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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 barely escaped Vieport, after beating up almost every named character in the entire city! Stella fell in battle, and now the Fellowship but find a way to revive her. Continue reading “Chasing The Sunset & recovery”
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 regrouped at Vieport’s Adventurer’s club, but had to rescue a friend from the Exterminator’s traps in the golf clubhouse across the street.
Continue reading “Chasing The Sunset & Attrition”
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 Sea Viper (ruler of Vieport) assumed Stella would turn in Buckle for a bounty, but the team violently demonstrated that they value friendship over money.
No enemies remain on the burning rooftop terrace. Theona is barely standing, and is no longer a Companion. Stella and Buckle have a damaged Siege Tank, but the rest of their Companions…
…are still climbing the pillars outside the palace, trying to reach their leaders on the roof. A group of Eel Naga guards are below them, threatening them. The group of Eel Naga guards that Buckle left inside the palace are about to come out and join their comrades.
Neither Stella nor Buckle can swim. The Sea King escaped, and surely the entire city will soon be after them for attempted regicide. They need an escape route right now. Buckle considers driving the Siege Tank off the roof, but the drop will damage its only remaining stat. Stella considers getting help from the beluga whales that carry cargo at the docks, but the Siege Tank is as big as a beluga whale. Just one whale won’t be able to carry the tank.
Stella Queen of the Wild: every beast she meets is a Compantion
Stella Speak Softly “whales, carry our tank away!” 7-9
GM note: Stella doesn’t have to convince the whales to help. The roll determines how much trouble the whales have getting in position to help.
A team of Beluga whales is pulling a raft nearby, and when they hear Stella’s call, they turn towards the palace. Their Merfolk drivers try to steer them back on coruse, but the whales buck to throw them off. The raft can hold the Siege Tank, but the whales need a little time to get to the palace. On the other side of the palace, Naga Eel guards wrap themselves around the pillars and spiral upwards to attack the companions stnading on top. Buckle can’t use his Dragonfire at long range, so he takes a running leap from the roof of the palace…
Buckle Get Away 7-9 avoid harm
…and lands in the shallow water at the base of the pilars, right among the Naga Eel guards. His superheated body causes a burst of steam, which he empowered with Dragonfire..
Buckle Dragonfire: vaporize Group of Naga Eels
When a Group is destroyed, replace it with two members
…into a burning mushroom cloud! When the cloud clears, only two Naga Eels guards are left, who ignore the pillars and turn to attack Buckle. Stella watches from the roof. She can’t bring the tank to bear, but her Companions are right there.
Stella: Gus, release the garlic powder!
Gus uses Special Ingredients to create advantage against Naga Eel.
Gus retrieves a satchel of garlic powder and shakes it out over one of the Naga Eel guards. Garlic irritates snakes, so the guard starts spitting and coughing. Buckle attacks the distracted guard with his venomous spurs.
Buckle Finish Them (advantage: distraction from Gus) 10+
The guard only feels a pinprink, but that’s enough to deliver the venom, and he’s Taken Out. The other guard bites Buckle with his horrible needle-sharp teeth.
Naga Eel Needlepoint Teeth: necrotic damage to Buckle’s Courage
Buckle was feeling invincible up to now, having killed over twenty people in the last few minutes. He realizes that he can still be hurt!
On the other side fo the palace, the team of Belugas have thrown their drivers in the water and lined up so Stella can drive the tank off the edge and onto the raft. Theona sees an opportunity to escape and pushes herself towards the edge! Stella throws both throttles forward and races Theona.
Stella Get Away 6-
Don’t forget, Theona is a 16-foot-tall Ogre. As she and the tank reach the burning guardrail at the edge of the terrace, she shoves the tank asides and leaps through the flames! It looks like she’ll land on the raft with an action roll to break her fall, but instead she crumples and faceplants. The exertion and the flames were too much for her. Stella finds herself in the water in a very metallic, very heavy vehicle designed for land! She’ll soon sink! She quickly looks around the tank’s control panel and hits a tiny yellow button on the left side that she had not noticed before.
Siege Tank Secret Weapon: amphibious mode.
The bottom of the tank forms into a waterproof hull, and it’s able to slowly motor through the water. Stella is away!
Buckle panics and runs parallel to shore through shallow water, leaving a trail of steam. Stella yells for everyone to go to the Adventurers’ Club. The crowd of Companions drop down from the pillars and everyone flees towards the Adventurer’s Club, with only one Naga Eel guard trying to stop them.
GM note: Fleeing the scene with enemies nearby gave me a great excuse to start the next scene with a problem. I asked the players to pick which of their Companions were missing at the beginning of the next scene.
Stella drives the Siege Tank onto shore next to the Adventurers’ Club. Buckle is hiding under the porch, but the smoke rising from him reveals his position. A headcount of their numerous companions reveals that Hamfast is missing! Two figures appear on the roof of the buidling opposite the Adventurers’ Club. Hamfast as been captured by The Exterminator!
The Exterminator beckons to Stella and Buckle, then drags Hamfast back out of sight. They will have to breach the building and face The Exterminator’s traps to extract their new companion.
GM note: We brainstormed what building The Exterminator used as their lair. Often adventurers gather in shady taverns, narrow alleys, or warehouses, but the Adventurers’ Club is a legitimate, reputable organization, so it’s in a nice part of town. It’s next to a the club house of a golf course. Specificity helps creativity!
Buckle is still in shock from the previous battle. Stella considers a multi-pronged attack agains The Exterminator, but needs to scout the area to know how to proceed. She walks around the building looking for entrances. There’s a service entrance on the side, and an employee is leaning against the wall taking a smoke break.
Stella: Buckle, are you back with us? Are you ready to do something? Go in the front and see what’s there.
Buckle shuffles off and Stella approaches the Chatty Caddie. Her plan is to set a pit trap at the rear entrance to catch The Exterminator if they flee that way, but she doesn’t want actual golfers to be caught and injured. She asks the Caddie if she can slip in through the service entrance.
Stella Talk Sense (+sense) 7-9 owe a favor
Caddie: OK, but tell me a secret.
Stella: Any secret?
Caddie: A juicy secret! If you sleep with a teddy bear, I don’t care.
Stella: I can’t swim!
Caddie stifles a laugh as he lets her in the service entrance. He’s totally going to leak that secret.
Buckle walks in the front door and enters a nice lounge with high ceilings, big windows, and tables and chairs spread around. In the corner, there’s a woman in chrome armor with long, curly, bubblegum pink hair. She’s deep into her third bottle, and slowly turns to look at Buckle with a look of exhaustion and despair.
Lady Elizabeth Eleanor Eadwynn: I can’t deal with this right now.
She turns away and leans her head on her hand, blocking Buckle from her view. Buckle ignores her and walks up to the counter, which is staffed by a bored-looking teenage girl who clearly thinks that golf and people who like golf are exceedingly boring and uncool.
Buckle asks if she’s seen The Exterminator today. She can’t be bothered to remember the losers who come in here, so she pushes the sign-in book across the counter to him. He picks it up and it bursts into flames! Before the pages blacken compeltely he does see “The Exterminator” but the other columns, no doubt filled with useful information, are illegible. He drops the book and stomps on it to put out the flames, but his super-heated feet only burn the book faster! Surly Worker’s eyes, emphasized by enthusiasticly but unexpertedly applied eyeliner, go wide. She reaches over the counter and dumps her drink on the remains of the book. She goes into the back room to get another book.
Unsupervised, Buckle slips past the counter and explores the back of the clubhouse. There are locker rooms, showers, and a sauna. He surprises a few golfers. Stella is also inside the building. She finds an “out of order” sign and posts it on the back door, then places a pit trap outside of it.
They’re explored the ground storey, so they move on to the upper storey. Buckle brings Ugg (a Goblin with robotic arms) to the elevator. It’s a fully enclosed box, and just has a lever to select ground storey or upper storey. Buckle flips the lever up, and poison gas floods the elevator! The Exterminator anticipated this move and set a trap! Buckle pulls the lever back down, but the gas doesn’t stop. They need to get out of the elevator.
Buckle Get Away 10+ avoid harm, bring Ugg along
Ugg boosts Buckle up and Buckle opens the service hatch that’s in the roof of all elevator cars. He climbs on top of the elevator, then reaches down to pull Ugg up after him. At the top of the shaft, the doors to the upper storey are slightly open and The Exterminator is looking down. They grunt and pulls back, closing the doors. Impressed but not surprised.
Meanwhile, Stella has ridden Silk (her Riding Spider) up to the roof. There are three skylights, one open. She opens the other two (to maximize the dispersion of any poison gas that may be released soon) and quietly drops down into the storage room.
Stella Get Away 10+ avoid notice, avoid harm
The Exterminator is on one end of the room, looking at the elevator doors. On the other side of the room, sitting on a big bin of galf balls, Hamfast is concentrating on a strange device that he’s holding in both hands. Buckle and Ugg climb the emergency ladder inside the elevator shaft, and Buckle starts heating the elevator door to break through. Exterminator prepares their poison gas dispenser. Big tanks of poison gas on their back are connected through a hose to nozzle shaped like old-timey bug spray dispensers: a cone-tipped cylinder with a short cylinder mounted perpendicular under the main cylinder. They will ambush Buckle as soon as he emerges.
Stella Queen of the Wild: Command Lore about the wild beast in a location
The storage room is an attic, so there are bats nesting in the rafters. Buckle tells Ugg to go back down the ladder, then he bursts through the elevator door
Stella Queen of the Wild: all Beast are her companions
Bats harry and distract The Exterminator
Stella sends her bat minions to swarm The Exterminator, preventing them from executing their ambush. Stella and Buckle rush at The Exterminator from both sides!
Buckle Finish Them (+sense, knock out) advantage: bat distraction (+hope, assistance from Stella) 10+
Buckle jumps up on The Exterminator and jams his flippers into the gap between their helmet and armor. He levers the helmet off, revealing The Exterminator’s face! Stella disconnects the hose from the back of the nozzle and jams the loose end, which is spewing poison gas, into The Exterminator’s face. They quickly succumb to the noxious gases and collapse. Buckle reaches out to the end of the hose and ignites the gas as it sprays out. The gas burns as soon as it exits the hose, so the room isn’t filled with poison gas. Disposing of the gas this way is safer than igniting backpacks full of pressurized gas, which would probably blow up the whole room.
Hamfast: Help! It’s going to go off! I can’t keep holding it!
They rush to their captured friend. The device he is holding is actually two pieces that must be held in precise alignment, or it will go off, flooding the room with poison gas. (The Exterminator has a THEME, and they stick to it.) They consider throwing it out of the open skylights, but throwing will set it off. They decide to use the elevator shaft. Buckle does remember to bring Ugg out first. He carries the device to the hole in the door, drops it in, then Stella and Buckle shove a golf cart to block the hole and keep the gas out fo the room.
Buckle Overcome (+hope assistance from Stella) 10+
It works! They shove the golf cart forward, then sink to the floor in relief. Tiny harmless wisps of gas leak through gaps around the golf cart. Buckle looks over and sees The Exterminator’s gas-proof helmet lying on the floor and realizes he could have stuck the device under that. It would have been a lot simpler.
