Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The party: Professor Gummidge the Lantern/Mad Genius, Stella the Halfling/Hunter
Last time, the Fellowship hastily left Port Fennrick and sailed up the Mighty River on Miranda, their racing catamaran.
GM note: Buckle’s player stepped up to run this session. It’s a bottle episode with Buckle out of the picture, and a new character for the usual GM to play.
Without warning, a shimmering blue wall of energy surrounds Stella and her companions. She’s in a space that’s much larger than the deck of the Miranda. The boards of the deck underfoot expand and repeat to create a floor over what used to be water. In the center of the bubble is a crystalline building. It’s Lantern construction. Lanterns are creatures from another dimension who appear as floating bals of light. To blend in with the creatures in this dimension, they usually project holograms of humanoid forms. Buildings for Lanterns are solid transparent crystals, which Lanterns can pass through like most creatures pass through air. The bottom floor of this structure has traditional air-filled rooms, which Lanterns use to store physical objects in interact with other species.
Silouetted against the glow of the crystalline building is a lanky, eight-foot-tall figure with baggy clothes and a single glowing light in the center of its head. With startling speed it rushes across the bubble to stand right next to Stella!
- Professor Gummidge. he/him. Lantern in Power Suit
- The Power Suit (named Gallybagger) looks like a scarecrow made from an old wrought-iron lamp post, wearing worn and baggy clothes. Gallybagger’s head is the lamp enclosure, and Professor Gummidge (a floating ball of light) hovers inside, acting as the lamp.
- Full arsenal: Dangerous, Ranged, or Piercing tags, but one at a time. Gallybagger’s arms end in multiple tools and weapons, covered by overlong sleeves
- Rockets: Gallybagger can dash along the ground & take long horizontal leaps
- Deployable Drones: Two robotic Crows sit on Gallybagger’s head and shoulder. They are named Huginn & Muninn after Odin’s crows, because they bring information to a one-eyed person who seeks wisdom.
Stella: What are you doing here?
Gummidge: That’s a hard question. Where is here? Is here here? Here may not exist, and if it does, it may soon cease.
Gummidge was working with an artifact of power, hoping for interdimensional travel, but some unexpected interaction sent him here, and the artifact is shearing and twisting reality.
Gummidge Look Closely 7-9
- Tell me about the shimmering wall around the space. How could it hurt or help me?
- The shimmering wall is made of Lantern energy, so it was made by a Lantern
- What is hidden or out of place?
- The Lantern who made the barrier is here!
- What will happen if I try to break through the shimmering wall?
- The barrier contains the artifact’s effects. If the barrier is removed, the reality-warping effect could spread to the rest of the world in a plague of interdimensional monsters!
A portal opens and a Wild Boar runs through. It charges at Gummidge.
Gummidge Bend Light Flash: blind everyone near by except you
Gummidge Overcome 10+
The lamp atop Gallybagger flares with intense light and the Wild Boar (as well and Stella and her companions) is blinded. Gummidge easily side-steps the boar, which continues straight forward until it hits the barrier with a reverberating thunk!
Wild Boar Wild Charge: When a wild boar charges, it keeps going until it hits something…. If the boar hits nobody, it damages this stat instead.
Wild Boar damages Wild Charge
Stella rubs her eyes. This situation is too chaotic for her comfort.
Stella: Everyone stop!
Stella Queen of the Wild: All Beasts are your Companions while you are in their territory
The Boar politely sits down next to Stella and she pats it on the head.
Gummidge approaches the portal the Wild Boar came through, but it closes. He returns to Stella and the newly-tamed Boar.
Gummidge Reveal The Way + Mind Trick: 7-9 Tell people what to do, even if you don’t mean it. Players can choose to follow advice or spite you (gain Hope on one roll either way)
Gummidge: You have a powerful way with words! Let’s work together. Don’t breach the barrier, lest the danger spread. If your people can handle such monsters, maybe we’ll be alright in here.
Stella: That’s a me thing.
Gus, Stella’s cook, is claustrophobic, and doesn’t like being trapped in this strange space.
Gus: If we don’t do something, I’ll . . . I’ll cook that pig!
Gummidge Reveal The Way + Mind Trick: 7-9 Tell people what to do, even if you don’t mean it.They’ll do it in the way they think best, or only if you help.
Gummidge: Young man, be resolute! Don’t antagonize the monster.
Gus: OK, but we have to go somewhere. We can’t stay in this place.
