Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The fellowship: Boris the Remnant, Yonne the Rain.
Last time, Yonne met some of her people, and Boris forcibly adopted a baby eagle to train as a messenger bird. Now the Fellowship heads for the comet that brought Rain to this planet.
At the expected time, Ol’ Jardiner comes through Infinite Windows. He’s very pleased with himself.
Ol’ Jardiner: Guess who just defeated the Vampires? Their doom is imminent!
Yonne: Oh, you defeated Vampires? Was it the sad one?
Ol’ Jardiner: Sad one? No, all of them! When the Moon is full you will see how we have changed it to fulfill its original purpose.
Boris: You did the thing! Were the Kobolds still up there?
Ol’ Jardiner: How did you know about the Kobolds?
GM note: Oops, we mixed up player knowledge and character knowledge.
Yonne: Does that mean that the blighted bog will go back to normal and that tree will be happy again?
Ol’ Jardiner: Should work. We just have to wait two weeks. It was amazing. There were cursed letters inside the manuals that show the Kobolds how to operate the Moon. I had to get all my other friends to do their part. With my expert guidance and magical abilities, we pulled it off!
Yonne: Wow, a new Moon.
Ol’ Jardiner: It’s a new moon now. It’ll be a full moon in two weeks.
Yonne: Are they fine if they’re in buildings?
Boris: What if they’re underground? They’ll be severely limited
Ol’ Jardiner: I’ve been up there for a while. What’s been going on down here?
Yonne: We found a village of Rain. They made these very nice sweaters of moss that are resistant to water, so if you are interested in buying, this is where they make them. And also! There are tubes in the room where they make them that are connected to a city full of Dwarves.
Boris: They told us to never go back though.
Ol’ Jardiner: Hmm, these are the Treacherous Mountains? That’s probably the City of Clay down there. My friends and I also made that safe and told the refugee population they could come back.
Yonne: We can go up and around and see them if you want to.
Ol’ Jardiner: They weren’t exactly too grateful. We went to their new city and told them about their old city. We went to help some of their soldiers. There was trouble down in the caves. There was so much trouble down in the caves that they walled up the caves behind us so we had to fight our way out in a different direction. I’m taking credit for all the good things that happened to them, but I’m not sure we’re friends.
Yonne: That doesn’t sound fun. I’m sorry to hear that. But you saved the world from all of the Vampires! I see that Atlas also came back. You guys are best friends now?
Ol’ Jardiner: We work together well. I don’t know about “best friends”
Yonne: You came back and they also came back, because they’re with you. And you’re with us. That’s fun. The thing is, he has a bird now sometimes now.
Boris: Yeah, I have a bird. That way I can stay in communication with one of the Rain.
Yonne: She’s going to teach him how to do Business.
Ol’ Jardiner: Is the bird also cursed?
Yonne: No, there’s a Rain lady in the city. She’s the one who sells the sweaters. She’s going to teach him.
Boris: We’re pen pals. The bird doesn’t write anything. It just flies.
It’s lunch time, so the Fellowship has a picnic, but not really. Boris can’t really eat, and Yonne just absorbs things. Boris and Yonne know when Ol’ Jardiner is scheduled to come through the portal, so when he arrived, they had some bread and cheese ready for him. Ol’ Jardiner served the Crusher-Harcourts for many years, so he’s not used to people doing things for him. He’s touched and doesn’t really know what to say.
Ol’ Jardiner: It’s important for me to stop and recognize when people do things for me. I’m kind of a grouchy guy, so it’s hard to–admit that I’m having emotions.
Yonne: Thanks. You can have emotions with us.
Boris searches for worms to feed the bird. He doesn’t have a name for it yet. Ol’ Jardiner was being vulnerable, but Yonne doesn’t understand and Boris isn’t paying attention.
Boris goes back to Lichenton to find someone who knows how to care for his Harpy Eagle. He finds Shahsha, a Shadow Rain who patrols outside the village and has experience with the local wildlife. She respects Boris as a fellow predator
GM note: Rain names imitate the sound of water. Yonne is one drop of water falling into still water. Shahsha is the sound of hard rain.
- What can she tell us about the Harpy Eagle?
- Harpy Eagles are large predatory birds. They are so big they can snatch up and carry off their prey. She thinks they should drop their prey for guaranteed damage, but that’s not their way. Giant Spiders used to be one of their main food sources, but for the past month, they haven’t been eating them. Their chicks are vulnerable to climbing vermin when the parents are out hunting, but now the Giant Spiders spin webs under the nest to protect them.