GM note: We wrapped up the session here and the players asked if they could just say that they left the city after this. I denied their request. They almost killed the king, and all the exits from the city are dangerous. Water on one side, electric barriers and angry ghosts on the other. Getting out will be an adventure!
GM note: The party went to the Adventurer’s Club to be safe because they are members & can get food and shelter here. But the Adventurers’ Club is full of powerful mercenaries doing whatever jobs are posted. Of course there’s a bounty out on them now that they attacked the Sea Viper and burned his palace! They were already attacked by an Adventurer on their first visit. Yet they didn’t expect The Exterminator (the other Adventurer in town) to attack them this time.
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/Pack Leader
Last time, Stella and Buckle found the owners of the mine from which Buckle got his special powers. Those powers almost got him kidnapped, but instead Stella impressed the giant kidnapper into joining the team. Theona is an Ogre, the same type of giant that Stella’s people fought (and surrendered to/defeated) in The Giant War back in her homeland. That gave Stella some confidence when facing Theona, since she had defeated Ogres before.
Stella has a to-do list: find the Halfling that lives in Vieport and tell them they can go home, then find Opal Oolite and tell her she can go home, then find out about this Dragon that supposedly lives up north. There aren’t many Halflings in Vieport.
Stella Address Book: find a friend in any town
Her address book indicates that a Halfling lives by the docks. Vieport is an amphibious city, so the shores and the docks are actually in the center of town. There are normal-looking docks for surface-dwellers and their boats, as well as underwater facilities for Merfolk.
Stella Queen Of The Wild: Command Lore about local wildlife
Merfolk use beluga whales to haul cargo. Sometimes bigger whales stop hear, and the shallow bay has canals carved into the sea floor to allow those large whales room to swim. Thesurface docks block the light from the whale facilities, so the whales use echolocation to navigate. Other interesting wildlife near the docks: sea turtles and eels. The eels move in dense schools, head-down to eat small creatures from the sea bed, so they look like mobile clumps of seaweed. The sea turtles are migratory, and when they lay eggs, one egg in every clutch is blue and Precious.
As soon as the group approaches the docks, Buckle dives into the water to catch and eat an eel. The water explodes into steam as soon as his superheated body touches it! He can’t swim because his webbed hands evaporate the water instead of pushing against it. Stella appraises the situation. An Elven ship is moored nearby. The Elves walk back and forth on the surface of the water, unloading packages. At hte bottom of the bay, Merfolk swarm around several Beluga whales. Stella has a plan. If all three Beluga whales swim underneath Buckle and blow from their blowholes, the air pressure will push him back to the surface. But how can show communicate to the Merfolk far below? She asks the Elves how they co-ordinate with their underwater counterparts. The Elves sing beuatiful songs which carry through the water, and agree to relay Stella’s message
Stella Talk Sense (please blow Buckle back to the surface) 6-
The constant steam explosion is so loud underwater that the Merfolk cannot hear the Elven song! Buckle lashes out with his flat tail, paddling faster than the water can evaporate.
Buckle Animal Traits: damage tail to gain Hope
Buckle Overcome (+hope) 10+
Buckle rockets to the surface and collapses on the wooden dock, which starts sizzling. It’s treated wood, and it’s wet, so it won’t burst into flame immediately. The Elves are glad to see that he’s safe, but urge him to get off the dock. Buckle is stunned by his experience.
Only now can Stella start looking for the Halfling, named Hamfast. Hamfast is a Halfling term for vegetarian, since the Halfling fasts from ham. Outsiders often confuse it with Hamfest, a celebration when Halflings eat a lot of ham. A small Halfling face pops up from the water. Hamfast has arrived to see about the commotion.
Stella: Hamfast? What are you doing under the water?
Hamfast (a refugee from the Giant War) sees an Ogre standing right behind his fellow Halfling, yelps in fear, and dives under the water.
Stella: Theona, you need to leave. Don’t go far, just don’t be here.
Stella tells Hamfast that the Ogre is gone and it’s safe, but he’s still hesitant. He invites Stella to his underwater home (the air pocket in the map above) Stella confesses that she never learned to swim.
GM note: We’re in a city that’s half underwater and neither of the characters can go in the water? Incredible! Hilarious!
Hamfast talks her through it and encourages her. She only has to hold her breath a short time. Once inside Hamfast’s home, she doesn’t need to swim anymore.
Hamfast Natural Charm (advantage: talk Stella through swimming)
Stella Get Away (+hope) 6-
Stella is mustering her courage, and has waded in up to her knees, when an Eel Merfolk wearing the uniform of the Sea Viper’s soldiers swims up. He reads from a clay tablet in a loud, formal voice. It’s a summons from the Sea Viper, ruler of this city! Stella and her companion are to go immediately to the palace. Stella has a lot of friends and wonders which ones the Sea Viper wishes to meet. The Herald isn’t sure about the rest, but Buckle definitely. Buckle’s not paying attention. He’s slumped on the floor, heartbroken because he can’t go in the water.
Stella: Did you see the commotion? My friend can’t go underwater, so we can’t meet the Sea Viper in his palace.
Stella Talk Sense (+sense) above-water audience? 7-9
Herald: OK, come with me to the palace entrance and I’ll ask about making accommodations.
Buckle is in a stupor of despair, and doesn’t move. Stella puts on leather gloves and drags Buckle after her by the scruff of his neck. The rest of the party (Theona the Ogre, Ugg the Goblin, Rose & Gus the Halflings, Silk The Riding Spider, and the Siege Tank) follow at a distance.
The rows of columns that lead to the entrance of the Sea Viper’s palace are made of several different materials, made at different times. An old palace stood on land, and the oldest columns on land led towards it. The Sea Viper destroyed the old palace, put his new palace in the water, and reversed the direction of the entryway. The Herald goes inside to make arrangements, leaving Stella and Buckle at the shore.
Stella: Buckle, snap out of it. I need your help.
Buckle: I can’t … I’ll never fish again.
Stella: That’s a lack of creativity. You could get a metal fishing pole.
Buckle: I can never go in water.
Stella: But there’s so much you can do now. Look to the future! You can control fire!
Buckle: Seems more a curse than a blessing.
GM note: The Sea Viper wants to harness Buckle’s Heart Of Earth for his own purposes. Will Buckle just give it to him?
Stella: I promise it will get better with practice.
Buckle. I just wanted to eat. How will I eat?
Stella drags Buckle to the edge of the water.
Stella: Buckle, I need you to trust me. Put your hand in the water when I say.
Buckle: It’ll bubble up again.
Stella: Now!
Stella Queen Of The Wild. All beasts (including Eels) are her companions & follow her orders
Buckle sticks his hand in the water and it closes around an Eel! The Eel is instantly cooked in his super-heated grasp. Buckle stares, then scarfs it down.
Buckle forges a bond with Stella
A strange person pops his head above the water. He’s Human, lanky, and bald. He’s wearing a wetsuit made of shiny scales, so it shimmers and flashes like a fish as he moves. He’s got a clear full-face mask that lets him breathe underwater, and propellers mounted on his shoulders for speed. He’s fascinated by what he just witnessed. Before they can interact much, the Herald emerges from the palace. The Sea Viper, in his great wisdom benevolence, will allow Stella to meet him on the rooftop terrace. A woman appears on the edge of the roof, a glowing light hovering over her shoulder. She disappears and the glowing light stretches into a bridge from the roof to the ground which Stella, Buckle, the Herald, and the strange bald fellow can walk on.
The Sea Viper sits on a throne, flanked by advisors. He is an especially large Naga. He keeps growing and nothing has managed to kill him yet, so he’s huge. Two of his advisors are Robin, the Lantern who created the light bridge, and Emmett, the strange man in the wetsuit. He pulled up his flippers and clipped them to his knees so he can walk on land. About a dozen guards line the perimeter.
Stella can change size, up to the size of a good chair, and the Sea Viper’s throne is much bigger than that. Buckle walks around, admiring the plants, tapestries, and woven carpets, careful not to actually touch any of the flammable objects on the terrace. Buckle asks for the bald man’s name.
Emmett: I am Emmett, and I am the Sea Viper’s advisor in matters metaphysical and ectoplasmic.
Sea Viper: Adventurer Stella Muddyfoot, I welcome you to my city of Vieport, and thank you for the service you have rendered to my people. However, I am disappointed that you tarry in turning in the bounty.
Robin: It has so much power! Truly, a boon to the city!
Buckle asks Stella what they are talking about. Stella sees where this is going and needs a moment to think.
Stella Talk Nonsense (lie with a straight face) 10+
Stella: I recognize the power my friend has, but he fused with it because it’s saving his live. We can’t remove it without killing him. I can’t part with him.
Buckle’s eyes get big as he figures out that the Sea Viper expects Stella to claim the bounty on him! He is the Source Of Power that the Sea Viper Wants!
Stella: If I continue adventuring with Buckle, imagine the other Sources Of Power that we could acquire for the Sea Viper!
Stella Talk Nonsense on a 10+, Sting Like A Bee: Steal Useful item
Robin Reveal The Way: when someone Talks Sense, give advice
Robin: Of course we don’t want to harm him. He should stay here and become the heart of a new powerplant. With the extra power, we could push back the Deathlands and double the size of the city!
Buckle: What’s a powerplant?
Robin starts explains how water is heated to create steam, which turns turbines, but Buckle isn’t listening.
Buckle: Is it heavy?
Robin: Oh, no, you don’t carry it. We’ll build a new building and put you inside it.
Buckle: How long will that take?
Robin: We’ll not to turn the powerplant off! This is a permanent position.
Buckle: You’re putting me in prison?!
Stella’s getting angry. Her Hunter Destiny has made her body a bit more bestial, so her ears flatten a little to show her displeasure.
Emmett: This creature’s power is not only heat, but life! I’m sure I could conduct a ritual to cancel the Deathlands’ curse.
Buckle: Banishing death sounds good.
Stella: I’m not convinced that ghosts aren’t people. Maybe they experience life in a bizarre way I don’t understand.
Robin: But that ritual would surely kill him!
Buckle: Can I bring people back to life?
Emmett: I predict that your Life Energy will balance the Death Energy of the Deathlands, returning it a normal state. Undeath to Death.
Buckle: So the ghosts will die?
Emmett: They’re already dead.
Sea Viper: I will consider the options presented in this council and make a decree later. Herald, the bounty!
The Sea Viper is ending the meeting. He expects Stella to leave, and Buckle to stay. Stella has murder in her eyes. Buckle is so important to her, and these people don’t understand, even though she tried to explain. She remains clam on the outside. Herald approaches Stella with a small pirate chest full of gold. Buckle looks at Stella with big sad eyes.
Stella: I won’t let them take you.
Buckle: Want me to set the roof on fire?
Stella is furious that they don’t respect a living being, She feels cold now.
Stella: Burn it to the ground.
Buckle Firestarter: Anything that you had a chance to plant fuel on bursts into flame
Buckle’s glowing eyes stare into the distance. His body glows brighter, white hot. He raises his arms, and every flammable thing on the terrace roof: tapestries, plants, rugs, explodes in flame! (The whole time he was examining the roof earlier, he was secreting flammable venom from his venomous spurs)
Location Reponse Level increases (collateral damage): Vieport gains Separation move
Location Response Level increases (insult someone in charge): Vieport gains Show Of Force move
Buckle Finish Them (+Blood) vs. Naga guards. advantage: fire everywhere! 7-9
Group of Naga Guards disbanded, replaced with 2 Naga Guards
Emmett quickly hits a series of angular poses, and a blue sphere of energy surrounds him.
