After a day of rain, a very quiet night at Phoenix games. Aaron, Elin and I played Microscope Union and explored the origins of Sandra White, an artist whose creations broke down the walls of society, shattering the isolation and self-centeredness that had crept into every walk of life.

Did she love people? Was she inspired to help all those lonely souls? Nope. She lashed out in anger but wound up healing the world.

We picked a very subtle Necessity for our hero’s deed (“society lacking human connection”) and stuck to a basically normal world, which steered us towards making pretty normal people for the first half of the game (mostly the ancestors of her father John White, diplomat). But when we went to her mother’s side we unleashed the inner demons. Elin introduced an isolationist cult that eschewed any contact with other people (q.v. our theme), which led to Sandra’s mother having drastic mental issues. Her husband encouraged her to express herself through her love of painting, but that turned out to be a massive mistake: instead of expressing herself, she buried herself in it, retreating even further from the outside world, including her tiny daughter, Sandra.

I also really liked the scene that Aaron brought in of Sandra meeting her grandmother and having this unexpected bonding moment without either of them knowing who the other was. We got to see how torn up Sandra was.

A fantastic game all around!