Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The fellowship: Boris the Remnant, Ol’ Jardiner the Harbinger, Yonne the Rain.
Last time, the Fellowship explored VolWolkenStadt and visited a sky city from the people who fled to the Forgotten Lands 800 years ago. This time, they visit a village of the region’s current inhabitants.
The Fellowship got directions to several villages from a group of warriors. They didn’t get along with those warriors, so they head for a different village, with less focus on combat. As they travel towards the village, a person with four arms bursts from the underbrush and lassos the Unicorn! (they met the Unicorn when they first arrived) She tries to mount and ride it.
- Shafer she/her mutant Human wrangler
- Lasso: The wrangler can wield rope in unusual ways. They’re able to grab foes from a short distance away, tying them up to pull off of their mounts, or keeping them still for easy target practice.
- Rodeo: The wrangler can ride any animal big enough to hold it, and tame it for riding within a minute.
- Multiple Arms: They can act against two targets at once
Boris jumps to intercept her, but she sees him coming. She yanks on the rope around the Unicorn, moving her out of Boris’ path, and lassos him with a second rope held in her other pair of hands. She lands on the Unicorn, which panics and bolts. Boris is dragged behind them. Ol’ Jardiner throws a vial of sleeping pollen at Schafer. The Unicorn stops short, throwing Schafer off as she chokes on the pollen.
The Fellowship explains that Unicorns are people and should be treated with respect. This Unicorn travels with them because they helped it in its time of need. Schafer explains that she’s the wrangler for the village of Acker. She’s always seeking for new beasts to tame. Schafer is impressed that this strange beast follows them willingly. They’ve outdone her at her specialty, so she must respect them.
Schafer: Would you be willing to come to our village and explain this technique? It could be valuable to our village’s progress.
The Fellowship agrees. Schafer leads them out of the forest into grassland. A river cuts through the plains, surrounded on both banks with a row of trees. The village of Acker is bisected by this river. It has fields, orchards, and livestock pens on either side. Archimedes’ screws draw water from the river into an irrigation system.
Schafer: Here at the edge is where we have the more experimental crops. Skitpod, grasping creeper, also yuckwheat, because this is the best land for it.
Ol’ Jardiner: Hold up. This isn’t a trick to capture our Unicorn friend, is it? You wouldn’t do that to us.
Schafer: I’m no rustler! That would be unsporting. The Unicorn is yours.
Carta culture values mastery, so when people compete, they seek to win on merit, not tricks. Unless the sport is tricking people. Schafer takes them to see Ingrid, the leader of the village. Schafer explains their remarkable method of capturing game. The Fellowship tries to explain that the Unicorn is intelligent, not a dumb beast. They joke about Boris being somewhat of a beast, but not quite. Ingrid says that the doctor would be interested to see the Fellowship’s unusual mutations. Ol’ Jardiner protests that he’s a Halfling, not a mutated Human. Igrid was talking about Boris.
The Fellowship goes to the clinic. It’s a pleasant place under a big shady tree. Rooms are separated by white fabric that let the breeze through.
- Rolf he/him mutated Human doctor. He has very long fingers and two pairs of eyes. He has corrective lenses on all of them, so instead of “four-eyes” people call him “spider.” The glasses focus the side-mounted, wide-angle eyes to look forward like the front-mounted, binocular pair.
He’s working on someone with a broken leg, but he’s using a horseshoe magnet as well as tweezers. He pulls bits of metal out of the wounds. He is distracted by Boris and especially by Yonne, whose body is unlike anything he’s seen. The patient protests. He wants the nanites removed from his leg. Rolf asks the Fellowship to wait outside until he’s finished.
Boris: We’ll be patient.
Ol’ Jardiner: I hope not!
Ol’ Jardiner jumps up to give Boris a high-five for that pun, which gets his hand to about Boris shoulder-level.
A few minutes later, the patient comes out with a bandage made of leaves around his thigh. Rolf greets the Fellowship. Boris explains that he’s from this area, but has been away for a long time. Rolf wonders if he’s related to the albino cave boars the wranglers are trying to tame. They are very ornery. Boris tries to explain that him talking to a wild boar would be like Rolf talking to a childhood friend that he hasn’t seen in a long time. Rolf’s childhood friends that he doesn’t see regularly are either dead or pariahs. Boris relates to being a pariah. Boris is happy to satisfy Rolf’s curiosity. It takes a bit for Rolf to understand that Boris is not a mutated human and is centuries old. That’s so far from Rolf’s experience.
Rolf: History isn’t a priority for us. Clearly, the previous residents here came to a bad end. We can’t learn how to survive from them because they didn’t.
Rolf thinks the old technology is bad. Many of his patients have been injured by it.
Centuries ago, the people of VolWolkenStadt harnessed a source of dark magic from nature, draining it to power their machines. Nature’s revenge wasn’t just to destroy them with beasts, but beasts empowered by that same dark magic. Boris is a power source for VolWokenStadt technology! Maybe the people of Acker can learn how to co-exist with the old technology by learning about Boris.