Emmett Backup Plan: Magical Barrier against heat & flame
Outside the palace, Theona sees the smoke rising from the palace and urges the companions to come and help.
Most of the guards are consumed in the explosion or flee. One Naga Guard and Herald rush Buckle. Herald throws the chest of gold at him. The other Naga Guard moves to attack Stella.
Buckle Overcome 6-
Buckle catches the chest, but it’s really heavy. he’s knocked to the ground and pinned. A foolish attempt!
Buckle’s Wisdom is damaged
Stella draw her halfing sword for the first time. She’s not sure if she should fight the Naga Guard, or help Buckle. She worried for him and doesn’t know his power. She decides to rush to his side.
Stella Get Away 6-
The Naga Guard darts out with its strange Eel-like body and clamps its jaws onto Stella, stopping her in place.
Stella’s Wisdom is damaged (necrotic)
Buckle grabs the chest of gold and it catches fire. The gold inside starts to melt. Buckle stands up and projects a blast of intense fire from his chest, blasting molten gold at the Herald like a claymore mine. The Herald is just gone!
Buckle Dragonfire: vaporize anyone or anything except a Threat To The World
The Sea Viper rises up from his throne. He can’t believe the disrespect these adventurers are showing. How dare they behave this way, when he invited them to his home, gave them special accommodations? They could have been heroes of the city, but they betrayed his trust!
Sea Viper Separation: one member of the Fellowship is separated from the others
He pulls a lever hidden in the arm of his throne and a trapdoor opens under Buckle, dropping him into the water-filled chamber below! Another Group of Naga Guards awaits. But he’s still super-heated, so the water explodes into steam and the Naga Guards can’t approach him. He sinks to the bottom and starts walking towards the big doors at the front of the palace.
Outside the palace, the companions have arrived!
Theona Tossed Aside: throw something.
Theona grabs the Siege Tank and throws it up to the roof!
Stella Get Away 10+ avoid harm, avoid notice
Stella uses the confusion to escape the Naga Guard and get inside the Siege Tank. She starts the engine and drives full speed at the Sea Viper!
Sea Viper Show Of Force: damage Siege Tank’s Heavily Armored
Stella Pack Leader: allies’ actions give Hope to Finish Them
Stella Finish Them (+Blood) +Hope, advantage: Siege Tank Spikes and Steel 6-
The Sea Viper bravely faces the onrushing Seige Tank, then slithers aside at the last moent, slashing the treads as he passes. The Siege Tank grinds to a halt, barely holding together. The Sea Viper starts beating on its armored shell, prying plates off to get at Stella!
Down below, Buckle reaches the door and heats it until he can bend a corner and slip through.
Buckle Overcome 7-9
Stella is depsarately looking through her gear as the Sea Viper tears through the wall of the Siege Tank.
Stella useful item: Lantern
When the Sea Viper comes in, she dazzles him by igniting a bright lantern that she stole from Robin earlier. She decides to fight, not flee, and attacks with her sword.
Stella Finish Them (+Courage) advantage: dazzled 7-9
Sea Viper’s Hardened Scales are damaged
She slashes across his chest, breaking through a layer of scales, but his flesh is untouched! He reaches out a powerful hand. Stella tries to duck under it and exit the Siege Tank.
Stella Get Away: 6-
No good! She’s grabbed.
Down on the surface, Buckle meets the companions.
Buckle: Did Stella make it? We have to go get her!
Buckle Overcome 10+
He climbs the columns and leaps from column to column to reach the roof. Theona is big enough to follow easily, but the Goblin and Halfings will need more time.
Back on the roof, the Sea Viper drags Stella out of the tank. The two remaining Naga Guards approach.
Sea Viper: How dare you attack me in my own home. Look at the damage you’ve caused! You are not the first to attack me. All of them failed, just as you have!
He throws her to the ground between the Naga Guards. Meanwhile, Buckle applies War Paint and orders Theona into the fray.
Buckle War Paint Rampage: toss aside enemies within reach
Theona Stronger Than Is Reasonable: pin Sea Viper
Theona pays a price to act against Threat To The World: damage Larger Than Life
Theona Bonds That Break Us: erase a bond with Buckle, since she took damage from his order
Buckle rushes in and tosses the Naga Guards away from Stella. Theona grabs the Sea Viper’s shoulder and tail and spreads her arms wide, stretching the Sea Viper out in a vulnerable and uncomfortable manner!
Buckle Pay A Price to act against Threat To The World: damage Venomous Spurs
Buckle secretes flammable venom on his hands and strikes the Sea Viper. A moment after the impact, the Buckle’s hands explode in flame!
Buckle Finish Them +Blood (advantage: pinned by Theona) 7-9
Sea Viper’s Iron Grip is damaged
GM note: I had to read the rules very carefully, because the Sea Viper, Siege Tank, and Theona all had all stats damaged. Were they Taken Out, or barely standing? Taken Out triggers when all stats are damaged and the character takes damage again, so I ruled that they are barely standing.
GM note: The Taken Out move only applies to player characters. The section on “Threatening the Fellowship” says “An enemy that has had all its stats damaged is destroyed” Oops!
Stella was flat on her back, and heard Buckle rampage past her. She rises and grips her sword.
Buckle: I’ll grab. You stab!
The little Platyperson grapples the much larger but injured Sea Viper. The Sea Viper feels the heat from Buckle’s grip and tries to get away.
Buckle Pay A Price to act against a Threat To The World: damage Webbed Hands
Buckle Keep Them Busy: 10+
Stella: This ends now!
Stella Finish Them (+Blood) 6-
As Stella charges, the Sea Viper slaps her sword aside with the tip of his tail. He wrenches free from Buckle’s grip and dives from the roof to the water below. At some point in the battle, Robin formed a bridge to retreat from the roof. Emmett is still maintaining his Magic Barrier.
Emmett: You can’t hurt me, you monster!
Buckle: You work for that thing, and you call me a monster?
Emmett reconsiders the situation, drops his Magic Barrier, turns on the fans at his shoulders and hips, and dives backwards off the roof into the water below.
The battle is over! Stella and Buckle stand on the burning roof of the palace, in the center of Vieport. The Siege Tank is barely in one piece, and Theona’s badly hurt and has lost faith in their mission. She won’t take orders from them anymore. Fleeing the city seems prudent, but on one side is the ocean, and on the other, electrical fences and beyond that, hordes of ravenous ghosts. How are they going to get out of this one?
END OF SESSION MOVE:
Did we explore a new location: YES, Vieport
Did we learn about the world & its people: YES, Adventurer Club, ghost curse, generators
Did anyone reach their goal: YES Stella is bringing the Oolites home like she wants to bring halfing refugees home.
Restore Gear, Heal, Heal
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/Pack Leader
Last time, Buckle & Stella flew into Vieport on the back of a giant turtle. A whole city to explore! The river meets the ocean in the center of the city, which extends past the shore onto the seafloor. The land portion of the city is surrounded by tall towers with lightning flashing between them. The underwater portion of the city is mostly populated by Mer-Folk, and the dry portions have a mix of terrestrial species. The palace of the Sea Viper, ruler of the city, starts on an island in the middle of the city and extends down into the water.
Buckle isn’t sure about Mer-Folk. He remembers being hunted by one in another city. Stella is curious about the lightning barriers.
Stella Look Closely 6-
The towers are an effective barrier around the city. Anything trying to cross the lightning barrier would be electrocuted. The towers are 40 feet tall, higher than the buildings, which are mostly 3 storeys tall. Cables from the top of each tower go over the buildings toward some central point, probably a power plant. Stella notices that a brick chimney on a nearby building is leaning on a power cable, straining it. A broken cable would open a gap in the barrier around the city and threaten everything near the live end of the broken cable! Stella wants Buckle to fix the wire, but the upper storeys of the building are wood, so Buckle would set the building on fire if he climbed to the roof.
Stella knocks on the door of the building. An Elf opens the door and is amazed by Buckle, who glows. Buckle shrugs. They warn him that his chimney is threatening a power cable. He’s worried that he’s be an appetizer for ghosts, and runs to get help, following the cable deeper into the city. Neighbors hear the commotion and start looking out of windows to see what’s going on. Buckle examines the building to see what their options are.
Buckle Look Closely 10+
It’s a three-storey building. The ground storey is made of stone, but the upper storeys are wooden. The top storey has double doors and a stout post with a pulley. If they had rope, they could access the third storey directly from the street. The chimney is crumbling from disrepair. Trying to push it away from the cable or prop it up might make it collapse entirely. Getting close to the power cable risks electrocution.
Stella: So what am I supposed to do? I’m not electricity-proof.
They consider waiting for the Elf to come back with help. This is a major infrastructure project. Surely the city has engineers that are trained to make repairs. On the other hand, their brand new Siege Tank has many experimental one-time-use weapons, and one is a big grappling hook that could pull the chimney down from the relative safety of the street. Stella takes the controls!
Stella Overcome 7-9 (pay a price for 10+)
The Siege Tank’s grappling hook hits the chimney and retracts, pulling the chimney down away from the cable. Bricks fall from the roof into the street, causing some collateral damage, but the power cable is intact!
Stella: Buckle, did you see that! Did you see that?
Buckle: Well done. That was a little scary.
Three Engineers arrive from the direction that the Elf homeowner fled in. One is a Lantern, an inter-dimensional creature that projects a humanoid hologram to interact with the material world. Her name is Lucy, and she transforms into a rainbow bridge from the street to the roof for her two colleagues to access the roof. They see that the threat has been dealt with, and Lucy bridges down to talk to Buckle and Stella. She thanks them for protecting the city, and says there is an Adventurers’ Club that welcomes reckless but mostly effective do-gooders like themselves. They ask if she has done any adventuring herself, but Lucy says that keeping the Ghostlands out is more important than fist-fighting a dragon or whatever. Buckle suspects that this creature of light with an artificial body is somehow involved with all the robots and giant mirrors they have encountered recently. Stella is split between finding the Dwarves who used to own the mine they just saved, and investigating the Adventurers’ Club. She asks Lucy some more questions.
Stella Speak Softly 7-9
Lucy doesn’t know about metal dwarves, but a giant mirror did just arrive in town, floating down the river from Sugar’s Crossing. After Lucy wraps up safety checks her, she’s going to get down before sunset to avoid the werewolves.
Buckle: More werewolves?
Lucy: More?
Buckle: We had to throw a log through one at Platypalooza. It was on fire.
Stella and Buckle take their leave. Stella wants to find the Oolite Dwarves, but Buckle convinces her to go to the Adventurers’ Club for food and a place to stay. The Adventurers’ Club is on the west side of the river. They cross a bridge and are sassed by a Naga guard. The guards in Sugar’s Crossing on the night of the jailbreak were guards from Vieport, so Stella and Buckle know what to expect.
