Vigil: The Great Fire, Act 4

Act Four of Five: In which Percy discovers that even the best laid plan never survives contact with the enemy.

Coming next on 30 May – Vigil: The Great Fire, Act 5

Programme notes

This production contains violence (including gun violence), possession, and death by fire.

Nominate your favourite roleplaying game people and products for the Creator Recognition in Tabletop Roleplaying Games (CRIT) Awards by 1 June! If you like, you can even nominate us. Vigil: Quarry and Monumental Exit are both eligible in various categories – check our Tumblr and Instagram for details and nominate here.

Our promo this episode is for Cybertopia, an actual play podcast using the indie RPG of the same name, run by its creator with a rolling cast of a variety of members from the tabletop community. Set in a near future sci-fi world, the player characters take the form of corporate agents working on clandestine missions to protect their business's interests and reputation.

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 and Ritual by Kevin MacLeod (both CC BY 4.0); and may include others made available to use without attribution.

EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman

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