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 decided that the people of the Forgotten Lands should be connected with the new culture living in their old land. This time, they search for ancient technology to open a portal between the two overlaid spaces.
Shafer, Acker’s animal wrangler, knows the area and could lead the Fellowship to a likely ruin. Boris wants to use a Carta tradition, the Hunger Ritual, to hire Schafer as a guide. He can destroy items by putting them in his mouth, but he does not gain sustenance from food, so he can’t perform the Hunger Ritual. Yonne gives it a try.
Yonne: I don’t technically have a mouth, though.
Boris: Your mouth is anywhere.
Yonne: Right, I’m just going to dissolve everything in myself.
Schafer: Wow, outsiders really are different. I’ve never seen a mutation like that.
It’s a little unorthodox, but it works. Schafer will accompany the Fellowship for one expedition.
- 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
Ol’ Jardiner: How much are we going to tell Schafer about this mission?
Boris: I think less information is better. They know we were searching around the ruins, right? Maybe that’s just our thing?
Yonne: With their cultural style, I am an animal wrangler, that’s why I have this Unicorn, and you are trying to master more ruins than have ever been mastered by anyone else ever before.
Boris: Technology wrangler, animal wrangler, magic wrangler. Perfect.
The Fellowship asks Schafer to take them to a ruin that has power.
Schafer: That would probably be the Flame Chimney. It’s like a geyser, but for fire.
Schafer leads the Fellowship from Acker to near the Flame Chimney. They see the flames erupt on the far side of a ridge. She brings the Fellowship to the edge of the clearing that contains the Flame Chimney. The vegetation near the mouth of the shaft burned away long ago, leaving bare rocks on which lie several large lizards. Tough plants surround the rocks, while tall grass and trees stay far back. This allows the Fellowship to survey the scene from hiding.
Schafer: We have to get past the Komodo Lizards first. They’re people-sized, plus the tail. There’s usually a group of them nearby. They like the heat.
Boris: Are they impervious to the flame?
Schafer: No, they’re around it and they’re quite energetic because of the heat.
- Group of Komodo Lizards: They’re bigger than your dog and have a much deadlier, venomous bite.
- Necrotic Bite: The Komodo Dragon’s venomous bite is Necrotic, as the venom prevents the wound from healing naturally.
- Hardened Scales: This stat must be damaged twice.
- 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.
Ol’ Jardiner wishes Altas was here. They’d know the right questions to ask Schafer to learn about Komodo Lizards. The Fellowship left Atlas behind to keep them out of dangerous situations like this, so ol’ Jardiner just tries to ask the kind of questions that he’s heard Atlas ask.
- Tell me about the Flame Chimney? How could it hurt or help me?
- Every so often, flames burst from the bottom of the shaft and shoot out the top. Mechanically, there’s a clock that ticks every time the Fellowship makes a move. When the 8th segment is ticked, fire erupts.
- Is something hidden or out of place?
- The inner face of the shaft isn’t smooth. There are holes and gaps, from handholds to alcoves big enough for several people. Some are artifical. Others were made by the flame. Hiding in the former is safe. Hiding in the latter is not! Some artificial modifications to the shaft are quite recent.
- Tell me about the Komodo Lizards. What are they doing? What will they do next?
- The Komodo Lizards are at maximum energy because of all the heat. Most of what they do is eat.
Ol’ Jardiner: I’d prefer not to fight with them. I’m sure they won’t go into the shaft, so we just need to get there.
Ol’ Jardiner is breathing very deliberating in an unusual pattern.
Yonne: What are you doing?
Ol’ Jardiner: It’s these Elven breathing exercises. I’m trying to have serenity in the middle of chaotic situations, because often I panic and either do nothing or blow things up. It’s not always the best thing to do.
Yonne: So we shouldn’t do it right now? OK, don’t panic. Can you teach me the breathing?
Ol’ Jardiner: Do you breathe? I’m already modifying for my Halfling physiology, so sure.
