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 made a number of deals in Lichenton, then set out to find a flying turtle by exploring underground tunnels.
Back on the Miranda, the Phoenix egg finally hatches! Some of the Companions are there to witness this. Stella, Buckle, and Rose are in a tunnel far underground, but hope to find a way to the top of the Treacherous Mountains and look for Bertha.
Buckle Look Closely 10+ ask 3 questions
- What do my senses tell me?
- The tunnel and chambers are old, but well-made, except for the spikes. The spikes were hastily added later, punched through the bricks.
- What here is hidden or out of place?
- There’s another crystal still in the machine. This type of crystal holds information. By holding it up to the light and rotating it, Buckle can see difernet shapes inside. He can determine that this machine creates a magic barrier that blocks anyone carrying weapons.
- What will happen if I shock the machine?
- He will activate the Magic Barrier, at least for a moment. A blast of lightning isn’t the same as a battery.
Buckle: This tunnel sieves out weapons, for some reason.
Stella makes a squished face. She carries weapons.
Stella Fill Your Belly: spend Halfling Packed Lunch to heal 3 stats. Buckle, Stella, and Rose.
Buckle: Stella, fancy a swim?
Stella: I don’t know how!
Buckle explores further in the tunnel. He figures out that this tunnel was a transit system, and the little room on the sides are like bus stops. The stops further in connect to a whole Dwarven city carved under the Treacherous Mountains. We finds some webs stuck to the walls in one chamber. A Spider has been here. Buckle is suspicious of Spiders and lasers. Some of the stone floors and walls of the Dwarven city have been melted into slag and re-hardened. Not whole areas, but wandering paths. There’s a glow further down the tunnel.
Stella: Buckle, what do you see?
Buckle is too far to hear her, but he eventually returns and reports what he saw.
Buckle: This is some kind of transit system.
Stella: Yeah, I felt like I was in someone’s apartment went I went throught the drain. Do we want to venture further?
Buckle: The tunnel goes down. We want to go up.
Stella: Aren’t you a little curious what the glow is? Let’s go!
Stella doesn’t know how to swim, but she can float on her back. Rose does know how to swim and pushes Stella along. They are going with the current, so it’s not that hard. The three of them get out at the first stop inside the city.
Stella Look Closely 6- ask 1 question, find out the hard way.
GM note: Multiple parties have come through this tunnel into the abandoned city, so I was giving the same descriptions I had given for years. But I forget that the previous party made some big changes. Now i hd to scramble to resolve the differences. I was pretty sure the bestiary contained some reality-warping creatures, so I looked until I found one.
- What is hidden or out-of-place?
- Stella looks around and the whole landscape changes. The tunnel is blocked upstream. There was no water in the section that Buckle swam through. Maybe that’s why he could swim, when usually his body turns water to steam on contact. The large chamber that Stella thought she was standing in is gone. She’s on a solid patch in a lake of lava!
- Glitch Wraith: A phantom that should not exist. The glitch represents the breakdown of reality, the world acting in ways it shouldn’t.
- Error: The glitch ignores Commanded Lore. Its movements and actions
defy the established rules of the setting. It swaps pieces of the world with pieces from somewhere else. Maybe a different time. Maybe a palce where events unfolded differently. - Ghost: The glitch can fly and pass through walls. Their attacks ignore armor and defenses of all kinds. It appears to stutter and flicker, like its barely able to exist here at all.
- Instability: When the glitch takes damage, it is destroyed.
- Error: The glitch ignores Commanded Lore. Its movements and actions
Buckle runs to assist Stella, but the Glitch Wraith, suddenly visible, hovers between them.
Buckle Get Away 10+ avoid harm, avoid notice
Buckle runs past and hides his glowing body in the lake of glowing lava.
Buckle Heart Of The Earth: You are immune to heat, fire, and explosions
GM note: Oops, I forgot the corresponding disadvantage, although there’s a good fictional justification. Since we Begin And End With The Fiction, I guess it’s alright.
Buckle Heart Of The Earth: You shine like a bright fire & can’t choose the “escape notice” option for Get Away
The Glitch Wraith makes an awful racket of static and disorted noise, but the words “test subject” stand out and the creature, basically a twisted hole in reality, menaces Rose. Stella assumes that it’s not trying to kill them immeidately, and probably wants to keep them around, so she makes a big show of almost falling off her little island into the lava.
