Hello and welcome to your worst nightmare, another RPG actual play podcast. Solitude, a journaling RPG podcast, is just me in a room, not to brag, with a journal, a solo RPG, and some damn good coffee. I'm trying to drink less, but I choose not to, most of the time. I play to see what happens in the story, write in my fictional journal, and you get to hang out next to me by the fire. My name's Auri. Welcome. I hope you enjoy our time together. This is solitude. We do what in the shadows? Alright, we're back. So we continue our journey towards the Papal Combat with a K, because it's cooler, also with a K. Same reason. And I don't I have to say, I I don't know if this is what uh Master Hutchings, the designer of the game, intended. And this is also something I tried to avoid is preparing plot points, which is kind of what I've done now. Is I've I decided there's going to be a papal combat, like a big plot point twisty thing in the future, and now I'm working towards that. And you've heard me say it several times. I play to find out, and that's kind of not playing to find out. I still like the idea, and I'm going to go through with it, and I'm gonna give it everything I got. Just the thing I've been thinking about lately is I'm going to try to avoid doing that, setting up things in the future, because I don't want to think about stuff. I just want to sit down and play, and whatever happens, happens. I wanna keep it improvised. Either way, it might end up not happening since I'm gonna go with the prompts I get. So it is possible, maybe even quite likely, that I'll get a prompt that I feel destroys Alf's chances of making it to the tournament. I have no idea what kind of prompts there are, so uh there might be something that completely wipes everything away. Which is something I kinda secretly hope for. But if we end up becoming Pope, that's fine too. Let's start with doing a very quick recap, not on the story or anything like that. We've done that, but let's recap uh some characters, skills, and resources I have at my disposal. We haven't done that in a while. So, characters, we have Veronica still. Um The Smuggler from a hundred years ago. Uh I'd like to bring her- I'd still like to bring her back in some way, but we'll we'll we'll have to see. Uh the Secret Cabal? That might be something that's fun to use. Hmm. Mercedes Uber Eats? Yes, she didn't get a lot of screen time, but uh I would be happy to get to know Mercedes a little bit. She was the familiar of Angélique de Boulangerie, rest in peace. And she got our guy something to eat way back in the Paris days. Then there's Rene Descartes, um, presumed dead, historically dead, but I'd like to keep the enemies to sexual enemies uh thing going on. Uh sex sex enemies? I don't know. But there is tension there, and the symposium, uh the philosophers' symposium, the group of rogue philosophers who are actually vampire hunters, is also something I'd like to bring back. Uh we have a new character, Caretaker Garibaldi, which is the one person I've recruited as of now to the Holyball team I am building. And I don't know how it works. I'm building a holyball team of casketball players. That's just space jam rules. Is you get your basketball skills drained out of you. Uh what even is a basketball skill? Who knows? So, uh could you still do like football, golf, uh, handball? I don't know. In this reality, that's how it works, so our guy didn't get his skills back, but he found another way to play the game. We have Giuseppe the Giant who probably plays for the evil team now. Uh Siegfried Zazgeleton, who's my half-brother from the skeleton side. And Father Weischenegger, who's kinda the antagonist character here, at least for now. He's he's the main force of of resistance, since he he wants to become Pope and enforce his violent vampiric ways that way, and uh our guy does not want that. I don't want this game to become like saving the world thing. I want to keep it kinda casual. I would like to see a rise and fall as a pope, just because why not? So that's our characters. We only got two skills. We have hypnosis and casketball that haven't been checked. And resources also two. Uh, beauty and object work. Oh yeah, those two. Generally, those two don't work together. Uh people are either excellent mimes or beautiful. Because if you're both, you kinda got dealt the winning hand at birth. I have thought about the mark, the skeletal facial features thing, like half his face is is skeletal and and gaunt. Strikingly so, um, but uh still it's like a cool, sexy type of gaunt. We'll see how that develops. Uh once we have to use our beauty for something, we we might lose it. I never want to lose my ability to mime. You need a door, you can just mime a door. You need a knife? Just mime a knife. You need a feral Garibaldi to throw at people? Mime it. If I run out of mime, I'll just mime more mime. It's called mime mining. And the marks we have are fiery red right hand and skeletal facial features. Very cool. That's our guy. Alf Loki Skeletonson. And we are 122 years old. So without further ado, uh let's get into the first prompt. That is 6 for word. Which takes us to prompt number 28. A long dead mortal character returns. What do they want from you? How have they survived death? You only recognize them if you still have a related memory. Oh, check a skill. Wow. A long dead mortal character. So this allows us to use the dead people too. There aren't that many, but there are a few. So I just listed the ones who are alive. So there's the headmonk, Father Augusto, the the father figure of of our guy who we killed as we turned. Um we ate him, so he's uh he's he's not in great shape. He uh maybe not him, no, no. There's Garibaldi, the the original one, but I do kind of like the idea of the caretaker Garibaldi being uh like a conduit for for the spirit of the old Garibaldi. Or even like the the young one acts like a placeholder for Garibaldi in a in a more interesting way than bringing I don't think bringing the old Garibaldi back would