I'm a little late with this write up, the game was last Thursday 8/14

Players: J.C., Alex, Lucien, Steve

A volcano rises from the depths of the ocean in primordial times. Before the arrival of sentient mortal creatures, we have the great dragon Isshelenian, and gods/spirits which take many forms, including fire, air, and the hermit crab trickster god Klavic. Isshelenian is sacrificed to the volcano, and his bones are buried in a tidal cave beneath. The power of the bones seeps into the mountain, creating some sort of sentience therein.

Eventually a squid-like creature crawls into the mountain and encounters the Mind Stone, which imparts sentience to him, he is called Squiminor. Squiminor, for reasons unknown, immediately uses his newfound sentience to take the stone to the top of the mountain where a spring emerges to flow down to the sea. He places the Mind Stone in the spring, and its power flows into the water, out into the ocean, and many of the creatures living in the ocean and surrounding islands who encounter the infused water gain sentience... except the dinosaurs, cause they have brains in their butts.

In a later era the bones of Isshelenian are discovered by a hermit crab named Alikerian. He proceeds to give these bones to some dinosaurs, who become dinomages! A war between the dinomages and the other sentient creatures (called Inuki) erupts.

In a later era, an evil king of the squid-folk sacrifices his own subjects to the Thirsting God, thereby wiping out most of his own people. Two surviving squid-folk manage to harness elemental magics, with the help of some spirits/gods, and destroy the Thirsting God with the lava of the volcano. In exchange they have to relinquish the Mind Stone to the fire god. With most of their culture wiped out, the few remaining squid-people leave the islands to seek a new home. They are led by the thistle sparrow Twig to a far off mainland shore. To their dismay the new continent is mostly desert, lots of cacti.

Later, some squid-folk return to the mountain, and find a university run by the descendents of the dinomages. The mages refuse to admit the squid people entry, and in a fit of jealousy, one of the squid-folk combines two separate magical forces (bad) to create a massive cataclysm, thereby destroying not only the university, but the mountain itself.


Fun stuff :) I've only played one game of Microscope before, so I don't have much to compare here, but I thought having the overarching focus (the volcano) and especially the people over each period, helped create some continuity across the history.