Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The fellowship: Edna Crusher-Harcourt the Ogre/Knight, Vestri the Dwarf, Yuri the Outlander/Apex
Last time, the Fellowship cleaned up after the invasion of the Hidden Library. They convinced the invaders to leave the library and return to Port Fennrick. They cleared the debris from the Mighty River so ships can pass safely. Now they head to Port Fennrick. Edna wants to try her hand at governing.
Vestri and Enda tow a raft made of the wrecks of landing ships down the Mighty River towards Port Fennrick. They meet a Mermaid Chariot pulled by two manatees that is coming upstream from Port Fennrick.
Mermaid: Oh no! More adventurers!
The Chariot dives underwater to avoid the Fellowship and their raft. A little later the Fellowship passes antoher party: Buckle the flaming Platyperson, Stella the Halfling, and their Companions.
The Fellowship enters Port Fennrick through the checkpoint at the west side of town, where the river delta begins. Normally, a bar would prevent ships from moving on until they were inspected, but the bar is raised and there’s no one operating the checkpoint. To their left, a contraband warehouse burns, and people try to extinguish it. Straight ahead, a pile of rubble that used to be City Hall and a contraband warehouse. The canals around City Hall are choked with debris. The boardwalks are mostly empty. Almost no one is out and about. Vestri wants to help the firefighters.
Vestri: Well, you can both jump really far, so why don’t one of you take me–Edna.
Yuri: Yeah, I would break my legs.
Edna drops the bar at the checkpoint to keep the raft from drifting away. She puts Vestri in a pocket, picks up a section of hull, and jumps to the burning warehouse.
Edna: Stand clear! I’m going to try to put out the fire!
The makeshift fire brigade is terrified of Edna and run around the corner of the burning building to hide from her. There’s been so much violence recently, especially from powerful adventurers. Yuri sets up his medical equipment some distance from the burning warehouse. Vestri stands on a crate and yells to get people’s attention.
Vestri: Hello, if you are injured or stressed or worried there’s a doctor here! You should come over to this doctor!
Civilians value safety, so this is a very convincing argument. Three Humans and two Halflings emerge from behind the warehouse and come over to Yuri. He is glad they are all humanoids so he will recognize their body parts.They have only superficial injuries, maybe some first-degree burns from getting too close to the fire.
GM note: Yuri would be surprised and confused to examine a Dwarf. Dwarves look like humans but are made of stone. Dwarven surgery is more like archaeology or gem-cutting. Surgeons use a loupe, brushes, and tiny hammers.
Edna uses the piece of hull that she brought as a scoop to throw huge volumes of water at the burning warehouse. She tries to be careful, but it’s not a precise instrument. She puts out the fire without bowling anyone over or flooding other buildings. Edna asks Jessup, one of the fire brigade, what’s been going on in the town. Jessup is in despair and her bad mood is contagious. She’s been through a lot recently. She babbles quickly, with no pauses between words or sentences.
Edna: Thanks for helping out with the warehouse. What can you tell me about the warehouse fire?
Jessup: Why is it on fire? Because a thing came in and blew up City Hall and there’s only been fighting ever since and then were started to calm things down and people got killed and the warehouse is on fire! The warehouse is on fire! Why are you asking me this?
Edna stops herself from saying “Calm down” because she never calms down when someone tells her that.
Edna: The warehouse fire is out. We don’t need to worry about that anymore. What do you want, and how could I help you get it?
Jessup: What I would like is for the town to be a safe place to live in again. OK? We want someone running the town who doesn’t kill random people who disagree with them. We want someone runnig the town who lives here and takes other people into consideration, and also doesn’t kill people! No fighting. I have small child at home. I don’t want to move. My grandmother was here.
Edna: I hear you. That makes a lot of sense. I would certainly never kill you, or a small child. I only kill people who are very strong and deserve it. On purpose. I would never intentionally kill you.What are you doing and what will you do next?
Jessup: I was putting out the fire and now I’m going to go home!
Jessup walks away, but the sound of footsteps stop when she rounds a corner. Edna doesn’t pay attention.
