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 booby-trapped the Anti-Moon Weapon and helped Callie escape Lady Evelynn’s employ to visit distant relations in the Fire Pits. This time they explore the recently-created Smouldering Forest.
The Fellowship is now sure that the Moon no longer causes lycanthropy, but they aren’t sure what happens to Vampires. Buckle wants to investigate something he saw on an old map: a Dragon called Zweiharn.
Stella: I think we’re done with Appleton. Let’s head out on a quest.
Buckle: I’m a little confused on where things are in the world, so I thought we’d basically go west and see if it’s there.
They ask around in Appleton about Dragons or remnants or traces of Dragons.
Jimmy is around 10 years old, and was disappointed by the news that he won’t get to become a werewolf. It’s a rite of passage for the older children.
Jimmy: Yeah, Dragons! They’re super-powerful wizards! They cast all these spells and turn into humanoid forms and breathe fire and stuff! That’s really what those Devils down in the Fire Pits are. Dragons in disguise.
Buckle: They didn’t seem very Dragon-like.
Clara, Jimmy’s mother, comes over and collects him.
Clara: I’m sorry about his youthful exuberence. Kids are so imaginative. About a year ago, when the Anti-Moon Weapon went off again and there was that huge battle, I saw something that looked like a Dragon. I only saw it from far off, across the river. It was coming from the west, out off the Drowned Forest.
Buckle: Did it breathe purple fire or something like that? I think I know what you’re talking about.
Buckle talks to Eugene, the village elder.
Eugene: I wasn’t around for the time of the Dragons, but the stories have been passed down. The forest to the northwest, the whole area used to be one big lively forest and it was protected by one of the Dragons. When the Dragons died, half the forest died. We just don’t go west now. I mean, with the curse we really stayed to ourselves. That’s to protect others. Not going west is to protect us.
Buckle: Well, see you later. Let’s go west.
The area to the west of Appleton has changed a lot recently. The whole area used to be the Fairy Forest, but the southern half has been the Drowned Forest for many years. Just recently. half of the Drowned Forest burned, becoming the Sloundering Forest. South of that is the Bile Pit, and even further south are the feuding Elven cities.
The Fellowship goes west into the Smouldering Forest. It’s an unnatural forest, hostile, a rough hike.
- Blighted: Fire-aligned creatures live here
- Response moves:
- Bad Weather: It’s dangerously hot.
- Separation: Someone will be separated from the group in the next scene
Everything is hot and fiery, so Buckle removes his fireproof suit and gives it to Stella. He won’t be harmed by the environment, and for once, the environment won’t be harmed by him. Stella is super-interested in the significant change in the environment and investigates.
- What’s going on here? What do my senses tell me?
- The trees are burned and the smaller branches are gone. The blackened trunks continue to smoke like chimneys. Roots and fallen branches used to hold water and create a marsh, but they burned and the water has flowed out to the south, into the Bile Pit, leaving roots sticking out of mud and muck. Visibility is much better, except higher up where the smoke blocks view of the sky. A squirrel runs past. Its tail burns like a torch, but doesn’t harm the squirrel. Other creatures have turned black with reddish highlights.
- North of the Smouldering Forest, in the Drowned Forest, there’s a castle.
- What is hidden or out of place?
- Rain and Slimes have been stirred up from the Bile Pit by the recent flood and they are moving through the Smouldering Forest.
- Tell me about the Bile Pit? How could it hurt or help me?
- The Bile Pit to the south looks like a lake with a big hole in the middle. Green steam and smoke pour out of the hole. The water from the Smouldering Forest drained here, which was quite disruptive. It looks like a very unpleasant place, hot and caustic. It seems hostile to the Smouldering Forest, which could be useful in the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” sense.
Stella wandered away from her companions while investigating. She sees an Acid Rain slurping down a tree trunk towards. She flees up a different tree, but not high enough to get into the smoke.
- Acid Rain: A burning, acidic ooze that eats whatever it touches.
- Acid Touch: Anyone touching or touched by acid rain takes damage. This acid burns through organic materials only, so metal and stone are safe.
- Amorphous Slime: The acid rain can fit through gaps or any size, and walk right through grates or screens as if they were not there. They cannot be tied up or restrained, except by forcing them into a sealed container of stone, glass, or metal.
The Acid Rain notices her, but isn’t particularly interested. A fire-aligned Badger comes out from under the tree that Stella climbed and fights with the Acid Rain.
Stella: Do you need some help down there?
Acid Rain: OK, sure.
Stella: Rain, flatten yourself! Badger, there’s nothing more to see here. Go home!
