Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The fellowship: Dryden of Conwall the Collector/Hunter, Averiela the Elf/Elven Elite, Markus the Squire, Ol’ Jardiner the Harbinger
Last time, the Fellowship reached the Moon and discovered why it didn’t wipe out the Vampires like the Dragons designed it to. The Vampires put a magic curse in the manuals that the Kobolds use to maintain the Moon. This time, they attempt a dangerous ritual to remove the curse.
GM note: At the start of the session, I explained the mechanics of the ritual to the players. The characters did not know all the specifics. Ol’ Jardiner takes the lead in the ritual, but needs help from each character. Ol’ Jardiner just lost most of his bonds with the Fellowship when speaking with the Strange Entity, so when they assist him, they roll with Despair. The total number of successes from all rolls determines the outcome of the ritual from the following table.
- 7-9 = 1 success
- 10+ = 2 successes
- All consequences happen at the next full Moon (except #4)
|
0 |
all humanoids become vampires |
|
1 |
Moon crashes, destroying one location and showering adjacent locations with debris. (roll dice on map to find impact point) |
|
2 |
All humanoids become werewolves |
|
3 |
Moon flashes, then goes dark forever. Everything exposed to it takes 1 damage. |
|
4 |
Kobold base starts to collapse NOW. |
|
5 |
no effect |
|
6 |
no effect |
|
7 |
werewolves cured, vampires unaffected |
|
8 |
werewolves unaffected, vampires killed by moonlight |
|
9 |
werewolves cured, vampires killed by moonlight |
|
10 |
werewolves cured, vampires cured |
Most of the Kobolds are either packing to leave the Moon, or trying to absorb all the information they just learned. The Fellowship gathers in the archive (where the original manuals are stored) along with Junior (the highest-ranking Kobold and chief archivist) and other high-ranking Kobolds. Ol’ Jardiner gives a speech.
Ol’ Jardiner: This is it. We’ve figured out where all the glyphs are and we have the technique to reverse the curse that makes the Moon work the way it does. Unfortunately, there’s only one of me, so I need each of you to pitch in. But first, to start my wizard battle with the Vampires who–
Ol’ Jardiner takes a gulp from a flask, which is actually a healing elixir. It’s liquid courage. Then he pronounces a curse on the Vampires who cursed the Moon.
Ol’ Jardiner: Evil creatures of the night, backstabbing vermin: as the Dragons were unable to hide from your treachery, so you will be unable to hide from the light of the Moon! If you lift the curse on the Moon, I will lift the curse on you!
Ol’ Jardiner pauses for a moment.
Ol’ Jardiner: It didn’t work. I hoped they would be listening and we wouldn’t have to do the rest.
Junior has several Kobolds lay out volumes of the manuals and open them to pages with special bookmarks.
Ol’ Jardiner: OK, Markus, this is for you. I need your naive enthusiasm, your willingness to charge in.
Markus: I can do it. I’m a really fast writer.
Ol’ Jardiner: OK, good, I’ll–
Markus: I used to race Markus copying things from the library because he wanted to take books with him but they didn’t trust him to check them out. We would go in and we would race to see who could copy fastest.
Dryden: It was a great game I invented.
Ol’ Jardiner: Here are eight runes in order. They must be written on these eight pages within one minute.
Markus roll Overcome with Despair: 8
minor consequence
Total successes: 1
Markus writes swiftly and accurately. The others hear a commotion outside. There’s a quarrel between Kobolds who want to leave and Kobolds who do not want to leave.
Ol’ Jardiner: Dryden, please focus. You can’t pay attention to that right now. I need your unpredictability because this section is unpredicatable. In the very first volume, there are glyphs that could match two diffferent patterns, depending on whether they are sorted numerically or lexically. Does 69 come before 1700? This is confusing.
Dryden: I was once in training with a person I met on a ship. A mixture of a magician and a Mer-man.
Markus: A Mer-gician!
Dryden: When you put something underwater, you have to account for refraction of the light, whether moonlight or starlight. I’ll take my vial of Elven Water and spread it over the page, but not get it wet. I can tell it to take any form I want, so it will form a sheet over the page.