Ol’ Jardiner demonstrates the breathing rhythm and associated hand motions. Yonne changes shape into a transparent Ol’ Jardiner and imitates him. Ol’ Jardiner can tell it’s working because he isn’t annoyed that Yonne is trying to learn breathing exercises when she can’t breathe.
Yonne forms a bond with Ol’ Jardiner
Schafer gives the pair a confused look and gestures to the dangerous lizards in the clearing. Boris is ready to clear a path to the shaft and confers with Schafer to learn the best tactic to get past these lizards. She says they are territorial about this place.
GM note: A Group can act against two targets at once, so usually two people are required to Keep Them Busy. I forgot that Schafer’s Multiple Arms let her act against two targets at once, so she should have been able Keep Them Busy all by herself.
Boris and Schafer burst from opposite sides of the clearing with ropes and blinding speed, throwign the Komodo Lizards into confusion. Ol’ Jardiner continues his breathing exercises and walks calmly towards the Flame Chimney. He’s not in any danger, since Boris and Schafer are keeping the Komodo Lizards busy, but he doesn’t know that. Yonne transforms into an extra-large Komodo LIzard (a normal one is already too big) and runs at them hissing. They real Komodo Lizards back up a little, then stand firm to defend their territory. Yonne darts back and forth, running at one, then another. The Komodo Lizards flinch away and run into each other. Boris breathes fire at their feet, causing most of them to flee.
Ol’ Jardiner: Come on, guys. There’s handholds here. It’s great.
Ol’ Jardiner jumps down into the shaft of the Flame Chimney.
Two of the bravest Komodo Lizards remain: a young one with something to prove, and the biggest, oldest one who is to ornery to run. Boris runs towards the young one, which swipes him as he approaches. Boris gets on its back and rips up a section fo hardened scales. Yonne scoops up rocks from the ground and expels them at high speed with water pressure, right into the weak spot. The Komodo Lizard dies, and Boris keeps the chunk of scales to give to Atlas.
GM note: I forgot about the Necrotic Bite, but the interaction with Hardened Scales was right. Rolling a 10+ makes the Komodo Lizard Taken Out without damaging its stats.
Ol’ Jardiner sees the bottom of the shaft get very bright and dives into the nearest alcove. Someone grabs him and pulls him further in. Flame erupts past him, torching the area he was just standing in. He has been saved by an Arconaut, someone who delves into ancient structures. Their face is covered in a mask and goggles. Bags bulge under their cloak. Think Fremen + Ray at the beginning of The Force Awakens.
Schafer: Was the little guy in there?
Yonne: Jardiner? Jardiner? Are you OK down there?
- Asana she/her cyborg Arconaut: An explorer specialized in naviagting underground ruins.
- Thief: They just want to get paid. When a Arconaut would deal damage to you, they instead steal something from you. Once a Arconaut has stolen something sufficiently valuable, they make a run for it.
- Wall Walker: Arconauts can rapidly climb walls and fences with ease. Arconauts are
never slowed down when trying to navigate through ruins.
Asana: You’re out of your depth here.
Ol’ Jardiner: Thank you for your help!
Ol’ Jardiner’s friendly face makes Asana think he’s an incompent newbie, not a rival muscling in on their claim.
Asana: First thing you want to do is get some protection for your face. No, the first thing is to learn the timing of the flames. Why are you here? There are safer ruins.
Ol’ Jardiner: Those have been picked over already.
- What should I be wary of when dealing with them?
- Do not give the impression that you are here for riches, or she won’t help you.
- What can they tell us about what’s at the bottom?
