Solotude: A journaling rpg podcast
An actual play TTRPG game dedicated to playing solo journaling games.
New episode drops every monday!
Actual play followed by a journal entry!
Solotude: A journaling rpg podcast
We Do WHAT In The Shadows!? - Ep. 1.5 (Journal entry)
This episode contains the journal entries for the character creation prompts we played through in episode 1.
We take a walk through a few key moments of Guido Lanzoni's life, and see how he actually fell from the grace of god and turned into a vampire.
Content warning: Profanity, death, jokes about religion, yet another gay romp with a monk (hey, I know what I like).
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Special thanks:
Tim Hutchings for designing this awesome game,
Epidemicsound for music
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 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. So welcome, I hope you enjoy our time together. The following episode will be a journal entry reading for the first episode's prompts, so the character creation. There are five experiences. Now, usually there won't be that many in one episode, but hey, I'm just doing what the good book says. The rulebook, I mean. Content warnings can be found in the episode description. This is Solitude. We do what in the shadows?
UNKNOWN:...
SPEAKER_00:May 1st, 1565. Today was the celebration of my tenth birthday. Since the actual date of my birth has always been an unknown, the monks decided upon the 1st of May. For they say, a child at 1st May and must only second. It makes little sense to me. I think the true reason is its apricot season in Umbria. And my brothers do make a mean apricot strudel. As time turns the page and reveals to me this new decade, I find myself reminiscing about the past. I carry with me the baby blue handkerchief as a memento for my lost parents. It has the initials ZZZ in gold embroidery. With it, I carry a memory of two faces, smiling and full of life. Perhaps phantasms of my own invention But illusions may yet bring solace during life's many hardships Like when my brothers ate all my strudel The brother monks have been good to me I feel like my family is here And it is quite ordinary A community of hardcore Catholics who play music for a living And a religion-themed team sport for a pastime Head monk Father Augusto says, Creativity, humility, and a strong defense are the three pillars of a good man. He also says that all he knows about God he learned on the holy ball court, which is alarming since it should probably be the Bible. Life has been hard, but it has been good, for I am a good boy. I copy the sheet music. I bow my head in prayer. And for a ten-year-old shrimp, my vertical is so high, the monks call me the Little Goliath. But even now, as I listen to the distant sounds of a waning party, I can't help but think, why? Why celebrate aging when it means nothing if not the ever-present nature of death? A birthday is a party which states, Look upon me, God. My youthful beauty is as fleeting as the thought of insurance fraud for a nun. Soon the earth shall consume us. Each strudel I stuff betwixt my plump cheeks is a declaration of my own desperate mortality. Anyway, I got a Moses action figure. I suppose I shall go into the gardens and attempt to part the grand beads of sweat on Father Augusto's forehead. For nothing short of a miracle would be sufficient for the task. With melancholic birthday wishes, Guido Lanzoni, 10 years old. August 25th, 1567. I feel, perhaps for the first time in my long 12 years of life, content. Today marked the beginning of my lute lessons with Father Augusto. What a wonder! What a heavenly delight! To pluck and pinch, to mute and let ring. This is Vox Dei. The voice of God I learned to play an oldie but a goodie Hot cross bun And a classic hymn by the bard Bottomless violet Smoke over yonder water On the fretboard I need not fret And was never bored At this moment I know in my heart and soul This is my purpose This is what the meaning of life is Father Augusto teaches There's nothing more holy than the lute and the ball. The fingers must play on the fretboard, as the body must play on the court. Only so may one also be free in thought. With great excitement, Guido Lanzoni, 12 years old. December 30th, 1573. It all happened so fast. How quickly can a man conquer the highest peak of the world only to plummet into the inky depths of Hades itself? It takes not a minute, nor a second, but just one word. A one-word difference might as well be the difference between heaven and hell. Between Britain and Spain Between pleasure and pain From fuck me to fuck off At first Garibaldi and I were one We were a tangled knot of flesh, sweat and mucus Garibaldi has a condition We were sprawled over the black basalt altar In the small chapel beyond the gardens My body ached in all the wonderful ways it could. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Garibaldi and I had been bosom buddies since we were children. We had held hands in friendship. But now what we held in friendship were penises instead. Then, as an overwhelming emotion took me over, I confessed that I loved him. Immediately a bout of fury took over him, and he declared, Fuck off! He gathered his robes and left me quite literally hanging, until nothing hung no more. My soul, like my organ, became shriveled like a last season's plum in outer space. I've never felt so alone, but this day I learned the touch of God. Touchy day. You can't spell Jesus without jizz. With great displeasure, Guido Landoni, 18 years old.