Two portals open. One seems to lead to a hallway inside the crystalline structure. The other shows a bright, large expanse.
Gummidge: How important is it to you that you return to where you came from?
Stella: Extremely!
Gummidge suspects that these portals quickly close, like the one the Boar came through, so he looks for something that can jam them open.
Gummidge Eureka: Everything is Useful in your hands. When use use something Useful to help with a move, roll with Hope
Gummidge Jury Rig: Spend 1 use of something to make something out of existing materials. (+hope) 10+ It works!
Cutting tools emerge from Gallybagger’s sleeves and cut some planks from the floor. Gummidge nails them together and jams them into the portal to the large expanse, holding it open. Gummidge looks carefully at what’s visible through the portal before stepping through himself
Gummidge Eyes of Fire: Your eyes are unnaturally good, and you can see fine detail even through the darkest night or densest fog. When you Look Closely, you may study any location you can see, no matter how distant, as if you were standing right there.
Gummidge Look Closely 7-9 ask 3 questions, find 1 the hard way
- What do my senses tell me?
- It’s a large, bright room that stretches off into the darkness (irrelevant to Gummidge’s keen eyes) and infinity. The floor is bisected by a dark gap. There’s a rainbow bridge (which Lanterns often make) across the gap, but it’s flickering. This room may be inside the crystalline structure at the center of the bubble, but it’s been warped.
- Tell me about the Lantern who made the bridge. What are they doing? What will they do next?
- This bridge is powered by the structure itself, not projected from a Lantern.
- What is hidden or out of place?
- The darkness in the gap gets larger and starts spreading across the floor of the bright room and comes out of the portal!
Stella is displeased by this strange and hostile phenomenon. She retrieves a package of vegetable stew from her kit and throws it at the shadow, hoping to reveal the invisible creature that casts the shadow. The stew falls to the floor without hitting any creature. The shadow is under the soup and still advancing.
Stella: Where is that shadow coming from?
Gummidge: This is not the right place for young Gus. Not a calming atmosphere!
Gummidge moves to remove the device that’s keeping the portal open, and the shadow flows up and over Gallybagger, covering it in darkness!
GM note: Gummidge has a move that instantly destroys shadows, but he used it already to disorient a Wild Boar. Poor tactical decision. If only he had predicted the future!
Lingering Shadows Armor of Darkness: Anyone pulled into the shadows becomes engulfed by them. When they step out, the darkness is controlling them, acting as both armor and puppeteer. They become a Shadow Warrior until the armor is removed from them.
Gummidge ejects from Gallybagger, which becomes a Shadow Warrior!
- Shadow Warrior: They would be an ally, if the darkness wrapped all around them weren’t forcing them to swing their sword at you. They can still speak and think as normal, but have no control over their movements.
- Forced Movement: The shadow warrior was a friend, but they have been possessed by dark power. They have all of their normal physical abilities, except they are also Clumsy.
- Entangled In Shadow: If you expose the shadow warrior to light or fire, the shadows are destroyed. They person inside the shadows still suffers whatever affects that light or fire would deal to them, but then they are free from the shadow’s control and this threat is destroyed.
Gummidge: Look out, Ol’ Gallybagger isn’t following my orders!
Gummidge Knight: Your little light can be used as a firestarter.
Gummidge tries to set the deck on fire to create a light bright enough to dispel the shadow, but the deck has been treated to resist fire. That’s the only way Buckle can stay aboard the Miranda without burning it. Gallybagger advances on Gummidge, flipping through the various tools and weapons hidden under its sleeves. Stella knows that the treatment makes the deck slippery when wet, so she pours the barrel of potent alcohol (from O’Later’s contraband warehouse) on the deck underneath Gallybagger.
Stella Keep Them Busy 7-9 their attention is on you & they will retaliate.
The booze causes Gallybagger to stumble, and lets Gummidge start a fire.
Gummidge Finish Them (+Blood) 7-9 damage Gallybagger’s Advanced Weapons
Shadow Warror Entangled In Shadow: exposed to light? TAKEN OUT!
The Shadow dissapates from Gallybagger from the bottom up. Gallybagger stops moving, and Gummidge inspects it carefully before returning to his normal position inside Gallybagger’s head. Now that he has arms again, Gummidge pulls out the bars across the portal. The portal unexpectedly remains open. Gus freaks out and runs for the other portal, the one that shows a hallway.