A farmhand runs in and reports that Sven’s leg is worse than ever! Rolf grabs his tools and rushes out to the farm. The Fellowship follows. Sven is on the ground in pain. Bits of metal have ripped through the bandage from inside.
Farmhand: I’ve never seen the nanites grow so fast!
Yonne is confused. Rolf explains that any wound risks infection by nanites that try to “fix” it by turning it into machinery.
- Wandering Infection: Intelligent nanites that consume your wounds…and the wounds of all around you.
- Necrosis: The wandering infection can happen to anyone in a Bastion who has taken Necrotic damage. The infection can travel from wound to wound. Once per scene, another wound from someone in the party becomes Necrotic. The wandering infection is not removed until everyone in the party with Necrotic damage no longer has any Necrotic damage. Burning damage can be applied to cauterize a wound, killing the infection and removing the Necrosis, but dealing 2 more damage to the person being cauterized.
Yonne could try to clean the wound, but her acid would hurt Sven worse. Rolf has some tools that he uses. He rubs two pieces of metallic cloth together to generate static electricity, then places that over the wound, hoping to zap some of the nanites. He has tin snips to cut up metallic structures and a magnet ot pull debris out of the wound. When Boris approaches, the nanites get more active.
Rolf: It’s you! Get back!
Ol’ Jardiner pours his powerful healing elixir on a cloth and presses the cloth over the wound. It glows. The nanites and metal sticks to the cloth, and Ol’ Jardiner peels the whole mess off. He puts the cloth into a glass bottle and melts the mouth shut, sealing it so even nanites can’t get out. Now Sven has a normal open wound in his leg, which Rolf can treat with normal medicine.
Rolf: That was really effective. What did you call it, magic?
Ol’ Jardiner: How do you not know about magic? Doesn’t everyone have a little magic?
Ol’ Jardiner ruined his runed blade in a fight a while back so he wants a new weapon. Rolf has a low opinion of machines.
Rolf: If it’s machines you want, see Frieda.
Frieda’s workshop is one of the few all-metal structures in the village. It’s round with a low conical roof. The interior walls are filled with racks and tables, and there’s a pit in the middle. Ol’ Jardiner bangs on the metal wall and hails Frieda. Frieda springs out of the pit! Pistons in her legs retract as she lands.
Yonne: I’m Yonne. This is Jardiner. This is Boris. We’re new here, but he’s old, old, old here.
Some devices in Frieda’s shop react when Boris enters. A half-disassembled droid starts moving. An unplugged electric motor spins up. Frieda rushes to secure them as Boris slowly backs out of the shop. Once he’s gone, the machines power down.
Ol’ Jardiner: Frieda, your skill with metal and machines of all kinds is obvious, even to us newcomers. As a sign of respect, I wish to share a meal with you. My food is yours. Your hunger is mine.
This is a ritual in Carta culture. Providing a meal for someone obligates them to provide a favor. Frieda accepts. After a ceremonial meal, Ol Jardiner displays the melted remains of his dagger. Frieda is excited to show Ol’ Jardiner her various destructive gadgets. A heat knife, a clockwork pistol, axes of different kinds of metals. Ol’ Jardiner selects the heat knife. A power cell fits in the handle. Twisting the pommel makes the blade heat to glowing orange.
Now that the Fellowship has seen VolWolkenStadt and the new culture that inhabits it, they wonder what news to bring back to the Forgotten Lands, and if these two lands and cultures should have contact with each other.
Boris wants to bring the two cultures together. The Cartae can show the people of the Forgotten Lands that VolWolkenStadt isn’t a cursed wasteland. Life is possible here. The people of the Forgotten Lands (who invented al lthe leftover technology) can stop it from hurting the Cartae. Ol’ Jardiner worries that the Forgotten Lands have sworn off that old technology, and the knowledge of how to control it has been lost. Maybe Infinite Windows needs to be permanently installed somewhere to connect the two places with permanent portals. The crew of the Luna Penumbra would need to give up their treasure. What’s to stop someone going through the portal from stealing Infinite Windows and opening portals elsewhere? The Forgotten Lands are literally on top of VolWolkenStadt in another layer of space-time. Perhaps they could open a portal themselves.
Ol’ Jardiner thinks this isn’t a decision the Fellowship can make on their own, which is odd for someone who fixed the Moon without asking permission. He thinks the leaders of the Forgotten Lands and the Cartae should confer to make a decision. The villages seem pretty independent. They may not reach concensus. They may see access to the Forgotten Lands as a competitive advantage and make deals to avoid falling behind the other village. Should the Fellowship assemble a council of representatives? Opening a portal in the wilderness means that people will have to go looking for the connection to the other realm. Contact won’t be forced on anyone. The Cartae might take such a hidden wonder as a challenge. They’ll make anything into a challenge.
END OF SESSION MOVE
- Did we thoroughly explore a new location?
- YES: the village of Acker
- Did we discover something new about the world and its people?
- YES: the Cartae and their culture
- Did anything find what they were seeking?
- NO: we are working towards Boris’ goal, but we haven’t reached it.
2 boons
- gear
- level up (Boris, Yonne)