The Adventurers’ Club is a large stone building with a grand entrance. Inside, there are canals running alongside the hallways, because this is an amphibian building for both terrestrial and aquatic creatures. The person who greets them when the enter is a Mer-Folk names Fred. His fish half is like a Betta fish, so his scales shift from deep red to purple, and he has long showy fins and hair. He asks if Stella has captured Buckle. He’s embarrassed to learn of his error, that Buckle is a fellow adventurer. He impresses on them the elite status of the adventurers, and says they must complete a great and difficult quest to join.
Buckle: We’ve released the prisoners of a Sorceress, captured a changeling who was ruling a town in disguise, killed a Kraken, deactivated an army of metal dwarves, and just destroyed a superlaser.
Fred is very impressed, but he needs proof of their accomplishment. Buckle offers the Kraken beak that he collected as a trophy of the battle.
GM note: that’s from the very first session. He’s been carrying that the entire time!
Fred adds the Kraken beak to the wall of trophies and welcomes Stella and Buckle to the Adventurers’ Club. There’s a new member’s handbook, supper is being served in the cafeteria, and they can claim a room to stay overnight. There’s even valet parking for the Siege Tank.
Prominently displayed in the middle of the Adventurers’ Club is the Bounty Board, which lists difficult tasks worthy of mighty adventurers.
Stella starts to comment on the Source Of Power job, but Buckle shushes her.
Buckle: I’ll be tossed in a bag again!
They go to the cafeteria to eat and to meet the other Adventurers. Only two are at the Club tonight. Most are out doing great deeds for glory. The Exterminator is human-sized, but completely covered in armor made from the exo-skeletons of large insects. They wears a gas mask and helmet, and are drinking a smoothie through a port in the mask. The other adventurer is Theona the Giant, standing outside the second-storey window and reaching inside through a large open window to the table on which her large platters of food rest.
Buckle: Should we call you Termie or Nater?
Buckle Speak Softly 6-
The Exterminator is not amused, but Theona has some information for Buckle. Tonight Theona and The Exterminator will go out at night to hunt the werewolves that plague the town. As far as they know, there are about four werewolves, although that can change, since lycanthropy is contagious. Theona recommends that Stella and Buckle come out and fight with her tonight. No need to worry, the Adventurers’ Code forbids acting against other members of the Club. Buckle checks the Handbook, and sees rules against poaches quests, and other rules to keep Adventurers from clashing. Dinner is over and the sun is setting.
Buckle: Should we hole up or go wreak havoc?
Stella: The werewolves at Platypalooza were an unpleasant encounter. How bad is the werewolf situation in Vieport?
Theona: There are only a handful of the creatures. More glory for us if you don’t fight. Sleep wlth with your night light.
She points to Buckle, who constantly glows with volcanic heat. Theona and The Exterminator gear up for battle and head out to patrol the streets, while Buckle and Stella retire to a room. The divide the night into five watches: Buckle, Stella, Gus, Rose, and Ugg. Near dawn, during Ugg’s watch, Theona’s giant hand crashes through the window! Ugg leaps into action!
Ugg’s Bigger ‘n’ You pins Theona’s arm for a moment
This gives the rest of the team time to wake up and react.
Buckle Get Away 7-9 (avoid harm)
Buckle flees out the door and hides in the corridor, but he glows, so his position is obvious. Stella wishes she had more time to pick a tactic, but she has to act now before Theona gets free. She jumps on Silk’s back…
Silk Wall Crawler
…and crawls up the arm that Ugg has pinned to get in Theona’s face.
Stella’s Pack Leader: hope to Finish Them when advantage comes from allies
Stella Finish Them (Wisdom, show error of their ways) Advantage: Theona can’t get away and must listen. 10+
Stella: Stop! We’ve already saved you and the city from ghosts. We let you have the glory from hunting werewolves. We don’t want to use more force.
Theona has a very hierarchical worldview based on power. The strong overpower the weak, like she thought she was doing to these tiny newcomers. Restraint is almost alien to her. If Ugg (a goblin who comes up to Theona’s knees) is able to pin her arm, and the Stella thinks she doesn’t need to prove her superiority with violence, these people must be unthinkably powerful! Theona is glad she wasn’t immediately killed.
Stella forms a bond with Theona. Theona becomes Stella’s companion
GM note: Oh wow, Finish Them with Wisdom is very powerful. Stella earned it, though!
Stella: Why did you attack us?
Theona: The Sea Viper offers a bounty for any Source of Power, and Buckle is clearly a Source of Power.
Buckle slinks back into the room, still glowing, not subtle. Theona apologizes profusely.
Buckle: You’re not the first. you won’t be the last. At least you didn’t put me in a bag.
Theona replaces the window she smashes with a section of fence. The groundskeeper is not going to be happy about this. Ugg’s watch was the last watch before dawn, so everyone just stays awake until dawn. Now they can work on their reason for coming to this town: finding the Oolite Dwarves.
Stella: Point me to some dwarves!
Theona: Do you want me to bring you some dwarves?
Stella: No! No kidnapping! Just tell me where they hang out in this city.
Vieport is cosmopolitan so there are communities of most of the species in the city, but there’s now Dwarf ghetto where all the Dwarves live together. However, there is a Dwarf Cultural Center, which is a good place to start. Theona leads the team to a field cows and sheep grazing on it. The Dwarf Cultural Center is underground, of course. Once inside they meet Klaus, an old Dwarf with a long white beard. He tells them about the history of Dwarves in Vieport and how they dug the foundations of the lightning towers that surround the city. The Lightning Barrier is necessary to keep out the Deadlands. Anything that dies out there turns into a ghost that attacks the living. it’s a problem that exacerbates itself, and there’s not much left alive in the Ghostlands now. Ghosts can’t pass through the Lightning Barrier, and they can’t swim, so the river is safe for traffic.
Stella: Is everyone from around here?
Klaus: I don’t know what you mean.
Stella: We’re looking for a family of Dwarves called Oolite.
Klaus: I can’t just give out addresses to strangers, but I can pass a message along.
Stella: Tell them, “We stumbled across your mine. Metal Dwarves had become aggressive and taken over. That situation has been remedied.” They can find us by looking for Theona. Also, do you know that Halfing that lives in Vieport?
Klaus does not know a Halfling, and does not understand the message, but will relay it.
Stella’s foreign coins (Precious)
Buckle buys a Dwarven Dictionary with Stella’s money and they leave the Dwarven Cultural Center. They see the sights for a while, then another Dwarf rushes up to Theona. It’s Flint Oolite!
Flint: Is it true? Is the mine safe?
Buckle: It’s true, and my glowing eyes are the proof!
Flint is very confused. They explain their adventures in the Oolite Mine.
Flint: If only Opal were here. This was her dream.
Flint explains that Opal was ambitious and made it her life’s mission to restore the clan’s former glory, when the rest of the Oolites were resigned to living in obscurity. The last Flint knew, Opal was in Fairmeadow, north of here and east of Sugar’s Crossing. Stella, a completionist, doens’t know which quest to pursue. Her mission is to find all the Halflings, but she also wants to find Opal. Opal needs to know she can go home, just like the Halflings need to know they can return home.
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/Pack Leader
Last time, Buckle absorbed the Heart of Earth, a source of power that caused a mine full of mining robots to go rampant. He accepted the Heart of Earth in a desperate moment: pinned under the red-hot body of the Robot King and the Heart of Earth dangerously unstable without containment. When Stella shoved the Heart of Earth down his throat, a burst of energy rippled through his body, empowering him to shove the giant metal husk aside. He stands up and opens eyes that glow like fire, no pupils or irises. He looks down at his burning hands, then up at Stella.
Stella: Buckle, are you OK? You’re on fire.
Buckle. That was a rush. I feel fine though.
GM note: Heart of Earth is a custom Destiny that replaces Buckle’s Apex Destiny. It’s mostly the Firebrand Destiny, but with advantages & disadvantages like the Remnant, and a few life-related moves, since the heat of the earth brings life as well as fire.
Buckle’s body is hot enough to ignite flammable objects with a touch, and he shines like a campfire. Stella considers carrying a “Buckle Bucket” around to douse anything he accidentally torches. Buckle considers getting a non-flammable leather coat to hide his brightness. Such a coat would allow him to literally flash people. Camping out discreetly in the wilderness will also be difficult. Stella considers throwing a chain over a tree branch and hoisting Buckle aloft to pretend that he is the moon. That’s too similar to hanging for Buckle’s comfort.
OK, but what’s going on here in the mine? After the destruction of the King Robot, the group of mining robots that were guarding it and attacking the party have turned to collect ore. They don’t speak or respond to speech. The robots are finely crafted to look like metal dwarves, but without the influence of the Heart of Earth, they seem capable of only simple actions. Stella and Buckle explore the mine to figure out what happened here. The tunnels twist and branch, but Buckle’s excellent sense of direction prevents them from getting lost.
Stella Look Closely 7-9
Stella can see two distinct styles of excavation. Up to the chamber where they found the King Robot, the tunnels seem like a normal mine for metal ore, but after the Heart of Earth awakened the King Robot, the robots started mining in different patterns, ignoring the directions of the living Dwarves, who apparently fled. There are no signs of recent living Dwarf activity. The only control or interface to the mining robots is a dial on the robots’ back, under the backpack/hopper in which they collect ore.
Buckle reaches for the dial on a robot. Stella thinks smacking his hand away would be insufficient, and tackles him out of the way. Stella thinks they should talk about it before messing with anything.
Stella: Which glyph is your favorite?
Neither of them can read Dwarvish, so they have to guess at the glyphs’ meanings. Buckle likes the arrows. Maybe the robots pass each other.
Stella: OK, smarty-pants. What do the other glyphs do?
Buckle thinks the left glyph might make the robot put everything down. Stella decides to try it out on an isolated robot. She tells Buckle to stand some distance away in case of trouble. She reaches out to turn the dial to the left, and the robot, sensing her approach, reaches back to swat her away!
Stella Overcome 7-9
After knocking Stella a few paces back, the robot returns to its task. She decides to leave it alone.
Stella: Buckle, wanna give it a try?
Buckle: Maybe it’s good I didn’t touch it.
They look for the living quarters of the missing Dwarves.
Dwarves prefer to live underground. The depth of one’s dwelling is a sign of privilege. The living quarters of the working class Dwarves who used to operate this mine are right below the flat bottom of the shallow-funnel-shaped mine. The furniture and items in these barracks look quite old. The mining robots did not go rampant recently. New tunnels cut through the barracks, not with intent to deface or destroy them, just because that was the most efficient route. The rampant robots drove the Dwarves away, but did not seem to have any particular antipathy towards them. Buckle finds a manual and picks it up. It bursts into flames from his super-heated touch. He drops it and stomps on it, but that only makes more flames! He decides not to touch any more books. Stella looks around at the books and posters that survive, but she can’t read Dwarvish. Ugg’s a technical fellow. he has to maintain his robotic arms. But Goblins don’t usually mingle with other cultures, so he doesn’t read Dwarvish either. Also, he almost died in a fight just a few minutes ago. He squints at some diagrams through a swollen eye, but he’s in no shape to help.
Buckle Look Closely 6-
Buckle tries to find some kind of command center, and falls through a weak patch of floor! Stella assumes that he burned through, but that area had been undermined by a rogue tunnel. He did land in some sort of command center, and when the party joins him, they discover a log book (in Dwarvish, of course) and a regional map! They can’t read the place names, but they recognize places they’ve been recently.
