Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The party: Buckle the Beast/Heart of Earth, Stella the Halfling/Hunter
Last time, the Fellowship reached the isolated town of Lichenton, which trades in unique artisan goods. Buckle asked for special merchandise, something powerful.
Cabochon, the town’s broker, leaves and returns with Mossmaster, the leader of the village. Mossmaster wants a demonstration of wealth of influence before she will show Buckle the power of the village.
Stella Queen of the Wild: All Beasts become your companions
Stella orders all the axolotls in the Trade Depot to leave. Some people think axolotls are cute, but the the Rain in Lichenton, they are vermin.
Mossmaster: You can clear the whole town of vermin? I’m impressed. Come with me.
Mossmaster leads the Fellowship out of the trade depot and into another building that looks like any other home in the village. Mossmaster oozes through the grate in the middle of the floor. She returns, remembering that solid folk can’t use grates like Rain do. She summons an Acid Rain to eat through the grate. Beneath the grate is a tunnel that leads to chamber behind the waterfall. Waterwheels draw pwoer from the back of the waterfall and store it in large stone flywheels.
GM note: My players know some stuff about physics, so we had fun brainstorming various problems with storing heavy stone wheel that spin rapidly.
Buckle: What about gyroscopic procession?
Mossmaster: All our machine are built facing north. If the flywheels were vertical like the waterwheels, they’d appear to rotate as the planet spins under them. That’s why the axis of the flywheels is parallel to the planet’s axis.
Stella: Do you have anything smaller?
Mossmaster: No, the flywheels are all standardized. Surely someone with your power can find a way to transport them.
Stella: Why flywheels? Why not store energy in weights that fall down a well?
Mossmaster: We have no wells here. We’re surrounded by the Mighty River.
Buckle Speak Softly 10+
- What can you tell us about flywheel energy?
- We use the flywheels to power mechanical looms to produce their “artisanal” lichen sweaters at industrial scale. They have “exclusive” deals with several merchants who pay premium prices. They grow enough lichen to supply the machines on racks hidden behind the waterfall.
- What’s upriver?
- The waterfall falls from the Treacherous Mountains. Very dangerous. Very cold. The source of the river must be up there somewhere. The Rain have little reason to go up there.
- What do you want? How can we help?
- Mossmaster wants contact with other Rain groups. She’s heard of a flying castle.
As they talk they walk past shelves of lichen clothing.
Buckle: Are these clothes fireproof?
Mossmaster: They are fire-resistant in wet environments because the water builds up on the surface of the cloth.
Buckle: I need fireproof clothes. It’s a long story. There’s a ghost and a library.
Mossmaster and Cabochon call the head weaver over. The three Rain squish their fluid heads together to speak quickly and privately.
Cabochon: The head weaver says that fire-proof lichen clothing is achievable. If you connect us with other Rain, we’ll make fire-proof clothes and give you three sets.
Stella: Is that contingent on you getting along with the other Rain?
Cabochon: No. You can’t be responsible for other people’s feelings. Also, I’m very good at my job. You just need to open the lines of communication and I’ll take it from there.
To seal the deal, Cabochon puts a lichen glove on a pseudopod and shakes hands with Stella. Later, the Fellowship talk about their new task. The last time they saw Bertha (the flying Turtle with a Rain castle on its back) was in Vieport, which is run by a fascist snake. They decide to go up the mountains to get a good vantage point. A flying turtle should be visible from a long way off. They seek out Latta for information about the local area.\
Buckle (+hope, Stella’s assistance) Speak Softly 10+
- Tell us about the best vantage point up there.
- Latta can travel easily through water, so she goes up the waterfalls. There’s great to the east at the top.
- Tell us about paths for solid people.
- There is a route for solid people, but it’s steep and tricky.
- Tell us about a subterranean path.
- When Lichenton dug the secret chambers behind the waterfall, the found an old drain. Latta scouted up the drain and the settlement on the other side was abandoned, and therefore not dangerous, and that’s all Lichenton needed to know.
Latta leads the Fellowship to where the drain enters the chambers. It’s eight inches across, and there’s no grate across it.
Stella: I could check it out.
Stella Lived In A Shoe: you can change size between an apple and a good chair
Stella walks towards the drain while shrinking. She looks like she’s in a forced perspective room, like they have in science museums. When she reaches the drain, she’s small enough to walk right in.
Latta: I thought you were solid!
Stella walks up the drain and comes out in a dark room. She feels around and finds huge furniture.
Stella Lived In A Shoe: you can change size between an apple and a good chair
She returns to her normal size and the furniture feels about her size.
Buckle: You OK?
Stella: I think I found a chair. It’s dark.
Buckle: Look in your pocket for a torch and matches.