Dryden rolls Talk Sense with Hope: 11
Total successes: 3
Dryden spreads the magical water over the page and the glyphs seems to be in a different position. Ol’ Jardiner can now see the pattern. He re-writes only the glyphs that match the pattern.
The arguing Kobolds want to come into the Library and talk to Junior. Ol’ Jardiner has a chance to increase the power of his counter-spell, but he must pay in blood. He ponders how much he needs to risk, how much he needs to risk.
Ol’ Jardiner: Somebody please make this noise stop so that I can do my magic.
Markus talks to the arguing Kobolds and leads them back outside. Ol’ Jardiner lays out some other books that have clusters of cursed runes. To destroy them all at once, Ol’ Jardiner uses a ball of string to attach each rune to his finger. He snaps his fingers and all the strings start burning like fuses. They snap and hiss and eliminate all the cursed runes at once.
Ol’ Jardiner casts Do Not Trifle WIth Wizards. 1 damage for 1 success.
Total successes: 4
Averiela: Are we trying to remove the moonlight, or do we want to keep the moonlight?
Ol’ Jardiner: We do want the moonlight. Do you hate the Moon that much?
Averiela pulls out a silver ring with a special gleam.
Averiela: I have the Hand of Silver and can craft glorious magical items. I have to sacrifice something, like a deep emotion, which I’m willing to do to save the people below, but I can also remove something beautiful from the world, never to be seen again. An appropriate sacrifice would be moonlight.
Ol’ Jardiner: You’re bringing up another giant magical ritual now? We are more than halfway through this! You’re always trying to show everyone up!
Ol’ Jardiner holds up a book.
Ol’ Jardiner: There are magical glyphs hidden inside this page. I can’t reach them from either side. I need you to cut it this way. I’ll hold it.
Ol’ Jardiner puts the book open on the table and holds the cursed page vertically between the index fingers of both hands. When he sees that Averiela is about to swing her titanium sword, he pulls his fingers away and blows on the page.
Averiela rolls Overcome: 7
minor consequence
Total successes: 5
Inside the page is a small trap that they did not anticipate. As the two halves of the page fall apart, a vacuum forms between them with sucks in Averiela’s titanium sword! Ol’ Jardiner swings a mirror and purges the cursed runes with reflected sunlight. Averiela loved that sword, but Ol’ Jardiner is focused on completing the ritual. The curse has been revealed and magical energy floats unpredictably above the books. Ol’ Jardiner throws out many glass eyes to see through and uses Wizardry to re-arrange books, but he can’t get the curse where he wants it. Following the curse isn’t working, so he anticipates it. Using insight gained from the Strang Entity, he looks slightly into the future. When the curse is about to pass close by, he pricks his thumb with his cursed dagger. The curse passes by and he squashes it between the table and his bleeding thumb.
Ol’ Jardiner uses “Right Time” which gives 10+ on next roll
Ol’ Jardiner rolls Finish Them +Doom: 10
Total successes: 7
There’s a change in the atmosphere. It seems like the ritual went well, but they must wait until the next full moon to find out exactly what will happen. Ol’ Jardiner drinks the rest of his flask, and Markus bandages his wounded thumb.
GM note: The ritual only has one outcome, but seeing the whole list is important to the players. I intentionally went last, knowing I could guarantee a 10+, so we’d get +2 successes at the last moment, and our total successes would look bad until then. Since we’ were sure to have at least 2 successes, I made the consequences of 0 and 1 successes extremely bad, just to scare them a little. I played a similar psychological trick on myself. Halfway through the ritual, I could pay in damage to get more successes, but I didn’t know what the total would be without the bonus successes. It felt dangerous.
Ol’ Jardiner: I feel good about this. The aura feels cleaner. You have fulfilled your final duty in maintaining the Moon. As we promised earlier, we’ll transport anyone who wants to go back to the surface. Dryden, should we move the portal closer?
Dryden: I feel like a stable portal reachable by cable car is safer then opening the portal here.
Outside the library, Markus is trying to calm the argument among the Kobold. Vince says the mission is irrelevant and the Kobolds should leave. Tin-Tin IV isn’t convinced by news of the war being over. She says Kobolds should stay.
