Host Poker (Póker de Hostias) is a blasphemous card game and torture ritual of the Paris phase of Les Libertateurs (1715 A.D.A. onward), in which consecrated hosts are wagered. Its absolute winner was Oratiol.
| Type | Event |
| Place | A crypt near the Bastille, Paris |
| Houses of the Cycle | ⛓ House of the Band · ⛧ House of the Pact · ⟳ House of the Rotating Office |
| Spanish entry | Poker de Hostias |
Description
According to Events of Antiterra, it was held on unspecified Sundays or Mondays before dawn; invitations reached rising personalities by aerial servant post. While playing, the group tortured captives (the Grand Inquisitor, the Executioner); each hand called up supernatural effects or forced revelations. A Hierarch was watching and “marking” the group. During the game Magda called up two presences, one of them the Kimchi Princess.
Mechanism
Intense souls buy hosts; hosts generate Guardians, who activate the zodiacal platforms of the Game of Shadows.
Participants
- Voltaire (K♦); Oratiol, the winner.
- Future / Lord of the Gitanillos, broker of Oratiol’s soul-sale.
- Lord Gaul, Viceroy of Paris, and La Fiebre, a demon — both responsible for the contract.
- William Pit, probably William Pitt the Younger in uchronic spelling.
- Steve Reyes (K♠), Oratiol’s ally.
- Magda (Q♣), Oratiol’s mentor; Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (Q♦).
- The Kimchi Princess (Q♥), Oratiol’s mentor-lover, later guardian of Sagittarius.
The pact
Some say Oratiol’s price was a pact with the diabolical authorities of Notre-Dame. The contract in the Inferno sets a quota of one hundred innocent souls in a year — ninety-nine already owed — for a host, youth and a thousand years. Sixty-eight were sacrificed, the sixty-eight marks on the hand of Oratiol’s young clone. The first was a noble girl on the Bridge of Sighs.