- Yonne: Oh, they’re doing teamwork.
- Boris: That’s why both attacked us when we went up the tree.
- Shahsha: Bold move. I’m impressed.
- What should I be wary of when dealing with Harpy Eagles?
- If you’re going to carry that chick out through the Ragin Rapids when you leave town, the parents will remember and will try to retrieve their chick. They are suprisingly good at getting through the foilage, despite their wide wings. Once you get out to the plains, or go up the mountain, at least you can see them coming.
- What would they have us do next to train the chick/
- Most animals are food-motivated, but you need the right food. These worms and bugs are no good. You need real meat: vermin or fish. Too bad they are out of season. The Walking Salmon come through here. They get out of the river and hop up the rapids. They are easy prey for the Harpy Eagles.
Boris: I was unaware that worms were not appropriate for all birds. Thank you, Shahsha.
Ol’ Jardiner is so excited to have saved the world (or so he thinks) He brags to anyone who will listen about how he changed the light coming from the moon. The Brain-Brewer disagrees with his understanding of refraction.
GM note: The Brain-Brewer is the Rain’s teacher. She puts things into the water of her students to enrich them, like tea.
- Brain-Brewer, she/her, Rain teacher
- Leader: The Brain-Brewer has control over her students, and can command them to do anything.
- Reveal The Way: Anyone who tries to Speak Softly or Talk Sense with the Brain-Brewer will receive her advice. Acting on this advice gives you Hope; acting against it gives you Despair.
Ol’ Jardiner thinks she should change her teaching on optics. He’s sure that his theoretecial grounding from the Academy and his experience on the Moon is superior to the lived experience of people whose bodies are constantly refracting light. He favors idealized rules and formulae over Brain-Brewer’s more experiential method: guiding students through exercises until they grok it.
Brain-Brewer: Knowledge does not become understanding except through experience. If you really want to really something, you have to do it. I can’t just read about it.
Ol’ Jardiner re-affirms the importance of theory, but Brain-Brewer is not impressed. She agrees to do a lesson his way if he does a lesson her way. Ol’ Jardiner is confident that he can do Brain-Brewers methods, since they are unsophisticated and he knows all the principles. Brain-Brewer presents a situation; the Rain use a series of lenses which, properly aligned, cause precious minerals in the riverbed to light up for easy collection. Ol’ Jardiner looks through his Endless Scroll for the proper abstractions to convert the problem into the classical equations. Ol’ Jardiner tries to perfect the placement of one mirror at a time, but the river is ever-changing. He needs to solve five equations for five variables, but three of the equations cancel out, so he swiftly solves the remaining two equations and places the lenses correctly.
Ol’ Jardiner: More light work! Altas, please copy the relevant chapter so Brain-Brewer can refer to it after we leave.
Brain-Brewer was ready for this to be a teachable moment for her students, but Ol’ Jardiner has succeeded! She worries that they will lose faith in her.
Yonne: The people of this village told me that we came from a comet, so I’d like to see the comet, but if you have to go somewhere else we can go somewhere else.
Ol’ Jardiner: Sure, I’m just waiting for the full moon. Is the comet also in space?
Yonne: No, it landed. To the west. Past the mountains. Past the forest.
The Fellowship lost track of Atlas for a while. In a sudden commotion, Atlas is escorted out of town after being too curious about their trade secrets. Time to leave. Ol’ Jardiner writes on the message board on the way out.
Ol’ Jardiner: Once again the Academy’s rigorous approach proves superior to provincial superstition! They discourage curiousity!
The Fellowship can go over the Treacherous Mountains. There is no obvious path over the snowy peaks. They could also go under the mountains, into the City of Clay, newly re-settled by Dwarves.
Yonne: They didn’t seem happy to see us last time.
Ol’ Jardiner: If we come through the front door, it will be better.
The entrance to the City of Clay is obvious, but the Fellowship has to go through the Raging Rapids and past the angry parents of Boris’ new chick. Boris recommends traveling at night, when birds usually sleep.
GM note: Boris gets Hope on the roll to Get Away because everyone is co-operating, but he’s immune to Hope & rolls normally.
Ol’ Jardiner: We’re trying to encourage you.
Boris: It’s the thought that counts, but it didn’t help me. At all.
The chick wakes up and fusses. Boris tries to hold its beak shut and it bites him. Boris controls himself and the Fellowship passing silently through the Raging Rapids.