Stella Keep Them Busy 10+ their attention is all on you
The Glitch Wraith moves (Does it move? Does it really have a position?) towards Stella and she can hear the words “strange affinity” through the noise.
Buckle: Stop! You’re messing everything up! Why are you destroying the world?
Buckle Finish Them (+Wisdom, show the error of their ways) 7-9 damage 1 stat
Glitch Wraith Instability: When the glitch takes damage, it is destroyed.
Glitch Wraith TAKEN OUT
The Glitch Wriath folds in on itself until nothing is left. As it dissapates, a voice says “I feel no one believes in my experiments…” It was Professor Gummidge!
GM note: I think that I did a good job fixing a big error on my part (meta level) with a thematically-appropriate creature (mechanical level) connected to a guest character (story/character level).
The Glitch Wraith is gone, but Stella is still on a little island in a lake of lava. At some point, a big flow of lava melted through the Dwarven city, leaving this lake and a large chamber above. If Stella can get off this island, there are few places she could go. The Dwarven chamber she came from, where Rose is waiting. The far side of the lake connects to another chamber. On the roof of the chamber, far above, is a chimney leading up. Buckle sits on the little chunk of solid rock with Stella and dips his feet in the lava.
Stella: Buckle, push this island to the wall under the chimney, please.
The little island is floating freely on the lava, so Buckle just has to push it and avoid splashing Stella with lava or tipping her off to her doom.
Buckle Pyromania: When everything around you is chaos and fire, you are filled with Hope.
Buckle Overcome (+hope) 10+
Stella Animal Traits: Wall Walker. You have these traits at all times and can use them to help you in any way that makes sense.
Stella walks up the wall of the chamber and into the chimney. It’s a big chimney, about six feet across. A few fireplaces connect to it above, and many more probably connected below, before that whole area was melted by the invading lava. It goes straight up as far as Stella can see. Stella’s Wall Walker isn’t a limited resource, so she determines she’s going to walk to the top, as far as it goes. It goes thousands of feet. Buckle doesn’t mind the wait. he’s happy playing in the lava.
Buckle Heart Of The Earth: You are immune to heat, fire, and explosions
Buckle Pyromania: When everything around you is chaos and fire, you are filled with Hope.
Stella eventually finds the top of the chimney, but it’s covered in deep snow.
Stella Queen of the Wild: You can Command Lore about the wild beasts anywhere you go. Animals you meet become your Companions.
GM note: Stella Commanded Lore about wolves living high in the mountains, which matched the lore that I invented the previous time someone went over the mountain. How convenient!
Stella calls out to the wolves, and they dig a hole in the snow to uncover her. When she emerges she finds that it’s a large pack, about 50 Wolves!
Treacherous Mountains The Creatures Above: Beasts prowl these paths, and there is no way through without encountering them. At any time, the Overlord may damage this stat to have a Group or Gang of Beasts appear, hungry and violent.
Stella Queen of the Wild: Animals you meet become your Companions.
- Gang of Wolves
- Pack Hunter: A wolf never fights alone if they can help it, and they gang up on their prey one at a time. When someone fights the wolves alone, they are always put on the spot. If this wolf isn’t part of a Group or Gang, damage this stat.
- Loyal: Wolves stick together and look out for each other. When this stat is damaged, they will co-ordinate to let their wounded flee safely before backing off.
- Gang: This enemy can act against everyone at once. When this enemy is
destroyed, this stat is damaged, or this is their only stat left, replace the
Gang with two Groups of this enemy. This stat can only be damaged by
Dangerous or Area attacks.
The fierce and hungry wolves do not threaten Stella, and she looks around from the mountaintop.
Stella: Look Closely 7-9 ask 3 questions, find 1 the hard way
- What do my senses tell me?
- It’s very cold up here. If Stella stays out here long, she’s in danger of freezing. There’s a bit of a path up here, leading from the south to the northeast. Looking to the north, she sees another mountain, it’s summit hidden by dark clouds. To the west, a forest. To the south, the Anti-Moon Weapon (a mountain turned into a huge cannon). To the east, the Mighty River, and some rolling hills.
- What is hidden or out of place?
- The out of place object is a flying Turtle! It’s Bertha, far to the west, beyond the forest.
- What will happen if I shove snow down the chimney?
