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 explored the Dwarven Waterways under the Treacherous Mountains and emerged in the Singing Hills and immediately gained the ire of Aku, the Sky Serpent.
- Aku, he/him, Sky Serpent. This winged snake is 100 feet long. It will rarely fight by itself, but other Titans will ride upon it into battle.
- Drop Off: The Sky Serpent will regularly drop other Titans into the scene if it is not dissuaded by heavy artillery or by magical means.
- Mostly Peaceful: The Sky Serpent is large enough to crush its foes beneath it, and its attacks are Dangerous, but it will never attack living things. It will crush buildings and strike out against vehicles and city defenses, but it will only ever harm little folk by mistake.
- Threat To The World: Anyone who takes direct action against him must Pay A Price.
Buckle looks at the silver ribbon in the sky that lashes angrily and gets bigger and bigger.
Buckle: It looks like the Sea Viper. I don’t like that.
Aku breaks off and flies above the Fellowship instead of directly at them. A Giant leaps from his back and performs a plunging attack, landing with a shockwave of dust and debris!
Buckle Get Away 10+ avoid harm, bring Stella along
Buckle tackles Stella out of harm’s way, but Rose takes the hit!
Rose damages a stat
Fum: Hunters! Saboteurs! Be gone!
- Fum, she/her, A true Giant, short for her species at 20 feet tall.
- Crushing Blow: Anyone damaged by a giant takes two damage.
- Proper Weapons: Fum carries a ship anchor on each hip, connected to a chain wrapped around her body in an X pattern. Her attacks are Area, Melee, and Giant.
- Like Flies: Anyone who fails a roll or pays a price while on top of a Giant is swatted off, in addition to the usual consequences.
Buckle: Hello? Who are you? Why are you so hostile?
GM note: Buckle can’t trigger his Wildspeaker move, which ensures that he can speak to Beasts and they will pause to answer. Fum is a Titan, not a Beast. Fum is willing to identify herself and challenge her foes, so it works out about the same.
Fum: I am Fum, servant and defender of mighty Aku. He is merciful, but I am not! I protect Aku and his domain.
Stella: Did they not tell you we were arriving? Here’s here to fix the stone.
Stella Talk Nonsense. When you Talk Sense by telling an outrageous lie, roll +Courage 10+
Stella Talk Nonsense. When you Talk Sense and get a 10+, you may also Sting Like A Bee.
Stella Sting Like A Bee: You steal something small from them, and they don’t notice until they need it or you taunt them with it.
Stella convinces Fum that the Fellowship is here to fix the broken Singing Stone on the nearest hilltop. She also snatches a whistle made of white bone, carved in the shape of a Sky Serpent.
Fum: I didn’t realize. Excuse me. We can’t be too careful these days. Here, let me help you.
Fum lifts the largest piece of the Singing Stone to stand upright like it’s supposed to. Buckle plays along with Stella and inspects the area.
Buckle Look Closely 10+
- What do my senses tell me?
- This stone is like the other Singing Stones erected on the various hills. A precise slit was carved in the stone to produce a precise tone, so if the repair is not exact, it won’t produce the correct tone. There’s a metal spike, about the size of a knitting needle, buried halway into the stone near where it broke.
- What here is hidden or out of place?
- The stone was broken by magic. The broken edges are discolored, like by soot or oxidation, except it’s slightly pink and shiny.
- What will happen if we don’t fix the Singing Stone?
- Fum will be upset at being deceived, especially because fixing the Singing Stone will personally denefit Aku.
Stella Speak Softly 10+
- What was Fum doing? What will they do next?
- Aku was carrying her and Fee. They were listening to his wisdom and telling him what they could see. There have been changes in the Singing Hills recently. Now she’s ready to assist repairs however she can.
- Tell us about Aku.
- Aku is the best! She and Fee and his disciples. As he flies over the land, so he is above earthly things like revenge. He is blind and enjoys the music of the Singing Hills.
- What should she be wary of when dealing with Fum?
- Fum has great martial skill (just read her stats!) She’s suspicious of newcomers. She seems very intense and tends to take things too far.
Buckle stares at the pieces of the stone and gear start to turn in his head. Platypeople actually have a strong tradition of engineering, but they rarely use those skills because they are satisfied with a simple life.
Stella: You’re enthusiastic about fixing this stone. That’s good. We’re quite short, so please lower it so we can inspect it.
Fum: Oh, of course!
Stella: The damage is severe. We may need to start fresh. Are there other rocks like this nearby?
Fum: The Singing Stones are carved from local rocks.
Strong winds constantly blow through the Singing Hills. This produces the constant music of the Singing Stones, but also prevents much plant life from taking root. The hills are mostly covered by grass, with a few scrubby shrubs hanging on. It’s not uncommon to see rocks laid bare by the wind, and the Singing Stones are made from this type of rock.
Buckle: Any of this type of rock crushed into clay?
Fum: I don’t know about that kind of thing.
Suddenly, a throwing knife flies straight down, with another Giant above it! This throwing knife is Giant-sized, a meter long!
Buckle Overcome 6-
Buckle sees the knife and attempts to swat it aside with his tail. His timing is slightly off and the knife impales his tail!
Buckle Animal Traits: When you take damage, you may mark and Animal Trait instead.
Buckle damages Tail Slam
The second Giant lands beside Fum.
- Fee, she/her, A true Giant, short for her species at 20 feet tall.
- Crushing Blow: Anyone damaged by a giant takes two damage.
- Proper Weapons: Fee uses throwing knifes, which she can draw from cases around her forearms. Her attacks are Ranged, Melee, and Giant.