Gummidge: The lad has a point. Go to the source to solve the trouble!
Stella: What’s going on? What’s causing all this?
Gummidge: Well, certainly not my machine. But the trouble is around it.
Everyone runs after Gus through the portal, even Grunt the Pig. (Stella asked its name) The hallway twists axially, and gravity twists with it. Eventually the Fellowship emerges into a bright featureless room. There’s a barrier across the room, made of the same hard light as the bridge in the other portal, although this barrier isn’t flickering. Gummidge walks up to tap on the barrier and his hand goes right through.
Gummidge: It’s fake!
Gummidge walks through the barrier. Gus runs full speed and hits the barrier hard! He stumbles back, a banana falls out of his pack, and he slips on it, falling on his back.
Gus damages Rations
Stella: Hey, Gummy!
Gummidge: It’s Professor Gummidge!
Stella: What do you mean it’s not real? Gus ran right into it.
Gummidge puts his hand through the barrier. Stella pounds her fist on the barrier. Gummidge remembers that the barrier around the bubble was created by a Lantern, and presumes this same Lantern is frustrating the Fellowship now.
Gummidge: Come now, we Lanterns are creatures of science, not trickery. Reveal and explain yourself!
Gummidge Reveal The Way fails because there’s no one here.
Gummidge is surprised that his speech was ignored. A small portal opens nearby. Three lanterns are visible on the other side. They rush towards the portal.
Mysterious Lanterns: Gummidge, you fool!
The portal closes before they reach it. After waiting to make sure they are gone, Gummidge looks around the far side of the room. It’s featureless, except for a doorway that leads to a hallway that curves to the side, so Gummidge can’t see the other end. As he moves around to look at it, the curvature changes. If he goes down that hallway, he might not find a way back. Gummidge deploys his robotic crows to extend his sight. Huginn flies down the hall until it can barely see Gummidge. Muninn flies past until it can barely see Huginn. They relay data back to gummidge: the hall continues to bend out of sight. To explore any further means losing contact with the others on the other side of the barrier, possibly forever. Gummidge recalls the crows and returns to the barrier in the middle of the room.
The Fellowship is stumped. Through the barrier seems like the only way to go, but the Halflings can’t pass through it. After a while, a Little Light (a Lantern that’s not projecting a holographic body) floats into the room aimlessly.
- Little Light: If a Lantern Reveals The Way to a little light, they take the 10+ result without rolling.
- Blindingly Bright: You cannot look directly at a little light. Anyone trying to Keep Them Busy or Overcome their attacks is in Despair. Anyone trying to Look Closely at them fails to do so.
- Aimless: Little lights act arbitrarily, and there is no way to predict what they will do next.
The Little Light wanders through the barrier.
Gummidge: Of course! It’s a barrier to keep out!
Stella: Outsiders? We’re technically still on my boat.
Gummidge: Hmmm, you’ve got me there.
Stumped again, the Fellowship watches the Little Light wander around, then pick up a mouse and carry it through the barrier.
Gummidge Hook Shot: pull yourself to anything heavy. Pull anything light to you.
Gummidge emits a beam of light that attaches to Stella and pulls her through the barrier!
Gummidge: A triumph of observation and deductive reasoning! Form a queue and I shall pull you through!
Before he can fulfill his promise, the Little Light fires on Gummidge!
Gummidge Light Shield: protect from any damage you can see
Gummidge blocks the attack, and the Little Light wanders over to Stella and bumps into her. Stella’s not sure how to react to this unpredictable creature. Fight, flight, or freeze? She chooses flight.
Stella On A Mirror’s Edge: start free-running and gain 2 Speed
Stella parkours off the walls to distract and confuse the Little Light.
Little Light Blindingly Bright: Despair to Keep Them Busy
Stella The Courage Of Halflings: Never in Despair when rolling with Courage
Stella Keep Them Busy 10+
Gummidge: Look here, these shenanigans are unbecoming of a Lantern. Think of our reputation! What example are you setting for these visitors?
Gummidge Finish Them (+Wisdom, show the error of their ways) 7-9 damage a stat
Little Light damages Aimless
Gummidge: Thanks, much better. Let’s press on.
Stella: How? We can barely see with all the glare.
Gummidge: You should go away, back through the barrier
Gummidge Mind Trick: you can Reveal The Way without believing it’s in their best interest
If a Lantern Reveals The Way to a little light, they take the 10+ result without rolling.