Stella can’t command fire-aligned creatures. They aren’t quite beasts anymore, but she can make suggestions. The Acid Rain squishes down into the mud and the Badger is fooled into thinking that it disappeared. It returns to its burrow. The Acid Rain emerges and approaches Stella slowly and non-threateningly. This Rain is more elemental and not as well-spoken as King Bernard and Gertrude.
Acid Rain: Thanks, I guess. I’m Hydroxl.
- What do you want? How can I help you get it?
- I want to punish the people who disturbed my home! You’ve demonstrated that you are shrewd and you know tactics. That could be useful. That’s not my area, but we have some, ummm, sharper Rain who do what you do.
- What were you doing? What will you do next?
- Revenge terror campaign. They messed up our home, so we’re going after them!
- What can you tell us about the castle?
- The solid guy from the castle, he keeps to himself and we keep to ourselves. Now he’s made this huge mess.
Stella: Thank you so much for letting me know. Sorry to hear about your home.
Buckle noticed some creatures who are on fire, so he wants to see what that’s about. He’s excited to be around people who seem to understand what he’s going through. He chats with an Alligator named Beauregard.
- Fire-aligned Alligator: Gators are a classic predator of the bayou. Confident as a apex predator.
- Chomp: The gator’s bite is Piercing. Anyone it bites is damaged twice.
- Fire-Aligned: This creature has the Burning tag and is immune to damage from heat and fire
- What are you doing? What will you do next?
- Beauregard: I’m adapting my hunting methods. I can’t lie in wait underwater anymore.
- Buckle: I know! Isn’t it awful?
- Beauregard: I know about fire, so I thought I could use it to kill my prey more quickly, but they are just as fireproof as me. Maybe this isn’t everywhere. Maybe I can go somewhere that there’s not fireproof prey.
- What can you tell me about your transformation?
- There was this Human flying around on top of the trees and speaking our language, saying. “The guy in the castle is dead. All that despressing stuff is over. Time to renew!” Then he set the whole forest on fire and flew back to the castle. He seemed very surprised.
- What do you want and how could I help you get it?
- I see that you are a creature of fire, and seem to have it figured out. I want to learn how to hunt with fire, instead of my water-based tactics.
Buckle: If you’re willing to play by the rules and follow my instructions, I would be happy to mentor you and you can follow us on our journey. You have to promise not to try things on your own. You have to follow my instructions. I’ll teach you how to hunt with fire, and how to be a fire beast.
Beauregard: I’m an apex predator! I don’t serve anyone. I’m sure I can figure this out.
Buckle: I’m absolutely experienced and you should follow me as the supreme mentor of fire beasts.
Beauregard takes that as a challenge and bites Buckle! He latches on to Buckle’s leg. Buckle is shocked and reflexively stabs him with his venomous spur. The venom won’t kill, but it causes long-lasting pain. The spur doesn’t connect, and Beauregard starts a death roll. He’s still using water-based tactics out of habit. Death rolling on the ground doesn’t disorent or drown Buckle, but it still hurts. Buckle is bashed against the ground and nearby tree roots. Baffle just watches. She doesn’t think Buckle is in mortal danger yet, and wants him to learn humility.
Stella hears the noise and runs back.
Buckle uses the momentum of the death roll to smack Beauregard with his flat tail. It has little effect, so Buckle creates an explosion in Beauregard’s mouth. They are both immune to fire, so neither of them are injured, but the force of the explosion forces Beauregard’s jaws open and pushes Buckle away.
Stella arrives on the scene just as Buckle escapes. She rushes Beauregard, jumping on tree branches, the ground, and Beauregard’s back. He’s used to attacking from ambush, so his attempts to bite an moving target are clumsy and slow. Buckle comes in with another ineffective tail slam.
The commotion attracts a Quicksilver Slime.
- 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.
Stella throws a vial of hot spring water at the Quicksilver Slime, hoping to short out its electrical charge. The Slime dodges and hides under the Dwarven Tunneler.
Beauregard tries to bite Buckle again, and Buckle times a jump to get on top of his head, then runs down his back.
GM note: I finally drew a map, because our mental models of the space had diverged.
Stella jumps on top of the Tunneler and yells for Baffle to go! Baffle hits the gas and the Tunneler lurches forward towards Buckle and Beauregard. Buckle runs around to get Beauregard in the path of the Tunneler but facing away. The Tunneler hits the alligator’s tail. Beauregard is shocked that Buckle would use subterfuge to allow a third party to attack. He was having a good, clean challenge for dominance, and Buckle cheated. He leaves and Buckle lets him go.
Meanwhile, a tread on the Tunneler snaps and gets spit out the back. The Quicksilver Slime is on the underside of the Tunneler, eating it! Baffle stops the Tunneler before it hits a tree. She jumps out and investigates the damage. Stella wonders if the Quicksilver Slime has eaten through the floor and gained access to the driver’s compartment.
Stella: Silk, get out of the Tunneler?
