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 met a ship carrying goods from a remote village at the top of the rapids, and decided to visit that village for themselves.
Unfortunately, their boat is a racing catamaran, not a walking boat, so it can’t go up the rapids. Buckle and Stella look around for ideas.
Buckle Look Closely (+hope, Stella’s assistance) 7-9 ask 3 questions, 1 the hard way
Stella Queen of the Wild: You can Command Lore about the wild beasts of any area you go to.
GM note: The rules say the players have to answer their own questions! how fortunate that I can trust the players and the system to create interesting situations for themselves.
- Tell me about the beasts in the area. What are they doing?
- There’s a shimmer in the trees: the webs of Giant Spiders! Giant Spiders are shy but curious creatures, so they are staying concealed in the branches for now.
- Hopping Salmon are traveling up this river to spawn. Instead of swimming and jumping up the rapids, they pull themselves onto land and hop on their powerful tails.
- What will happen if we conscript the beasts to move the boat?
- The fast-moving rapids have cut a channel in the land, so the banks on either side of the river rise high above the water. The Giant Spiders might spin webs across the banks to suspend and pull the Miranda.
- What here is hidden or out-of-place?
- As he looks upstream at the rapids, Buckle sees water piling up over a rock. Not unusual by itself, but unlike all the other water that piles up over other rocks, this water isn’t flowing down the other side. It’s a Shadow Rain, a fluid creature camouflaging itself as water!
Buckle: What is that? It’s just sitting there.
Stella: Looks like trouble.
Buckle: Hey, Fish-out-of-water! What is that thing?
Buckle Wildspeaker: You can speak the language of beasts. When you try to speak to such a creature for the first time, you may Speak Softly or Talk Sense with them.
Buckle Speak Softly 10+ ask 3 questions
- Tell me about the Shadow Rain?
- It’s a predator. We are superior to other fish because we leave the water and avoid it.
- What should I be wary of when dealing with Hopping Salmon?
- Hopping Salmon are single-minded in their goal to reach the spawning pools.
- What do you want? How can we help you get it?
- We must get to the spawning pools. You seem like friends of salmon. Put us in your boat and carry us upriver. We’ve seen the other boat walk up these rapids.
GM note: We decided that none of the answers from the Look Closely 7-9 roll were found the hard way. The Shadow Rain didn’t attack. So I owed the Fellowship a consequence, and I introduced it here.
Silk (Stella’s Giant Spider mount) looks over the edge of the boat and sees a shadow in the water. A Giant Eel collides with the Miranda! One of the two spars connecting the outrigger to the main hulls snaps!
Sea Serpent damages Miranda’s All Ahead Full
The Hopping Salmon hop away in fear. Stella tells the panicked Giant Eel to stop thrashing.
Stella Queen of the Wild: Every Beast you meet is a Companion
Buckle Wildspeaker: You can speak the language of beasts. When you try to speak to such a creature for the first time, you may Speak Softly or Talk Sense with them.
Buckle Speak Softly 6- ask 3 questions, 1 unhelpful answer, 1 false answer
- What are you doing? What will you do next?
- I was eating salmon, and then something hurt me. I ran to avoid getting eaten myself!
- What do you want?
- Safe hunting. You should come into the water and find the thing that attacked me?
- What would you have us do?
- The Giant Eel can’t give any details about how they might protect it from the mysterious attacker.
Buckle Talk Sense (+sense, explain plan) 10+
Buckle: Look. You broke our boat. If you help us along, we can keep you safe.
Stella: Silk, go get your friends.
The Giant Eel wraps itself around the broken spar to hold the outrigger in place.
Silk scurries into the forest and returns with several other Giant Spiders. The rapids cut a channel below their banks, so the Giant Spiders climb up to those banks and spin a grid of silk lines over the Miranda. They cling upside-down to the underside of the grid, drop lines to the Miranda, and pull the boat up and forward.
Stella Overcome (aid from Sea Serpent & Giant Spiders) 6-
The Giant Spiders pull the Miranda out of the water, but a line breaks! The Miranda dangles precariously! The Giant Spiders can’t pull it forward! Stella is thrown overboard to the rapids below!
Buckle: Go get her! She fell in the water!
Although Buckle can speak the language of all Beasts, they are not automatically his Companions. The Giant Spiders hate water, so they don’t obey his command.
