenzo de' Medici, nickamed 'The Magnificent' with good reason, is dead. Rumours talk of assassination, although the official explanation is that he succumbed to a longstanding illness. Although technically a Republic, Florence has been a Medici state in all but name for decades. Lorenzo had the powers of a Duke or King, but held only the title of First Citizen. However, many do not consider his eldest son Piero capable of holding the Medici banking and merchant interests together, let alone the State. Some call for a true Republic, while others clamour for religious control by the charismatic Dominican vicar-general Savonarola - a man who preaches against the Pope and holds bonfires of vanities. Now many of the great and the good gather in the Medici Palace after the funeral. The deals done and schemes hatched here will certainly decide the future of Florence - and may change the world. There's much more about the game on the home page linked above.

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