The Tunneler’s other door swings up and all eight of Silk’s legs come out on all sides of the doorframe to boost his body out of the Tunneler. Stella mounts her Giant Spider, ready to ride it into battle. Baffle reaches under the Tunneler and grabs the Quicksilver Slime. The shock throws her back against a tree.
Buckle runs over and looks under the Tunneler to see what happened. Stella looks around for a way to flood the area. She sees a felled tree at the border between the Smouldering Forest and the Drowned Forest that’s acting as a dam.
Stella: Buckle! Blow up that tree! And also scamper away as quick as possible.
Buckle obeys, and water pours across the battlefield. Baffle is fortunately sheltered by the roots of the Buckle stands strong and lets the water evaporate against his super-heated body. Silk tries to climb a tree, but the water is faster and stronger than expected. The Tunneler is carried away by the force of the water before Silk can jump away, tumbling Silk, Stella, and the Quicksilver Slime around. Silk uses the momentum of the Tunneler to jump clear. In the commotion, Stella loses O’Later’s Skeleton Key. The Tunneler and the Quicksilver Slime smash into a tree! Bits of metallic silvergoo fly everywhere. The Tunneler is wrecked.
- Harming the wildlife increases Response Level to 3
- New response move, Guardian: a Titan threat activates to defend an important location
- Causing collateral damage increases Response Level to 4
- New response move: Show of Force. The Boss can make a Hard Cut
As Silk and Stella fly through the air, up near the smoke, smoky talons down down out of the ceiling and grab them. They are pulled up into the smoke, then two smoky wingtips dip down and back up. Silk and Stella have been snatched up by the Boss of this location: The Smouldering Phoenix!
- Smouldering Phoenix (B4, P275) : A smoky, skeletal shell of a bird. Its attempts to self-immolate and revive itself end in clouds of billowing ash and darkened smoke, spreading further corruption around it.
- Corrupted Titan: The phoenix is Giant. When anyone smaller than it attempts to attack it, they must first pay a price.
- Phoenix Smoke: The phoenix cannot properly ignite. It is immune to Burning attacks, and any attempts to ignite it cause the area around it to be filled with blinding, choking smoke. It leaves a trail of smoke as it flies.
Buckle calls the Little Lights to harry the giant bird with their blinding light. They go into the smoke, but it’s too thick. The light is blocked. He can’t see where Stella or the Smouldering Phoenix went. Up in the smoke, Stella decides that the safest course of action is to wait and see where the Smouldering Phoenix takes her.
They land at the Smouldering Phoenix’s nest, a huge bowl made of branches tilted on one side. It’s built around several trees that stayed upright and some fallen trees that washed up and formed crossbeams.
The Smouldering Phoenix is the personification of the fire that created the Smouldering Forest.
Smouldering Phoenix: You are a spy sent by an enemy! I don’t know. There seem to be enemies all over me. Who are you working for? How many more are coming. We will defeat all invaders!
Stella: I’m self-employed, actually. An adventurer from far off lands. Much like you, I’m trying to protect others like me by telling them to come home after a war, so they can get out of territories like this.
Smouldering Phoenix: So you’re here to get the ones like you in the castle to go away?
Stella: I actually don’t know who is in the castle.
The Smouldering Phoenix isn’t good at telling humanoids apart, like how most humans can’t identify individual birds.
Smouldering Phoenix: They look like you. There’s one that stirred up the Bile Pit and sent all these Slime after me. He stole some of my creatures from me and forced them to limit the spread of my territory, so the Smouldering Forest did not envelop the Castle. He’s intruding, holding territory that should be mine.
Stella: I can see how that would be troubling. I actually know of some beings that might want to help your cause.
- What does he want? How can I help him get it?
- He wants the people in the castle to leave so he can possess it. Stella says she tells people like herself to go home, so she should tell those people to go home.
- What were you doing? What are you going to do next?
- He wants to protect his territory and is looking for power to do so. Perhaps if he went to the Bile Pit and ate a lot of those Acid Rain, he’d gain the power of acid.
- What can you tell me about the beings in the castle?
- Obviously you know them better than I do. They walk on two legs. No wings, no feathers. That’s your culture, right?
Stella: That’s like saying you’re the same as the Dragons!
- Insulting someone in charge increases Response Level to 5
- new response move, Bad Weather. The smoke comes down to ground level, reducing visibility to about 20 feet.
The Corrupted Phoenix carries Stella towards the Guardian that he already deployed against the castle.
Elsewhere, Buckle checks on Baffle. She is wet and injured.
Baffle: I was able to duck in here behind the root of the tree. It wasn’t so bad. How’s the Tunneler?
Buckle: The Tunneler seems to have lost pieces. We need to fix it, then we need to find Stella. She got carried off somewhere, and it’s so black out here that we can’t find her.