The Little Light obediently leaves the scene. Gummidge pulls the rest of the Fellowship through the barrier. Now they face the curving hallway.
Gummidge: Stick close. I don’t trust these curving hallways.
Stella: Physical contact, everyone.
The Fellowship links hands and Gummidge leads the way down the curving hallway. As soon as the last person steps out of the room and into the hallway, the hallway straightens out and they easily walk into the next room.
This room is a control chamber. Instead of dials, switches, buttons, and levers, the controls here are all fiber optics. Lanterns send commands by shining different lights through different fibers. This is the maintenance area of a large Lantern building. Such buildings have emergency generators, but emergencies are rare, so Gummidge thought could use the generator to power his experiment. No one would notice, so he didn’t ask permission. That was just before the mishap that created the bubble. Back at the site of his experiment, Gummidge is inspired once more. Turning the machine off would be admitting defeat. any malfunction was surely the result of interference, perhaps from those three Lanterns they glimpsed briefly in the previous room.
Gummidge: I need to keep going to finish my experiment. I can reroute power from non-essential systems. We’re stuck halfway. I want to get us all the way through to the other side.
Stella: Back to my boat, right?
Stella is getting sick of all the hassle Gummidge has put her through.
Gummidge: My projections, based on the available evidence, suggest the boat.
Gummidge Jury Rig 6-
Gummidge pulls out and reconnects bundles of fiber, and the great machines hum and roar. Gummidge asks too much of the machines and circuit breakers kick in, locking out the controls!
A portal opens, revealing an idyllic landscape, and those same three Lanterns from earlier. Now Gummidge recognizes them. They’re Lantern Peacekeepers that enforce the ban on interdimensional travel that was created after the Lanterns were trapped on this world. Gummidge wasn’t content to stay in this world. He didn’t want to go back. He wanted to go onwards! Anyways, now these squares are coming to arrest Gummidge for his illegal experiments!
Gummidge Rockets: run very fast
Gummidge Bend Light Wall: block a passageway with hard light
Gummidge dashes to the portal and puts a wall across it so the Peacekeepers can’t enter the control chamber.
Gummidge Keep Them Busy 6-
The Peacekeepers smash through Gummidge’s wall and enter the control chamber!
- Group of Lantern Peacekeepers
- Little Light: Gauntlet Form: When the peacekeeper hits you with their gauntlet, you become immobilized in a cage of light.
- Civic Duty: The peacekeeper has proper protocol to follow. They will not act without reason, and will act to disable all aggressors when possible.
- Lantern Priest: A lantern who guides the lost.
- Lead The Flock: The priest has control over The Innocents, and can command them to do anything.
- Reveal The Way: Anyone who tries to Speak Softly or Talk Sense with the
priest will receive the priest’s advice. Acting on this advice gives you Hope;
acting against it gives you Despair.
Stella is still undecided on Gummidge, but she doesn’t want to be arrested, so she smashes the control panels with the King Of The Hill‘s sword! More portals open and the room warps and twists. The floor turns into a portal and everyone falls into a spooky temple. Gummidge has been here before. He recognizes the dias in the center of the room, and the artifact that hovers above it. This artifact looks like a jagged red fragment of glass, and acts somewhat like Infinite Windows, but for interdimensional travel. This is what Gummidge used in his experiments.
Stella: Time for Operation Apple Toss!
Stella Lived In A Shoe: You can shrink to the size of an apple
Stella shrinks to the size of an apple and Rose, her bodyguard, throws her at the artifact! Stella enlarges as she approaches the artifact and grabs it on the run. She’s yanked to a stop. The hovering artifact refuses to budge.
Gummidge Rockets: run very fast
Gummidge dashes to put the artifact between himself and the Peacekeepers. He sees Stella struggling with the artifact and tries to help.
Gummidge Hook Shot: pull yourself to anything heavy. Pull anything light to you.
The artifact is immovable, so Gummidge unintentionally pulls himself to it. It can’t move while any portals are open. Instead of trying to close all the portals, Gummidge opens another!
Gummidge Open Infinite Windows: 10+ stable portal to a safe place
Gummidge loses item Jewlery (Precious)
Gummidge uses a piece of Drawven jewelry to open a portal to Templeton, on the observation deck for the sundial. He jumps through.
Gummidge: Get through or get clear!
Stella would rather talk her way of trouble.
