Vigil: Bad Dog, Act 1

Merely Roleplayers

Bad Dog, Act One of Five: In which local youths are hounded from their usual haunts; their elders rush to investigate; and a romantic trip is interrupted.

Programme notes

This production contains drug use, gross tentacles, and fantasy violence with some injury detail.

Tickets are now on sale for Lights Out, the first Merely Roleplayers stage show, at 8:30pm on Sunday 24 October at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington, London, as part of the London Horror Festival. It’s the second half of a double bill with The Scare Slam at 6:30pm. Enter EARLYBIRD at checkout before 24 September for a discount, or book Lights Out and the Scare Slam at the same time for a combo discount.

Book tickets

If you’ve got a scary spoken word piece you’d like to perform at the Scare Slam, you can sign up until 25 September.

Our promo this episode is for Snyder’s Return, a roleplaying game podcast featuring actual play, interviews and guides for gamemasters and players.

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.

Graham: The demon equivalent of an accountant, summoned to Earth in error and now trying to make the best of it. He is destined to bring about the Apocalypse.

Gwynned: a former shieldmaiden of the triple goddess Morrigan. For the crime of saving a mortal man from the Morrigan’s cruel whim, the goddess exiled Gwyn to live as a duck, overlooked by mortals. Recently freed from the curse, Gwyn is negotiating a new relationship with her mistress.

Jinny Greenteeth: proprietor of the Grove of Oddities, a tacky Sherrydown tourist attraction. In a past life, Jinny was branded a witch after a series of drownings in her Lancashire village.

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 Persephone Byron, the Exile

Alexander Pankhurst as Graham, the Summoned

Natalie Winter as Gwynned, the Divine

Josh Yard as Jinny Greenteeth, the Spellslinger

ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands

MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst

SOUND DESIGN BY: Natalie Winter

SFX AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC INCLUDES: Dragon and Toast, Mirage, Long Note Two, and Virtutes Instrumenti by Kevin MacLeod; soaring clouds by kangaroovindaloo; and may include others made available to use without attribution.

EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman

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