The pervasive theme throughout the party was Clave Con, the Conclave Convention.
We designed and printed a pack of customized Fortress Party Popemon Cards, and gave one to each guest on arrival. There was a unique card for each Pope from the first Pope, St. Peter, through Pope Leo XIV (Officially Pope 267, but if you count antipope's and contested popes, he's #299), and they were distributed chronologically.
Based on Fortress attendance in prior years, there was a chance that 299 Popemon cards wouldn't be enough for every guest to get one, so we also made some future popes.
Each Popémon card included scores between three and nine in each of four attributes: Holiness, Miracles, Wisdom, and Legacy. A host (in this case, Lauren) explained that high scores would help them in their battle against other Popes to be Supreme Pontiff in the Popémon Arena.
Individuals could boost their Pope's ability scores by succeeding at challenge stations throughout the party. For instance, anyone who ate a chip with each of Hot Ones Season 26 Hot Sauces could scan a QR code to upgrade their Legacy score to 10.
The other three challenges were in the basement, which was entirely dedicated to different parts of Vatican City. First, guests were greeted by a captain of the Swiss Guard.
Pope Leo held synods, encyclicals, and catecheses in his chambers. I actually don't know what any of those mean, so we just leaned into his Chicago pride.
The video on the TV was a 20 minute loop of Chicago sports teams fails. The room was also full of various Chicago paraphernalia, like Garret's popcorn and a bottle of Malort.
In the next room, there was a confession booth, where guests would write one of their sins on a dry erase board. These were photographed and pinned to the wall as the evening wore on.
The Confessor was behind a closed door, so he could only be seen between the cracks of the wall or from above.
The next area was the Sistine Chapel, complete with stained glass windows, and a child angel making gang signs.
We had a keg of "Canon Lager," and 100 little Communion Cups, each with a wafer and a dash of grape juice.
This was also where guests could try St. Simon's Holiness Challenge, which was a custom game of Simon on a pipe organ. If you correctly played back seven random notes in a row, you would get a QR code to upgrade your holiness to 10.
Around the corner was the Domino Dominoes challenge. There were 12 Popes printed on giant dominoes, and guests had to solve puzzles by connecting them end-to-end. Doing so gave a code to open a box, where a QR code to upgrade the Wisdom attribute to 10.
The Tiber River was a 24 foot long waterway, complete with remote control kayaks, two devil ducks, and one Pope John Paul II duck.
At the end of this hall, we had the final challenge. Three Connections games tied loosely to the Vatican, Popes, or Latin. Give them a try, and see if you can figure out the three digit code to open the box and upgrade your Miracles score to 10!
Finally, guests could proceed to the Popemon Arena, where you could put all of these attributes to good use. Guests would scan their badge, and their Pope's picture would appear in one of these two boxes. Then they would battle, Street Fighter-style. The ability scores correlated with their Pope's hit points, attack damage, defense, etc.
We recorded some original music and sound effects for this game, most of which was Malcolm shouting Latin phrases with a falsetto Italian accent.
When one Pope won, smoke would come out of the chimney on the desk, and it would show the leaderboard and how many challenges each Pope had completed.