be interesting now. We we already got ourselves a Garibaldi. And one is for sure more than enough. Angelique de Boulangerie could could have survived. No, I think it has to be Rene Descartes. I just said it in the in the intro, but I I think now or never. He didn't die on screen. No, he died, he had the flu in Stockholm. He was there teaching mathematics and philosophy to Queen Victoria. Uh if my memory serves me correct. And he only spent like six months there or a few months and he he died. Or did he? Yes he did, but now he's back. This is great. Uh this is fun. What what is he? Rene Dedcart. Um Vampire Hunter D, the D, as is known. He's got so many names already, he's he's gonna be golden. What if we took this the other way around? Uh let's answer the prompts first. So what do they want from me? Oh, do I still have a memory about him? Because I do want to recognize him. Yes, I do. I have a memory of fucking Rene Descartes. Even though there was very little actual fucking, it was like a metaphorical fucking, which oftentimes is much better. He is a vampire hunter still. And he comes to settle it. How did he survive death? Has he been raised? Is he a zombie? So what if and hear me out. This will make perfect sense in just a minute. I think therefore I am. He proved that to be correct. So he didn't die in Sweden. No. He stopped thinking. How long has it been? It's now 1676. Uh the last prompt was at least. When the fuck did he die? Uh 1650. So 26 years ago, Rene Descartes, living in Stockholm, he knew he couldn't get me. He had devised plans, dozens of plans, involving elaborate disguises, heists. He even invented a sport and tried to get me lured into it. He knew of my holy ball history. It was called uh not not billiards, it was called Killiards. Uh that's that was his b that wasn't And he wrote a whole monologue for when I got there and made my way into the finals. He was gonna stake me with a pool cue. I was gonna be great. He'd get his honor back. But one night, when he was doing his planning, he forgot to think, and therefore he wasn't. He just vanished into thin air, spent twenty-six years not existing, but now he's back. I don't know how this time changed him, but he knows he only has a single goal is he needs to see me and he needs to plunge a stake deep inside my heart. So, what do they want from me? They wanna kill me. I have a related memory, check a skill. So, hypnosis or casketball. What okay, yeah. It's it's it's all coming together. He's gonna join my holyball team. He can disappear at will. His superpower is thinking. And not thinking. Perfect, perfect. That's uh that's great. Uh so he fails in killing me. I check casketball from my skills. The game ends if I have to check a skill and I can't, so it means I would die if I remember correctly. So I need to I need to get my skills back on track. I need to get some more skills. Ren Adecard is back from the void. Uh he wants to poke me. I wanna poke him. Fuck yeah, I do. And we have a fateful reunion. Where does this happen? I'm back in in Paris, and he did tell me not to ever come back. That's why he was in Stockholm as well. He was chasing me, he was he was tracking me north, but then he ran out of money uh when he was in Stockholm, so he decided to tutor the Queen for a bit. Uh, but then he didn't think by accident. He ends up joining my holyball team. He falls in love with me, but not in like a healthy way. Not not in the way that Alf already had like a super cool marriage for one lifetime. This is like an like uh enemies to friends to frenemies to sexy philosophers doing sports together in a sweaty room type of deal. You know? Those one of those. Enemies and lovers at the same time. Not necessarily enemies to lovers, uh, but enemy lovers. That's perfect. But this is where their feelings, their feelings are more clear now. And they they admit to them and like Dickhart doesn't kill Alf. He maybe gets the chance but doesn't do it. He can't live without the hunt. I'm not sure he cares about the story of Father Weischenger about to become Pope. He's probably not super keen on the idea of Alf becoming Pope, but I mean, if Alf were Pope, then maybe their love could be could be realized. Um, because loving a Pope is better than loving a vampire. So Rene Descartes joins our team. So now we have ourselves, we have caretaker Garibaldi, and we have philosopher Rene Descartes. We just need one more person for a complete holyball team, and then I mean if the next prompt is is something where we'll get to I don't know, it all depends on the next prompt, I suppose. Let's move on to the next one. So we go forward eight prompts to number 36. The de the deceptions you practice fool even yourself. Combine any three traits to fabricate an experience that you believe to be true. Okay, that's fine. I have some ideas for that. Uh I'm gonna try something I haven't tried until now. I'm gonna try something, uh an optional rule. So there's an appendix at the end of the book where there's optional prompts. Uh there's optional prompts for every number, and I'm uh the book tells you to use them in place of the actual ones if you just want a different kind of inspiration. And this this prompt is fine, but it doesn't really I don't know. I I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm gonna see if there's um your marks are discovered, and you are heralded as a saint. Well, check a skill. Gain a skill and a resource gifted by or taken from religious practitioners who believe in you. This is very nice. Is this moving too fast? Because this would be super cool. Uh your marks are discovered and you're heralded as a saint. So do we win the papal combat? Is that too big of a jump to make? Uh, I do I do want to jump into that pretty quickly because uh, well, j the stuff I said in the intro, uh, I know we're working towards it. Uh there's a bit of a build-up going on, but I this would fit that. So we do the tournament. Who's the fourth player? I don't know. There's me, there's uh Caretaker, Garibaldi, uh, there's