Players: Matthew Klein, Dale Horstman, Karen Twelves, Sean Nittner
System: Polaris by Ben Lehman
Continuing our 2000 indie-rpg throwback, after our Dogs game wrapped I pitched Polaris. Its a game I’m almost played several times but never dug into. Ever since hearing about Paul’s play on Have Games Will Travel in 2005, I’ve been wanting to play. 20 years. Wow.
Reading of the introductory text
To get us started it felt necessary to read the introductory text. The entire text is 20 pages so I paraphrased from my last reading quite a bit. The important thing I highlighted was the timeless time before, the dawn, the mistake, the King, Queen, and her knights, with some mention of the demons.
The writing is beautiful and evocative. It’s also binary and reinforced traditional gender roles that we started challenging early on. We also saw some potential pitfalls of interpreting people from the South as other, and made a point to be mindful of not doing that in play.
Creating Characters
We shared ideas around the table, looked at the names of stars from the book, and came up with our characters together.
Minkar (played by Karen) is known for her cloak of shadows and her blinding strike. Her older brother Gienah the Wing is a bureaucrat of importance among the Remnants.
Chara (played by Sean) is a dancer extraordinaire. Her skin is black as night but stars shine through it. She is betrothed to Mina, the sister of her former lover Nashira. She rides Four Birds, Lord of Carrion, her former lover’s steed.
Zi (played by Dale) is our leader. He is tall with sliver hair that turns black as it is braided. His father Asmidike was a great champion of the Knights Stellar and he was lost in the wastes. Zi has studied not just the Mistaken but also the Mistake. His involvement with the death of Nashira is being investigated by Inquisitor Maaz.
Atria (played by Matthew) is the royal astrologer, though we found from play that they are not beholden to old interpretations of the stars, and feel that they and they alone can intuit their meaning. Atria chafes against their former mentor Azha.
Together we also selected a shared fate. We killed the Knight Nashira because we believed she was a demon. Atria provided the confirmation, Zi gave the order, Chara lured her into the trap, and Minkar ended her life with a Starlight Sword. In order to protect her legacy, we said that a demon had slain her. We all live with the secret that ties us together.
Getting started
[Our seating arrangement is this: Karen, Dale, Matthew, Sean. So Dale and I are each other’s mistaken, and Matthew and Karen are each other’s. I’ve bolded the ritual statements but not given their speaker. Assume that they are most often the Heart (the player) and their Mistaken.]
[I decided to open with a hard scene to get the ball rolling. It took me a couple of tries to get the opening right (figuring out how much I could say) until we landed on.]
Long ago, the people were dying at the end of the world.
Inquisitor Maaz
But hope was not yet lost, for Zi still heard the song of the stars. And so it was that while Zi rested in his beautiful tower, he heard the heavy boots of Knight Stellar outside his door. Inquisitor Maaz entered with a meek squire named Caph and commanded he boy to speak. In a faltering voice he said “I heard you in the great hall whispering orders to your knights to kill Nashira.”
Maaz looked to Zi and asked in an imperious tone “How do you respond to these accusations?”
Zi looked hard at Caph and said “You must be Mistaken. That is not what you heard. Now you but should leave” and ushered them out of his tower.
But only if the boy would be corporeally punished for is “lies”.
And that was how it happened.
And so it was that Inquisitor Maaz had to search further to find Nashira’s killer.
Minkar’s Blade
But hope was not yet lost, for Minkar still heard the song of the stars. And so it was that she confronted Zi about this lose end and told him “The boy must die.”
“Unfortunately I agree with you” lamented the commander.
Minkar broke Caph free from his captivity and slew him.
But only if she used the demon tainted dagger that called to her for blood.
But only if that sated the dagger for some time.
But only if Gienah witnessed the murder.
You ask far too much [Exhausting the Cloak of Shadows to stay hidden, so the last statement was changed from Gienah witnessed the murder to the dagger would not come free from the boy and Minkar had to throw him over a bridge into to Silverspun Lake below]
And that was how it happened.
And so it was that Minkar slew Caph and slew him on the bridge and then tossed him in to sink to the bottom of Silverspun Lake
[Both Minkar and Zi marked experience for performing an action indicative of hatred of the people, sympathy for the Mistaken, callousness, cynicism, or apathy]
The Lord of Flame
But hope was not yet lost, for Chara still heard the song of the stars. And so it was that at Dusk she found the Lord of Flame whispering into the ear of her steed Four Birds, Lord of Carrion.
Chara thrust her starlight sword into the ground to freeze it beneath her and pain the Lord of Flames.
But only if the Lord of Flames enticed Four Birds with his words. And that was how it happened.