They look over the Tunneler. It’s wrecked.
Baffle: This would take days. It doesn’t seem we have that much time.
Buckle sits down on a stump. he wishes he had his companions, who are far off on the Miranda. Baffle sits and thinks with him. She comes up with a search pattern that will work even with limited visibility.
Baffle: We will use the ancient art of dead reckoning.
The astrolabe isn’t powered, so it can’t track Stella directly, but it still tell which direction they’re headed. They estimate which direction Stella was taken, how fast the Smouldering Phoenix was flying. They estimate how far to go in what direction. They move from tree to tree, looking backwards to make sure they are going in the correct direction. It works, but it’s slow. They reach the Phoenix’s nest, but it’s empty.
The Smouldering Phoenix lands on a mossy mound just south of Von Till’s castle and puts Stella down. To her surprise, they are already standing on the guardian, a giant Tortoise!
- Underfoot the Great Tortoise, he/him
- Swamp King: A giant, plant-covered turtle beast that rules over the marsh. Nothing in its domain can hope to rival its power. (B4, P298)
- Chomp: The king’s bite is Piercing. Anyone it bites is damaged twice.
- Hard Shell: The swamp king is invincible to attacks against anything other than its head or belly. The swamp king cannot be destroyed or taken out while this stat is undamaged.
- Mobile Swampland: The swamp king is invisible and Secret while it sits still in the swamp. It can have up to a dozen passengers as it travels.
The Smouldering Phoenix raps on the shell with its beak. A rock starts moving. It’s a turtle’s head, perfectly camouflaged! The smoke is so thick that Stella can’t see the back of the shell from the front. Underfoot speaks very slowly.
Underfoot: I have almost reached the wall. Do not reveal my position.
Smouldering Phoenix: No, it’s fine. Look, I’ve got one of them, and her job is telling people like her to go home. Just get her through the walls and this trouble will be over.
Underfoot nods slowly. The Smouldering Phoenix flies off. Stella feels the shell slowly moving forward.
Underfoot: Just a few moments, little one.
Stella and Silk walk to the back of Underfoot’s shell and looks around for any Rain that might be in the area. There’s no rush. A group of Acid Rain slide around the edge of Underfoot’s shell. They were already here, trying unsuccessfully to eat through his impervious shell. Stella, by contrast, is quite digestible.
- Group of Acid Rain: A burning, acidic ooze that eats whatever it touches.
- Acid Touch: Anyone touching or touched by acid rain takes damage. This acid burns through organic materials only, so metal and stone are safe.
- Amorphous Slime: The acid rain can fit through gaps or any size, and walk right through grates or screens as if they were not there. They cannot be tied up or restrained, except by forcing them into a sealed container of stone, glass, or metal.
- 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.
Stella: I know who burned the forest and how you can find them.
Acid Rain: We can’t see through the smoke. You must lead us.
Stella: OK
Underfoot notices that Stella isn’t where she used to be. He turns around to look for her. Stella vacates the area to avoid being stepped on or crushed against a tree. She and Silk slide down the tail and up a tree.
Stella: Go for its underbelly!
The Acid Slimes go for Underfoot’s vulnerable spots. Underfoot thrashes, knocks over Stella’s tree, and bites several of the Acid Slime. He pulls in and drops his massive weight on the ground. This would crush almost any foe, but the Acid Rains’ fluid bodies flow into the porous soil. He has no defense against their acid attacks from below and they kill him! The surviving Rain slink away. That was such a titanic battle that they must have fought the boss of the location.
Stella is left alone in the smoky forest, shocked by the gruesome scene. Underfoot’s empty shell looms over her and disappears into the smoke. She hears people, probably in the castle, exclaiming about the commotion. She leaves a message on the Drowned Forest message board for the inhabiants of the castle.
Stella: Location boss, Smouldering Phoenix, is coming to attack you. Has a nest (on ground) in Smouldering Forest. Giant turtle is dead. Can use shell!
Killing Underfoot forms a Location Bond with the Smouldering Forest, increasing the minimum response level to 3.
Buckle and Stella wander through the smoke, trying to find each other. Buckle reached the Phoenix’s nest, but isn’t sure where Stella went from there. Stella tries to find the Tunneler, since that’s the last place she saw her friends. Stella finds Buckle’s tracks, but they are all mostly lost.
END OF SESSION MOVE
- Did we thoroughly explore a new location?
- Yes, Fire Pits
- Did anyone find what they were seeking?
- Yes, Buckle gave up an Object of Power, a character-defining moment.
- Did we learn something about the world and its people?
- Yes, Devil people. The politics of the Drowned Forest, Smouldering Forest, and Bile Pit.
3 boons
- healing
- gear
- healing