The X represents the mine. The circle due north must be Templeton, and the square to the west of Templeton must be Sugar’s Crossing because it’s on a road (grey line) and river (blue line) There’s a road leading from the mine to this port city that they haven’t visited. Maybe the Dwarves fled there, and they can go find them.
They prepare to leave the mine, and check in with the giant Dung Beetles before they go. The Beetles don’t recognize Buckle. He’s changed so much! The Beetles are grateful that the robots will no longer break through and threaten the Beetles’ caverns, and offer the party the choice of several gifts:
Fellowship of the Beetles earned!
Besides the obvious benefits of armor and weapons, an enclosed vehicle can conceal Buckle’s bright glow. The party accepts the Siege Tank from the beetles, and they all pile in and set out for the port city.
New companion: Siege Tank
The road to the port has not been used in a longtime and has fallen into disrepair. Parts are washed out. Bushes grow in the path. Tree roots distort what pavement remains. The Siege Tank rolls over all of it easily. It’s not much faster than walking.
Near sunset, as Stella drives the tank toward the pink and yellow horizon, Dark shapes appear on the road, silhouetted by the setting sun. There are about five of them, but they are backlit and hard to see. They demand the vehicle halt, although their bearing doesn’t quite match their authoritative demand. Stella tries to think of a plan and the tank slowly approaches the dark figures. Silk is too weak from the last fight to help now. Buckle opens the top hatch and climbs on top of the tank. With burning eyes, from the top of a war machine, he tells the figures on the road to move.
Buckle Talk Sense (impress with Grace) (Stella gives Hope by not stopping) 7-9
The figures shrink back into the brush on either side of the road.
Figure: We were only trying to warn you. Stay low!
The tank proceeds unhindered. Sometimes the next day, the tank crawls through a pleasant landscape.The sun is shining. The birds are not singing. There are no birds. Weird. Up ahead, one of the hills is missing its top.There’s a flat scorched area where the rounded apex should be.
Buckle: Look at that former mountain.
Stella: It had a bad day. Or a bad haircut.
Stella drives the tank towards the hill to investigate, with Buckle on top as a lookout
Stella Look Closely (+Hope from Buckle) 7-9
Clearly whatever sliced through the hill was very powerful and very hot. Buckle’s immune to heat, so he’d be fine, but everyone else would avoid it, whatever it is. As they drive around the damaged hill, they see a castle made of ice! Getting closer still, they see the castle rests on the back of a giant turtle, flippers spread out across hundreds of feet, eyes closed. A turtle’s chest won’t rise and fall with its breathing. Their ribs are fused solid to form their shell, but the party can tell its breathing by looking at its nostrils. This enormous creature is asleep.
Buckle: Do you think the king is home?
Stella: That’s presumptuous. I’m sure the queen has it under control.
Buckle: Wanna find out what burned the mountain?
Stella: It’s not the craziest thing we’ve done recently.
They leave the tank and their companions a polite distance away and walk up to the castle. They are greeted at the gate by Gertrude, a beautiful woman made of clear, sharp crystal. With her every movement, little rainbows shimmer and dance around. Stella elbows Buckle.
Stella: Told you. Queen.
Gertrude is happy to see them. They ask about the hill. Gertrude says it’s fortunate that the hill is there, since it provides for Bertha (the turtle) so she can sleep in safety. Gertrude is trying to put a cheery spin on everything, but it becomes clear that Bertha and Bernard’s castle were forced down by a powerful beam weapon fired from nearby. Buckle elbows Stella.
Buckle: Bernard’s castle.
Gertrude invites them in for an audience with Bernard. When buckle steps onto the castle, he starts melting the icy flagstones, leaving webbed-foot-shaped puddles. Gertrude gasps and fires a high-pressure jet of water from her body, pushing Buckle back outside in a cloud of steam. She’s embarrassed by her outburst and very apologetic, but Buckle’s fine. Stella will go meet Bernard, and Buckle will wait outside. The other inhabitants of the castle are also humanoid-shaped, but seem to be made of ice or snow. Bernard is a large man, all polished facets of ice, with a crown of ice crystals (probably part of his body) on his head. He is formal but direct, a strong contrast to Gertrude’s customer service voice. He explains that they were flying over the land (It’s always nice to explore new lands) when they saw a glint or shimmer from the ground, It was bright, almost a second sun. That’s the source of the beam weapon that hit Bertha, and forced them to take shelter behind this hill. Stella agrees to check it out.
Stella: Anything else? Are you urgently leaving the planet?
Bernard: Ha, we only arrived a generation ago!
Also, Bertha is taking a nap, and won’t wake up for a day or two, so the castle can’t move before then. Stella asks for a token of goodwill to give to whoever owns the beam weapon, to show that Bernard & his people are not a threat. Bernard thinks for a while, then produces a gem. It’s smooth and clear, like Gertrude, and rainbows shine on his hand as he holds it. There’s a slight enchantment on it. When Bernard opens his hand, the gem rises slightly and floats an inch over his palm, but it’s easy to hold. Stella takes the gem and goes back out to Buckle.
GM note: Bernard isn’t as friendly and helpless as he appears. He sent stealthy assassins out with orders to kill whoever Stella gives the gem to, since she’s going to give it to the person who shot down the castle. I didn’t the players about the assassins.
Stella asks Buckle to go look over the top of the hill, since he probably won’t get burned. Buckle pokes his head over the crispy edge of the hill. Nothing happens. He stands on top of the hill. Nothing. He jumps around, but still does not draw the ire of whatever is out there. he does see a shimmer about a mile to the north, roughly where Bernard described the beam weapon firing from. Since it’s apparently safe, Stella joins Buckle at the top of the hill and also sees the shining light. She explains the plan she and Bernard discussed, and shows Buckle the gem. Buckle reaches out to grab it, but Stella snatches it away.
GM note: That was close!
Buckle and Stella return to the Siege Tank and drive it over towards the site of the beam weapon. As they approach, they see an huge hexagonal mirror, 100 feet across, suspended between two giant crabs, each the size of a house. On the ground behind them, a humanoid Spider (segmented exoskeleton, walks upright on two legs, six arms) pulls on reins for the crabs, and a series of wires connected to metal girders on the underside of the mirror. Stella and Buckle leave the tank a polite distance and approach on foot. If this does not go well, blasting things with the Seige Tank’s secret weapons is a fallback plan.
They are about to introduce themselves when the Spider (his name is Agate, pronounced uh-GAH-tay) spots a bird and excitedly motions them to watch. With the reins, he directs the crabs to aim the mirror towards the bird, then pulls the wires attached to the mirror to focus the reflected sunlight into a deadly beam. Poof! The poor bird is destroyed.
Stella: Impressive.
Agate: Thanks, I’m great.
Stella clenches her fist in frustration. They ask about his contraption. He’s been practicing with it ever since he found it. As far as he knows, this mirror fell out of the sky. They mention that they saw a similar mirror on their travels.
Agate: There’s another? You left it? You gotta take whatever you can get!
Stella: Why do you attack flying things?
Agate: Because I can’t reflect sunlight down. Sun shines down, beam bounces up. But if I had two mirrors… Where did you see that other mirror?
Stella: We’ll get to that later. But first, do you hate Bernard?
Agate doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She starts to talk about the flying castle and he interrupts. Shooting the castle was so cool. He cut off a whole tower before it dropped below the horizon. It’s not every day a target like that presents itself, so he jumped at the opportunity.
Stella: You like reflecting the sun. What about refraction?
Agate: It’s all good. Whatever works.
Stella shows him the gem. It’s beautiful! Agate fires a webline to snatch it away from her.
Stella Overcome 6-
She tries to close her hand, but he’s too quick!
Buckle Overcome 10+
Buckle grabs the webline, which burns instantly. The gem falls to the ground.
Buckle: First you have to promise not to shoot down the castle. You’ve heard of a deal, right?
Agate: Yeah, yeah. A deal is for people who aren’t strong enough to get what they want, so they have to trick people into getting what they want.
Buckle: Well, here’s how you trick us into giving you the gem. Promise you won’t shoot down the castle.
Buckle Talk Sense (sense, a plan) 10+
Agate promises. Stella picks up the gem.
Buckle: You get the gem after they fly away.
Agate: Fine. Hurry up!
Stella and Buckle return to the castle, where Gertrude and Bernard await them.
GM note: The assassins were so very close to attacking, but no one ever took the gem except Stella. True to their orders, they stayed hidden.
Stella explains the giant mirror weapon to Gertrude and Bernard, and how Agate doesn’t even care them. He just wants things to shoot at, but the gem has enticed him to promise safe passage. Buckle suggests that the castle could produce a lens of ice to counter Agate’s beam weapon. Gertrude is offended by the suggestion that the principle that makes her sparkle and brings joy and hope to all around her, should be harnessed as a weapon of destruction! Buckle reassures her that it doesn’t have to be a weapon. It could be used defensively to disperse or refract Agate’s beam weapon. Stella is impressed by Buckle’s vocabulary and knowledge of optics. He shrugs. They have science class in the Platyperson village. Bernard assigns some people to work on a lens. He is surprised that Stella did not give Agate the gem.
GM note: You know, so his assassins could kill him.
Stella says that Agate is untrustworthy, and perhaps Bernard should drop the gem as the castle flies away.
Stella and Buckle return to the Siege Tank
Stella: How do you feel about that Spider having access to mirros? Maybe we play a prank on him.
Buckle: Pranks are fun.
Stella: maybe more serious than a prank.
They are still half-dead from fighting squads of invulnerable robots earlier, so Stella serves a feast to heal herself and her companions, while Buckle goes fishing to get food for himself and Ugg. They wait until nightfall before making their move.
Stella: It concerns me that a being so careless and egotistical could have so much power.
They will destroy the mirror! But how? It’s a huge structure of metal and glass. Buckle can scorch the reflective surface, or heat it until it warps, but he can’t blow it up. The tank could blow it up. They could try to steal it, but they’d have to steal the giant crabs as well. It’s too big to carry otherwise. Buckle can talk to any beast. Maybe they talk to the crabs and set them free. They’re not sure where Agate will be when they arrive, but Buckle’s electro-sense will be able to find him at close range. To use electro-sense, Buckle will have to exit the tank, so he’ll light up the area, alerting Agate.
Stella: We need a plan. When Buckle sticks his head out, We’ll have to go quick.
Stella drives the tank to within shouting distance of the giant crabs. Buckle pokes his head out of the hatch, shining bright light all around. He senses agate in a hammock on the underside of the mirror. He’s stirring, but he won’t be able to act for a moment. Buckle tells Stella that the Spider is in a hammock, then tells the crabs that he’s come to set them free and return them to the ocean.
Buckle Talk Sense (sense, desires) 10+
The crabs like that idea, and start cutting the webbing that secures the mirror to their backs.
Agate: No, no, no!
Agate runs upside-down on the underside of the mirror firing webs to replace the ones being cut by the crabs.
Stella Keep Them Busy 7-9
Stella rides Silk up the leg of a crab and barrels into Agate, knocking him down to the ground. Buckle climbs up onto the mirror, throwing black powder around, setting fires, and trying to warp the mirror with his burning footsteps
Buckle Finish Them (sense, disable) 7-9
The mirror flexes and warps, but it’s basically still in one piece. Agate sneaks up on Stella, running on the underside of the crab’s shell and appearing behind her with a flurry of blows from his six fists!