Chara smote the Lord of Flames and he disappeared into smoke. She touched Four Birds foul reptilian face and stroked the necrotic skin gently “Do not listen to such demons. You are my pet.”
“As you wish” the demon agreed, but only if she herd in him two voices instead of one.
But only if the voice of Four Birds was stronger. And that was how it happened.
And so it was that Chara flew off on her demon steed, unsure of it’s loyalty to her.
Dancing in Southreach
But hope was not yet lost, for Atria still heard the song of the stars. And so it was that they were dancing with Gienah, their lover to the beautiful orchestra at a ball. Through not so subtle manipulation Atria entreated Gienah to protect them and their fellow knights from the depredations of Inquisitor Maaz. Gienah was worried about Atria’s wounded hand and knew they were lying to him when they said it just a cut from the astronomer’s instruments. But it was no matter. We shall see what comes of it.
But only if he believed the second lie, that it was a training accident with the knights.
But only if Atria agreed to see a physiker to tend to the wound.
And that was how it happened.
And so it was that Atria found Dziban, the senator and danced with him as well. They asked about banishing Inquisitor Maaz but the senator was not so eager “He is a useful too of the senate.”
A Partnership
And so it was that Chara and Mira also danced in the halls of Southreach. Together they were elegant graceful but distant. Chara would not disobey her family, but she loved another.
“Where is the passion and life you are known for Chara?”
“The duties of knighthood weigh heavily on me.” She spoke of the marriage they would share, and the secret they would not.
“Love is a luxury we cannot afford. But that does not have to make us enemies.”
Wracked with guilt Chara could not help but bring doom upon herself. “I cannot commit to you until we find the demon that slew your sister and find justice.”
“We should speak openly to each other. While our circumstance is not our choosing, we can still work together.”
Chara looked through her wine glass at Mira but only if it was tinged with flame. And that was how it happened. “You look so much like your sister.”
“And you look nothing like Zi” (Mira’s ex-lover). She crushed Chara with a kiss.
And so it was that Mira and Chara agreed to be partners if not lovers.
Royal Astrologer without Distinction
And so it was that Azha the mentor called Atria into her chambers to chastise them for giving their own interpretations of the meaning of the stars instead of following established laws of science. “You cannot look at the stars and decide any meaning you desire. You must do the work or your role as Royal Astronomer will be over.”
Atria stroked some ornate devices in Azha’s chamber, calibrated a machine here, leafed through a book there. “Your learning is dated. I will not shackle myself to these dusty tomes and the old ways. There are none who complain of my readings. You will be forgotten, but I will be remembered.”
“You will be remembered as being Mistaken!”
Atria slammed their wounded fist down on a book, blood seeping from their bandages. You ask far too much.
Azha’s statement was amended. “You will go down in history as being wrong or devote a year to thesis to prove your knowledge. It will be reviewed and evaluated by your peers and superiors and you will have to respect their their authority to determine if it has merit or not.
But only if Atria would gain the title “with disticntion”
But only if the title would be hollow and they would be slighted by their peers.
It was not meant to be [last two but only if statements negated]. And so it was that Atria stormed out of the observatory forced to choose to submit to their peers or lose their station.
But that all happened long ago, and now there are none who remember it.
Thoughts on the Game
The ritual language of Polaris takes some getting used to (I’m still learning it) but it’s powerful. We had some scenes (mostly those initiated by the Heart to talk to a New or Full Moon) that were relatively sedate. The grew the world and allowed conversations to expand our relationships with each other. The scenes framed with our Mistaken (or by our Mistaken) tended to be intense and have incredibly high stakes. Good. Fucking. Stuff.
The organization of the book is very difficult. There are no recaps or lists or index. So we kept hunting for rules like experience, ice vs. light, the cosmos, etc. As we get more familiar with the game, this will be less of a factor but this session we struggled.
It took quite a bit of practice to figure out how hard to frame a scene, how much could be done in “free play” and when a conflict started. We tended to be more tentative than Polaris demands and so we revised our statements a few times to give them the right degree of punch. It was a lot of out of game discussion, but that works well for our crew, so it wasn’t an issue.
We never got to a conflict die roll (nobody said it shall not come to pass) but but we still got experience through callousness and cruelty. That’s a good thing, right?
I’m excited to play more.
Ideas for next game
- Chara crying about Nashira. Holding her locket. Confronting Zi. “Do we truly know she was a demon?”
- Inquisitor Maaz inspecting the stables where Caph was held. Asking the stable hand if he could have gotten out on his own. “Not without breaking something.” “Could he have lifted the bar with a shim from inside?” “He wouldn’t have had the strength or the leverage to do that…Not without help.”