Renee Descartes, and then there's Bob. It's just Bob. Uh Bob is fine. He's fine. He's Bob Bob's okay. He's he's Bobby, he's he he can handle himself. Fine. He's he's fine, he's Bob. You know, you know Bob. He's he's okay. Yes, let's do it. Let's fucking do it. Why why waste time? And since we're not writing a cohesive narrative, there's always the chance that we'll never get to it. So I don't want the build-up to to amount to nothing like an anti-climax. So let's do the climax, let's fucking do it. The dark underbelly of Vatican City. There's priests, monks, nuns, bishops, cardinals, of all manner. Church janitor, or whatever that word is. The best players in Europe have gathered here. Some players from Northern Africa, some players from Asia, who the fuck knows what's happening in the Americas right now? Players from all over. And then there's the other team. They are called the Bastards from Hell. Which is a very opinionated name for a Christian competition to become Pope. But they're they're the cool kids. Led by none other than the muscled master, Arnold Weishneger. His biceps have grown biceps. When he flexes, not only does he get physically bigger, his mass actually increases. He gains muscle just by merely existing. And he's got a few players with him. He's got Giuseppe the giant, who is in possession of my old skills, the large jigsaw puzzle of a Frankenstein monster. There's the assassin of Odanobunaga's a fucking ninja he's if you can't tell I'm coming up with this stuff, uh the seat of my pants. So yep, he's got the large Frankenstein monster, he's got a ninja, and one more. A werewolf? No, a were something else. A were bear? A were chicken? A were chicken. These two teams meet. I shake hands with Father Weisneger and his hand burns. He smiles and just keeps on getting crispier. Yeah. Rene Descartes is a cool one-liner. Z U in L. And we go to do the registration, and it's everybody else is a priest of some kind. And it's just two two two of the freakiest bunch of people you've ever seen, Rene Descartes included. I mean, he's just a guy, but he's I mean he is he though? Was he ever just a guy? Nah. We both work our way to the finals of the tournament. Our game goes on and on. We invoke the spirits of ancient popes and get their help on theological questions that help us play a better game of holyball. They play hard. Their style is pure violence, hatred, destruction. The underground church where we play is reduced to nothing but ash. And when my marks are discovered, I take off my mask, I take off my glove, with Renee Descartes, whom I deeply love and hate, with caretaker Garibaldi, who I still have a blood oath towards, and Bob, who was available at the time. Through love and friendship, and my burning hand, we manage to do a shot that burns them. So we do the match, and we unite in friendship. I think the more interesting outcome is that we lose the match. I I think so. We put up an amazing match, our friendship, Burning Hand, Descartes being and not being, thinking and not thinking. Caretaker Garibaldi summoning the spirits of the dead to help him. Bob just being a goddamn good sport. We do our final strike of friendship, and it's not enough. The bastards from hell are victorious. Giuseppe the Giant uses the slam I honed for decades against me and I can't. The soft way is not enough. Violence wins. The church crumbles under the pressure of the anime fight we're having. And my team, we're we're left there. We're presumed dead. I don't think any of us are. I don't want to kill kill my team. I love every one of them. Even Bob. I am made saint. Saint Alphus with the burning right hand is the saint of sportsmen. That's me. But we do lose, and Father Weischeneger becomes Pope. He becomes Pope Glutius Maximus the First. And his reign of terror will begin. He will he will use his newfound position to wreak havoc, war, death, tyranny, all the things he believes in. He'll probably make it easier for immortal creatures to feed in many ways. He's not going to outright bring them forward. But he's he's gonna make it easier for them to operate on a day-to-day basis. And from the rubble, the good team, the how do you do boys, that's that's our team's name. It was the bastards from hell versus the how do you do boys. And the how do you do boys didn't do well. So the last thing we need is uh figure out the memories. It's not gonna take a long time, it'll be well, get it done fairly quickly. Gaining a fuck frenemy and teammate of Renatic Heart. That's that's perfect. Um papal combat is easy because gaining a fuck frenemy and teammate of Renated Heart is me gaining a teammate. Sainthood is in the papal combat. Yeah, losing the papal combat and becoming a saint. Saint Alphus, the patron saint of sportsmen. I can't wait to see where this goes because are we going to build uh an opposition? Are we going to try to dethrone Father Weischeneger? Uh, what kind of effects does his reign have? Is he going to try to come at me when he realizes I'm alive? I don't know. I have no idea. Um this could go anywhere from here. And I'm really looking forward to it. Um I'm also looking forward to writing this out uh in the journals, so stay on the lookout for that. That's it. Saint Alphus out. Thanks for listening, folks. My name is Auri Itamaki, and Solitude is my personal project. I hope you enjoyed this episode. You can follow Solitude on Instagram at SolitudeShow, and if you got something to say, drop a message or a comment. Also, please rate and review the show so people can find it a little bit easier. There's no budget plan or anything, it's just me playing a game on mic. So it would be awesome if more people found the show. Additional episode music and sound effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound, theme song by me. Solitude drops every week. Every other week there will be an actual play episode, and on the off weeks, I'll do a proper journal reading with music, sound effects, a whole deal. Thanks again for listening. See ya next week. Bye!