What do I have to do to make my idea work?

[Aster]

Okay, I'm a novice coder at best. I got a freepgs site so I could learn php a little better and generally goof around.

I play this game/3-D chat enviro called "second life." You can script objects in the game using a scripting language and the objects can send and recieve email. I want to write some different scripts to work with in-game objects... then sell the objects for in-game money. 

Right now I'm working on an object that will play podcasts in game. I got a feed 'gator working, but...

My question is this: What do I have to have php scripts parse and run off of various incoming emails? I think I read something about setting up a catch-all account... do I need to set up a domain name for that to work?