Polaris, where I was Disturbing
Matt Weber set up the Polaris game. I'm not sure how else to phrase it. I suppose, technically, he's down as the GM, but the game doesn't really have a gm. Or, from another angle, everyone gms for someone.
Polaris was the first of the indie games that really clicked for my group. I'm not talking about mood or tone or theme or theory here -- I'm talking about the basics of knowing how to play the game. Whenever we hit a situation we didn't know how to handle, we opened the book and found the rule covering it, and the rule was clear and unambiguous. But, we have yet to finish our first game.
Matt noted that this might be because we're not making enough experience rolls. I think he maybe went too far in the opposite direction, but this was useful for me to see, and, at a convention game, that is the way to err. He also used the author's modification for convention runs of rolling 2d6 instead of one, and taking the lower of the two rolls.
I mentioned one of the few things I dislike about Polaris, the requirement that all characters, except demons, have star names, and said that we'd considered names like X385 and stuff like that. Matt said that the book did list X1, a black hole, and I put that down as my name. Matt and I were across from each other and thus each other's Mistaken, aka personal adversarial gm. Shane and Fred Hicks were across from each other.
Lisa Padol = X1 (and I was actually playing my own gender, for a change)
Fred Hicks = Antares
Matt Weber = Gienah
Shane = Suhail
X1 was the Voice of the Senate, aka the senate's propagandist. She was secretly the mistress of Achemar, the leader of the senate, and they had an illegitimate daughter, Beid, whom they'd abandoned in the wasteland outside the city of Tallstar. X1 also had a Cloak of Darkness.
Antares was an interesting contrast, as he could open the window of his heart and make his feelings clear to all. He also had a key that could open any lock, while his father, Ras Elased, was the King's Lockmaker.
Gienah was the Warden of Tallstar, and tried to keep the senators safe. He had the Icicle of Vision to aid him in this. He was deeply suspicious of Deneb, a public agitator, and he was haunted by the ghost of his wife, Metsuta.
Suhail passed himself off as a great hero, and had a PR man of his own. I don't recall the guy's name, and it was erased from the sheet. NB: This is why I don't think names should ever be erased from the sheet, as they're still a part of the character's history, but that's a side point.
X1 extolled the praises of the senate, but had to deal with people speaking against Achemar. They tried to attack him. She protected him, but in so doing, slew some of the people. Almach, the husband of a woman she slew, came to her and asked who would take care of his children. Would she allow him and his children to move into her home?
She agreed, and, somehow, Almach knew that there was another child who should be there, X1's own child. He pressed her to search for the child with him. They found Beid, the child, and brought her back to the city, despite X1's forboding (which, I explained, was merely her ability to hear the background music, not anything mechanically significant).
Suhail's man sang his praises, speaking of how Antares had slaughtered a hundred demons single handedly. This story was contradicted by the badly disfigured Tyl, who had somehow survived the incident and knew the truth of Suhail's behavior. I think the people believed Suhail, while the senate belived Tyl. But, Suhail's lover, Kuma, helped Suhail become a senator. But, he was a thoroughly corrupt senator, buying and selling votes. This was to point out the corruption of the entire senate.
Gienah arrested Deneb, but had to release him, for Deneb was innocent of treachery. Yet, Gienah was sure that he was guilty of something. Indeed, his dead wife told him that Deneb spoke secretly with their young daughter, Casseiopeia. Casseiopeia tried to deny this, but was unwilling to lie outright, so she said that she had not spoken with Deneb, but admitted that he had spoken with her. Gienah showed Cassiopeia how the Icicle of Vision worked, and Cassiopeia grew power hungry and began to use it secretly.
Antares was told of a demon, and he slew it, freeing the people it had captured. But, he had to slay it with a demonic item. The people understood why he had done this, but nevertheless, they banished him, his father, his wife, their children, and his little sister from Tallstar.
Almach came to X1, telling her that Beid had slain his son, Zaurak, and needed to be destroyed, for she was a demon. X1 agreed, and went to speak to Beid, who thanked her mother for bringing her to the city where she could play with children. When X1 told her that she had killed Almach's son, Beid brought the boy back from the dead, with demonic power. Almach was terrified of both children and wanted them both slain. X1 told the children that they had to leave, and, as soon as they turned their backs, she cut off both their heads. Almach was horrified. Despite X1's protests that she had done everything he had asked of her, he left, taking his daughter, Vega, with him.
Almach went to Achemar, telling him of X1's deeds, and Achemar arrested her. She told him her side of the story, and he arrested Almach, but was still angry that X1 had brought Beid to the city and then slain her, when he had made it clear that he wanted Beid alive, but exiled. Beid's voice whispered in X1's ear, asking who would care for Vega if Vega's father were arrested. X1 asked Achemar this, but he didn't care. Furious, X1 slew him, but then immediately repented the deed, and used the power Beid had given her to bring Achemar back to life. He was even more horrified. X1 and Almach were brought to trial. Almach was found innocent, while X1 was banished from the city.
This is about when the other players decided that X1 was the scariest character there. I hadn't intended to make her so Medea-like, but that was how it happened. Like Medea, X1 had tried to do everything the man she was trying to please wanted, but it had all gone wrong. She still thought Achemar was a great man, but she intended to have her revenge on Almach.
Meanwhile, Antares lived in an igloo in the waste land. His wife, Lyra, lived in a separate igloo, and saw Sarim, a knight from the city, but chastely only. Nevertheless, the two plotted to kill Antares. He learned of this.