The Fellowship arrives at the entrance to the City of Clay. Tow big metal doors lead into the mountain. Yonne is concerned that Boris is bleeding. Boris can’t bleed out, which makes Yonne concerned that he will emit an infinite amount of blood. Ol’ Jardiner is sure that would violate some law of nature.
The Clay Dwarves are happy to be back in their home and happy to have visitors. Several tunnels like the one the Fellowship entered converge to a large, high chamber, big enough to have buildings inside it. The floor is shiny, smooth obsidian. A waterway with raft going up and down goes past one end of the chamber. It’s some form of public transit. Lots of shops line the streets: gemcutters, armorsmiths, mason, and woodworkers. They all boast of the superior craftsmanship of the Dwarves. Boris is happy to listen Bomrek the Mason brag. Atlas writes everything down.
- What should I be wary of when dealing with the stones in this area?
- The stones in this area are sacred because all Dwarves come from stone and return to stone. Considering why they had to leave, this whole area is like a burial ground.
- Boris: So you build your buildings out of people?
- Bomrek: We’re the Clay Dwarves, so we use a lot of brickwork and terra cotta. I shipped my stones in from elsewhere on the Underground Waterways.
- What can they tell us about Dwarven masonry & its superiority?
- Dwarves make the best masons because of their kinship with the stones. They carve stones like parts of a puzzlebox, so the stones fit together without mortar, but can’t slide out of place.
- What’s the next big thing in Dwarven masonry?
- Bomrek spins this gullible rube a tale: He points to commemorative statues around the hall. These statues move at night when no one watches. We have such fidelity in our stonecarving, that when we carve a Dwarf from stone, there’s no difference between a stone Dwarf and a living Dwarf.
Boris: That kind of shatters my understanding of the world, friend.
Bomrek: That’s the secret of the Dwarves! Some back when the hall is closed and maybe you can see it happen.
Of course there’s no sunlight in the City Of Clay. The sun does heat the mountain, but there’s so much stone between the surface and the city that the cycles of warm and cool are offset from day and night by several hours.
The Fellowship is directed to the West Gate. It’s fortified and guarded, not a broad path like the gate to the Raging Rapids. The path winds back and forth around walls lined with gears and perforated with arrowslits. It forces invaders to walk single-file, pelted by traps and bolts all the way. Sheriff Sarvesh stops the Fellowship when they try to exit.
Sarvesh: Hold on. You don’t want to go out there. The Fairy Forest is hostile!
Boris: We’ll be fine.
Sarvesh: You have a sense of danger about you, but when you’re lost in the forest, beset by Vampires and their minions, you’ll sing a different tune.
Ol’ Jardiner: We could just wait a week until all the Vampires are dead!
Yonne: My friend made the Moon so it would kill Vampires.
Sarvesh is not impressed by the power of the Moon, which is even more remote than the surface. She does respect the danger of were-creatures. She’ll let Ol’ Jardiner find out the hard way if he’s as amazing as he says. She gives a signal. Crossbow-Dwarves stand ready. Gates at the far end of the snaking path open. The Fellowship walks down the long, twisting path and emerges into the Fairy Forest, a dense and trackless forest. The gates close behind them. They are in a small clearing hacked out by the Dwarves, just enough to build their gates and lock themselves in.
- Fairies, various pronouns: thin, elongated humanoids the size and shape of a Barbie doll, held aloft by buzzing insect wings. Their skin tones range across the spectrum, but are always bright and eye-catching. They are nude and glamour themselves to PG-rated indistinctness, also like Barbie dolls.
- Arboreal: Fairies fly through the foilage with supernatural agility. Anyone trying to catch or harm a fairy in the trees is in Despair.
- Trickster: When you take aggressive action against a Fairy, you automatically fail as if you got a 6-, then damage this stat.
Voices come from all directions.
Fairies: Oho, travelers! They’ll need a guide. Poor travelers, getting lost all the time.
An orange fairy flies up to the Fellowship.
Sprite: Hello, travelers. Tell me your destination and I will lead you safely through these treacherous woods, where all sorts of beasts lurk in the shadows.
Yonne: Beasts? What kind? My friend here is a beast?
Sprite flies around Boris, studying him.
Sprite: We haven’t seen your kind for many years. We didn’t know that any had survived.
Boris: When was the last time you saw one?
Sprite spins a tale, promising that all of Boris’ questions will be answered if he follows Sprite to his fairy home.