Stella Overcome 7-9
She grabs one of his arms and uses his momentum to throw his past her, but it was a scary attack, so her Courage is damaged. Agate tumbles forward, then throws a webline and swings to the other crab. The crab that Stella is on finishes freeing itself from the mirror and shoves the mirror off its back, threatening everyone in the area! Stella and Silk flee back to the Siege tank
Stella Get Away 7-9 avoid harm
Buckle is on top of the mirror and rides it down, jumping off at the last moment, rolling through a cloud of debris, and running back to the tank.
Buckle Overcome 7-9 -> Survivor -> Get Away 7-9 avoid harm
The mirror is bent out of shape, and the other crab is close to freeing itself. Agate can feel his glorious beam weapon slipping away. But there’s still a precious gem, and that glowing Platyperson has got to be important. But these enemies have destroyed his great weapon and he’s barely touched them. He can’t win this fight, not now. He grabs a hidden webline prepared for just such an occasion and is whisked quickly away. The other crab throws its side of the mirro down, completing its destruction!
The Siege Tank leads the two giant crabs back to Bertha and Bernard’s castle in a triumphant procession. Bernard thinks Stella was very shrewd to break the deal and attack Agate at night. He asks for the gem back, since they don’t need to give it to Agate anymore.Stella wants to keep the gem to commemorate the achievement.
Stella: Isn’t it good to do things for the greater good?
Bernard: Ah, an altruist! How generous and unselfish!
Stella: I mean, it’s so beautiful. It would make me happy to look at it.
Stella Talk Sense (wisdom, emotions) 6-
Bernard keeps the gem. The party plans to continue on to the port. Bernard says Bertha can carry them, if they are willing to wait for her to walk up. That sounds like a good plan.
Several days later an amazing sight appears over the rooftops of the port city. A huge flying turtle looms overhead, gleaming spires of ice on its back. It lands, and the gates of a castle open up. Out come two huge crabs, flanking a secret war machine of the Dwarves. Atop this war machine, a mighty beast, eyes glowing, flaming with the heat of the Earth’s core!
Buckle is sitting down like a dog, unaware of how cool he looks, and asks amazed onlookers where to find a tavern.
GM note: End of session move. Three boons. Level up. Heal. Heal. Buckle takes Dragonfire, which lets him kill or destroy anything that’s not a Threat To The World. Stella takes Queen Of The Wild, so all Beasts are her Companions. These are very powerful abilities!
Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The party: Buckle the Beast/Apex, Stella the Halfling/Pack Leader
Last time, the party set out to find a Source Of Power. They found it inside the leader of an army of mining robots! These robots are infringing on the territory of some giant Dung Beetles who want the party to drive them out, and are willing to lend some support. Stella and Buckle prepare to assault the mine.
GM note: Buckle took an Apex move that allowed him to ignore a Location Stat, but Buckle’s Mammalian move already allowed him to ignore a Location Stat. So he swapped that move for “Twin Fang” which gives him a new companion describes as “your shadow” We decided that this was literally his shadow, able to take three-dimensional shape.
Buckle: War Paint, gain 2 Power
Buckle prepares for battle by applying warpaint and doing a traditional war-dance.
Buckle. I figure I’d rampage, go after them unflinchingly
Stella: Buckle, you’ve changed. In a good way.
Buckle: Hanging out with beetles changes a person.
Buckle plans to take point. There’s a group of about 50 robots waiting at the edge of the mine’s territory, preventing them from entering. The Dung Beetles can roll boulders down into the mine, but they need to be protected from this forward guards.
Here’s the situation. The party is in the top left corner. Fifty robots and a few shield robots block them from the mine. Another dozen robots with one shield robot each guard each of the three paths down into the mine.
Stella: What’s the signal?
Buckle: A howl. Not a terrifying howl.
Stella wants to roll boulders down all three paths, instead of just onto the big group.
Stella: How do you feel about log-rolling, but on a boulder?
Buckle: I’ve done some log-rolling at fairs in my day
GM note: Platyperson festivals do involve log-based sports.
Stella’s plan is for Buckle to disrupt the robots, then for the beetles to roll the boulders roll at Buckle, who will leap on top of one and ride it down to the bottom of the mine. She’s not sure how she will get down. The Dung Beetles rolling these boulders are the size of a compact car, and their boulders are even bigger than they are. Trying to jump on one before it crushes him seems like a bad plan to Buckle. He’ll feint and get out of the way instead. Instead of sending boulders down all three paths, the Dung Beetles split into two groups. One will attack the group of 50 robots (top-left of the map above), another will attempt to clear one of the paths (bottom of the map) so the party can enter the mine.
Stella, Buckle, and the Dung Beetles can plan safely because the robots don’t leave their territory. They can sneak around behind the hills that surround the mine, but getting close to the robots will require them to reveal themselves.
Buckle Get Away 7-9 (avoid notice, take harm)
Buckle and his Shadow make daring dashes to get within charging distance of the group of fifty robots, but their position is pretty bad, This was a foolish plan. Buckle’s Wisdom is damaged.
Buckle War Paint, spend 1 Power to Rampage
Buckle and his Shadow rampage into the big group of robots, throwing them aside in their fury! The robot formation is disrupted, but none of the robots seem damaged by their rough treatment.
Shield Robot Diamond Command: all nearby Robots (except Shield Robot) cannot be harmed
Buckle Overcome robot counter-attack 7-9 pay a price (damage Shadow) for 10+ result
In the melee, a robot grabs Shadow by the bill. Robots emit a strong constant hum of electro-energy, and getting grabbed right on his sensor overwhelms Shadow’s electro-sense. Buckle howls, and Stella orders the Dung Beetles to release the boulders!
As the boulders come rolling down the hill, the group of fifty robots forms up in several rows and holds up metal arms to stop the boulders! The huge rocks crash into the four-foot-tall metal robots. The first row is pushed back into the second row, and the second row slides back to the third row, but they stop the giant boulders! None of the robots are damaged!
Buckle Get Away 10+
Meanwhile, Buckle and Shadow are running around the mine on the slippery gravel slopes between paved paths.
The Dung Beetles to the south release their boulders. The group of 12 robots on that path also form up to stop the boulders, but there aren’t so many robots and the boulders have more time to build up speed! The boulders crash through the robot formation like bowling balls through pins, but the robots that are thrown through the air or run over are unhurt and try to get up as they tumble downhill with the boulders. Then the Shield Robot in the back of the group gets hit by a boulder. Its crystal shield shatters, and the robot’s body is flattened by the giant boulder. Then all the robots tumbling down the path start falling apart, and at the bottom of the path, there’s only boulders and scrap metal!
Buckle and Shadow take the path cleared by the boulders and duck into a tunnel. Stella’s party is able to join them.
Buckle: The Mothers are fragile compared to the Children.
Buckle’s electro-sense gives him a different view of the robots from most other creatures. The shield robots feel more alive than the normal ones. The loud constant hum of robotic energy is even louder from the Shield Robots.
Stella: So we take out the ones with shields, then take out the others? That’s a plan I can get behind.
Buckle: Children protect Mothers.
Buckle’s electro-sense detects slightly different energies coming from each tunnel, so he’ll always know where he’s been. That doesn’t mean he knows where they are going.
Buckle’s Mammalian Protection cancels Location’s Maze stat
GM note: I used a Clock from Blades In The Dark to track progress through the mine. Players describe how they find their way and make a move that follows. The success of the move fills up more or fewer clock segments, and when the clock is full, they find the Source of Power
Stella Look Closely 10+ (search clock: 3/6)
Stella takes a bag of powdered sugar from Gus, her cook, and throws some in the air to find air currents. They follow the air currents deeper into the mine. They are able to spot unstable sections of the tunnel and move carefully past them. They hear the sounds of mining tools up ahead. Buckle senses two Children and one Mother down a side passage.
Buckle (+hope from Stella’s assist) Get Away 7-9 avoid notice, take harm (search clock 5/6)
The party throws themselves across the intersection, avoiding the robots’ notice, but landing on some sharp rocks. They continue and notice the temperature rising slightly.
They follow the heat until they reach a chamber with a large, obvious main entrance. There’s also a small natural tunnel off to the side. Buckle uses his electro-sense again. Mammals give off a pulsing energy, like a heartbeat. The robots are a loud, constant hum. He senses something else ahead. It pulses, like a mammal, but its builds and decays over several seconds. It’s deeper, slower, more powerful, than any other energy signature in the mines. This must be the Source Of Power in the chamber ahead. He feels that they will be unwelcome there.
Buckle: It’s not alive like the metal Dwarves are alive. It’s like a normal person, but much bigger.
They wonder how to approach this intimidating lifeform.
Stella: My people aren’t known for walking in front doors uninvited.
Buckle: My people are.
Most of the party sneaks in through the narrow tunnel, but Shadow goes into the main entrance as a distraction. Buckle can’t talk to Shadow remotely, or see through his eyes, but he gets a vague sense of how Shadow is doing, and what Shadow sees is scary. The big energy source is indeed inside the giant glowing King Robot they saw before. Its guarded by two Shield Robots, and a dozen normal Robots with a Shield Robot of their own. At the back of the room is a huge geode that’s been split open, with a gap in the middle. Along the sides of the room are blocks of metal.
Shadow Keep Them Busy Pay A Price to act against King Robot
Falling Block Trap reveal this threat when someone pays a Price. 2 damage and trap those nearby (i.e. Stella and Buckle)
As the rest of the party moves through the natural tunnel, part of it collapses! Stella and Buckle are buried and trapped!
Buckle takes 2 damage & is trapped
Stella takes 2 damage & is trapped
Buckle’s actions harmed Stella, so one of her bonds with him is broken. Erase “Impressed with Buckle’s ability to get in trouble and survive”
Damage Ugg’s “Tough as Can Be” for advantage “dig out of rubble”
Damage Rose’s “Get Right In There” for advantage “dig out of rubble”
Ugg and Rose dig them out.
The robots in the chamber advance menacingly on Shadow. Shadow tries to turn 2-dimensional and return to Buckle, but the glow from the King Robot prevents him from forming an actual shadow. He’s trapped in the room!
Stella Lived In A Shoe to shrink to the size of an apple
There are gaps in the rubble the size of an apple, so Stella shrinks down and squeezes through. She’ll get into the chamber quickly, but the rest of the party will have to clear the rubble, so they won’t be able to help her immediately. She sees Shadow menaced by the group of Robots and Plunge Attacks their shield robot!
Stella Finish Them (advantage: surprise, plunge attack) 10+
She takes its arm off, and the crystal shield shatters when it hits the ground. The glittering aura fades from the robots. Back at full-size, Stella and Shadow fight to keep the Robots at bay.
Stella & Shadow Keep Them Busy 7-9
Back in the tunnel, Silk makes some rope out of webbing so the team can haul the rubble out of the way.
Buckle Overcome rubble 7-9 pay price (Gus’ lunch) for 10+ result
Gus drops on of his packed lunches, and the shifting rubble crushes it. Poor Gus. Buckle rides Silk onto the chamber ceiling.