- No one has made it all the way to the bottom. She’s trying to be the first. Rumors are that something down there creates the fire, and whoever has it will be the undisputed master of flame. It looks like there’s one source that glows just before the fire erupts. It’s assumed to be magical because it keeps working, even though the structures around it are ruins. There’s actually a generator that powers the source, so if the source is taken away, it will stop working. Even free-falling from the surface isn’t fast enough to reach the bottom in between bursts of flame, so the journey must be taken in stages. The upper shaft has hand-holds and safe alcoves, but the lower half is unprepared. The first push to a particular depth is slower and harder then subesquent runs.
- What were they doing, and what will they do next?
- This delve is to lay in supplies at safe zones along the shaft so that a later delve can make progress and make a new safe zone a little further down.
Ol’ Jardiner: My friends and I are also exploring. Can you show us the first part of the route? You don’t have to reveal your secret caches.
Asana: Get your crew here. We’ll go down to my base camp, then we’ll all try to make the next jump.
Ol’ Jardiner sends a thought bubble up to Boris, who is still dealing with the ornery Komodo Lizard. They charge at each other and he drops to the ground at the last moment, sliding under it and clawing its underbelly. He tears scales away and breathes fire into the wound! The Komodo Dragon is torched!
Ol’ Jardiner: Hey, there’s someone down here who will help us.
Boris: Wow, that’s really lucky. Are they nice?
Ol’ Jardiner’s thought bubbles are one-way, so he doesn’t hear Boris’ reply. Ol’ Jardiner summons a floating light and sends it out into the shaft to guide his friends to him.
Yonne: Hey, Schafer, I know you’re an animal wrangler and there’s animals up here for you to wrangle, but we’re going to go down the hole. Do you want to come down the hole with us, or no?
Boris: I think I’m the only animal down here.
Schafer: I’m commited to this expedition by the Hunger Ritual.
Boris: She can guard the hole to make sure we don’t get mugged by Komodo Lizards on the way out. She’s a professional wrangler.
Yonne: Schafer, watch here so if we die, people know we’re dead, I guess.
Boris: If they come after you in a swarm, come down the way we go down.
Yonne: No, If they come after you in a swarm, wrangle them. I want to see you riding them when we come back out. I know you can do it. I believe in you. Also, keep watch over our unicorn. Don’t let it die, OK. Bye.
Yonne gets on Boris’ back and he climbs straight down the wall head-first on all fours and into the alcove with Ol’ Jardiner and Asana.
Asana: Wow, seems like Jardiner is the junior member of the expedition. You seem much better prepared than he is.
Boris: Diffferent skillset.
Yonne: Actually, he’s very smart. You can’t talk about Jardiner like that.
Asana points at the floor of the alcove.
Asana: He was standing on the scorched part, not the unscorched part, so he missed a few things.
Yonne: Well you don’t have to say it like that.
Ol’ Jardiner: I’m very glad for Asana’s expertise. I’m sure with her experience, and our diverse, powerful skill sets we’ll be able to literally get to the bottom of this Fire Chimney here.
Yonne: If you’re great and wonderful and experienced, you should show us where to go next.
Like a child, Yonne is still figuring out her emotions, but the one thing that she knows makes her angry is when people are mean to her friends. Asana leads the party down the shaft. Handholds have been carved in softer parts of the wall, and metal pitons were hammered into harder material to make a small and precarious staircase. Asana and Boris go down first, then Yonne, then Ol’ Jardiner follows very quickly because he slipped and fell!
Yonne sends Flibby (her amorpheous, winged slime pet) to spread out in Ol’ Jardiner’s path and catch him. It can’t hold all his weight, but it slows and bounces him towards the wall. He scrambles for handholds, then remembers his breathing.
Ol’ Jardiner: Elven breathing. Serenity.
There’s a big hole in both sides of the shaft, where a horizontal shaft crosses the main shaft.
Asana: It’s very important we come down on this side, not that side. I don’t think the thing is home, but it’s hard to tell.
The sandworm that made this tunnel digs with its head, then secretes resin from its sides that hardens and holds the tunnel open behind it. The flame melts the resin where it croses the shaft, so it dripped down the sides of the shaft and hardened again. Asana’s next cache has been covered by the melted resin.