Markus: You don’t all have to do the same thing. If you want to go, go. If you want to stay, stay.
Tin-Tin IV: Good. We’ve wasted enough time on arguing! The cable tension on line 4-A needs adjusting.
Vince: You can’t help people if they don’t want to be helped.
The Kobolds they return to their work, or go home to pack, according to their desires. Vince just has his backpack and a couple of duffel bags. He lives in a nest underground, so he’s mosly homeless.
The Fellowship spends a week recovering. Kobolds take the cable car out to the portal, ten at a time.
Averiela uses her multiple lifetimes of experience to craft a new weapon to replace the titanium sword that she lost. She melts moon rock down to extract metal from the ore and makes a Starlight Sword whose blade only exists at night.
GM note: This is kind of in between two of Averiela’s moves. She can make useful items with one use, and she can make powerful magical items at great cost. The Starlight Sword forged from Moondust is very thematic, it has an interesting drawback, and it replaces her beloved Titanium Sword, stolen from Thaumatown’s Robotics Facility long ago. I’ll allow it!
Dryden also takes the time to craft something: A Dark Side of the Moon Warrior that can emerge from his shadow to fight for him.
The kobolds leaving the Moon offer a choice of three boons to the Fellowship for saving them from endless service to dead masters.
- The Kobolds will refit the existing teleportation terminal. When Dryden and Ol’ Jardiner look inside the red pyramid next to the library, they see a cage just like the one they found in the jungle. Anything in this cage will be teleported to a position in the teleporter’s library. A Teleporter Beacon lets the Fellowship add locations to the library or teleport back to the Moon.
- Wat-Wat V the Kobold will join the Fellowship.
They are excellent at noticing clues, keeping facts straight, and solving mysteries (4 Uses, Useful). Watson has many skills, and can use any of them for you by spending 1 Use. They also can provide a hint or clue in any situation for 1 Use, and you can trust their hints to be absolutely true. Watson can be used by anybody they are assisting. When you Fill Your Belly, anyone may spend 1 Food to restore 1 use of Watson. - Vince will teach them the value of discarded treasures.
Once per scene, when exploring a new area, anyone in the fellowship may declare they found something. They restore 1 Use to one piece of Gear.
All the options seem appealing. Averiela worries that they’re all more opportunities for Markus and Dryden to get into trouble. Dryden likes getting more stuff, but also teleportation is cool. Are there more teleportation terminals?
Ol’ Jardiner: Maybe we can convince some of the Kobolds who are staying to repair that teleportation terminal we found. But it’s in the Fairy Forest, so we should wait until after the full moon when all the Vampires die.
Everyone likes Wat-Wat V, so they invite him to join the Fellowship. Technically, Watson is his great-grandfather, but he’s fine with that nickname.
At the end of the week, the Fellowship is fully rested and recovered. Dryden and Averiela have created their new items. All the Kobolds who want to leave the Moon have gone through the portal. The Fellowship is ready to return and watch the full moon from the planet below.
They update the message board before they leave:
GM note: The messages stayed mostly the same. Bold text indicates changes from last time.
Averiela: This place is unnatural.
A weapon gone wrong.
Cursed by blood creatures,
It breathes not grace, soul, or song.
Dryden: Vampires cursed the Moon.
We hope to fix it soon.
Appleton gets a boon.
Werewolves meet their doom
PS Ritual success? Moon restored. Weapons forged.
Markus: It’s like when people think for themselves instead of toeing the party line. If you need help convincing them, find it written down.
Ol’ Jardiner: Sanguinous glyphs, surreptitiously inscribed, form multi-dimensional lattice of arcane significance, corrupting reflection’s intended cleansing purpose to lycanthropy. Curse lifted! Watch next full Moon!
The Fellowship comes through the portal, returning to Luna Penumbra in the Singing Hills. Over a thousand Kobolds have created a shantytown on the shore of the lake that contains the Luna Penumbra. They don’t know where to go in this new world. Aku and his giant disciples (Fi and Fum) are displeased that so many strange creatures have suddenly appeared in their territory. None of the Kobolds wants to take the lead and talk to the Giants, who are 8 times their height.
