We Do WHAT In The Shadows!? - Ep. 10

A box appears! Something jiggles inside it! It talks, is immortal and turns out to be the leader of the symposioum!

100 years go by as Alf tries to outrun the 18th century evil Robocop following him. He makes the grand journey across the Atlantic to build a new life closer to family.

Content warning: Profanity, violence, sexy things

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Special thanks:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

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, right in my fictional journal, and you get to hang out next to me by the fire. My name is Aori. Welcome. I hope you enjoy our time together. This is Solitude. We do what in the shadows. We're back in the game. Or rather, we're out of the game. Uh, in a sense, because the Papal Combat is done. We're done with the mandatory sports segment of the vampire game. This campaign has had surprisingly little to do with vampire tropes, or or even like the classic formula of vampire stories or vampire stuff in general. But I don't care. But what I do want to do is a little bit of musings from the shadows. Alf Loki Skeletonsen, our guy. He enjoys eating humans, but he doesn't. Because he traveled north into Norway. And he thinks he got enlightened? I don't think he did. I think he still craves human flesh, but he hasn't been cooking for a while. Early in the morning when he goes to sleep, he thinks about it. And we're lucky that caretaker Garibaldi is not looking super appetizing. Not a lot of flesh on those bones. And that blood is not the drinkin'. I wonder which part is Alf's favourite to munch on. Um he doesn't care for the virgin thing. He likes his blood and flesh tainted. He likes flesh that has seen stuff. Blood that has been places. His favorite blood type? Dirty. His favorite internal organ to eat? The liver. Goes amazingly well with many red wines. When he's laying in bed thinking of all that dirty flesh, what he's really missing are the desserts. What he used to do was he used to eat a person. After he ate a well proportioned adult. That's the dessert that got him. Something sweet, like a grandma, like a good hearted neighbor, a community leader. First lick the salt off their skin, bite their tongue off, let the blood spill on the floor, and drink it from there. Then claw your way to the liver, pour some wine in there, and go to town. So I think with that, let's get into it. Oh, by the way, uh for some reason I forgot to mention at the end of the last episode, uh I gained a skill and a resource. So my resource uh I picked was sainthood, and the skill I feel I got in papal combat was trust. So I now have a skill called trust that I can use. So yeah, that's that. So we were at prompt number 36. We move three spaces forward. Prompt 39 says, What's this? A head in a box? And it can talk. Create an immortal character that is also a resource. This head must be used to fill your next three needs for a character. I have no idea what that means, rules-wise. Where did you get this thing? Uh, a head in a box. Uh, that's a classic. So I need to figure out who who it is. It can talk. Uh I'll create the immortal character, so it's it's an immortal head. That's delightful. Right now, we are living in 1676. I think Alf will find a reason to stay in Corsica for quite a while. He's hiding from the Pope. He's not back into the desperate emo mode of, oh no, I'll ruin the world if I do anything. Which is why he left for Norway back in the day. But he's he's going to recuperate for a while. He's he's regaining his strength. I think he's gonna be like a vampire hunter. I think that's his way into Rene Descartes' heart. Descartes' heart. Descartes comes back from Athens. He got some instructions from the symposium. And Alf wants to do his part. He wants to slow down the evil of Pope Glutius Maximus. He's doing whatever he's able to from the island of Corsica. Maybe the tower becomes like a base for some vampire hunters, like a remote base. He doesn't become necessarily trusted among the vampire hunters or the philosophers. He's with Rene Descartes. I don't think the philosophers know the extent of their relationship, but it is going on. So years go by, and some minor philosophers have come and gone through through the fort. Our guy has been dealing with minor supernatural threats in Corsica. He's not much of a fighter, but he's he's doing it like um Buffy the Vampire Slayer style. He's he's just doing a lot of research, and then with sheer dumb luck and good good TV writing, he's able to uh stop the the resurgence of evil in Corsica. So one day, thirty years later, in 1706, Rene Descartes shows up. He hasn't been here for a while. He's gotten older. He ages at like half speed, because he doesn't exist half the time, but he's he's not an immortal, he still ages. One beautiful summer day, Alf is sitting at the rooftop of his watch tower. There's beautiful fabrics, silk curtains to keep the sea wind at bay, there's Egyptian carpets, and Rene Descartes stands before him. It's been a few months since Descartes was here, but he's holding a box in his hands. But he's wounded. He's bleeding, he's really hurt. I immediately jump up. I go to tend to his wounds, but he says that he has to go. The philosopher's symposium was attacked by supernatural warriors wearing the sigil, an emblem with the sign of great evil. Two well muscled ass cheeks not just any ass cheeks. Descartes recognized the ass with dimples like that. It had to be the Pope. Glutius Maximus had begun