Suhail watched Kuma's interest turn to Tyl, and Kuma told Suhail it was time for him to leave her home, for she was going to marry Tyl. This he did. Lyra came to him, begging that she and her children and her husband's sister, Rana, be permitted to return to Tallstar, for they had done nothing wrong. She did not want Antares to return, and, indeed, she wanted to be released from her vows to Antares. Suhail managed to get her what she wanted, and the two were married on the same day as Tyl, for Suhail could not bear his rival to be wed before him. The senators had to chose which wedding to attend. I believe Tyl was killed that evening, by partisans of Suhail, though Suhail did not command this. Suhail's wife wept that a day intended to bring peace instead brought strife, and the senate agreed that it was time to have a king again. So, they crowned Suhail, who had been being groomed for the job.
This is when Fred won the game and the convention. When the ice crown was brought for Suhail, he stipulated that it turn red with the frozen blood of all of the people who had died in Suhail's rise to power. This is when Shane said, "But only if Fred Hicks shuts the fuck up for the rest of the game." As this was not actually desirable, he settled for having the senate believe Suhail's spin, that the crown was red with the blood of the demons Suhail would slay.
Antares, alone on the ice, would not give up his key to his father, saying that it was intended to balance his father's power as royal locksmith. His father left and returned with an armed force from the city to take the key, but Antares would not give it to them, and it was lost to both sides, in the ice. As a punishment assignment from King Suhail, Antares was appointed the leader of an expedition to the Mistaken to slay the demons who lived there.
Gienah arrested Muliphene, the leader of the opposition faction in the senate, consigning him to the ice dungeons. He wanted to arrest Deneb as well, but King Suhail told him to ask Deneb to become a senator instead. Gienah did this, impressed by the king's wisdom.
X1 stole Vega, the daughter of Almach. Almach went after them, and brought his daughter home, despite X1's accusation that he was a coward and Vega's desire to help X1 fight demons. Vega slew Achemar (whom I had temporarily conflated with Suhail, as Shane played both), as he had not cared what became of her, and then returned to X1, bringing along other children from the house where children whose parents were absent were kept. X1 led her children's crusade to join Antares's campaign against the demons, to his concern, chagrin, and bafflement. Unable to dissuade X1, he impressed upon her that she and the children were under his command. Then, demons attacked, carrying away the children. X1 followed, but had to use a winged demon steed to do so, and saw her daughter, Beid, waiting on the lip of a deep chasm.
When Suhail heard about all of this, he decided that he'd better lead the army himself, since everything kept going wrong. Queen Lyra begged him to stay, but he would not listen. When he left, she was slain by Kuma's assassins. Suhail's PR man waited until they were a day from Tallstar, then told Suhail that they could go back and lie, as they always had. Furious, the king slew the man.
Gienah rode with the king, but got separated from the main army. He came across the Solaris Knight, who told him that the king's army could not win, and that he brought greetings from Casseiopeia, Gienah's daughter. He warned Gienah that all was not well in Tallstar. Enraged, Gienah slew the Solaris knight, though he knew that the knight's spirit would find another dwelling place.
Gienah contacted Casseopeia, who assured him that all was well, and that the people were unified. This calmed Gienah for a time, but he soon realized that what Casseopeia claimed was unlikely. So, he returned to the city and learned of the queen's death. He took Casseopeia to the king and told him the news, begging that the king would punish him, not his daughter, for it was Gienah's fault for giving Casseopeia a responsibility for which she was not ready.
Meanwhile, Antares came to a great wall of ice with a lock in it. As he no longer had the great key, he opened the door of his heart, and the force of his despair began to crack the lock, allowing the demons to emerge from within. Both the demons and the king's knights were filled with Antares's despair. Most of the knights fled, slaying demons as they went.
King Suhail reproached Antares, for, if Antares had not acted as he did, Lyra would not be Suhail's, but she would be alive. Antares replied that if Suhail had listened to Lyra, she would be both alive and Suhail's. Furious, the king withdrew, leading his army back to the city for a final stand against the demons, while Antares became a star of despair.
X1 went to Beid, who thanked her for bringing all the children for her to play with. The children were dropped gently by the demons, and they started to run away, but Beid sang to them, and they stopped, enchanted. Beid told X1 that she had to leave Tallstar, which was crumbling from within, and come to Beid's city, in the chasm, a city which would never crumble. But, the knights of Tallstar would try to kill them all, so Beid wanted X1 to lead an army of demons against Tallstar. X1, now thoroughly corrupted by the demons, agreed.
Gienah prayed to hear his wife's ghost advise him, but instead heard the voice of the Frost Maiden, the consort of the Solaris Knight. She appeared to him, saying that he had slain her consort. Who now would be her lord? I hadn't planned to, but I seemed to do a lot of echoing of what Matt had done to X1.
Gienah argued that the Solaris Knight wasn't really dead, which was, in a sense, true. On the other hand, the Solaris Knight who was the lord of this Frost Maiden was dead. Gienah asked if Casseopeia would be all right if he became the Frost Maiden's new lord. She said that she would raise Casseiopeia to be the new Frost Maiden. Gienah rejected this and the Frost Maiden, stabbing her to death. Casseiopeia, enraged, killed Gienah with the Icycle of Vision which he himself had taught her to use.
For X1, Beid was the Frost Maiden, but X1 became the Frost Maiden to King Suhail when their armies met at Tallstar.
X1: For the children!
King Suhail: For the city!
Alas, King Suhail could not prevail. But, the Frost Maiden did not slay him, leaving him to watch the city crumble around him. King Suhail went to his tower and did not speak to anyone for the rest of his days.
I forget exactly who said this or when: You ask way too fucking much -- though you did ask nicely.
But that was long ago, and there is no one now who remembers it.