Stella: This is all a big misunderstanding. I don’t even know how I got here. Gummidge isn’t at fault. There are other Lanterns making walls and trapping us here. it’s not fair. I just wanna go home!
Stella Talk Nonsense 7-9
Lantern Priest Reveal The Way: Anyone who tries to Speak Softly or Talk Sense with the priest will receive the priest’s advice. Acting on this advice gives you Hope; acting against it gives you Despair.
Preist: If you want to go home, help us catch this fugitive.
Gummidge Eureka: Everything is Useful in your hands. When use use something Useful to help with a move, roll with Hope
Gummidge Jury Rig 10+ it works!
Gummidge redirects the lens that focuses sunlight onto the sundial far below so it shines through the portal as a beam weapon! Not a very powerful beam weapon. The lens focus distance is quite far, so the beam is rather wide when it enters the spooky temple.
Stella Overcome 10+
Stella Lived In A Shoe: You can shrink to the size of an apple
Stella Jams King’s huge sword into the ground and shrinks to hide behind it. The sword’s shadow protects Stella’s companions, but the Peacekeepers are hit!
Peacekeepers damage Gauntlet Form
Stella: Strobe the beam!
Gummidge Eureka: Everything is Useful in your hands. When use use something Useful to help with a move, roll with Hope
Gummidge Jury Rig 7-9 only works once
Gummidge: This will only work once. Give me a sign!
Stella Lived In A Shoe: Change size within limits
Stella walks backwards in the shadow of the sword, drops off the dias, and returns to normal size safely below the beam of light. The Preist orders the remaining Peacekeeper to seize Stella.
Stella: Now is the time!
Gummidge blocks the beam.
Stella Lived In A Shoe: Change size within limits
Stella runs around the Peacekeeper, rapidly changing size to confuse him.
Lantern Priest Reveal The Way: Despair for ignoring his advice
Stella The Courage Of Halflings: Never in Despair when rolling with Courage.
Stella Keep Them Busy 10+ their attention is all on you
Gummidge comes back through the portal and bonks the Peacekeeper on the head.
Gummidge Finish Them (+Sense) 6-
The Priest moves in to close the portal.
Priest Close a Window 7-9 portal moves to somewhere else
The portal to Templeton closes, but where the sunlight from Templeton hit the far wall of the temple, a new portal opens, back to the bubble where Stella found herself at the beginning of this adventure. Stella runs for the portal.
Stella on A Mirror’s Edge: gain 2 Speed
Stella spend 1 Speed to leap over an enemy in your path
Stella Get Away 10+ avoid harm, bring Silk along
Gummidge, left alone with his enemies, flails with Gallybagger’s damaged arms
Gummidge Keep Them Busy 6-
Lantern Priest damages Gummidge’s Armor
Lantern Peacekeeper damages Gummidge’s Iron
GM note: My notes get messy here, so I don’t have any exact sequence of moves. Just narrative.
Stella returns riding Silk, which makes her a threat to the world! While the Lanterns beat poor non-combat-focused Gummidge, Stella draws her other sword and cleaves their Little Lights. Their holographic bodies flicker and disappear. Stella turns back to the portal.
Stella: I’m going with or without you.
Gummidge: Go through, I’ll close it behind you.
As he gestures to the portal, smashed pieces fall out of Gallybagger’s sleeves. The Power Suits hands were destroyed trying to fend of the Latern Peacekeepers.
Stella: Fine, I ‘ll do it myself
Stella and her companions go through the portal and Stella pulls it closed.
Stella Close a Window: 7-9 leave something on the far side.
Stella: Nice working with you, Grunt! Goodbye!
Gummidge and the Wild Boar are left in the temple with the artifact, presumably to continue his dangerous experiments. All the portals are closed. The shimmering barrier around Stella collapses into a humanoid form, another Lantern. They’re all back on the deck of the Miranda with Buckle and the rest of the Fellowship.
- Mira, she/her, Lantern
Mira: Thank goodness! It took all my strength to keep the barrier up.
Stella examines the deck. The damage they did to the floor inside the bubble is nowhere to be seen. Mira explains that she formed the barrier to contain Gummidge’s experiments and alerted the Lantern Peacekeepers, but she doesn’t blame Stella, who was caught up quite accidentally. For helping to prevent an interdimensional disaster, Mira offers to teach a Lantern secret.
The Fellowship gains the fellowship of the Lanterns.
NO END OF SESSION MOVE