Stella throws one end of the Wire Port up to the Miranda and presses the button on the handle, teleporting instantly to the other end of the wire
Stella Get Away 7-9 avoid harm
Stella is safer out of the water. A piece of that water separates itself from the torrent. The Shadow Rain that Buckle spotted earlier has revealed itself.
- Latta (she/her) Rain
- A sneaky and deadly slime that strikes from darkness.
- Ambush Tactics: When attacking someone who does not know where the shadow rain is attacking from, it is Piercing and Necrotic.
- Mostly Invisible: Shadow rain is Secret, and remains Secret until this stat is damaged. In addition, nobody can see the shadow rain’s attacks coming while it is Secret. This stat becomes damaged if anyone Looks Closely in an area with shadow rain hiding in it.
Latta: I see you have a Giant Eel. That’s a dangerous predator that I must keep out of my territory.
Buckle: He’s just clumsy. He’s holding our ship together. Can you fix our ship?
Latta: Fascinating! My people have no use for boat-making, but I can tell you are using an unusual technique.
Stella: If we told the Giant Eel to go away, would you take us upriver?
Stella Talk Sense (+sense, explain plan) 7-9 owe a favor
Latta: That sounds good. Your boat is missing its legs, so I guess you’ll leave that here and I’ll guide you over land.
Stella runs over to the Giant Eel with an urgent command.
Stella: Get out now! It’s not safe! Go downstream as fast as you can!
Stella Queen of the Wild: all Beasts are your Companions as long as you are in their territory
The Giant Eel drops into the water and swims away. The Miranda shifts as the Giant Eel’s weight and support disappears. The outrigger’s other spar threatens to break.
Stella Overcome 6-
The outrigger breaks off and floats down the river.
Latta: Ah, you had an extra section of your boat just for the Giant Eel.
Buckle: Stella, do we need that part?
Stella Queen of the Wild: all Beasts are your Companions as long as you are in their territory
Stella commands the Giant Eel to push the outrigger to shore.
Latta: Operating a boat seems very complicated.
The Fellowship climbs out of the Miranda and on to shore. Latta leads them upriver, and Stella chats with her on the way.
Stella Speak Softly 7-9 Ask 3 questions. 1 unhelpful answer
- Tell us about Lichenton
- The town is populated entirely by Rain. They cultivate special lichen that they use to make warm clothes. The Rain don’t wear them, but they are popular exports.
- What should we be wary of in Lichenton?
- Solid folk find the conditions harsh.They don’t stay long because it’s uncomfortable.
- What does Latta want, and how can we help her get it?
- Latta wants to leave town, but won’t explain why. Lichenton has a strong sense of community, so just leaving would be strange.
They reach Lichenton. A huge rock sticks out of the cliff face above the town, splitting the waterfall to either side. Lichen grows on the cliff face, not in traditional fields or farm plots. The buildings are stone. Doors and windows have metal grates across them, which do not hinder the fluid Rain. The grates are meant to keep out the axolotls that scurry everywhere. The Rain consider them vermin and don’t think they are cute. Spray from the waterfalls soaks the small town, so Buckle sizzles as he walks. One large building does not have grates over the doors. This is the Trade Depot, built especially for solid folk. The floors are stone, and there are drains (with grates) in the middle. Buckle won’t set this building on fire. The broker greets them.
Cabochon, she/her, Rain broker. Responsible for trading with outsiders.
Cabochon: Welcome! We are glad to receive new customers. What do you bring to trade?
Stella: It’s our first time here. What do you have?
Cabochon: Surely the fame of our lichen sweaters has spread all over the surface of the planet!
Stella: We’ve been traveling for a while. I guess we missed it.
Cabochon brings out some samples. The sweaters are thick and soft. They come in a range of cool, pastel colors: purple, green, grey, blue.
Buckle: Do you have anything more . . . powerful?
Cabochon: Ah, a connoisseur? I’ll ask around.
END OF SESSION MOVE
- Did we thorougly explore a new location?
- Yes, the Raging Rapids
- Did anyone find what they were looking for?
- Yes, Stella found some Halfling refugees
- Did we learn something new about the world and its people?
- Yes, Halfling walking boats, and a remote village of Rain with unique artisanal goods.
3 boons: heal, gear, gear