Asana: This was going to be base camp for my next expedition! I have three waterskins, spare batteries, and now it’s sealed off. If we make too much noise diggin through this resin, the sandword might notice us. Ol’ Jardiner sticks his head out of the sandworm’s shaft and points out a tiny hole in the resin and Yonne goes over the edge towards it. The rest of the Fellowship stands back as fire rushes up the Flame Chimney! When it passes, Asana looks over the edge and sees the resin sealing her cache cracking and crumblign as Yonne melts it from the inside. She slipped through that tiny gap and was safe from the fire.
The rest of the Fellowship joins Yonne in Asana’s cache. Asana throws back a tarp and adds waterskins and batteries to a pile of supplies including a strange gun and a dagger whose dark blade shines blue when it catches the light.
Asana: Here’s the deal. We’re going to try to go down to reach the next layer.
Asana points out several rings of windows that ring the shaft below them. She has not been able to break those windows. They’re made of something strong. Boris sends his slime pet down to corrode the metal around one of the windows. The windows are five feet by five feet and a foot thick. It’s several hundred pounds of tough plastic. Boris suggests that Yonne slip into the crack and push the window out with fluid pressure. Yonne wants to get out of the Flame Chimney as soon as possible, since flame is one of the few things that might kill her. She pulls the window so it falls into the observation room, not out into the Flame Chimney, where it would plummet onto whatever makes the flames. There’s a clear path into the facilty now, for the Fellowship and the fire. Ol’ Jardiner takes his time and does his breathing exercises and calmly climbs into the observation deck.
Asana: I have never seen what is on the other side of these doors.
Boris puts his hand on the door. The dark magic that clings to his soul is similar to the power that VolWolkenStadt harnessed from nature, so sometimes he can activate their technology. The door lights up as Boris approaches it, revealing a panel with a hand shape. Boris puts his hand there and the door open.
Asana: I’ve never seen someone with your ability in Tinkering! That’s amazing!
Boris: Get in there. Go, go, go, and we’ll discuss this later.
Everyone goes through the doorway. Boris takes his hand away and the door stays open. When he puts his hand on the panel on the other side of the door, it closes. When he takes his hand away, the door opens again. He keeps his hand on the panel to keep the door shut until the flame passes again. Yonne and Ol’ Jardiner look around and see another arconaut!
- Dominique Alave he/him Human Wizard. Pronounced dom-ee-NEEK AH-vuh-lay. He picked on Ol’ Jardiner at the Academy. He was in the prestigeous fraternity and got better grades. Now he’s faculty on a research expedition. He specialized in conjuration and transmutation.
- Old Rivals: The rival knows somebody and is out to compete with them. Someone in the fellowship writes 2 Bonds with the rival, describing your past encounters. The rival can never be a Companion. When someone with a bond with the rival takes action against the rival, they roll with Despair.
- Greed: The rival wants whatever material good you want, and will do whatever they can to get to it before you, no matter how reckless it is.
- Collector’s Curios: The rival has any tags they need at any time, up to three at once. Whenever they change tags, they must describe what they’re pulling out of their collection to represent their new tags.
Ol’ Jardiner: Dominique! I hate that guy.
Dominique: Pierre? I see you barely made it going the wrong way. Things haven’t changed since school.
Ol’ Jardiner: Breathing exercises!
Ol’ Jardiner is unable to remain serene. He casts a curse against his old bully. The evil wizard trapped in his spellbook is a curse specialist, and is able to curse Ol’ Jardiner with the same spell.
Ol’ Jardiner: Dominique Avale, you may not hold anything in your hands until you give away something precious to you!
Trajan: Pierre Jardiner, you can’t eat until you secure a body for me.
The Flame Chimney erupts! The flames rush into the observation deck, but this facility was built with safety in mind. Boris feels the door heat up, but the fire is contained and disappates.