- Like Flies: Anyone who fails a roll or pays a price while on top of a Giant is swatted off, in addition to the usual consequences.
Fee: Fum, I am here to back you up!
Fum: Everything is fine. These are the stone repair people.
Buckle Medallion of Cleft Sky: If you pick up a metal item while wearing the Medallion of Cleft Sky, you take damage and are unable to use the item.
The throwing knife in Buckle’s tail starts to crackle and glow. Buckle freaks out and howls in pain. He twists around until he has a good angle and breathes Dragonfire, vaporizing the knife!
Buckle spends 1 use of Dragonfire to vaporize an item
Stella: We can’t work in these conditions. How do you expect Buckle to fix rocks with such an injury?
Fee: Sorry, but when Fun didn’t sound the all-clear, I feared the worst.
Fum notices that her whistle is missing. Stella has it!
Stella Talk Nonsense 7-9 owe a favor
Stella: Don’t beat me up! I moved the whistle from the ground when you laid the rock down. I didn’t want it to be crushed.
Fum: OK, but no more delays. Fix this right now!
Buckle Talk Sense (+Sense, explain plan) 7-9 owe a favor
Buckle: I’ll overlook that you stabbed me. I need you to get mud. Mud must look like this rock. Crush rocks if you must. You look strong enough. Bring me that and I can fix this.
Fee wants a replacement for the knife that Buckle destroyed. Stella offers one of King’s twin blades. The sword was built for an eight-foot Half-Ogre, too big for a normal Human or Orc to wield, and huge in a Halfling’s hands. To Fee, it’s just a dagger, but an impressive one.
Buckle: Be careful with that. I vaporized thelast guy who had it.
Fee and Fum singal Aku with their whistles, and he swoops low to pick them up. They fly off to find Buckle’s special mud. The Fellowship figures that Aku must have great hearing since he’s blind. He might overhear their conversation, even from this range, so they keep up the ruse of being stone repair people. Buckle walks around the stone, feeling the broken edges. He’s absorbed in the technical problem. Where did that metal spike come from? Stella climbs on top of the stone to inspect the spike. She reaches out and taps it with King’s other sword. There’s no unusual reaction. She grasps it with her hand and tries to wiggle it free, but it’s stuck fast.
Stella: Hey, Buckle, how much mud do they need?
Buckle: I’m worried about harmonic characteristics. If we weld the two edges perfectly parallel, it will sing again.
Stella: Will that be hard?
Buckle: Oh, I take it for granite.
A loud boom echoes across the hills and the ground shakes. Aku is no longer visible in the sky.
Buckle: What was that? Did you hear that?
Stella: Did you feel that? Where’d the serpent go? One of us should investigate, and the other should stay.
Stella and Rose head towards the noise and Aku’s last known location. Aku rises up from behind a hill, spiraling high into the sky, then rushing down.
Stella: Great Aku, are you OK?
Fum: All part of the plan. Great Aku is helping and you should be honored!
Stella: We’re quite honored. We just didn’t know the help would be so loud!
Aku Mostly Peaceful: The Sky Serpent is large enough to crush foes and buildings beneath it.
Aku smashes rocks into powder and mixes them with water to create the special mud that Buckle requested. Aku collects the mud on his coils and flies back. He flies very low over the hill where Buckle waits and scrapes the mud off in passing. Buckle has figured out where the smaller pieces of stone fit in between the two large pieces. He uses the mud as mortar to stick most of the pieces back in place, but the biggest broken piece is too big for him to move. Fee will provide the muscle, but Buckle has to stand in the slit to line the pieces up precisely. He could get pinched if this doesn’t go just right.
Buckle Overcome 7-9 temporary solution
The pieces are in line, but the stone is so heavy that it’s settling in the soft ground. Buckle needs to dry the mortar quickly before the alignment is ruined.
Buckle spends 1 Use of Anarchy Reigns to create an explosion
GM note: I think Firestarter is more appropriate, but I’m so impressed that the Fellowship ran with Stella’s hasty lie so convincingly that it actually became true!
Buckle uses his body heat, and the flammable material placed around the stone to dry the mortar.
Buckle Overcome 10+
The mortar sets perfectly. Fee and Fum set the Singing Stone upright and carefully rotate it until the wind catches it and it plays its note, joining the notes of the hills around it and restores the proper harmony. Aku reacts in joy!
Fellowship gains Fellowship of Aku the Sky Serpent
In appreciation of their service, Aku offers the Fellowship their choice of these three boons:
- Aku will fly them to any destination they can describe.
- Aku will give them a token that allows them to call him in to crush anything they want destroyed. They can only use the token once, and Aku will not crush anything that will result in loss of life
- Each member of the Fellowship may ask Aku one question, which he will answer with his great wisdom.
The Fellowship promised Lichenton that they would introduce them to other Rain, like the castle on the shell of Bertha the flying turtle. Stella saw Bertha from atop the Treacherous Mountains, so she describes her location to Aku, who swiftly carries the Fellowship there. They rise from the Singing Hills to the Treacherous Mountain. They look down on the Raging Rapids and see their ship, the Miranda, still suspended by Giant Spider silk above the river. They fly to the north of the Anti-Moon Weapon, and over the Fairy Forest where vampires almost captured a teleporter to the Moon. Beyond the Fairy Forest, Bertha hovers over a large crater. At the bottom of the crater is a spiky mass of metal and ice. Aku is huge, but Bertha is even bigger, big enough to build a castle of ice on her shell. Aku curls along one side of her shell, so the Fellowship can step off. His head is next to Bertha’s, and they converse in a titanic language to low and big to understand.
NO END OF SESSION MOVE