One of our protagonists, played by Tim, was Asterope. A Knight of the Order of the Stars who was full of hope, she firmly believed that there was a way for her society to thrive again. She befriended Al Nair, a half-Mistaken child despite the stigma against the halfbreeds and even ended up taking her in. During a visit to the rift where the Solaris Knight had slaughtered the first Knights of the Order of the Stars, they were told by a Mistaken that a deal had been made with their city and they wanted the children that had resulted from that deal turned over to them. There was debate about what to do. The Council refused to listen to Asterope’s request for more time to figure out how to handle the halfbreeds. Her story ended when she decided to flee to the south with Al Nair. As they left, they looked behind them to see the city in flames.

The other protagonist was Lyrra, played by Davis, who was something of a bard as well as a knight. She was beloved but her music ended up luring people into complacency. The city became more hedonistic and its inhabitants later. One of her fellow knights was captured by the Mistaken and returned. He had learned there was the possibility that the city had been infiltrated by Mistaken. During a meeting with her regiment, there was a fire that claimed their lives. Lyrra confronted the Council who slandered her good name. In the end, she had a dream featuring the Frost Maiden who revealed that there was no hope for the city. She convinced Lyrra to strike out against the “corrupt” remnants of her people and gather any who would to build a new city…

Polaris is one of my favorite games and it always makes me happy to be able to introduce people to games. Set-up was pretty smooth and quick. Shimon did a great job as the other antagonist, I was quite impressed. And the two protagonists certainly didn’t make it easy to bring them to their inevitable downfall even though everyone was on the same page. (The die didn’t help either.) Their stories concluded before either of them reached Weariness 4 due to time constraints but still had fitting ends that reflected the interesting arcs of the personality and stories of the characters.

This wasn’t a particularly conflict-heavy game of Polaris. We had a lot of dialogue and relationship-related scenes that still worked great to bring the pain. It was a good night around the table, game and otherwise. The other players did such a great job of helping to build each other's stories and their own. Polaris is a beautiful game and I am glad that everyone's first experience with it turned out well.

Thanks to Tim, Davis, and Shimon for a fun afternoon and helping to tell such poignant stories.

- Dani

This was my first time playing Polaris, and it is a unique and intriguing game that I would like to play again. In fact, I bought it this morning. At some point I want to play the full four-protagonist version of the game (with all the more complex rules that we didn't touch upon for time's sake in our meetup session). I can tell that this game has the potential to go to a lot of extraordinary places.

Shimon did a great job of turning my character's greatest strength, her open heart, into the vehicle of her downfall. It made for an interesting arc, as I ultimately betrayed my people to protect a child.

Thank you to Dani for facilitating. I'm glad to have finally experienced this game. To be honest, I'd always been a little scared of playing Polaris, but now I get why it is so beloved by many in the community.

Tim