Edna: This town needs someone to take care of it, and it was a center of commerce. I certainly think I can do a better job than O’Later.
Vestri: Wait, Edna, are you trying to run this town?
Edna: I’m thinking about it. It could be pretty cool!
GM note: If Edna takes over Port Fennrick, she will become an NPC: the Boss of this Location. Edna’s player will build Ol’ Jardiner as a full character and play him going forward. If Ol’ Jardiner doesn’t work out, we can go back and get Edna. Since Vestri and Yuri have completed their personal quests (retrieving the Redrock Dagger and disabling the Doomsday Engine, respectively) their players are also open to retiring their characters. Maybe we’ll start new characters at the same time! Yuri’s retirement plan is marrying Lucy the Business Devil and using her power to go back to his own world. Vestri thinks Lucy is bad news and wants Yuri to stay away from her.
GM note: How can someone take control of the town? There are several factions in town that have different values. A character can gain the support of a faction by embodying its values. Destroying or expelling a faction is another option.
- Faction Values:
- Bloodletter’s Troops (dead): fear, power
- Dockworkers: respect, order
- Merchants, safety, freedom, money
- Civilians: safety
- Mob: respect, money, fear
- Vampires: aristocracy, power, prejudice against the living
- Finsea: a neighboring town that wants to spread its influence
The Fellowship goes to the docks. There are no ships docked. Two ships that recently left are visible out to sea: a Fairy Ferry and a launch of a huge ship that can’t enter Port Fennrick. The Fellowship doesn’t pursue them. Bork points out that Port Fennrick is two layers. Above Board and Below Board, based on the boardwalks. Terrestrial people live Above Board, and Below Board is mostly Merfolk.
Bork: I was working the docks when Louie ran the town. We suspect some adventurers were responsible. Then O’Later moved in and I kept running the docks mostly the same way. There were some changes. Louie wanted a percentage of everything that came through, but O’Later’s Agents would sneak aboard ships and confiscate anything rare or powerful.
Dockworkers see Bork and come out to greet her. Edna gives a speech to win them over.
Edna: This place is a mess. I can’t believe you had to work in such conditions! I’m sure Bork will get things running again. She’s the best Ogre for the job. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have as my overseer.
The dockworkers want further assurances. Edna needs to lay out some concrete policies.
Edna: You will be paid based on the value of the ships you service, so as the town gets more prosperous, you get more prosperous. I also guarantee minimum daily pay. As for order, you know how Bork runs things. If needed, I will personally come to the dock and stop troublemakers. I promise not to kill anyone, unless they are really scary. I don’t kill anyone I don’t respect.
Edna: To show I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty like you honest workers. I’ll clean up the debris from the battle.
Vestri: Let’s bring debris from City Hall and rebuild bridges from the rubble. Recycling!
Vestri knows how to build bridges out of stone, but there’s not much stone in Port Fennrick. Yuri has some relevant knowledge, so the two of them come up with a plan and explain it to Edna and the dockworkers. They build a new bridge that will hold weight and can swing away to allow ships to pass. Edna and Vestri use their great strength to clear the debris out of the canals. Lucy the business devil rises from the water. Somehow her hair and clothes are completely dry.
Lucy: That looks like a lot of hard work. I could make this go a lot faster!
Vestri: No! No! That’s not necessary. It’s important that we do hard work so the people see that Edna really cares about the town.
Lucy: If my services are not needed here, I can find other buyers. I’ve been talking to some people in the underwater hotel.
Yuri recommends getting al lthe factions together and bargaining for Lucy’s services like an auction. Only the faction who offers the most will get a wish. Edna thinks that the mob will escalate harder than she is willing to. She’d rather prevent the mob from making a deal. Edna has a lot of money, but no more unique artifacts. Surely Lucy doesn’t need another stack of coins. Edna makes a deal: secret for secret. She’ll reveal a new place that may need wishes granted if Lucy tells her what offers she’s entertaining from other factions in the town.
Edna: To the east of the Deadlands on top of a plateau, there’s a forest overrun by trees that lure people in to eat them. In the middle of the forest is a village that thinks they are the only village left. My sister Chloe lives there, helping to run the town. That’s an untapped market.