his purge. He'd found out where the philosopher's symposium meets and sent out his most elite death squad called what the fuck are they called? The um the skull crushers. That's that's that's a lift, right? For the triceps? Yeah? Yeah, the skull crushers. That's that's them. He sent the skull crushers brandishing the emblem of the ass, a fist sized brass medallion that has a lifelike engraving of the Pope's ass on it. So the skull crushers hit the symposium hard. Descartes got out. He has no idea what happened to the others. His hands shake as he's holding the box. Take him, he says. Disease our leader. Take good care of him and he hands me the box and disappears. There I am standing with a wooden box in my hands. I think to myself what's in the box? I set it down on the floor and I open it. I see a bald shiny top of the head, a great white beard, and blond grey curly hair. God he's ugly. He greets me with a question Do you think vampires should exist? I say well no. Ah then you think you shouldn't exist? I say no. He seems perplexed. How is that possible? That's illogical. And by now Alf figures out who it is. He lifts the head out of the box. It's the leader of the symposium, the grand philosopher, the talking head. It's Socrates. Well, I say, I'm a vampire, but you should have died two thousand years ago. There's an awkward silence. He whispers, too shay. So Socrates is the leader of the symposium, and he's just a head. He's he's not he's not brains in a vat, he's he's just a head in a box. And he does not care for me. He starts fucking questioning me every way he can. At first, he questions my life choices, he questions my taste in romantic partners, he questions my furniture taste, he questions the songs I make, he criticizes my fashion sense, he criticizes the way I criticize. He's sharp as attack still, but he's a fucking menace. Imagine the most obnoxious guy you've ever met. Then cut his head off, put it in a box, you've got Socrates. So the prompt says I need to fill the next three needs using this head. Uh I'm not sure what that means. So probably I'll just find a way to bring the head into the next three prompts in some way, and call it a day. Great. Okay, so daycard is out for now. The symposium of the philosophers has been cut off by the skull crushers of the well-shaped ass. I'm now in possession of the symposium's leader, uh, which appears to be the decapitated Socrates. Somehow alive immortally? We'll figure this out in the journal. I don't I don't know. So I like this. I like Socrates. Great, on to the next one. So that's one space back. A supernatural enemy moves against you. One close mortal character is converted into an immortal, quasi-sentient hunting thing set to tracking you. Strike out any other living mortals on your list. Jesus, this is getting this is getting tough. So one close mortal character. I don't think I have many close mortal characters. Fuck. It's gonna have to be either Caretaker Garibaldi or Rene Descartes. Which one is it? So probably the Pope would have changed either one of them. Or it could be a different one. I wanna get some distance towards we've been hanging around with the same antagonist. I think Papal Combat was the high point, at least for now in this act or the previous act. Uh, and I kind of want to give Father Weischeniger a break. Let him let him be Pope for a while, uh, make the world worse. So maybe since he's been helping supernatural monsters uh live their best lives and get out of their shells, um maybe there's somebody he Yeah, let's make it someone else. Let's make it let's use the supernatural enemy who we haven't met. So let's create a new one. So is it Descartes or Garibaldi? Both work very well. What so if it's Caretaker Garibaldi, um what happens? His whole life is about taking care of me and making sure I'm doing good. But there's the tension of the original Garibaldi kinda sneaking into his mind. Maybe maybe the original Garibaldi becomes uh a bigger presence in Caretaker Garibaldi's mind. There's like a silent takeover. Yeah, okay. Um one day, one beautiful day, I'm hanging out with my man Socrates, and Caretaker Garibaldi is annoying me. He's pushing my buttons. So I say something like, It's good I never turned your ancestor. I'm never gonna turn you into a vampire since then I would lose my number one servant. The original Garibaldi Sr. Living now in Caretaker Garibaldi's mind, hears this. Next day when I'm asleep, Caretaker Garibaldi sneaks out into the lair of my worst enemy in Corsica. Somebody I've been trying to track. They turned Caretaker Garibaldi into a quasi sentient haunting thing, set to tracking me, and he kills all mortal characters in his pursuit. I feel this takes a while. This has to take a while. We need to do a time jump here to make it make sense that he kills everyone. He he kills the secret cabal cult and what's left of it. Mercedes Uber eats. He kills Rene Descartes. Descartes will be gone. Oh no. And he kills Veronica the fucking smuggler. Uh I'll I'll figure that out in the journal as well. Like what was Veronica's deal? Uh, but uh Veronica was. Oh man. I have to flee, Corsica. I would have wanted to be here for a while, but uh in the same I would have wanted to be in the same place for a while, but now this immortal quasi-sentient hunting thing is tracking me, and I have to flee. Let's do a long one. Let's do like 70 years for this. So a hundred years in total for for today's episode. So we end up in 1777. Uh, I want to do that so, because I don't have that many mortal characters. I