SPEAKER_01:April
SPEAKER_00:5th, 1577. This is as far from home as I've ever travelled. The journey has been beautiful, but perilous. The French wars of religion between the Catholics and Protestants are about, and will still be for another 20 years, according to my Encyclopedia de Wiki. Even though the metallic odour of blood is everywhere, and dirty Protestants lurk around every street corner, it was not a compelling reason to miss a holy ball tournament for the ages. And what a tournament it turned out to be! I was successful in bespiking the ball over the field net onto the grounds of the other troop. On several an occasion! To paraphrase Plato, the body is merely a tool for the mind. But without the assistance of proper tools, it is hard to get any real work done. My mind is at ease. With Father Augusto playing defense and Garibaldi's iron wall blocks, Our strategy made the game run like a Frenchman from battle. But even more meaningful than that, while wiping the hard-earned sweat from my brow using the handkerchief I've carried with me since babyhood, I was approached by a Parisian holy ball player, a monk from the Delacroix Brotherhood named Antoine. He asked me where I had acquired my baby blue rag, for he had seen it before. There was a store in Paris. It was woven there by the proprietor, a woman named Jacqueline Deschamps, a socialite who made clothes and accessories for the finest Parisian nobility. Were my mother and father Parisian nobility? Perhaps I was lost by accident all those years ago, and they were at home cursing and weeping the baby boy's fate. Sadly, I can't venture into Madame de Champs to ask about the ZZZ initials in my handkerchief, for we have holy ball to play. And what with the bloodthirsty acolytes waiting in ambush, a stroll in the city is synonymous to suicide by protestant. But one day, I shall return. I will return home. Mama. Papa. Please do not cry. Yo Guido will return. Hopeful for the future. Guido Lanzoni. 22 years old. June 20th. 1580. I am the burning right hand of God. Handus Dei. Or perhaps not God, but something other. I feel everything. All at once. Perhaps I dare say even everywhere. Our monastery had the pleasure and privilege of hosting the most famous monk in all of Europe. He is known by many names. The Fiend of Vienna. The Spiking Beast. The Dunking Monk. Captain Wig. Frere Bear. Big Papa Cheese. Father Arnold Weissneger of the Viennese Muscle Monastery, known as the Golds Brotherhood. He's the inventor and grand champion of holy ball. Legend says he invented it 80 years ago. And everyone always marvels at his youthful form, even now as he's in his early hundreds. But it is merely a facade, for he is Beast in more than merely name. Also Big Papa Cheese, he really earned that one. A full wheel! In one sitting! No joke! He said and I quote, The cheese gives me the feeling of coming. So I'm coming while playing, coming in the bedroom, and coming while eating cheese. After holy ball practice, he asked for me specifically to join him in extra training. I beamed at the proposition and accepted. We practiced spiking. It seemed to be all he was interested in. No defense, no strategy, just a good angry smackaroo. We trained for hours. And once we took a rest, I saw my right hand was bloodied, broken, disfigured. Yet there was no pain. Father Arnold began telling me how holy ball is perhaps not as holy as it might at first glance seem. He continued that it is the delicate art of slapping the ever-living shit out of something while others cheer you on. And the secret to his legendary spike is he imagines it not as a ball, but as a kopf, a head. Specifically, the head of his enemies. Thus emerges the true form of holy ball. unholy head. As he laughs, I see him take his wig off. Two pointy purple prongs burst from his bald, flaky scap. He is not of man. He is from the depths of man's nightmares. My mind commanded me to escape, find Father Augusto, get help! But there was another voice of intrigue and amazement. My body moved as if it had a will of its own, and I spiked and spiked and spiked until I could spike no more. My hand was burning, and with the final spike, the ball exploded in fire, as did my right hand. Again, There was no pain, only the heavily accented Austrian laughter of the well-muscled devil. He plunged his teeth into my hand and drained the flames, the blood, the life, all of it, until all that remained was me, and everything went black. I regained consciousness in the morning. quickly found a glove for my burning red right hand. And as if by instinct felt the hour of dawn upon me, I crawled into the small garden shed at the edge of the holy ball courtyard. There I waited, waited for the brightness of day to fade and match the dark I felt in my heart. I am Guido Lanzoni, 25 years old. I am bambino della notte. I am a child of the night. I am vampire. But you can call me Guido Lanzoni. Or just Guido. Or guy. Gui. But I am vampire. Thanks for listening, folks! My name is Auri Itamaki, and Solotude is my personal project. I really hope you enjoy your time with it. Additional episode music and sound effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Theme song courtesy of me. You can follow Solotude on Instagram and TikTok at solotudeshow. And if you got something you wanna say, please drop a message or comment. I'm still not 100% set on the format of the show, so I'd be delighted to hear your ideas and suggestions on where to take it. Also, please rate and review the show so people can find it a little bit easier. There's no budget, it's just me in a room, so it would be awesome if people found the show. Solo 2 drops every week. Every other week there will be an actual play episode, and Every other week, I'll do a proper journal reading with music, sound effects, and a whole lot of shabang, so you can enjoy Solitude as an actual play podcast or as an audio drama if you prefer to just listen to the journal readings. You can do both. It's up to you. Thanks again for listening, folks. Bye!