Lucy: Louie’s mob wants a scandal that makes them look good and discredits their opponents, perhaps a sea monster supposedly sent from Finsea that the mob could defeat. Finsea wants access to places further inland from Port Fennrick. Connecting the Dwarven Waterways to the Mighty River would let Merfolk easily travel around the continent.
Edna: Thank you for the information .This was an excellent deal.
The Fellowship huddles to figure out what to do about thier enemies and maybe Lucy’s influence. They could dig their own connection to the Dwarven Waterways, but then Finsea wouldn’t make a wish and Louie would make his wish instead. The Fellowship wants to stop both factions, not just one. Edna thinks they could interfere more directly to prevent anyone from making a deal with Lucy.
GM note: Dwarves come from stone and return to stone. Yuri doesn’t understand exactly how that works, so Vestri explains. Dwarven families are all adoption, because Dwarves don’t give birth. Dwarves appear from the stone and look like miniature Dwarves. Not babies, small adults. New Dwarves don’t have beards, or any hair at all. Beards are an indicator of age, so Dwarves don’t cut their beards
Edna: I have an idea for getting merchants to return, but is that what we need to do right now? Should we get the support of other factions first? Maybe if I bring in merchants and money, I can buy out the other factions.
Vestri: It sounds like it will take a while and let someone else establish themselves, so you’ll run the docks but not the town.
Edna: This is a challenge unlike any I have ever faced. I plan to take the contraband warehouses and return some items to their owners, along with a loud announcement: Come back to Port Fennrick. We won’t take your stuff, and if we took your stuff, we’ll give it back.
Yuri: I had idea for maybe stopping other deals from happening. What if you give her a dedicated place to do business here at no cost?
Vestri: I would like to lodge a protest because I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a devil in your town at all times.
Edna: She’s rich. She doesn’t need any more. She has no trouble renting the penthouse suite in any city.
GM note: Rich people in real life are never satisfied. Lucy is a fantasy.
All this theorizing about long-range plans for large groups of people seems so distant. The Fellowship picks an immediate achievable goal: securing the remaining contraband warehouses. Each warehouse has a Vampire leading a Group of Mummies.
- Vampire: These refined undead have more self control than most, but at the end of the day, they still just want to kill you and eat you. Vampires are Melee, Piercing, and they heal when damaging a Blood statSunlight and holy symbols deal damage to them.
- Blood Frenzy: Vampires use your weakness to their advantage. If your Blood is damaged, you are in Despair when dealing with a vampire.
- Dangerously Sexy: A Vampire’s beauty is beyond compare. If your Sense is damaged, you can not willingly cause harm to a Vampire, no matter what they try to do to you. You can still do as you like, as long as your actions do not cause harm to the Vampire.
- Mummy: A preserved corpse, sustained by an ancient curse.
- Cursed Strength: Mummies are incredibly strong, and can toss aside anyone trying to Keep Them Busy. If your Blood is damaged, you must pay a price to attack a mummy in melee combat.
- Tough As Nails: The first time a mummy would be damaged or destroyed,
damage this stat instead.
Each contraband warehouse is a big rectangular building like a barn, surrounded by an empty yard so it’s impossible to sneak up. Five Mummies stand near the big double doors. When townsfolk scurry past, the Mummies don’t attack them. They only attack trespassers who enter the yard or the warehouse itself. Yuri hears movement inside the building, so these Mummies are not the only guards. Yuri jumps onto the roof. The slope is steeper than he expects and he slides towards the edge where he could fall onto the Mummies.
Vestri: Is he fine? He’d signal us if he needed help, right?
Edna always rushes in to help her friends. As she tries to reach Yuri, the Mummies attack. She knocks them off-balance and must decide whether to exploit their weakness or catch Yuri. The fall will hurt, but the Mummies can hurt more. She pounds the Mummies into the ground with giant fists, but they get right back up. So much for creating a safe place for Yuri to land. As Yuri reaches the edge of the roof, he makes a mighty leap away from the warehouse and lands outside the yard. Edna uses Therapist style, waiting to see what her enemies do and reacting to it. Edna takes a wide, firm stance so she can’t be knocked down, even by the Mummies’ cursed strength. Her stability makes them unstable. As they bounce off her, she swings down with a fist, or drops a knee, crushing them.
