Merely Vigil - Tumblr Posts
I managed to improv a version of this in (I think) Vigil: Tourist Trap, but this is the thought-through version.
I strongly dislike fantasy settings where magic is a thing certain people have or can use and certain people can't (and I'm not only talking about the Dowager Transphobe's setting here). This take draws from old English folkloric magic, which was more about just ... learning the right names to say and rituals to perform to get an effect you want.
What you need to remember about magic
is that it's not a force or a resource - it's an act.
It's not something you can have. It's not something you can use.
It's something you perform.
Listen to Vigil
Hey NOT ONLY THIS but because the new Tourist Trap zine is out, the Cold Snap one has had a price cut!
Sherrydown Enquirer 3: Tourist Trap
What's that rattling through your letterbox? It's the long overdue third issue of the Sherrydown Enquirer!
Contains all you need to run our Monster of the Week mystery, Tourist Trap - plus bonus Vigil lore!
Get the Sherrydown Enquirer issue 3 - Tourist Trap now on @itchio. Each full price (or above) sale adds another community copy.
Want to try before you buy? Here's us playing through Tourist Trap on mic!
The story spans five acts and includes:
đ body horror food truck
đââď¸ Jess volunteers as tribute
đ dismemberment
Incoming from Merely Roleplayers! Omicron ate our episode buffer, but we've grown it back from the stubble and now we're back to regular releasing from 16 August.
Next up from Merely Roleplayers
16 August:
Vigil: Quarry
A Monster of the Week mystery in 4 acts
Hoofbeats echo off Sherrydown's cobbled streets as Cam, Brier, Melody and Renko race full tilt into their bloodiest adventure yet.
Contains blood, bloody violence, and a character experiencing fallout from childhood trauma.
11 October:
Monumental Exit
A Fiasco in 3 acts
After 67 years, Bilbo Biltong's ready to quit the band. But who out there could possibly step into his worn old shoes?
Contains hard drug use, lewd and morbid imagery, and a funeral scene
22 November:
Vigil: All Aboard
A Monster of the Week mystery in a number of acts to be confirmed, probably 5
A way long shut is open again, promising to carry away all souls stuck in Sherrydown. Will Jess, Calistarius, Gwynned and Harper make it to the end of the line?
And don't forget:
The Feed
A slow burn comic horror powered by Black Armada's Unreal system
Seven housemates enter the Big Brother house. They're signing up to be watched 24/7 - but can they even trust the evidence of their own eyes?
Check our pinned post or visit merelyroleplayers.com to catch all these productions and hundreds of past episodes!
This episode: tense, emotionally charged standoff
Also this episode: BIG SPLOOSH đŚ
Vigil: Quarry, Act 2
In which the hounds of the Hunt are revealed; the Hunt keeps recruiting; and Brier makes a mess of Melodies.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
Did we just discover our setting's origin of the bogeyman...?
Ghouls (Vigil Backstage)
We create some more lore about ghouls, especially the specific one Cameron is bent on destroying.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
BRIER: I thought a problem shared was a problem halved.
PAUSE.
MELODY: You did not think that.
...is one of my favourite exchanges we've ever improvised.
Vigil: Quarry, Act 3
In which Brier plays both sides; the pull of blood works both ways; and things come to a head at Sherrydown Library.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
Finale finale finale!
Not that it's over...
Vigil: Quarry, Act 4
In which the Hunt is at bay; a hound bites its master; and a mentor has nothing more to teach.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
If you're the type who likes to watch for hints, listen out for the bits of this episode about other realms - they will pay off in the next Vigil production (which I'm editing right now!)
Disbanding (Vigil Backstage)
We look back at Vigil: Quarry. Did we truly stop the danger or just put it off until later?
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
The next chapter of Vigil starts on @merelyroleplayers in late November/early Dec, and let's just say this one's for everyone who as of today identifies as a train fiend
Experimenting with releasing all the episode descriptions before the first episode of a new production drops, as fun teasers
Next up in the Main House:
Vigil: The Great Fire
A conflagration in 5 Acts
Act 1: In which Persephone Byronâs centuries-spanning cold war begins heating up for the final clash.
Act 2: In which Percy names the battlefield, and Mick marshals his strength for a skirmish.
Act 3: In which the hunters take a pawn or two, and move into position for checkmate.
Act 4: In which Percy discovers that even the best laid plan never survives contact with the enemy.