Buckle Finish Them (advantage: plunge attack) +Hope (Ambush predator striking for hiding) 7-9 damage Diamond Command
He picks his target, drops, and tail-slams one of the Shield Robots guarding the King Robots. He knocks it over, smashing its shield. The King Robot is still protected by a second Shield Robot.
The group of robots recovers from Stella’s assault and forms up to go on the offensive.
Stella Overcome 7-9 temporary solution
Stella slides between the legs of a few robots and they lose track of her, but she slides right into the King Robot! Buckle chooses to go after the other Shield Robot.
Damage Ugg’s “Bigger ‘n’ You” for advantage “restrain enemy”
Ugg jumps down from the tunnel and grabs the Shield Robot with his big mechanical arms, holding it in place for Buckle’s attack.
Buckle Finish Them (advantage: restrained by Ugg) 10+ destroyed
Buckle tail slams the shield, sending the fragments into the robot, destroying it! The King Robot no longer has the invulnerability aura, but it’s still big and scary! It picks up Stella in one big glowing fist and smashes her into the ground!
Stella takes 1 damage
The group of robots are going after Buckle & Shadow, and the King Robot is focused on Stella.
Buckle (+hope from Shadow) Overcome 7-9 pay a price (damage Shadow) for 10+ result
Buckle and Shadow attack the group of robots in a pincer move. they punch through the enemy formation and reunite. Shadow’s webbed hands are torn up in the assault.
Damage Silk’s “Creepy” for advantage “distract King Robot”
Silk extends a line from the ceiling and swings in circles around the King Robot’s head.
Damage Rose’s “Loyal” for advantage “Fastball Special”
Stella Lived In A Shoe become small enough for Rose to throw
Stella Pack Leader working with companion makes her Threat To The World. Does not pay a price to roll against King Robot
Stella Finish Them (+hope Pack Leader) 10+
Stella runs at Rose and yells, “Catch!” Rose knows what’s next. Stella shrinks to the size of an apple and Rose grabs her and hurls her a the King Robot. Stella enlarges to full size en-route, leading with her sword! She punches through the stretched, softened metal of the King Robot’s chest and comes out the other side holding The Heart Of Earth! The Source of Power that was empowering this robot!
The King Robot is dead! It’s giant body topples over.
Buckle Overcome 7-9 temporary solution
Buckle grabs one of the worker robots and puts it between him and the falling King Robot. The weight of the King Robot’s collapse knocks them both down. The robot is destroyed and Buckle is pinned beneath it! The King Robot’s body is soft heated metal, and it slowly bends and drips towards Buckle. Without the King Robot’s influence, the surviving robots stop fighting and move off to start digging again.
Buckle Overcome 6-
Shadow rushes to assist, but the glowing light from the King Robot’s body flattens him into a regular shadow.
Stella Overcome 6-
Stella starts to move towards Buckle, but the Heart Of Earth she’s holding draws her attention. The long, powerful pulse that Buckle could sense is now audible, and it’s getting faster and less regular. It’s unstable. Without something to contain or control it, it could explode and collapse the entire mine! It was stable while inside the King Robot. Maybe that geode on the back wall is where the Heart of Earth came from. What will she do?
GM note: I emphasized “contain” more than “control” which I fear pushed the players’ thinking in one direction, but it turned out to be a great direction!
Buckle: Shove it in me!
Stella: Do platypeople have pouches? Either you eat it, or it’s a suppository.
The almost-melted body of the King Robot slumps closer and closer to the trapped and sweating Buckle.
Buckle: C’mere Stella. You must replace my heart with the Heart Of The Earth!
Stella: I’m gonna do open-heart surgery here?!
Stella has an idea and calls to Buckle again. When he answers, she shoves the Heart of Earth in his mouth! Power surges through Buckle’s body and he’s able to throw off the husk of the Robot King! The Heart of Earth has changed him!
GM note: Absorbing the Source of Power replaced Buckle’s “Apex” Destiny with a new Destiny “Heart of Earth”
Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The party: Buckle the Beast/Apex, Stella the Halfling/Pack Leader
Last time, Buckle & Stella “saved” Templeton by returning the rightful Mayor (annoying as she is) to her seat of power and capturing the shape-shifting impostor in her place. For this, the Mayor grants them the Fellowship of Templeton, and offers several boons. They choose to learn the location of a Source of Power, a legendary artifact of potentially earth-shaking power. They also get a room in a nice hotel in the tourist district to rest up for a week.
While they recover their health & gear, Buckle is excited to play tourist. He buys a fake hard hat with a plushie light on top. He’s a cute platypus wearing a cute hat with ear flaps. Pomplamoose doesn’t want to wait a week to return home. Her home is just a little further to the east, so she announces that she’s heading out. Stella and Buckle need the rest, so they don’t go with her. Buckle is heartsick, but tries to hide it. Pomplamoose pats him on the head as she leaves.
After a week, Stella, Buckle, and their permanent companions: Silk, Gus, Rose, and Ugg head south towards the Oolite Mine, rumored site of a Source of Power.
GM note: The Oolite mine first affected this world before this world existed, back in the Fairmeadow Fair campaign. Despite searching for it for a long time, and even learning its location, the players in Feairmeadow Fair never visited it.
As the party walks down dusty paths between rolling hills, a giant spider suddenly appears. It’s about the size of Silk, a riding spider for Halflings. It’s interested in Gus, who had a bad experience with spiders in the past. It took him a long time to trust Silk, and he doesn’t trust this spider. He runs in circles until Stella slaps him! She sends Silk to talk to his fellow spider. Silk and the wild spider mirror each other in a dance with their many legs. This spider isn’t hostile, just curious. It approaches Gus in a gesture of goodwill, then steals a snack from his pack and runs away.
Later, the party walks under the edge of a rock face and boulders start falling from the cliff above! The party runs from the rolling boulders, and Buckle falls into a hole in the ground! There are lots of holes, and the remaining party members have to dodge the holes while outrunning the boulders! Down in the hole, Buckle is surrounded by darkness. The ground he landed on wasn’t as hard as he expected. His electro-sense detects someone down here with him! He calls out, and the creatures show themselves. Giant Dung Beetles! Each Dung Beetle is the size of a hatchback car. Buckle says he’s lost and confused, and they’re happy to explain. They collect the boulders for their young. The boulders are too big to fit down their tunnels, which is why one hasn’t landed on Buckle’s head. He asks the Dung Beetles to help his climb out of the tunnels and to assist his friends being chased by the boulders. They agree, but he must do something for them as well. The Dung Beetles grow nutritious mushrooms in certain caverns, but some of those caverns have collapsed. Buckle is small enough to fit inside and retrieve the food. Buckle agrees to help.
Back on the surface. Buckle rises out of a hole in front of his teammates. He keeps rising, and the Dung Beetle he’s standing on also emerges from the tunnel. Other Dung Beetles emerge from other holes and stop the rolling boulders. Stella and the companions can’t understand the Dung Beetles’ speech, but Buckle explains the situation. They all go into the tunnels to the stricken mushroom cavern.
A large boulder has fallen through the Dung Beetle’s tunnel, mostly blocking the entrance to the Mushroom Cavern. There is a tiny gap on one side: tiny for a car-sized Dung Beetle. Buckle is able to shimmy through without a problem. Inside, he finds the whole caverns has shifted. The ‘floor’ on which the mushrooms grow used to be horizontal, but now tilts sharply. There’s a square hole in the far side of the cavern that glows with an orange light. Buckle cautious sneaks down the perfect square tunnel to investigate. The tunnel is six feet on a side, too small for the Dung Beetles, and too precise for their methods too. Buckle approaches a junction with another tunnel and carefully peers around the corner. A ways down the next tunnel are three metal statues, carved to look like Dwarves. These statues move on their own! They are pulling ore out of the tunnel walls and and putting it in hoppers on their backs, carved to look like backpacks. This is a mine operated by robots!
Buckle puts his weight on the wrong bit of stone and it collapses, making a loud noise. The robots’ head quickly swivel towards the source of the noise, and one rings a bell. Another statue approaches. This one is also shaped like a Dwarf, but it carried a large shield, carved out of one giant crystal. As it approaches, a glittering aura appears on each statue within a certain distance. These four robots are advancing on Buckle’s position. Buckle flees back through the mushroom cavern and pushes through the gap in the giant boulder. It shifts again, and Buckle slides out just in time! He tells the party and the Dung Beetles about being chased by metal statues.
Stella: Buckle, are you sure you’re OK?
Buckle: I did get hit in the head, but I’m pretty sure it was all real.
Stella pats Buckle on the head.
These mining robots might be connected to the Oolite mine. The party investigates above ground. The terrain is pretty barren: low gravelly hills one after the other. As they crest one hill, the next hill is gone! There’s a hole where the hills should be: a strip mine.
The mine is shaped like a shallow funnel with a flat bottom. Three paths spiral down the sides fo the funnel, with square tunnel entrances along their length. Dwarf statues bustle about, moving ore.
Buckle: See?
Stella is embarrassed. They observe the robots for a while. Most look like miners, but there are a few holding big crystal shields. The shield-bearers provide a glittering aura to nearby robots, but they themselves do not have the aura. Buckle looks around for a boss or foreman. When one emerges, Buckle wishes he hadn’t seen it! This used to be a mining robot, or maybe several. Now it’s much bigger, stretched out, with parts of other robots bolted to it. Its chest bulges and its whole body glows with heat. Surely that is the Source of Power!
Buckle: It’s bulging. Will it lay eggs?
Stella: Do Dwarves lay eggs?
Buckle: Doesn’t everyone lay eggs?
Stella: Square holes. Anything is possible.
The robots don’t speak, but they are clearly responding to motions from the King Robot. It spots them and sends a group of 50 worker Robots and several Shield Robots after them! They retreat, and the Robots do not pursue past a certain point. They have well-defined territory. Buckle jumps down a Dung Beetle hole. The Dung Beetles are surprised to see him back so soon. He asks some questions about the situation. The Dung Beetles don’t know much about the King Robot, but it’s scary. For all they know, it wants to dig down and flood the world with fire. The Dung Beetles want to secure their mushrooms for their young, but are evasive about the benefits of the mushrooms and where they keep their young. The Dung Beetles want Buckle and friends to secure the mushroom caverns from these invading Robots. Buckle asks for the Dung Beetles’ assistance. These Robots are a threat to their young, so it’s in their best interest to fight them. If the Robots are driven out, the Dung Beetles can use the mine tunnels to access the mushroom caverns instead of the collapsed tunnel. The Dung Beetles are fired up by this speech, but Buckle and friends have to help too. The Dung Beetles will roll boulders down on the Robots, but the party must be the vanguard and ensure the Dung Beetles’ safety.
Buckle rises from the tunnel entrance on the back of Dung Beetle, as other Dung Beetles emerge from holes all around Stella and the companions.
Buckle: I’m raising an army!
Together they form a War Council and plan their assault on the Robot mine.
GM note: End of Session move. Heal, Heal, Level up.
Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The party: Buckle the Beast, Stella the Halfling
Finally, the city of Templeton is in sight: a cinder cone volcano rising high above the low hills of the surrounding countryside. Returning the Mayor to her city will make her someone else’s problem. The Mayor is delighted to return to her city and get the respect and treatment she deserves after the indignity of captivity in Lady Evelynn’s dungeon, and the sass Stella has been giving her.