Ol’ Jardiner: OK, Sprite, you’ve got a deal. You tell Boris the fate of his race, and we will not reveal the secret of your secret fairy home. Put ‘er there!
Sprite wants to agree, but he can’t! He can’t bind himself to a promist that he can’t keep. Sprite and Ol’ Jardiner both realize that the other is dangerous and hostile and are considering what to do next. Ol’ Jardiner tries to grab Sprite, but he only gets a handful of autumn leaves. Sprite laughs from somewhere in the branches and sends out a Gorilla, bewitched to obey the evil Fairies!
- Gorilla: Large, brutish apes that love to play around and don’t really know their own strength.
- Mighty Ape: The gorilla can toss aside anyone in front of it with ease. It is strong enough to topple trees and smash wooden barricades of any kind.
- Hard To Kill: When someone rolls a 10+ to Finish Them against a gorilla, unless they rolled with Wisdom, damage this stat and negate their Finish Them attempt. It fails, and the gorilla survives.
Ol’ Jardiner just stares at the onrushing creature. Boris uses his incredible speed to stay in the gorilla’s peripheral vision, so it keeps turning and lunging. Yonne tries to sneak up and put water in the gorilla’s ears to make it dizzy, but it spins and grabs–water. Its fingers go right through her. She’s disoriented and it’s confused.
GM note: Boris is thinking of Pan’s Labyrinthing Sprite.
Ol’ Jardiner: Sprite, you have tricked and misled many to their doom! Because of this, you will also be lost, never able to find your home, unless you lead us to the western edge of the jungle!
Sprite: OK, but you gotta teach me some of your magic.
Sprite calls off the gorilla and Ol’ Jardiner gives him a Scrambling Egg. It looks and feels like a raw chicken’s egg. When thrown and splattered against a person, that person gets scrambled and confused. An amusing bauble for Ol’ Jardiner, but given Sprite’s M.O., probably too useful.
Sprite wants the curse lifted, so he leads the Fellowship towards the western edge of the Fairy Forest. The other fairies see that Sprite has been cursed and set an ambush in the Fellowship’s path to rescue him. The Fellowship emerges into a field of pretty flowers. Altas recognizes them and explains the danger to their companions.
- Flower Field: A relaxing place to have a picnic and take a nap.
- Sleeping Pollen: The flowers’ scent causes those who spend too long in here to grow drowsy and weak. Anyone who sniffs a flower directly will instantly fall asleep. When you roll for any move other than Keep Them Busy in this place, you roll with Despair.
- Paper Flowers, Candy Clouds, and Lullabies: Those who sleep in this place are taken to a world of eternal dreams – the same world of dreams, regardless of how many are asleep in this place. They can only be awoken by someone from the outside, or by conquering a dream trial built by their own fears.
The fairies don’t attack here. Fighting causes the pollen to spread even more, and the Fairies are also vulnerable to its effects. The Fellowship hustles through the field. Yonne forces Ol’ Jardiner to hold his breath by putting water over his nose and mouth. Unpleasant, but effective.
Just as the Fellowship leaves the field, a pack of Owlbears appear!
- Group of Owl Bears: An Owl Bear is only as scary as a bear is, but for some reason being part owl makes them angrier and viciously bloodthirsty.
- Blood Hunter: The scent of blood drives owl bears into a frenzy, and they are ferocious combatants against the injured. If your Blood is damaged, an Owl Bear’s Cuts against you are Hard Cuts.
- Claws and Death: When an owl bear causes damage, it deals damage again. This extra damage must be dealt to a different enemy within reach. This repeats until everyone within reach has been damaged, or it chooses to stop.
- Group: This enemy can act against two people at once. When this enemy
is destroyed, this stat is damaged, or this is their only stat left, replace the
Group with two normal enemies.
Boris darts around the Owl Bears, using his aura of dark magic to make it seem like several of him surround them. The Owl Bears strike and destroy the mirror images, then focus their attacks on Boris himself.
Ol’ Jardiner orders Doodle to unfold between two trees and project an image of young Owl Bears in distress. Yonne creates a reflection, multiplying the illusion. The Owl Bears are fooled and turn their backs on Boris. Boris maximizes his aura of dark magic. The Owl Bears feel like prey for the first time ever. Most of them flee, but two extra-tough Owl Bears remain.
Ol’ Jardiner: Point the way!
