Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The party: Dryden of Conwall the Collector, Lucia the Brave the Heir
Last time, the party came over a mountain pass into the Singing Hills, and were formally but violently told to get lost by a note delivered via high-speed projectile. This just makes them curious.
Dryden takes the projectile, a long metal spike like a thick knitting needles, and hides it back in his cloak. They know roughly where the shot came from, since they heard a sound like a giant cork popping a few seconds after Lucia was hit. Lucia waves a white flag and they head towards the sound. They don’t see anyone in that direction. They go down into a valley, and when they come up the next hill, they see a shining figure ahead of them on top of the next hill, near one of the singing stones. It’s a knight in shining armor standing proudly and waiting for them to approach. As they get closer they get a better look at the knight. Her armor shines like chrome, and is unicorn themed. The visor above her face is shaped like a unicorn’s snout, there’s a unicorn horn on her forehead, and a bubblegum-pink mane on the back of the helmet. Her helmet leaves her face uncovered, and it looks like those artists’ references for ideal proportions. She’s as conventionally attractive as possible.
Lady Elizabeth Eleanor Eadwynn: Oh, you are bold!
Lucia detects that she is evil. Dryden & Lucia introduce themselves. The knight introduces herself as Lady Elizabeth Eleanor Eadwynn. And also Roddy. She points over her shoulder at one of the scrubby bushes on the hilltop. A different bush shifts and gets taller. It’s a person wearing a ghillie suit to disguise his shape. He’s holding a long tube connected to his back with a pipe, probably the weapon that fired the metal spike.
Dryden: You stand in the presence of a queen!
Lucia: Are you the ruler of this place?
Lady Elizabeth Eleanor Eadwynn: No, that is!
She points to the white line in the sky that has been visible since the party came down the mountain, twisting and wandering across the sky. Taking a closer look, Dryden and Lucia can tell that it’s a flying snake: a Sky Serpent. EEE explains that she is here for the glory of hunting and killing that Sky Serpent. She’s cut the Singing Stone next to them to change its pitch and confuse the Sky Serpent. Dryden says he doesn’t see much glory is killing such a little thing. Roddy hesitantly speaks up, avoiding eye contact even though his wide-brimmed hat has a mesh veil that makes his eyes hard to see at the best of times.
Roddy: It’s, uh, actually quite large but it looks small because, uh, it’s, it’s so far away.
Dryden thanks him for the explanation and congratulates him on his excellent shot to deliver EEE’s message.
Roddy’s Social Anxiety make him flee people who talk to him
This makes Roddy very uncomfortable and he shrinks away. The Sky Serpent does seem to be swerving more than usual. Snakes curve back and forth all the time while they move, but these turns look less regular and intentional.
EEE’s Arrogant stat lets people Keep Her Busy by praising her.
Dryden tells EEE that she’s thought up an ingenious plot! A brilliant plot! Surely the bards will sing songs of this day for generations! EEE eats up the attention and starts explaining more details about her plan when a knife lands in the ground between them! It’s clearly a throwing knife, with its hollow hilt and pinky loop, but it’s three feet long!
Lady Elizabeth Eleanor Eadwynn: Such trinkets won’t work on me!
EEE looks up and draws her sword. It’s a rapier, but the blade is a unicorn horn! Unicorns are known to be peaceful creatures with healing powers, so turning one’s horn into a weapon is perverse! No time for that right now! Look up! Somoene has jumped from the back of the Sky Serpent overhead and hurls another throwing knife while plummeting downward.
EEE’s Counter Spell makes her immune to ranged and magical damage
EEE strikes the second throwing knife with her sword, and the knife explodes into pink feathers. The figure lands in a shockwave of debris, because she’s a 20-foot-tall giant!
Fee, giant
- Crushing Blows: deals 2 damage
- Like Flies: anyone who fails a roll or pays a price while on a Giant is flung off, in addition to usual consequences
- Proper Weapons: She carries throwing knives (ranged) in wrist holsters, like Mai from Avatar: the Last Airbender
Dryden Get Away 10+ (avoid harm, bring Lucia along)
Dryden tackles Lucia out of the way, so they avoid being injured by Fee’s dynamic entry.
Fee: How dare you tamper with Haku’s Singing Stones?!
