Our game this week is The Magic Circle by Jason Morningstar from the Bully Pulpit Patreon in which we play supernatural neighbors living in a suburban cul-de-sac, working to better our community while keeping our true nature secret. Shelley is a mermaid who works in a day care and whose tail disappears when she's completely dried out. Soma is a sleep demon who works at the sleep clinic. Gil is a creature from the Black Lagoon who works from home as a computer programmer and wears a rubber mask when he has to leave the house. Graves is an angel sent to Earth to help children who works as a school counselor. Ratsep is an enchanted GI Joe doll who runs his own business and who suffers from doll arthritis and digits occasionally fall off. Hudspeth is an android and dentist who can easily pass for human.

Drawings of some of our characters from the Magic Circle: Soma, Gill, Shelley.

At the first meeting of our Monster Neighborhood Watch, we agreed to hold a second Halloween parade since the kids enjoyed the costumes in the first one so much. Ratsep agreed to collect the dues from the neighbors to pay for the annual snow plow fees, Hudseth secured help in getting rid of the wasp nest that had sprung up in the center of our community, and Shelley asked everyone to keep an eye out for her lost seashell keychain. The major topic of discussion was the abyss of utter blackness that had opened up in the house between Shelley and Hudseth. The hole seemed to be emanating screams and howls. Graves will reach out to a landscaper to get a quote to fill it in, while Shelley will ask her sister the witch if her magic can figure out what it is. Soma agrees to swim in the hole to determine if it's a portal to a nether realm.

Next month, at our second meeting, we recap the success of the second Halloween parade and get an update from Ratsep on the due collections. There is a long discussion about limiting religious Christmas decorations, since they cause Soma literal pain and make it so he cannot pass the decorated house. Graves is the only one planning a nativity, and he agrees to keep it up for only a week as a compromise. Gil wants to talk about how the water taste has changed, and how rancid it has become. Some of us haven't noticed, but we all agree to file complaints with the water company to get them to come out and test it. We fear the water may have been contaminated by the abyss. Shelley tells us that magic had no effect upon the hole, and Graves says the contractor who came to give a quote fell into the abyss and never returned. Soma entered the portal and determined that it's the souls of the damned leaking into our reality. We argue for a bit over whether what to do. We eventually decide we must determine why they are damned to be able to release their souls and seal the breach. Hudspeth will, via an ouija board, walk them through a spiritual history health questionnaire to seek clues.

Finally, at our next meeting, Ratsep fails to materialize, apparently having absconded with the snow plow collection, and the water inspection has yet to be completed after being delayed by the holidays. As for the abyss, it seems they were all eaten by some sort of monster, a hellhound perhaps. Graves consults with his employers and determines the best way to set the karmic ledger to balance is for the teenagers who (accidentally) opened the portal through their call to demonic forces to make another appeal, this time to celestial ones. We all agree to get the kids into the right situation to have them appeal to the heavens for help, in hopes this will close the interdimensional rift.