Dominique: How dare you cast one of your spells on me?
Now that he doesn’t have to hold the door shut, Boris runs at Dominique. Dominique drops into a stance and stops, flipping up a section of floor between him and Boris.
Dominique gains tags: armor, piercing
Boris runs up the wall to get around the spiky armour and tries to eat the grimoire that Dominique dropped. Of course he has a defensive spell on his precious spellbook. As soon as someone else gets close to it, six copies of the spellbook appear and scatter across the hall and stick to the walls. One is real and the rest are illusions. When Boris goes after the spellbook, Dominique uses his magic to move them and transform them into different objects. He can’t pick things up, but he can still use his hands to make magical gestures.
Ol’ Jardiner is freaking out that he kept talking after cursing Dominique and is now cursed himself. Maybe he can solve two problem at once and give Tajan Dominique’s body after killing him! Ol’ Jardiner pulls out his new flaming dagger and twists the hilt to make the blade glow. He yells and runs at Dominique. Of course Dominique sees this telegraphed attack. He pulls a book towards himself and steps aside, so it flies into Ol’ Jardiner’s face. The illusory spellbook reveals itself as a brick and knocks Ol’ Jardiner for a loop.
Dominique gains tags: precious, slow, clumsy
Dominique kicks over his knapsack and a metal object rolls towards Ol’ Jardiner. It’s a complex wire puzzle with a large gem at the center. He makes a final magical gesture and the real spellbook flies into his hands. He has broken the curse!
Dominique gains tags: vigor, dangerous
Dominique starts spinning very fast and drilling through the floor, throwing desbris eveywhere. Ol’ Jardiner ducks behind the spiky section of floor, avoiding the debris but hitting the spikes. Yonne tackles Dominique, despite the debris punching holes in her. She knocks Dominique over, and Boris dogpiles him too. All three fall through to the deck below. Boris grabs the edge of the ceiling and flips Dominique over so he comes down headfirst. This distracts Dominique from Yonne, who slides up his arm to engulf and and destroy his spellbook. Her acidic body starts to dissolve the spellbook, but it’s enchanted with regeneration. Boris lets Dominique go and sticks his head into Yonne to bite the spellbook. Dominique transmutes his spellbook.
Dominique’s spellbook gains tags: Elf-Made. Will burn anyone who is not an Elf-friend, forcing them to drop it.
Normally, it doesn’t occur to Yonne that she could die, because normal weapons only incovenience her. Fire scares her. That could kill her. She’s water and can be boiled away. She immediately recoils from the spellbook. Boris is immune to fire, so he grabs it and shoves it in his maw, annihilating it. This has gone very badly for Dominique. He flees, but Boris appears out of the shadows in front of him. Dominique cowers. He has no more tricks.
Asana throws a rope down and she and Ol’ Jardiner climb down to the lower level.
Asana: Is this what elite Arconauts have to do? Is competition for artifacts so fierce?
Ol’ Jardiner: No, I personally hate this guy.
Boris slowly raises one finger to point at Ol’ Jardiner.
Boris: Apologize.
Dominique: I’m sorry, Pierre. I should have respect for a fellow graduate of the Academy. I did not show professional courtesy. That’s my fault.
Ol’ Jardiner is taken aback. He’s never heard Dominique apologize before.
Ol’ Jardiner: Oh, I, that’s that’s good of you to say.
Ol’ Jardiner questions him, but Dominique is so rattled by the fight that he’s not thinking clearly.
- What can you tell use about the power source?
- It’s from a kind of magic that is no longer used. It’s magic that was harvested from nature. It’s based on life, but it’s dark magic that sometimes lashes out.
- What were you doing? Will you do next?
- He meant to secure the power source for the Academy.
- What can you tell us about dimensional travel? How you got here and how you will get back?
- What do you mean? I walked here.
The Fellowship sends Dominique away. Asana is gone!
NO END-OF-SESSION MOVIE