Planet: Bibeault. Only the equator is habitable, and it's pitiful taiga that's snowbound for two-thirds of the year. There are lakes of liquid methane, adorable big-eyed fuzzbats that can be trained to deliver messages, and giant flying pukers that eat anything not nailed down and vomit all over everything. Deeper into the woods there are huge creatures; their fur is quite valuable, since nobody thought to bring cold-weather gear.
(Excellent atmosphere, hydrology, no intelligent life; unstable geology, dangerous biology, awful climate).

Mint Hill: a half-abandoned shell of a settlement, with a beleaguered administration at its heart. Since all its wealth is produced out in the backcountry - furs from trappers, methane refineries at the methane lakes - it was easy for the convicts to starve out the central administration, then engineer a muted coup. Since then the Authorities have mostly been corrupt or puppets.
(Motivated workforce, low density, high prosperity.)

The Drive for this game was Status.

Criminal Notables

Dimber Damber Fay Jacks (Mark). "I will never break a promise." A political prisoner - well, a domestic terrorist, really. A terrifying creepy hippy and inveterate schemer.

Abbot Rhoda Sankey (Sam). "I will never ask for mercy." A former poacher, who became the Abbot more or less by default as furs became the de facto currency. Takes the role seriously, but dislikes management and wishes she was just out in the woods killing things.

Bolter Almie Halkes (Martin). "I will never kill anything that doesn't have a chance." One of the sharpest fur-trappers. She is the person who best knows Malcold Warry, a former marine and scary, dangerous, crazy person who makes the very best space-meth.

Lag Dencius Stakens (Jess). "I will never keep a profitable secret." A small-time space-meth dealer. He has never met a problem that he doesn't address by selling space-meth.

Wrecker Wend Bracer (Mark). "I will never forgive Rhoda for what she has done." A former confidante of Fay's, secretly in love with her. Shoved her former partner into a methane lake.

Authority Notables

Acting Governor Orphia Jacks (Jess). "I will never tolerate incompetence." Fay's daughter, installed as a puppet. Now, at seventeen, is beginning to assert her independence.

Captain Leorica Marre (Martin). "I will never allow harm to come to Orphia." Orphia's foster-parent (convicts weren't allowed to keep their own children). Kept in position because she's acceptably corrupt.

Swell Dalvin Fraham (Mark). "I will never allow Orphia to best me." (A very late substitute who never actually appeared. Can't remember what his deal was.)

Marine Shag Keech (Sam). "I will never miss an opportunity to eat well." Not too bright, rather venal in his motivations, but deep down he longs for a return to order and the rule of law.

Emancipist Grison Glour (Mark). "I will never go back there again." A former serial killer, still intensely creepy but now a fervent priest of a homespun religion. (The rather lispy god Glothith.) Trying to stay on the straight and narrow.

There was a lot of killing in this one. Savagery won essentially every roll. Grison, attempting to evangelise Rhoda, went loopy and got filled with bullets in the very first scene. Unsatisfied with the extent of her power, Fay tried to cut Rhoda out of the fur trade (using Dencius to get the trappers addicted to space-meth), but had her yurt shot up by Almie, Rhoda and a bunch of irate hunters. Wend took revenge for Fay's death by shoving Rhoda into a bear-trap and then shooting her; Almie shot Wend seconds later, then went after Dencius and murdered him in cold blood, breaking her oath.

The authorities were relatively muted. Leorica (the token Sensible Character) failed to prevent Orphia from acting rashly, but Fay was too distracted by her own power-struggles to retaliate. Shag had an abortive career as a space-meth dealer. The game ended (I think; correct me if I'm wrong) on the cusp of a power-struggle between Orphia and the (recently created) Mr. Cramps, with Almie a sort of dangerous loose cannon.

Yes, I believe we killed every starting character on the Convict side bar Almie, and nobody on the Authority side (except maybe Grison, who was severely shot in the face but we never revisited him to see if he died). At the end, along came Mr. Cramps, who had been Captain Sharp all along but never relevant, to fill the power vacuum. Almie didn't want power, but as we left things, she may be forced into it to prevent Cramps from becoming the colony tyrant.

We spent a lot of time on the set-up for this one, which was awesome, very evocative, and almost a game in its own right. However, it left relatively little time for play. We still managed to kill everyone, though. Go us?

I agree that the setup was awesome on this one, even if I did go a little overboard in adding "dazzling details" to my characters. And I said that I wanted a game with disposable characters, and this was as close as I'd gotten without Microscope :)

Amusingly, I didn't intend Fay to come off as creepy as she was. I was going for more spacey hippie; but I guess when you have a spacey hippie with a history of murder and terrorism, you get creepy.

Fay was an interesting case. Her persona was so incongruous with her job that she came across as terrifyingly unhinged even though she didn't actually hurt anyone on camera. You know, usually the Dimber Damber acts like a violent criminal, and you can predict they will act in enlightened self-interest. But a Dimber Damber who doesn't seem aware that she's a criminal? Who knows what she'll do next? I think the colony is much better off without her. :-)