players: Matt, Lisa, Shimon, Ben

Our Kingdom was the corrupt city government of Prohibition-era Seattle. Seriously corrupt: the mayor's office is running a bootlegging syndicate from Canada and selling it in our speakeasies and brothels (yep, we're running prostitution rings too).

Sounds pretty gritty, right? But surprisingly most of the characters turned out to be basically okay folks. Our on-call doctor (Shimon) and the Mayor herself (Lisa) didn't really want any part in the illegal activity even though they were caught up in it. And the police chief (Matt), who was the real Power of the city, was if anything a practical man who just thought Prohibition was hypocritical -- everyone wants to drink, so why the hell should it be illegal?

Sounds like the city government is not so corrupt after all, right? Oh but not so fast, because the Mayor's chief of staff (me) is the very model of a corrupt political operator and greedy criminal businessman. I'm stuffing ballot boxes. I'm rigging elections. I'm making sure the booze flows out and the money flows in. And I'm Touchstone, so I represent what everyone else in the city government thinks. We're a pack of criminals!

Which led to a pretty great dynamic, where even though the majority of the characters were moral and/or at least restrained and practical, the Kingdom itself was totally corrupt. So we had an unusually high percentage of characters who were not happy being part of the Kingdom, which was pretty interesting.

For example: you know your booze smuggling syndicate is on rocky ground when the Mayor publicly backs the Woman's Temperance League candidate. And another character (the doctor) is having a budding romance with her.

AWK-ward…