An enjoyable time was had playing a game of Microscope. For this setting, we chose a universe where Tolkien-esque races discovered technology that was not powered by magic. The start of the epic began with an industrial revolution and ended with The Great Migration.

Over the course of the game, many avenues were explored and many questions opened and left unanswered. In an open-ended game where any new race of creatures could be introduced at any time, there was a surprising lack of humans in the game.

Overall story: A fantasy society advances

Allowed traits: Necromancy, space stations, non-humans, literal underground societies, dragons (beastly Harry Potter-style), and addictive, corruptive magic.

Disallowed traits: Guns, concrete good/evil alignments tied to race, sentient aliens, twerking penguins, twerking.

The game lasted four complete rounds, resulting in the following focuses during gameplay:

1) Thomas Forgefounder, King of the Dwarves
2) Proliferation of the internet (cyberpunk)
3) fuckin' elves
4) The Most Worshipful Guild Of Spellcasters.

To begin this epic tale, an industrial revolution occurred, creating a source of technology and power not tied to magical forces. This came about because a couple fuckin' elves were wandering through a forest when they came upon a great device that was powered by steam. No living creatures remained, but evidence pointed to an ancient race of humans had created the device. The elven races learned from its machinations, recreating the technology. This led to the creation of non-magic artificial aircraft and great steam drills that allowed the creation and colonization of societies underneath the surface of the planet.

However, not everyone was happy to see such immediate cultural and technological shift, leading to a period of backlash from magical creatures. The most aged of the elvenkind rebelled against the arrival of the unnatural machines by retreating to the forests, taking with them their knowledge of magicks. This sudden vacuum of elven elders leads to the political growth of the non-elvish competing races.

As political tensions rise, a great catastrophe occurs when the subterranean metropolis of Undercity Prime is crushed during an earthquake. But what could cause the sudden and unexpected geological shift? Wild speculation points towards The Most Worshipful Guild of Spellcasters, a mixed-race guild containing the planet’s most powerful spellcasters. The guild betrayal was discovered when a dopey member broke the secret and revealed their doings. The capture of one guild member leads to the capture and further interrogation of many more members, ostracizing them from society as the group responsible for leveling a metropolis. The guild publically disbanded, but maintained coherence as a secret society. Driven by anger, the secret society creates The Book of Vengeance. Oh no!

The world continues until catastrophe strikes in The Assault On Hart's Keep! Dwarven races attack this mega city in an effort to push a radical new idea called democracy, replacing kingships. The city is overthrown and an election is held. Dwarven leader Thomas Forgefounder runs opposed by the former king, but the former king somehow manages to become elected to the title of king. Scoundrel! Liar! Cheat! The election was rigged! The problem was solved in the most civil way possible, with Thomas Forgefounder beheading the king of Hart's Keep. Forgefounder wins a new election and becomes the newly elected king! An age of prosperity occurs under his reign and all subjects rejoice.

The workings of the planet's largest city is significant, but experiments were underway to equalize all nations and races of the planet with an interconnected network, known as The Internet. A method of instantaneous communication was created, but at great cost, because it required the enslavement and hive mind of all fairies in order to pass data between one another.

An entire race is subjugated to improve society, but the accepted atrocities could not last forever. The hivemind of the fairies managed to organize themselves in order to overthrow their oppressors and destroy the Dwarven society which initially enslaved their race. The immortal fairies were isolated and poorly treated in order to have a functioning worldwide network. But upon noticing increased isolation of the new greatest Dwarven city, it is discovered that an immortal fairy has died because of the network.

A society that had relied upon the communication network fell apart as the fairies actively fought against their oppressors. As an ultimate solution to the problem, the race of Drows created a replacement for a fairy-powered internet, using an infinite supply of ghosts. The ghosts are still forced to work, but no one complains because the ghosts are already dead. The fairy internet is banned and all fairies are set free! However, not everyone is happy about the solution. Because the Drow used forbidden Necromancy magic to accomplish the ghost internet, a civil war erupts between the Elves and the Drow. The end result is that the Drow are exiled to the moon. This major population exodus is accomplished by building a space elevator and cheap space travel, leading to a new space age!

As the drow and the races of the planet shift their focus to space, the secret Most Worshipful Guild Of Spellcasters moves their secret operations to outer space. Under the pretense of scores of individual spacecraft traveling independently, the guild creates a piecemeal space station as a base for their revenge. Multiple generations have passed since the guild became a secret society out of necessity. They remain the strongest spellcasters throughout the planet, but the destructive nature of their magicks twisted and distorted their minds and bodies into unrecognizable forms. With the ultimate goal of enacting revenge upon those which ostracized them, the guild creates a super weapon to rain destruction down upon the mega city of Hart's Keep. The superweapon instantly vaporizes the entire metropolis, leaving only smoke and dust as the only evidence of the most modern city on the planet.

The planet suffered a harsh blow, but the Drow continued their colonization of the moon, building new structures to further the technological advancement of the planet and its moon. This leads to the creation of the ghost-spire, a monolith built to transmit the ghost internet to all reaches of the planets, allowing development to leap forward into the bright future.

At the end of this age of wonders, the races of the planet have set their sights on galactic bodies outside their solar system. This movement was known as The Great Exodus and was started by the inaugural flight of its greatest spacecraft, the RSS Forgefounder. Unfortunately, the RSS Forgefounder did not reach its initial destination at first because a traitorous Orc captain had sabotaged the mission in order to put the craft in the hands of the Orcish Collective.

As the book closes on this era, the races of the world look forward to exploring the reaches of the universe to see what secrets it holds. They may not meet races far more advanced, but the journey of this planet's population has proven that even the smallest of discoveries could lead to wide-reaching change that no one could predict. A world has abandoned its magic in order to pursue artificial technology, but now it has the chance to pursue the rest of the universe.