Buckle Firestarter: You can always declare that something birsts into flames, if you could have planted materials beforehand.
GM note: OK, we’re bending the wording a little bit, but it’s a very cool trick!
Stella finds a torch and lights it. She’s in a Dwarven bedroom. She opens the door and finds a hall with many identical doors. It’s an apartment complex. She yelsl her finding back through the drain. Buckle and the others want to join her, but can’t fit through the drain. He considers using explosives to clear a path, but he doesn’t want to damage Lichenton. Stella continues to explore.
Stella Look Closely 6- ask 1 question, find out the hard way
- What’s going on? What do my senses tell me?
- Dwarves often carve their rooms out of the existing rock, but the Dwarves that build these apartments made them out of brick. There’s a light shining from around the bend and it’s getting brighter. It’s a Fire Elemental, attracted to Stella’s torch! It’s hostile, unintelligent, and almost too big to fit in the Dwarf-sized corridors. It squeezes through like dough pushed through a tube.
- Fire Elemental: A 10 foot tall being of molten rock, perpetually on fire.
- Burning Aura: Anyone who is not immune to fire cannot get close without paying a price.
- Wildfire: The Fire Elemental is Burning and Dangerous.
- Tough As Nails: The first time the Fire Elemental would be damaged or destroyed, damage this stat instead.
Stella dashes back to the apartment and throws her torch in another direction
Stella Keep Them Busy 10+
The Fire Elemental goes for the torch.
Stella Lived In A Shoe: you can change size between an apple and a good chair
Stella runs through the drain and rejoins the Fellowship on the Lichenton side.
Stella: Fire beast! It’s huge! Lava everywhere!
Buckle: Cool!
Stella: No. The opposite of cool.
Buckle: The idea of lava gives me hope.
Buckle Pyromania: When everything around you is chaos and fire, you are filled with Hope.
Stella: Well I’m not going back there by myself.
Buckle: Latta, I need a bigger door.
Buckle Talk Sense (+sense, explain plan) 7-9 owe a favor
Bubbles swirl in Latta’s head as she thinks hard.
Latta: I do know another entrace to similar looking tunnels. Tell Mossmaster you need me to go with you as a guide. I’ll show you the tunnel, but I’ll go the other way. I’m not going to face a lava monster!
Buckle: What will we say when we return without you?
Latta: I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Stella: Maybe you were vaporized by the Fire Elemental?
Latta: Yes!
GM note: I recorded another Talk Sense roll, but I can’t remember what it’s for.
LICHENTON MESSAGE BOARD:
Buckle: Ask them about their source of power
Stella: Buyer beware on the handmade goods. Lava monster in tunnels.
The Fellowship gets Mossmaster’s permission to take Latta as a guide. Latta leads them downstream and pushes a certain rock, which slides aside easily because it’s a false rock concealing a spiral staircase! The Fellowship goes down to a small chamber connected to a brick tunnel half filled with water. Latta indicates one direction goes under the mountain, and starts to head the other direction.
Buckle: Where are you going?
Latta: I’ve got personal reasons for leaving Lichenton. There are cultural expectations which make it very hard for me to go, so I’m very grateful for your help.
Latta dives into the water and disappears. The Fellowship examines their surrounding, preparing to ventureinto the Treacherous Mountains. There’s a second room next to the room they are in. Down the tunnel in the direction Latta went, metal spikes protrude from the brick walls. Latta flows past them easily, but any boat or large creature trying to go that way would be impaled. Stella tries to swing over to the second room with Buckle’s help
Stella Overcome (+hope, Buckle’s assistance) 6-
Buckle falls in the water, and the resulting steam explosion burns Stella!
Stella damages Courage
Buckle sinks to the bottom of the tunnel and tries to scramble up the side.
Buckle Overcome 6-
Bricks break free in his webbed paws. Buckle falls and is swept by the current towards the spikes!
Buckle Get Away 7-9 avoid harm
Buckle Aquatic: When you Get Away through the water, choose one additional option. Bring Stella along
Buckle pulls himself and Stella up into the second room. The back wall of this room is taken up by some kind of machinery, and there are broken pieces of crystal on the floor.
Buckle Look Closely 7-9 ask 3 questions, get 1 answer the hard way
- How could the crystal hurt or help me?
- Crystals are sometimes used as power sources. Perhaps this crystal used to power the machinery in this room. It’s smashed now and can’t be used.
- What is hidden or out of place?
- It’s hard to see and mostly hidden behind the bricks, but a loop of wire runs around the tunnel and connects to the machinery in the back wall of the room.
- Tell me about the Fire Elemental. What is it doing? What will it do next?
- Although he looks and listens carefully, Buckle can detect no sign of the Fire Elemental from this position.
NO END OF SESSION MOVE