Roma Mater: In the waning days of the Roman Empire, Magnus Maximus sends his prefect Gratillonius to western Gaul and the faraway land of Ys, a place shrouded in legend and ruled by a cruel and tyrannical king. When the sovereign challenges Gratillonius to a duel, the envoy from Rome emerges victorious and claims the throne as the new king of Ys, inheriting a land whose religion, culture, and history are entirely foreign. He also gains the former king’s nine wives, the Gallicenae, a powerful group of women to whom he must appear equally devoted despite his growing feelings for one in particular. As he adjusts to his new role as ruler of Ys, Gratillonius must fight to keep his strange new country on its feet while the rest of the Roman Empire begins to crumble around him.

Gallicenae: As the Roman Empire loses its grip on its far-flung territories, the mystical kingdom of Ys in western Gaul is in great danger of slipping into oblivion. Suffocated for years by the rule of a tyrant king, Ys’s last hope arrived in the form of a Roman emissary, Gratillonius, who defeated the sitting king to take the throne himself. Now Gratillonius must grapple with the kingdom’s political strife and religious tensions while balancing his responsibilities to the Gallicenae, nine wide-ranging witches who have become his wives. Though Rome seeks to spread Christianity, and Gratillonius stands firm in his worship of Mithras, the Ysans hold to an entirely different religion in service of pagan deities who must be obeyed lest grave consequences descend on the fragile kingdom.