Fee flings more throwing knives at EEE, who turns them into feathers, dust, glitter, with flicks of her wrist. Dryden gets out the mirror shard (most recently used to kill some vampires) and holds it up so EE can see herself in it. He yells about how glorious this battle is, and how tales will be told.
Lucia goes over to Roddy, who is preparing to fire on Fee, and starts asking a bunch of questions.
Lucia: Why does Triple-E want to hunt this snake anyways? So you’re a marksman, huh? What’s in this for you? What are you getting paid?
Roddy flees.
GM note: At this point, I thought I’d made it too easy. EEE is a jerk and obviously evil from using a unicorn sword, even without Lucia’s special power. Of course the party will fight her. Also the Sky Serpent’s forces will fight against her too. And both EEE and Roddy has easily exploitable weaknesses, which my party is exploiting! This will be so one-sided.
EEE is only half paying attention to Fee’s attacks. She looks over to watch herself in the Dryden’s mirror, striking proper fencing poses as they magically deflects each of Fee’s attacks. Dryden keeps up a running commentary of EEE’s greatness. Lucia sneaks up from the other side, hoping to disable EEE, but at the same time, Fee realizes that the throwing knifes won’t work, and she is 64x EEE’s size, and charges in to grab her. by focussing too much on avoiding EEE’s notice, Lucia has unknowingly put herself in Fee’s path!
EEE’s Mage Knight forces those who get close to her to pay a price (put on the spot)
Lucia Finish Them (sense, knock her out) 7-9 damage Arrogant
Lucia lands a solid blow, and EEE realizes the folly of listening to flatterers. Dryden activates his Flying Disk to rise up to Fee’s eye level
Dryden Talk Sense (wisdom, emotion) 10+
Dryden: Fair giantess! We don’t wish to fight you! Someone so evil as to use a unicorn sword must face justice!
Fee is convinced that Lucia and Dryden are not threats. She shifts her weight as she runs, stepping over Lucia (instead of trampling her) and snatching EEE up in one giant fist. EEE reverses her grip on her unicorn sword and brings it down with both hands into Fee’s wrist!
EEE damages Fee’s Proper Weapons
Fee screams in pain and flings EEE away, down the hill.
Fee damages EEE’s Counter Spell
Lucia has lost track fo Roddy and sends Will, her bodyguard to look for him.
Dryden Scooby Snacks to Overchage Flying Disk, even though Overcharge is marked
Dryden flies after EEE and throws his gravity-warping knockout-gas bolas!
Dryden Finish Them (sense, knock out) advantage: thrown down a hill 6-
Roddy fires his weapon just as Dryden is about to throw. The sudden noise disrupts Dryden’s aim, and the bolas land beyond EEE. Roddy does not miss. He just shot Haku!
Haku, Sky Serpent, Boss of The Singing Hills
- Threat to the World
- Drop-Off: Haku can deploy Giants into the battlefield
- Mostly Peaceful: Although Haku is huge and powerful, he avoids attacking little folk directly.
Roddy damages Haku’s Mostly Peaceful
Haku bellows with rage and dives towards the ground.
Lucia’s Symbol Of Royalty grants her an audience with whoever she shows it to.
Lucia holds aloft the brooch in the shape of a silver flower that proves she is Queen of the Forgotten Lands. She starts to formally great Haku.
Fee: You fool! He’s blind!
Haku can’t recognize the Symbol of Royalty, so Lucia can’t claim Royal Treatment!
Fee blows a whistle around her neck and runs away from Haku’s projected impact point. EEE recovers and targets Dryden for tricking her. He mocks her for thinking she can fight a great Sky Serpent when she got tossed like a piece of trash by a Giant. Haku crashes to the ground, knocking over the Singing Stone at the top of the hill. He’s 100 feet long, and his coils are so thick that Dryden and Lucia can’t see over them.
Dryden Get Away 10+ avoid harm, bring Lucia along
Dryden swoops in and carries Lucia away from the shackwave. A second giant dismounts and heads towards Roddy. This giant wields two ship anchors, and has ship chains wrapped in a an X over both shoulders. EEE switches to fight Haku, now that he is within reach.
Lucia: We could leave.
Dryden: We need to take out Triple-E.
They turn to Fee. Dryden floats at her eye level.
Dryden: We want to stop the crazy pink knight and not die.
Lucia: We are but peaceful-ish travelers. We have no ill will towards you. We have no desire to fight and bring violence.