With most of the Mummies defeated, Edna confidently opens the door and the Vampire inside strikes! Vestri charges in to bowl the Vampire over. They both land on the ground tangled together. Edna is touched that Vestri ran to her defense. That’s how she shows love, so having someone do that for her is very special. She grabs the Vampire and throws it out of the warehouse. The sunlight hurts it, then it dies on impact as it crashes through the door of the shop across the street
Yuri attacks the Mummy harrassing Edna. It can’t hurt her, but she has to put all her attention into resisting its cursed strength. Yuri still has the holy horseshoes of Gwideon Greenhanded, but Mummies aren’t vulnerable to holy symbols, so he uses his sword. The Mummy throws Yuri aside. Vestri is still on the ground and a Mummy looms over him. He stops its advance with a foot, then kicks it away. Vestri’s uncontrollable strength throws the Mummy so hard it breaks a hole in the warehouse wall.
Attacking Mummies at close range is dangerous, so Vestri pulls out his rifle. The Mummy he threw through the wall is still getting up and can’t dodge. Vestri’s shot tears a big hole straight through the Mummy’s body, but it still keeps coming! It’s tough as nails. Yuri also has a gun and fires on the Mummy struggling with Edna. He inflicts a wound that would be lethal to any living thing, but the Mummy only staggers back. Edna grabs it and throws it at the other Mummy. The Mummy lashes out while in Edna’s grip, damaging her armor. She throws it at the other Mummy, but it lands safely. Vestri runs in yelling and trying to distract the Mummies and gets thrown for his trouble.
Edna: Yuri, let’s go, but you stand in front of me.
Yuri’s not sure what Edna’s up to, but he trusts her. The Mummies go for Yuri because he’s closest and Edna reaches over him to intervene. She’s too slow, and the Mummies grab her hand and pull her off balance. She falls on Yuri, landing on his sword and injuring herself. Vestri charges through the Mummies and runs to the street. Yuri and Edna follow. Once the Fellowship leaves the yard, the Mummies no longer see them as threats.
Vestri: Wow, that was unfortunate.
Edna: yeah, these are tough guards. It would be nice if they were on our side.
Vestri: You could do it by offering vampires your protection, but I feel that would not be good allies. Having people in your town that feed on your populace is not a good idea. I wonder if the townfolk would love you if you ousted all the vampires. That would make the town more safe.
Edna: I think there’s only one Vampire left at the fourth warehouse. Maybe we can talk it into leaving.
The Fellowship waits until sunset, then goes to the fourth warehouse and calls out to the Vampire. Yuri acts as Edna’s spokesperson, because he’s more eloquent.
Yuri: O’Later is dead. Bloodletter is dead. The Vampires at the other two warehouses are dead. You are the last Vampire in Port Fennrick. Take all the Mummies and go. We’d rather not fight you, and we think you don’t want to fight us.
Edna: As leader of the town, I give you my word that can leave safely.
The Vampire accepts the offer and leaves town, along with the Mummies from his warehouse and the two from the third warehouse.
Edna has the support of the civilians and the dock workers, and she had a plan to get the merchants on her side. Surely the mob and Finsea don’t have a better offer than the prosperity that Edna will bring. To get the merchants back, the Fellowship must travel to different towns and return confiscated items to their rightful owners. Vestri starts examining items in the warehouse to discover who made it. Edna finds the ledger. Vampires are detail-oriented and keep detailed records, so she can just look up the original owner of each item in the library. Edna doesn’t want to leave Port Fennrick unguarded. She can stay in town while Yuri, Vestri, and Companions go out to spread the good news.
END OF SESSION MOVE
- Did we thoroughly explore a new location?
- YES Port Fennrick
- Did anyone find what they were seeking?
- YES, Edna is working on her endgame plan.
- Did we learn something new about the world and its people?
- NO.
Two boons: healing, gear