Act One of Five: In which Persephone Byron’s centuries-spanning cold war begins heating up for the final clash.
Coming next on 11 April – Kindling (Vigil Backstage)
Programme notes
This production contains violence (including gun violence), possession, and death by fire.
The Feed continues on our Instagram: @merelyroleplayers
Our promo this episode is for Monster Hour, a narrative-driven actual play podcast that combines equal parts comedy and horror with crisp production value and original scoring. Season 2 of Monster Hour steps through the looking glass and into surreal suburban town of Somewhere (USA?). Join Claire, Duncan, and Max as they navigate a rambunctious community, fiendish bureaucracy, outlandish adversaries, and plenty of entropic horrors in this Absurdia actual play.
Dramatis personae and other definitions
Persephone ‘Percy’ Byron: A Victorian monster hunter and half-sister of Ada Lovelace. Percy tried to time travel from 1852 to 1666 to stop the summoning of an apocalyptic demon, but something went wrong, and she landed in present-day Sherrydown instead.
Mick Mason: Sherrydown’s favourite builder and bricklayer. His life has been getting weirder since he dug too deep and hit a leyline.
Brier: A mischievous shapeshifting púca, the fae guardian of Sherrydown’s Rosebrier Forest.
Ed Kincaid: a once promising, now disgraced MI5 agent assigned to investigate the more … esoteric threats reported to the national security hotline.
Department of Omissions (DO, DoOm): The UK government department tasked with preventing harm to citizens from supernatural phenomena. Severely defunded under Tory austerity policies and currently prioritising major urban population centres.
Sherrydown, Brackshire: A historic English market town. One of the first towns to lose its DoOm office.
Omission effect: The rejection of certain beings and phenomena by long-term memory. Can be suppressed by concentration, mnemonic techniques, hypnosis, trauma, or the light of the full moon.
Credits
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Ellie Pitkin as Percy Byron, the Exile
Dave as Mick, the Mundane
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Chris MacLennan as Kincaid, the Professional
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Matt Boothman
SFX AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC INCLUDES: Gathering Darkness by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0); and may include others made available to use without attribution.
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman