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 impulsively broke prisoners out of the fort in Sugar’s Crossing and fled to a small village that turned out to be full of werewolves. Now, they are barricaded inside a house with a werewolf which Ol’ Jardiner turned back into a human by turning himself into a poodle.
GM note: There’s a six-segment clock that is filled by failing rolls. When the clock is full, werewolves break into the cabin.
Clara, the former Werewolf, is disoriented. She’s in pain from a Necrotic wound and doesn’t recognize the people in her house. Ol’ Jardiner blows a thought bubble to Dryden, not sure if the message will be delivered as words or barking.
Ol’ Jardiner: Dryden, can you understand this message?
Dryden: Yes!
Ol’ Jardiner wags his tail. Markus offers Clara a bandage, which she accepts. Something bangs on the shutters.
- What can you tell us about what happened here tonight?
- I don’t really remember tonight. You know about the werewolves, right? We can’t remember when we’re werewolves. On the full moon, we all turn to werewolves. It’s dangerous, so we don’t want outsiders around her.
- What can you tell us about what’s been happening in your community over the few months?
- She doesn’t want to talk about it.
- What do you want and how can I help you get it?
- Y’all know how to deal with werewolves and take care of yourselves. Pretty much everyone is a werewolf now, but it’s hard to convert the kids because they have to survive the attack. If you could control a werewolf, and have him bite my kid, hidden in the cellar, and give him a safe transition, that would be excellent.
Averiela is morally opposed, and thinks the Fellowship should take the child away. Dryden regrets not dealing with the werewolves the first time he visited the village.
Clara: But it’s safer! He won’t have to be locked in the cellar anymore.
Dryden: Would you be safe from werewolves?
Clara: This is unprecedented. I not sure why I’m not a werewolf right now.
Ol’ Jardiner sniffs around, and something scratches at the roof.
- What is hidden or out of place?
- One of the chests in the main room is not in it’s normal place. It’s been moved over the hatch to the cellar.
- Tell me about the chimney? How could it hurt or help me?
- A werewolf might be able to squeeze through, but might get stuck.
- What will happen if I interact with werewolves?
- Ol’ Jardiner barks a friendly greeting toward a window and sniffs at the shutter. The Werewolf outside bangs on the shutter, hitting Ol’ Jardiner’s nose. Normal dogs are the enemy of these unnatrual canines.
Dryden suggests using Infinite WIndows to escape. He could stay behind to close it and escape on his flying device. Or, they accidentally let some incredible monster through and it destroys the house and the werewolves.
Averiela: I’m kind of supportive of that. We should take the child. This is an abomination. They’re just going to keep growing and spreading.
Clara: We keep to ourselves. We have a schedule for the supply run on the new moon.
Averiela: Sure, but what happens when you have unexpected visitors? You are not contained.
Dryden: I’m going to open Infinite WIndows. What if we take Clara and the kid?
Clara: You are making a lot of assumptions about what you are allowed to do to me and my kid!
Averiela: Next month she’ll turn into a werwolf and turn the child into a werewolf. If they were true noble parents, they would have sent their children away long ago.
Clara: You and I have very different ideas of parenting. Abandoning a child! I couldn’t imagine it.
Clara sits on the chest to prevent anyone from taking her child. Dryden and Markus place Obsidian shards from the City of Clay into Infinite Windows and a window opens. It’s unstable and could close at any moment. Averiela, exasperated that she must leave the child behind, grabs Soday and Tomay by the ears and pulls them through the window. Markus and Ol’ Jardiner leap at the window, but it closes and Ol’ Jardiner smacks into Dryden’s backpack. Just then, the front door falls in and five Werewolves enter the house!
- Group of Werewolves: This beast is half man, half wolf, and all monster. During the month, they live an ordinary life, but under a full moon, they mindlessly murder their neighbors.
- Innocent By Day: During the month, the Werewolf has the stat block of an Innocent. They have this stat block only under a full moon. These stats replace their Innocent stat block entirely. When this stat is damaged, the werewolf returns to their Innocent form immediately. When damaged by a silver weapon, the werewolf is destroyed instead of taking damage.
- Deadly Claws: Werewolves have the Piercing tag.
- Tough As Nails: The first time a werewolf would be damaged or destroyed, damage this stat instead.
- 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.
Now the Fellowship must fight a Group of Werewolves, but their magician is a dog and the agile and powerful Elf is leagues away. Ol’ Jardiner can still use Wizardry, so he throws his voice and barks loudly from outside the house. The Werewolves look over their shoulders to find their natural enemy. Markus draws his sword and goes in swinging, but carefully because these are people. He wants to force them back, not kill them.
GM note: I forgot the Tough As Nails stat. The Werewolves should have shrugged off this attack instead of scattering.
Several Werewolves flee, but two remain. Clara’s not sure if the Werewolves will attack her, but she stays in the chest to protect her child. One Werewolf comes after Markus. He runs for the stairs, but the Werewolf grabs his leg, knocking him to the ground. Ol’ Jardiner runs between the Werewolf’s legs, taking a claw in passing, but getting into the bedroom unseen. Dryden uses his prank weapon to create a mirage with substance: a delectable but speedy rabbit that dashes around the room. The Werewolf on top of Markus stops short of biting him and chases the rabbit. Doodle unrolls itself across the door to the bedroom and looks just like the rest of the walls.
Ol’ Jardiner: Perhaps I should have gotten other people in here first.
The Werewolf that isn’t chasing a rabbit pursues Dryden, who starts free-running, jumping over furniture, kicking off walls, and runs up the stairs. Markus is running out of friends, but he bravely attacks the distracted Werewolf. That Werewolf is completely focused on the rabbit and is shocked by Markus’ assault and flees!
GM note: I forgot the Tough As Nails stat again.
Clara: Hey, Matthew, leave these guys alone. I’m OK. Just avoid them. They’re dangerous!
The Werewolf cocks his head. People don’t usually talk to him, and he feels a weird connection to her. A Werewolf in human form during the full moon is very unusual. Dryden flies down the stairs, riding his Flying Device and holding a shining light wand. The Werewolf is startled, but steels itself and attacks. Markus interposes, swinging his sword and yelling. This Werewolf is getting startled a lot in this scene. Dryden drops his light wand on the floor and swings his Dwarven Hammer like a golf club to knock the light wand out the door. He misses and the light wall bounces off the wall and hits the Werewolf’s paws. Ol’ Jardiner is feeling bad about fleeing, but doesn’t know what to do. The Werewolf swipes at Dryden and Markus jumps in and takes the blow for him! Dryden swings his Dwarven hammer, but the Werewolf dodges away. Doodle rolls up, revealing Ol’ Jardiner, charging with his acid knife between his teeth. He shakes his head around as he runs around the Werewolf’s legs. As fate would have it, the acid knife connects.
Matthew slowly turns back into a man, breathing his last.
Dryden: Where is it? Where is it?
Dryden desparately searches behind his cloak, pulling out twigs and rubble and finally a strand of unicorn hair with healing power. He ties it around the wounded limb like a magical tourniquet. Matthew is no longer dying, but still badly wounded. Clara holds him, and Markus uses his last bandage on him. The Fellowship wants to put Clara and Matthew in the cellar for safe-keeping against the other werewolves in the village, but when the bandage’s healing takes effect, Matthew may turn back into a werewolf.
Clara: In the cellar? With Jimmy? Absolutely not!
Dryden: You get a groggy werewolf with Jimmy, you get what you want.
Dryden ties Matthew with Elvish rope so that he can’t rampage when he turns back into a werewolf. Averiela doesn’t not approve of anything from her culture being used to propogate the werewolf society.
Dryden: Otherwise when he turns into a werewolf, they’re both dead.
Averiela: Maybe they deserve it.
Clara calls down to the cellar, explaining the situation. Jimmy is thrilled that he’s going to get his bite. Clara takes Matthew down into the cellar and the Fellowship closes the hatch. The Fellowship has a moment before the other werewolves assault the cabin. Dryden organizes his collection and gets an explosive trap. He sets the trap on the crosspost of the front door. It explodes and roof timbers fall to block the entrance. Dryden shoves his hands into the collapsing debris to ensure it seals the entrance instead of leaving gaps, heedless of his own safety. The barricade lasts until dawn, when the villagers return to human form.
Ol’ Jardiner returns to Halfing form and stands up and does dexterity tricks with his hands. Clara comes out of the cellar with Matthew and Jimmy. Jimmy’s thrilled and shows off the bite mark on his arm. Clara and Matthew have complicated feelings about the Fellowship. They are dangerous intruders who almost killed them, but they also look pains to protect them and enabled Jimmy to be bitten safely. Werewolves don’t remember time spent in other forms, so the villagers standing around Clara’s partially-collapsed house don’t know why they are there, or why the house is damaged. Clara tries to explain the situation.
Markus: We were just trying to stay alive. We didn’t do any more damage than we absolutely had to, just to defend ourselves. But it was a very cool battle!
Clara: One of them did want to kidnap Jimmy, but she fled when the battle began.
The Fellowship sets out and the village is happy to see them go. Ol’ Jardiner sends Averiela a mysterious message, telling her to meet the Fellowship at the Anti-Moon Weapon. That’s on the far side of a river. Dryden goes down to the river and looks down and meows. Giant Catfish rise from the muck! They are big enough for the Fellowship to ride across the river.
Far to the north on the Luna Penumbra, Captain Will has to shuffle crew around to operate the ship without the rest of the Fellowship. Tomay & Soday end up as pilots, but they are used to tunneling under mountains, not flying high above them. They take turns steering the ship and vomiting over the side. Soday is taking a break and Tomay starts feeling ill and slumps on the wheel, sending the Luna Penumbra towards one of the many jagged peaks of the Treacherous Mountains. Soday rushes up and steadies the wheel, narrowly avoiding a collision.
The rest of the Fellowship climbs the Anti-Moon Weapon via the paths on the surface. They point out landmarks from the great battle to protect the Hidden Library. The penthouse has floor-to-ceiling windows looking north that are all broken, and most of the interior is scorched. Dryden takes a bit of debris, like he does from every location. Finally, the whole Fellowship is re-united. Their long quest, started by trying to cash in a Dwarven Lottery ticket, has finally ended and now they do whatever they like.
Ol’ Jardiner: It’s all the fault of the Moon! We wouldn’t worry about their strange culture and how to safely integrate the children if they didn’t turn into Werewolves. It would be a fun project to get the Anti-Moon Weapon working again, even though we did break it a second time.
Dryden: We could also just go to the Moon and destroy it ourselves. It would be fun to see what’s up there. We know the Dragons took over for a while. I don’t remember
Markus: Does the Moon do anything good for the world? What are the unforeseen consequences.
Ol’ Jardiner: The prophecies say it could go several different ways. Giant cataclysm, but that’s standard prophecy stuff. Don’t worry about it. A nation will be destroyed. Is that literally the land, or the people in the land? There’s another option: removing the light from the sky will bring light upon the surface. That’s definitely means the surface of the planet. The light could be metaphorical.
Markus: The Moon is a giant mirror, put up there to destroy the Dragons. Vampires don’t like silver, so maybe the Dragons thought that seeing the silver-backed mirror would harm them.
Dryden: Ol’ Jardiner, you weren’t here, but this is how the legend of Star-Rider came about. There were falling shards of mirrors that destroyed a bridge I had to fly and round and save people who were falling, and that’s how I have this mirror shard.
Markus: The good prophecy says light will come on the land. We can bring the mirror down to reflect the light here on earth.
Ol’ Jardiner: If the nation that is destroyed is the Werewolves, that’s a good prophecy too.
The Fellowship decides to take a peek with Infinite Windows before commiting to a voyage to the Moon. Will isn’t a fan of being left on the Luna Penumbra with a partial crew again. Tomay and Soday aren’t happy about either going to the Moon or staying on a flying ship. They want to stay inside the Anti-Moon Weapon. The Luna Penumbra lands on top of the Anti-Moon Weapon. Dryden plants a flag to claim it. Dryden wants to check the rest of the mountain to make sure it’s actually secure. If someone closes Infinite Windows while the Fellowship is on the Moon, they’ll be stuck!
Dryden places the mirror shard on Infinite Windows and Ol’ Jardiner helps him pull a window open. It cracks! A Strange Entity comes through. At first it’s strange form seems to be reflected in the cracked mirror, but it pulls itself out and it’s still shifting, duplicated. That’s just how it is.
- Strange Entity: An alien thing beyond simple understanding. Its limbs bend in too many places, its head isn’t shaped like shapes we know, its skin is smokey glass reflecting a faraway world. Its purpose is unknown.
- Alien Knowledge: The entity knows things, but this knowledge is not for creatures of this world to know. It can answer questions about any forbidden knowledge or rituals, teaching you how to do them. Each time it answers your questions, everyone who hears the answer takes damage.
- Beyond Understanding: The entity appears to move slowly, but always arrives wherever it pleases in an instant. Those with damaged Sense cannot defend themselves against the entity’s cuts.
- Memory Thief: The entity’s ghostly fingers reach into your soul. When the entity deals damage, it also erases one of your Bonds.
As it turns its head to look around, different parts of that strangely-shaped mass seem to be the “face” so even determining where it’s looking is hard. It screeches, then makes garbled sounds, then speaks Elvish.
Strange Entity: Hmm, it seems you do not know how to use that telescope. Perhaps it would be safer in my hands.
Markus: Nope! Uh–
Strange Entity: I will use small words for you, yes?
Averiela: Obviously you are acquianted with my people. Though imperfect, our skills are enough to keep it. We’ll gladly help you go back where you come from.
Ol’ Jardiner: Not so fast! I am very glad to meet you, honored–entity. If you would be so kind, I would be honored to be instructed in the proper operation of the telescope. I don’t think my friends are interested, so we can go learn in private.
Markus: How specific is it? If we say, “Tell us about this thing.” that’s not answering a question, right? Is it the fine print or the intent?
Strange Entity: Your word tricks would not fool a kid.
The Strange Entity puts something that might be an arm around Ol’ Jardiner’s shoulder and turns slightly. They are across the deck at the door to the captain’s cabin. They go inside and close the door, to avoid hurting the rest of the Fellowship with forbidden knowledge. The Strange Entity teaches Ol’ Jardiner how to safely use Infinite Windows. It also mocks Markus and Ol’ Jardiner goes along with it. He wants the Strange Entity to like him so it will share the secrets of the universe. He chooses his next questions very carefully.
GM note: Ol’ Jardiner damaged his Wisdom to learn how to operate Infinite WIndows, and now must roll with Depair to Speak Softly, The mechanics reinforce the recklessness of his quest for knowledge. Diving deeper into forbiddne knowledge makes him more isolated as he erases bonds. He’ll regret it, but it’s worth it as long as he survives.
- What can you tell me about how the Moon works?
- The lizards cobbling the thing together misunderstood some fundamental properties. The idea was to get sunlight on the side side of the planet, because the sunlight destroys their enemies. They were only thinking in four dimensions and didn’t realize that the sun is on all sides simultaneously. Clearly, they’ve gotten the reflection wrong. Instead of removing one infection, they created another. That can be fixed. You can make turn it into sunlight to get rid fo the Vampires. You can point all the mirrors at the same place and get rid of everything at that one place. You could also decide the whole project isn’t worth it, you can throw it away from the planet or into it. The lizards that live there are even more close-minded. No wonder most of them died.
- What does it want, and how can I help it get it?
- It wants Infinite Windows. It wants to travel everywhere instantly to get more knowledge and control over the universe.
Ol’ Jardiner wants to make a promise with the Strange Entity to make sure it can’t hurt the Fellowship. He must define the terms of this promise very carefully. He wants to give it access to knowledge and doesn’t want to give it Infinite Windows. It’s too dangerous.He chugs his healing potions, because what comes next is going to hurt!
Ol’ Jardiner: I must word this contract very carefully. I don’t want to insult you with ill-thought-out or basic words. We wizards can conjure a powerful spell to ensure everyone keeps their word.
Ol’ Jardiner draws magic power to himself. More. More. A powerful explosion rocks the cabin! All the windows shatter. The cabin door falls outward and Ol’ Jardiner stumbles out on fire! Markus and Dryden grab buckets of water and pour them on Ol’ Jardiner.
Ol’ Jardiner: I killed it. It was too dangerous. It was going to take Infinite Windows.
Dryden: And destroy the world.
Ol’ Jardiner: Not because it hated us. It just didn’t care. I’d say something about stepping on bugs, but I know you wouldn’t do that. Ow, I’m in no shape to go to the Moon now.
NO END-OF-SESSION MOVE