Ol’ Jardiner: Hey, I know where some other Kobolds live. They were also in a weird society based on bizarre ignorance of the world. If you want to visit them, they probably have room for you, if you want to eat canned food forever. There’s this big mesa to the north of the Singing Hills. There’s a secret door up there. You go through, past all the traps, blah blah blah, and behind the bar there’s a door. They call in the Infinite Spiral or Endless Spiral or something. Kobolds were locked in there so long they thought it was the entire world. They were unhappy when we came in and showed them they were wrong.
Dryden: I take it they didn’t leave with you?
Ol’ Jardiner: Most of them didn’t. There were a few adventurous ones like Vince or Watson. Maybe meeting other Kobolds will be less shocking. Anyway, good luck climbing that thing! It’s almost sheer on all four sides.
Dryden: We could fly them there on our ship.
Logistical challenge: the Luna Penumbra can’t fit all 1,500 Kobolds at once. Social challenge: some of them might not want to be stuck up there forever. Dryden talks to the Kobolds to learn their goals and desires.
Kobolds have served Dragons for many generations, so they are comfortable in the places where Dragons live: hot places and high-altitude places. They are used to filling the edges of larger structures. None of these Kobolds have seen a Dragon, but they know that Aku is not a Dragon.
Dryden: Do we know any active volcanoes?
Averiela: Where was that Fire Elemental?
Markus: Should we take them to the Hidden Library?
Ol’ Jardiner: That volcano is extinct. The one next to it is fake. It’s really Swallet burning trash. Swallet doesn’t have a surface entrance anymore, so they probably don’t want new people coming in.
The Kobolds are overrunning the Singing Hills and Aku is displeased. Some Kobolds recommend tunneling underground because the Giants can’t reach them. Others say they must migrate, and look to the horizon. To the north: a mesa. To the west: tall snowy mountains. There’s a pass between the mountains and the mesa. To the northeast is a wasteland. To the south are several settlements and a river. Many choices.
Markus: The mesa could be a good place because it’s high.
Dryden: Ol’ Jardiner, have you gone to the mesa?
Ol’ Jardiner motions the Fellowship into a cabin on the Luna Penumbra for privacy.
Ol’ Jardiner: That’s where the Dragon’s Doomsday Engine was. Did I tell you about this? There was another Dragon who slept for a hundred years, then turned on this thing that would destroy the world. Edna killed it.
Dryden: Oh yes, I heard of Edna killing a Dragon, but I didn’t know it was there.
Ol’ Jardiner: Maybe you confused it with Edna killing the Undead Dragon at the Hidden Library. There’s a lot of Dragon Remnants there, plus some ghosts, but not evil hungry ghosts.
Averiela: Is the Doomsday Engine still there? Could the Kobolds restart it?
Ol’ Jardiner: No, we broke that. See, the Dragons have hubris, so they had a clear way to destroy the Doomsday Engine, for anyone who could get past the Dragon defending it.
Dryden: It’s an unoccupied area that used to be Dragon-owned. That’s a pretty good place for the Kobolds.
Averiela: They need to fit into society. How will they do that with no society?
Markus: They’ll start their own society.
Dryden: We could help them establish trade routes. Edna likes trading. There’s also the Underground Waterways.
There is a small building over the formerly secret entrance to the Underground Waterways with a timetable on the wall. The Dwarves of the City of Clay are bringing the old transportation system back to life.
Markus: They could set up a base on the Mesa, then send out scouting parties. It’s currently uninhabited, so they won’t cause tension.
Dryden: Maybe they can help their Kobold friends to come out of the Eternal Spiral.
The Fellowship returns to tell the Kobolds their plans. The Kobolds are convinced to live in the dungeon inside the mesa, at least for now. The Luna Penumbra flies one load of Kobolds up to the center of the south face, where Ol’ Jardiner remembers the secret door. He did not remember the staircase that comes out of the rock face and leads all the way down to the Singing Hills. These first Kobolds got a nice ride, but the rest must haul their belongings up this long staircase. Ol’ Jardiner leaves them with some final advice.
Ol’ Jardiner: When you get to the central hallway, do not flip the switches in the middle! It’s full of traps.
NO END OF SESSION MOVE