want to do a longer time jump so I can bring out some mortal characters to die, so uh I can kinda get a feel for for the for one more uh human lifetime for for for our guy. So through 70 years I move, this thing haunts me. I move all throughout Europe, and this thing haunts me. Caretaker Garibaldi has become lifetaker Garibaldi. What did he become? He chases me and he kills everybody who stands in his way. So who changed him and what is what is he like? He's quasi-sentient, so he's he's like a mindless killing machine, hell bent on revenge. Cool ideas would be like a devil type situation, so there's like a demon in Corsica. So the original Garibaldi, who's now kind of in control of caretaker Garibaldi's mind or body, he finds another way to become immortal. The other would be some kind of a Frankenstein situation. An alchemical injection or mechanical replace. I like a Robocop. We're in the 1700s, so uh there's a there's a mad scientist, ge evil genius who who lives in Corsica. She replaces Garibaldi with parts that are evil. A saw for an arm. Like a 1700s shitty Robocop of evil. That's what he becomes. She buys Garibaldi's soul from him and gives him what he desires. And what he desires is a bitch in cyborg body. A saw for a hand, spring legs, he can jump, flamethrower leg, jet pack, 18th century evil Robocop. That's what he is. And he will not rest until he he has revenge for the entire clan Garibaldi, which I betrayed. So the way I get out of this. The prompt doesn't say I have to use resources or anything, but I feel like I'm gonna use Socrates' head. So I'm gonna have a Socratic dialogue with Socrates himself about what to do now, and it's clear. We will go as far as we can, which is we jump on a ship again. Pope's can't get on a ship. It's been proved he I mean, Glutius Maximus never followed me, so so it's it's true. We travel to the New World. We travel far west over the Atlantic, uh, we end up in the United States of America, which has been indep an independent country for is it? Yeah, for one year, since 1776. So one year and there's still a war going on against the British. That's where the Socrat the Socratic dialogue ends up saying that that's that's the smart place to go. The jetpack won't fly Garibaldi that far. The Pope can't get on a boat. It even rhymes, so it's true. In our Socratic dialogue with Socrates, I mentioned that I've heard one half of my family lives beyond the Atlantic, in the West. The flesh side of my family lives in the newly independent United States of America. My flesh pile ancestors live there. All in all, it's that's the place to flee. Not just flee, but that's the place to build a new life in. And Socrates asks me to also help him build a new symposium. And I agree. Only a strong alliance of philosophers can stop eighteenth century evil RoboCop. It's the it's the it's the only way. There we have it. So memories. What the fuck do we do? First memory is getting a box full of Socrates. There's no memory that would fit it. So I have to create a new memory for this experience. I'm going to get rid of murdering loved ones. There's murdering Father Augusto, enslaving the clan Garibaldi, and death of Angelique de Boulangerie. That goes into the diary, and the diary will lose the temptations of the muzzled hare. So I will strike out from my diary any entries about becoming a child of the night. And the new memory I will create is called Symposium of Philosophers. Receiving Socrates in a box from Rene Descartes. Rest in peace. I feel bad for him. I don't. Uh okay, that's that's that. Uh then the second memory is fleeing 18th century evil Robocop Garibaldi into America. That's the experience. Is there a memory that has that? No. Fuck. I have to get rid of something. Oh my god, this feels terrible. I'm getting rid of my memory of my dead wife. Being a family man. That's in my diary. Shit, that feels worse than I thought. So that's in the diary, and the new memory is instead running from my responsibilities. I'm gonna get rid of murdering loved ones from the diary as well. So what my guy now remembers is in Norway, all of that stuff. I remember fucking Rene Dekart. I remember all the return of holyball, casketball, papal combat stuff. I think my guy has no reason to stay vegetarian anymore. He's forgotten about his guilt. Shit. All this running, all this death, he's even forgotten who the fuck Garibaldi is. I have no memory left of him. Not even in my diary. There's just this robotic, eternal creature who hunts me tirelessly all around the continent for decades. We have big fights. I think I kill him a few times, but he doesn't die. He's always back. Like the Rolling Stones or Deep Purple. You think they're dead, and then they go on to war. Yeah, this is excellent. Uh I would have loved to stay in Corsica for a while, but this this seemed like a good idea for a hundred-year time jump. And I don't know, the USA is a nice place to be at the turn of the century, the 18th, 19th century, so a lot of stuff happening there, and uh we'll see what kind of a part we play in it. With Socrates, Robocop chasing us. Thanks for listening. See ya. Thanks for listening, folks. My name is Aure 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 comment. Also, please rate and review the show so people can find it a little bit easier. 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's an actual play episode, and on the off weeks, I'll do a proper journal reading with music and the whole shepang. Thanks again for listening, everybody. See ya next week. Bye.