A table-top RPG that ‘Lovecraft the Roman’ might have enjoyed, Cohors Cthulhu: Tabletop Roleplaying Game. “A 2d20 RPG adventure of mighty Roman warriors and their barbarian rivals fighting the forces of the Mythos”. Funded with a cool £221,000 and shipped in late 2023, and now with a new follow-on expansion-set Kickstarter.

Although be warned that it seems to be as much about pagan forests as Roman army life…

Far from the Eternal City, deep in the forests of a hostile frontier, unravel the mystery of a village overcome by nightmares its people are forced to re-enact on the waking world. Without the support of a Roman column, cast into a strange land, will you survive with your sanity intact?

Far from nicely tiled Roman hot-baths and libraries, I’d suspect. Though that is also what Lovecraft himself hazily envisaged, and I’m fairly sure he would have tried his hand — had he lived — at an ‘Ancient Romans on the African frontier’ tale. Though in this game it appears that the pagan northern forests are the setting.