Act 5: In which the full might of the Great Fire, the Searing Tongue, the Smothering Haze, is unleashed on Sherrydown.
The house opens on Tuesday 4 April
Take your seat at www.merelyroleplayers.com
Vigil pretty much plans itself at this point â we have so many juicy plots bubbling that depending on who's in the session, the scenario usually just ... presents itself. In this one ... well, this demon's been lurking since Vigil: Playtime. It was time.
Act One of Five: In which Persephone Byronâs centuries-spanning cold war begins heating up for the final clash.
Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Ellie Pitkin as Persephone '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
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
Successfully (I think) served something in this episode that's been simmering since the very beginning of Vigil...
âśď¸ Now playing in the Main House
Act Four of Five: In which Percy discovers that even the best laid plan never survives contact with the enemy.
Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Ellie Pitkin as Persephone '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
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
Please give my morally bankrupt Cockney failson an award for his awfulness
Who is Ernie Bering?
Our Ernie is a finalist in the Best NPC category in this year's CRIT Awards, so let's have a quick rundown of who the man is.
If you already know, you can cast your vote for Ernie (and for Merely Roleplayers for Best Storyline!) at the CRIT Awards site:
Ernest 'Ernie' Bering is a craggy, barrel-chested man usually seen in a nondescript grey suit, cut to conceal a shoulder holster. In a visual medium, he would be played by Tommy Lee Jones, but voiced by Ray Winstone.
In our show, he's voiced by Matt Boothman. Matt and Chris Starkey came up with the character and Ellie Pitkin came up with his name.
Ernie is a career field agent of the Department of Omissions (DoOm), tasked with minimising the disruption the supernatural world causes to ordinary British citizens. He's a man shaped by life in the shadows.
Ernie was the point man for a disastrous DoOm scheme to release ghouls into the English countryside as bait for the Hunt, which legends say would scour England of evil. The Hunt didn't show but the ghouls massacred a family on a camping trip.
The only survivor was the youngest child, Cameron Jarvis (played by Chris Starkey). Ernie kept an eye on Cam as he moved through the foster system, mainly out of guilt, but also because Cam had fought off a ghoul, so he might be useful to Ernie in the future.
Completely off DoOm's books, Ernie trained Cam to deal with ghouls and other otherworldly threats. He's been both a handler and something of a surrogate father to Cam.
Years after the tragic experiment with the ghouls, the Hunt finally arrived in England and invited Ernie to join their ranks â via a ghoul being used as a combination errand boy and hunting hound. Ernie declined and took a nasty stab wound from the ghoul.
After Ernie tried and failed to keep Cam out of things, the truth finally came out and Cam put the injured Ernie on notice: if Ernie ever shows his face to Cam again, he'll find himself on the receiving end of his own deadly training.
And that's where we left Ernie at the end of Vigil: Quarry. He will return later this year in Vigil: Fear Itself...
In the meantime, show your appreciation for our favourite highly competent moral vacuum in the Best NPC category at the CRIT Awards!
I got to do an anime/JRPG boss second stage transformation sequence in audio for this one, and I'm pretty happy with the result!
đ Curtain up!
Canst it be truly a sin to destroy a God? For when God is no more, who remaineth to name the deed a sin?
Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Natalie Winter as Gwynned, the Divine
Josh Yard as Jinny Greenteeth, the Spellslinger
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
Marta da Silva as Harper, the Searcher
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Matt Boothman
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
Chris (who plays Kincaid in Merely Roleplayers: Vigil) is the determinist friend to the extent that he tried that line in a maths exam
Me: wow three nat 1s in a row the odds of that are like one in eight-thousand
My determinist friend: actually the probability of it happening was one-hundred percent because it happened
I do love the Unsleeping City but the grit in the oyster for me is the umbral arcana - because what exactly is the governing principle behind what it does and doesn't hide?
So in @merelyroleplayers: Vigil I did my own version called the omission effect, which
a) doesn't stop anyone seeing anything, just makes you incapable of transferring certain events, beings and phenomena from short- to long-term memory
b) was recently revealed as being governed by a repressed Regency-era lady, who sits in a dead end dimension reading transcripts of reality written by abducted and brainwashed clairvoyant stenographers and censoring anything she considers improper
Look, sometimes you improv something in the heat of the moment that doesn't make any sense, okay
Wait, what? Can anyone figure out Diane's travel plan here?