Ol’ Jardiner holds Sprite out in front of him and runs whichever direction the Fairy points. The Followship follows. They crash through the forest until the reach the edge. Where the trees stop, the ground slopes up to the rim of a crater hundreds of yards across. Sprite has fulfilled the condition to break the curse and can find his way home now.
Ol’ Jardiner: Look, your friends attacked you back there and I saved you, twice! You should come with us.
Sprite wriggles out of Ol’ Jardiner’s hand and flies back into the trees.
The Fellowship climbs to the rim of the crater and looks down at a big spiky metal object covered with ice. Rain bustle about, going in and out of holes in its surface. This is the Rain Comet that brought the Rain to his planet. The Fellowship makes camp. They’ve had enough adventure for today. Yonne and Ol’ Jardiner share a meal. Boris doesn’t eat.
Yonne: Too bad about the flowers. They were really pretty.
Atlas regrets that they did not have time to make sketches of all the kinds of flowers they saw.
Yonne: Do you have a piece of cloth that’s woven, but not too tightly?
Ol’ Jardiner pulls out some specimen jars and a glass rod that is charged with static electricity. He rubs the rod over his body and all the pollen on his clothes sticks to the rod. Yonne pours herself through a cloth, leaving the pollen behind. Ol’ Jardiner collects all the pollen in a specimen jar.
Boris remembers a society that lived here before the comet hit. He sniffs around in the debris pushed up by the crater, hoping to find some trace or artifact.
- Why all the activity around the Rain Comet?
- It’s a bustling town. Many Rain stayed here instead of spreading out to settle other areas.
- Is something hidden or out of place?
- The people that lived here were a passive, isolated subset of their civilization, and they were all killed by the comet’s impact, so their unique knowledge vanished from the world. They focused on defensive magic, so the stories about them are a cautionary tale. They put all their effort into protecting themselves, but were annihilated by a threat they could not imagine. Do not repeat their mistake and study this type of magic, lest you share their fate. Boris finds pages 5, 12 ,36, 52 from a mostly-destroyed tome. He also finds a tabletop, mostly intact, but all the edges are burned. Some magic substance spilled here as the comet hit, and it protected the table from the heat.
- Tell me about the Rain? What are they doing? What will they do next?
- They have sentries around the edge that spotted him before he spotted them!
A shiny Rain approaches and addresses Yonne.
- Quicksilver Slime: This destructive ooze monster consumes metal, making it the nemesis of machinery and infrastructure of all kinds.
- Metal Eater: The quicksilver slime eats into metal with ease. No metal wall or grate will stop it, and Armor cannot be used against its attacks.
- Charged Up: The quicksilver can hold an electric charge. When the slime consumes machinery, it becomes charged up until it fully digests. It becomes Elf-Made, electrifying and burning anyone who touches it.
Quicksilver: Hail, Cloudkin, who are these solid folk that you have brought to our territory?
Yonne: Oh, hello. This is Jardiner. He saved the world from Vampires. This is Boris. He doens’t know how old he is either. Very old. This is Atlas. They know a lot of things. I am Yonne. I come from south of here, in a bog.
Quicksilver: Yes, I got the impression that you don’t live here. We don’t allow solid folk inside. You vouch for them, so they can stay here, outside the rim.
Boris: It looks difficult. I don’t think we would fit in there.
Yonne: Maybe after we are done eating. Would you like some food?
Yonne moves a half-digested rodent up her arm to offer to Quicksilver.
Quicksilver: I ate recently. I shouldn’t touch you.
Quicksilver reaches out towards the silverware on Ol’ Jardiner’s empty plate and electricity arcs between them.
Yonne: Wow, you just store that? Does it hurt?
Quicksilver: It doesn’t hurt me.
Yonne: I do something similar. When I touch things that are alive or not alive or–they kind of sizzle and start slowly dissolving into me. I don’t know why that happens.
Quicksilver: You don’t even know the 12 types of water! You truly are an isolated shard!
Yonne gives a rambling summary of her short life. The Rain are familar with isolated shards that fell separately from the comet and were lost. It’s a happy ocassion when one returns.
Boris explains that the Rain Comet is on top of the ruins of a society with advanced defensive magic, which could be useful to Quicksilver, a sentry who defends the Rain Comet. Quicksilver shimmers, but Boris can’t tell what that means, just like he can’t tell that it’s rude to remind the Rain that they killed a bunch of people when they arrived, even though it was unintentional.
NO END-OF-SESSION MOVE