“With the first kick, the violence that was this match got underway. The undead collected the ball from deep within their half of the pitch, and quickly began throwing blocks at any and every rat in sight. The Popes answered back by setting some abominations on their backs, and invading the opponent's side of the field. One full turn later we had a rat badly hurt, a zombie ejected for a foul, and another zombie having been crowd surfed. Unfortunately, the Brawls' had also managed to secure the ghoul ball carrier in a cage, just behind the line of scrimmage. The remainder of the first half was just a slow, grinding advance forward, as the Brawls did whatever they could to take out as many rats as they could. One of the fallen included Pope blitzer Gregory, killed by one of those fiendish ghouls. There was a last minute hero blitz performed by Julius II, dodging through the covered endzone to throw an underpowered block at the ghoul standing on the edge of the goal line, but the ghoul dodged away. Julius II was then pushed into the crowd, and the Brawls scored their touchdown, 1-0, them.

There was a token kick-off, but with too much space between the ball and the goal to equal out the match, the Popes decided that the should rather finish out the first half in style; by Connie removing one of the undead's mummies with an armor piercing blitz. The crowd watched in stunned silence as Wrap Daddy made an attempt to regain his feet, and shrug off the injury. But the fractured skull disrupted whatever unholy spirit had made its residence inside that rotting corpse, and Wrap Daddy collapsed once again to the ground, not returning for the rest of the match. The whistle blew, and we were at halftime, trailing 1-0.

The second half saw both teams once again at equal strength; ten players a piece. The Popes decided to make the early effort to score, playing for the win, rather than the tie, and were celebrating their touchdown a turn later. Now all that had to be done was one of two things: kick the ball short and recover it, or kick the ball deep and stop the undead from making it forward.
What happened instead was the ball being kicked clear off of the pitch, and the resulting touchback putting the ball back in the hands of that same ghoul. Surprise, surprise, the Brawls enacted another exciting "cage-to-cage-to-cage" play, as they eventually found their way into the endzone, for the go ahead score, 2-1.

The Popes attempted one last pass which fell from Leo VIII's grasp, and bounced away. The Brawls couldn't even find it in their undead hearts to smash through the rats on the line, and the match came to a close.


When you play for the win, only one of two things can happen: either you win, or you lose, and when you lose, you tend to lose big. One blitzer killed, a drop in the standings, and a blow to team moral. But, let us look at the other side of this coin. The VCP injured two of their players, one of which permanently, showing everyone that these rats are not to be taken lightly. Nuffle chose to smile on the two skill rolls we did amass, with John Paul II's agility increasing, and Peter consuming warpstone, granting him a mutation. Lastly, the loss would guarantee that the VCP would not have to take on the unstoppable elf team currently holding top place. By points, this may have resembled a loss, but the silver lining looks so much brighter from where we're standing.”