Players: Tim Mauldin, Richard Borland, Joe Wandyez

My first write-up. Game was on 4/7/2016

Our colonists started out landing on the hostile but habitable planet Beo Chim, having
lost crew during the journey and with no way to communicate with anyone else in the galaxy. The hostile planet and our own lack of resources were going to be the biggest challenges we would face.

One of our number Rana (played by Joe) had piloted our ship the New Horizon and was forced to wake from stasis frequently to make adjustments to course and monitor systems. As a result, Rana aged while the rest of the crew did not, and was left in a weakened state to be confined to the satellite portion of the New Horizon even after arrival. Rana was married to Boris, and they have a daughter that lives in the colony. Rana wished for the colony to prosper. She started out as the TOUCHSTONE role.

The lead scientist Boris (played by Richard) had high hopes for integrating our society with the new planet, needing only limited government in the form of a cholarchy. Married to Rana with a daughter. He started out as the PERSPECTIVE role.

The official leader of the expedition Claire Templeton (played by Tim Mauldin) was highly trained and educated in sociology and city planning. She began the journey with the wish to keep Earth culture alive on the new planet. She started out as the POWER role.

The military and security officer Piotre Sink (played by Nick Stewart) was a young and relatively inexperienced addition to the mission. He feared that on such a hostile planet with so many unknowns, the colony would fail or be destroyed. He started out as the POWER role.

The first crossroads that the team would face was whether to forcibly replace the local wildlife with earth creatures, the embryos of which were stored on the satellite portion of the New Horizon. Claire's desire to make Beo Chim like Earth fueled the idea for this crossroads. Piotre was on board immediately, because to him exterminating the local wildlife would make the colony safer. Boris was extremely against the idea, fearing a reaction from the local wildlife, and also fearing that such a drastic change to the environment and ecosystem could have unforeseen consequences. When Claire went to Boris to discuss the idea, Boris in a very convincing speech explained his fears and was able to sway Claire to his side. During a further discussion, Rana would explain the boredom and insecurity that the people of Cape Able were feeling, with the constant danger of attack by the brutal Glops, and also the complete lack of recreational activities available for the new colonists. In the final discussion of the crossroads, Boris would outline a plan for machines to repel the local wildlife instead of having to kill them, which was all that was needed to get Piotre, the last person to want to go forward with the extermination plan, to support the idea of integrating rather than exterminating.

Claire, having been convinced so thoroughly by Boris, was rethinking her goals and place in the colony. She would switch from the role of POWER to PERSPECTIVE.

Boris being in charge of the science and engineering found himself with a position of considerable power. He was the one with the most knowledge of how to easily integrate with the planet, and was the driving force behind many of the colonies decisions on what to do next. He would take the POWER role instead of PERSPECTIVE.

Rana (via a portable screen), Boris, and their daughter took a stroll out to the first pillar, to make sure that it was undamaged by a new possible threat to the colony, a creature they dubbed the 'Earth Movers'. These creatures were massive hundred story high creatures that with tentacle like feelers gathered and processed anything that was in their way. Thankfully they were not on a course to disrupt the colony, but everyone feared that one day these titans would one day be on a collision course.

Piotre and Boris got together to discuss plans of an exploration expedition to do longer range research on the planet. They sent a group of ten people, a mix of scientists and military, to do scans of the planet and if possible more detailed scans of the earth movers.

After the team left, Rana and Claire had a talk, where they discussed Claire's official status as the leader of the colony. She had not been consulted or even told about the expedition, but was being praised for the idea.

The four of them held an emergency meeting after disaster struck, only one of the exploration team made it back alive, losing valuable equipment. Piotre initially implied that someone needed to take the blame, with all three of the others opposed to the idea. Eventually, the decision was made for all four of them to apologize and discuss with the people that looked up to them how the mission was dangerous but necessary, and more care would be taken in the future.

The next crossroads would be whether the colony should elect an official leader, to get rid of any doubt about who was in charge and who was responsible. Claire was heavily in favor of elections, whether she won or not. Piotre was upset due to the fact that he was under the impression that the four would lead in a council style as they had been until that point. Rana, now being the official news and information distributor tried to stay objective and not pick sides. Boris was not happy with the idea but after an endorsement from Piotre he would have grudgingly accepted.

Unfortunately time ran out for our heroes, but it was decided none of them would rule.

This game took a turn for the deliciously political, with every character having realistic goals and differences. We had a rocky start trying to understand the rules as two of us were completely new to Kingdom, but things quickly smoothed out and the game got rolling. I personally had a tremendous amount of fun, and am looking forward to more Kingdom Games in the future as well as playing with these fine folks again.

Thank you for the write-up, Nick!

I definitely enjoyed this game too, including having my character's world-view challenged again and again. Personally, I want to thank everyone for so effectively antagonizing my character (possibly not the intention, but absolutely the result on my end.) There was a lot of good stuff to play off of.

A solid game with some truly interesting conversations.

Great write-up, Nick! Sounds like a really wonderful and sincere game.

And congrats to Joe for mastering facilitating Kingdom. Take a victory lap!