Fee explains that Haku is blind and uses the sounds of the Singing Stones to navigate. This Singing Stone was altered to sing the wrong note and disorient Haku. Now he’s furious, and you little people should stay out of reach.
Dryden: Keep to the air, right.
GM note: I need to make sure that Dryden’s player knows his spells and gadgets are limited-use resources. He sure uses that Flying Disk often.
Dryden flies over the fight between Haku and EEE and fires his Ranged Rope at EEE’s left ankle
Dryden Finish Them (sense, disable) advantage: fighting a giant Sky Serpent 7+
The rope grabs EEE’s leg and trips her up. She faceplants and drops her sword. Dryden attaches the rope to the Flying Disk and tells the Flying Disk to drag EEE into the gas cloud from the bolas. Since the Flying Disk can only carry one person, he drops to the ground near Haku, who has not calmed down.
GM note: See? Can the Flying Disk be Overcharged and Autonomous at the same time?
The Flying Disk drags EEE across the ground in a most undignified manner, one leg up in the air, head dragging on the ground. Her helmet comes off, revealing that only half of the pink mane was built into the helmet. EEE has long, beautiful bubblegum-pink hair, which is now full of dirt and grass.
Roddy’s Trick Shot causes a Finish Them roll to fail
Roddy shoots the rope holding EEE to the Flying Disk, so she stops short of the knock-out gas. She had to think hard about her situation. All stats damaged. Her Sharpshooter is still active, but harried by a giant. Her quarry is on the ground and injured, but Fee, Lucia, and Dryden are all between her and him. She flees.
Lucia sees that Dryden is in danger from Haku’s lashing and writhing. She thinks about reasoning with Haku, but he’s just been disoriented, led into a trap, and shot. Seems like a bad time to talk. She scoops up EEE’s helmet instead of helping Dryden. Dryden is slammed to the ground by one of Haku’s coils. He lands on EEE’s Unicorn Sword, but his innate magic and good character activate a bit of the healing magic within the sword. He gets up and pulls the sword out and the Unicorn Sword heals his wound as it leaves.
Fee tries to calm Haku, and Dryden does too. Since Haku can’t see, he’ll use other senses. He holds the Unicorn Sword and tries to imitate the nuzzling motion that Unicorns use when healing with their horns. Long ago, when testing out his Flying Disk, Dryden broke both is legs, but he met a Unicorn foal. The foal used this motion and both Dryden’s femur and tibia healed perfectly.
Pay a price to roll against Threat To The World: Flying Disk
Finish Them (Wisdom, show error of fighting) advantage: assistance from Fee 6-
Haku is unconvinced. He lashes out with his tail and hits Dryden’s Flying Disk. Dryden hears a crunching sound, and his soul crunches within him. Haku bellows a signal, and Fee jumps on his back. Fum is across the valley swinging her anchors on the end of chains at poor Roddy. She hears the signal and blows a whistle in response.
Lucia wants to call out to Fee before she leaves, but doesn’t want to yell because that’s anxiety-inducing, and she wants Haku to be calm.
Lucia: Fee, I hope we meet again under better circumstances!
Haku flies towards Fum and she also jumps aboard. Haku flies into the sky to disengage. Roddy, abandoned by EEE, doesn’t continue the fight and runs down the hill and disappears into a lake in the valley. Suddenly the only sounds are the constant humming of the Singing Stones. Did they win? EEE did not achieve her goal of killing Haku, but she got away. Haku survives, but has no good memories of them. they do have EEE’s sword and helmet. The three-foot horn used for the sword was clearly from a full-grown Unicorn. The smaller horn on EEE’s helmet is not he tip of a larger horn, but the full horn of a young Unicorn. What a terrible person. The Unicorn Sword has turned the healing horn into a weapon of destruction, but the healing powers are still present, just suppressed. Dryden uses the vials of Living Water and Living Ice he collected from the mountain spring to bring these powers forth.
Unicorn sword: melee, piercing, healing (2 uses) Good people who know about unicorns will hate anyone who carries it.
GM note: End of Session move. Heal, restore Gear (food, for more healing), level up. The characters reached level 5. I explained Destinies, but the players chose to advance in their Playbooks instead of taking Destinies, at least this time.
When the battle heated up I thought it would be a one-sided stomp, but no side definitively won. No one was Taken Out.