- A six-foot diameter chimney seems very big, until compared to a lake of lava. Pushing enough snow down the chimney to freeze the lava is impractical.
Stella thanks the wolves for their hospitality because she is a benevolent dictator, and walks down the chimney and around the walls of the chamber to the Dwarven room where Rose is waiting. Buckle joins them, walking across the lava.
Stella Animal Traits: Wall Walker. You have these traits at all times and can use them to help you in any way that makes sense.
Buckle Heart Of The Earth: You are immune to heat, fire, and explosions
Stella: Buckle, you won’t believe what I just saw! I saw Bertha to the west, past the forest.
Buckle: What forest? There’s a forest to the west of us?
Stella: Do you want to find Bertha or go further into the mountain?
Buckle: How do we get to her? How do we get to the forest?
Stella: Uhhh, well….
They return the way they came, walking on the dry bricks at the bottom of the tunnel instead of swimming. Beyond the twin chambers where they entered the underwater waterways, there’s a pile of rubble blocking the tunnel, with big metal spikes mixed in with the bricks and mud and rocks.
Buckle: Go back up the stairs a bit.
The Fellowship returns the spiral staircase that leads to the surface.
Buckle Anarchy Reigns: Add Various Explosives Devices (3 Uses, Area) to your Gear. You can Use these explosives to create an explosion whenever and wherever you need it, even if you could not have conceivably planted them ahead of time.
The pile of rubble explodes! Behind the blockage, water has filled the tunnel and now it rushes towards the fellowship, carrying the spikes, bricks, and debris with it. Mud splashes up into the “bus stop” chamber.
Buckle: Climb the stairs! Climb the stairs!
Stella Get Away (+hope, Buckle’s assistance) 10+ avoid harm, bring Rose along
The Fellowship hustles up the stairs, outpacing the flood. Soon the water settles to its intended level, just below the floor level of the bus stop. Buckle heads upstream (which is east) There’s no spike trap anymore. All the spikes are dislodged or swept downstream. Instead there’s a torn-up section of tunnel with most of the bricks missing. Past that, the tunnel dead-ends into a north-south tunnel, made of the same bricks, part of the same system of underground waterways. The water flows south. Buckle returns and gives a scouting report. Rose thinks swimming upstream while pushing Stella will be exhausting. Stella remembers that she can walk on walls, and walks upside-down on the roofof the tunnel. The Fellowship goes east to the T-junction, then heads north.
Eventually, they see a hole in the roof of the tunnel. It’s open to the sky. Stella walks around the edge and flips right-side-up (Like Jareth in that M. C. Ecsher room in the movie Labyrinth.) She sees the palisade walls of Bogden not far away. She reads the message board and they decide to keep going north.
The next stop on the route leads up to the Singing Hills. Each ofthese rolling hills has a stone erected at its peak. The stones have slits cut in them so they play differnet notes in the constant wind. In the distance, the Fellowship can see something big flying around. It’s long and narrow, not round like Bertha.
Stella Look Closely 7-9 ask 3 questions, get 1 answer the hard way
- What do my senses tell me?
- The staircase for the underground waterway emerged near a lake formed in he depression between several hills. Stella climbed to the top of one hill for a better vantage point. To the north, there’s a plateau that rises sharply like a great wall. The stone on this hill has been damaged, so it doesn’t make a nice tone like the others. The flying thing in the sky is a Sky Serpent, and it’s coming in hot!
- What is hidden or out of place?
- There’s a staircase going up the face of the plateau. A nice, neat staircase in a thoroughly desolate place. Who would build such a thing?
- Tell me about the Singing Stones. How could they hurt or help me?
- As Stella moved around, the sound of the stones changed. As they got closer or further away, the sound got louder or quieter. With enough exeperience, she could tell where she was just by listening to the sound. Also, it’s not just the stone on this hill that was damaged. There are signs of a battle!
Stella: I have good news and bad news.
Buckle: Tell me the bad news.
Stella: There’s a giant flying snake coming right for us.
Buckle: What’s the good news?
Stella: There’s lot of adventuring to do here.
END OF SESSION MOVE
- Did we thoroughly explore a new location: YES, lichenton
- Did anyone find what they are looking for? NO
- Did we learn something new about the world and its people? YES, abandoned Dwarven city & waterways. Lichenton’s secrets
Two boons:
- Heal Stella * Gus
- restore gear