As they approach the entrance of the city, the Mayor runs up to the two guards, expecting a hero’s welcome. Instead, they look surprised, even scared, and demand the password. The Mayor doesn’t know what they are talking about. She’s the mayor who has been missing for so long. Everyone should be thrilled by her return. The guards exchange worried glances. This is exactly what they worried would happen. One runs to get help while the other keeps an eye on the Mayor. Buckle wonders at this strange behavior.
Buckle: We’re trying to be rid of her.
The Mayor realizes what’s happening. Shortly before she was kidnapped, an unstoppable shape-shifting creature was released from a secure faciilty. No doubt it has impersonated her in her absence! The Mayor and the remaining guard accuse each other of being the creature. Buckle asks how to tell if someone is really the shape-shifter, but the guard won’t reveal state secrets. As Buckle argues with the guard, an Orc woman who was definitely not there a moment ago suddenly has the Mayor in her clutches! Stella leaps towards Buckle and shrinks to the size of an apple. Buckle catches her and hurls her at the mysterious assailant. Stella enlarges in mid-air and tackles the Orc off of the Mayor. The Orc is knocked to the ground, but flings a throwing knife at the Mayor. The knife only grazes her, but the Mayor howls and cries as blood flows from the wound. Seeing this, both the guard and Beth (the Orc commando) rush to assist her. They’re sure this is the real mayor. Buckle tail-slaps Beth as she rushes past him, knocking her out. The guard helps the Mayor up, but if the Mayor is here, just returned from a long absence, who has been in the mayor’s office all this time?
Buckle, Stella, their companions, Pomplamoose (the giant albino Platyperson), the Mayor, the guard (his name is Alebringer), and the unconscious Beth all seek medical attention. Since official channels seem to be compromised, Alebringer leads them to the medical school at Fortinbras Collage Of Mines. He brings them to Doctor Regina Strongarm and tells her to keep their visit hush-hush. Dr. Strongarm will see to the Mayor personally and won’t tell her students.
Stella and Buckle ask Alebringer what’s gong on. There have been strange murders in town, and the Mayor (apparently an impostor) blamed it on the shape-shifter and has all the town officials paranoid and suspicious. Alebringer recommends they leave town. It’s dangerous. No one can be trusted. As far as Alebringer knows, stabbing people isn’t official policy, but Beth is pretty high-up in the org chart. Maybe she has access to policies that Alebringer does not. Stella and Buckle want to stay and figure this out. Buckle appeals to Alebringer.
Buckle: We took a lot of effort getting the Mayor here. Let us help you. Trust us, because we didn’t know about the impostor. We can hold our own.
Stella snickers at that last part. Alebringer is convinced. Stoutarm reports that the Mayor will be fine with just a bandage, but Beth needs to stay overnight. They really did a number on her!
Buckle: Are there more commandos like her?
Alebringer: Yes. They will be on high alert since Beth didn’t report back.
Alebringer wants to bring the Mayor to City Hall, but Buckle recommends tact. They don’t know who they would be delivering the Mayor to. Alebringer, Stella, and Rose head for City Hall with the news, while Buckle and the others will stay at the hospital with the Mayor. Alebringer & Stella can also find the rest of the comandos. Stella and Buckle arrange a secret password to confirm their identities.
GM note: The players kept the password a secret from me.
As Alebringer and Stella walk through the spiraling city streets, Gimel, a Human woman in the same black armor as Beth, appears from a shadow and demands to know what’s happened to Beth. Alebringer reports that Beth is in the hospital, and the real Mayor has returned! Gimel thanks them and rushes off.
Back at the hospital, a med student enters with a tray of snacks for the Mayor, but she drops the tray, jams her hands into her own chest, and pulls out knives! She’s attacking the Mayor! Buckle tries to interpose, but the assailant slips past him and stabs the Mayor. Buckle tells Ugg to grab the assailant. Buckle giant metal exo-skeletal hands close around the assailant’s body, squeeze, and go right through! The assailant’s body squishes through his fingers like clay! Clearly this is the shape-shifter, and it can’t be grabbed or held. Buckle looks around the room for specimen jars.
Buckle: We need to can this thing!
Pomplamoose and Buckle each grab a specimen jar and charge at the shape-shifting assassin. Buckle scoops a chunk out of the assassin and slams the lid on the jar.
Assassin: I’m not going back in a box!
The assassin tries to smash Buckle’s specimen jar. Buckle throws the jar to Ugg, who isn’t expecting it. Slow-motion reaction shot of Ugg as the jar flies past and he dives to catch it. The assassin gives up on imitating humanoid form and pours towards the Mayor, all knives and pulsing flesh. Silk zooms in and Buckle leaps aboard as they race the assassin. They arrive at the same time! Buckle scoops up the Mayor and takes the Assassin’s blow in her place. Silk runs away with Buckle and the Mayor on its back and the Assassin pursues. Silk passes Pomplamoose & Buckle swaps the Mayor for Pomplamoose’s specimen jar. he turns around on Silk’s back and leaps off, straight at the Assassin, forcing it into the specimen jar! The Assassin is now contained in two separate jars, and the fight is over.
As Alebringer and Stella walk through the spiraling city streets, Gimel, a Human woman in the same black armor as Beth, appears from a shadow and demands to know what’s happened to Beth.
Stella: She’s with the Mayor. How many of you are there?
Alebringer: We already talked to you.
Gimel realizes that the Shapeshifter impersonated her and got information from these credulous chumps.
Gimel: Which way did I go?
Gimel, Alebringer, and Stella all rush towards the hospital. Stella outruns Gimel and reunites with Buckle.
Stella: Isn’t Lady Evelynn so nice?
Buckle: She casts a long shadow.
Stella explains that they met the same person twice, and that Alebringer told one of them where the Mayor was, so the shapeshifter may try to attack. Buckle points to the specimen jars full of shape-shifting assassin. Gimel arrives to take control of the situation. Ugg tries to grab her to make sure she’s not squishy and she judo throws him across the room. She wants to take the assassin back to its secure facility. The party says that facility is clearly not secure enough. They want to inspect and evaluate the facility. Dr Strongarm arrives to make sure everyone is OK, and the Mayor recovers from her panic. Despite the facility being top secret, the party convinces the Mayor and her commandos to let them inspect it and maybe suggest some improvements, so this shape-shifter doesn’t get out again. They are taken to a sub-basement in a science lab in the Fortinbras School of Mines,
The door to the room has an impressive lock. One half of the room looks like a normal lab, with a table and chairs, but there’s a metal band separating the two halves of the room, and the other half is smooth, bare, and seamless. the metal band is the border of a Wall of Force, and the specimen jars are placed in the seamless section, behind the Wall of Force. The controls for the door lock and the Wall of Force are inaccessible from inside the Wall of Force, so the Dwarves don’t know how the shape-shifter managed to disable both of them. Buckle and Stella examine the room and find a big air vent under the table. People could use this vent to enter or exit the room. They recommend putting another Wall of Force across this vent, with a password that allows air to pass through. The scientists will get on that right away.
Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition‘s Horizon rules.
The party: Buckle the Platyperson, Stella the Halfling
Buckle & Stella & the Mayor of Templeton float down the river on the belly of Pomplamoose, a giant albino Platyperson, who is recovering from the thrashing she took during her rescue from Lady Evelynn’s dungeon. About a mile downstream from Lady Evelenn’s estate, they find a bustling city built on either side of the river, with a large bridge in the middle. This is Sugar’s Crossing.
Two figures with reptilian heads approach swiftly through the river. These are Naga, amphibious humanoid snakes, closely related to mermaids. They are in charge and they know it. They belittle the team as they order them ashore, telling them that they’re a danger to navigation, and even a child would know not to float down the middle of a busy river. Buckle hesitates, but agrees to go ashore. The Naga guards swim away. The Mayor recognizes this city as Sugar’s Crossing. Now she knows where she is. Templeton is five days’ travel to the east, and she expects everyone to set off immediately to escort her there. Stella asks what’s in it for them. The Mayor offers civic duty, then money, and thinks Stella is very strange for not being motivated by either.
Stella: Mayor, you are on our schedule
Stella takes every opportunity to remind the Mayor that, out here, she is not in charge.
Where does Pomplamoose want to go? Her home town of Willow’s Landing is further eat, past Templeton, so going to Templeton is on the way home for her. Pomplamoose was hurt in the escape from Lady Evelynn’s estate, so Buckle gives her some food to recover her strength. Pomplamoose is disappointed by the food she’s been getting. It’s all flavor and no sustenance. She feels herself getting weak. Sure, this is the food that sustains Buckle, but he’s so small. He’s like a child. Buckle thinks he’s normal, not an unusual size compared to the Platypeople he grew up with.
GM note: Sugar’s Crossing was created and fleshed out in the Fairmeadow Fair campaign, and added to Chasing The Sunset later. When Sugar’s Crossing was made, Stella’s quest to find Halfling refugees from the Giant War had not yet been invented, so Sugar’s Crossing was a town full of Halflings, outnumbering all other species. The Halfling player doesn’t just control Stella, the Halfling hero, but Halfling culture and history in general. I asked Stella’s player: should we change the lore of Sugar’s Crossing, or was Stella wrong about her people? Stella’s player decided that Stella was wrong, and there are large, old, stable populations of Halflings outside her homeland, not just scattered refugees.
The team starts to explore the town and Stella realizes that most people here are Halflings. Many of the buildings–old buildings!– are built at Halfing size, although there are plenty of multi-scale or large-scale buildings to accommodate taller species. This is no refugee camp. Halflings have lived on this continent for generations. Stella thought that all Halflings lived in her homeland across the sea. She has to sit down. She’s been telling every Halfling she met to go back home. Were they already home? Was she pushing people out of their homes? Buckle tries to comfort her.
Buckle: I learned about giants. You’ll be OK.
They explore the town and find the theater, which has public shows morning and evening about the history of the town. Stella wants to watch the shows. Room and board is easy to come by in Sugar’s Crossing. Large homes for extended families, apartment buildings, and hotels, aren’t very distinct from each other, so the team will be able to find a home with a few extra beds and some seats at a large table for supper. The Mayor is impatient. If these people won’t help her, she’ll go to the garrison at the bridge. Surely the Dwarven guards there will know their duty and escort her back home.
Stella: Feel free to come back if they think you’re too much of a handful!
Stella watches the morning show about Miller, le Grind, and the star-crossed lovers. She meets a food vendor named Pan at the show & they hit it off. After the show, the Mayor is back. The Dwarven garrison went off-duty and was replaced by a Naga garrison in the time that the Mayor was in the dungeon. The Naga, famous for domineering rudeness, did not react well to Mayor’s orders.
Mayor: You’ll have to take me to Templeton.
Stella: If you are too much trouble, we will throw you back in the river!
Buckle asks Pan if anything exciting happens around here. Pan says that the most exciting thing is the harvest festival across the river at Fairmeadow, but the missed that by about a month. Oh, there was excitement at the most recent Fairmeadow Fair. A Black Beast threatened the town, but was slain by an invisible gorilla! Buckle wonders how anyone knows about an invisible gorilla. Pan says that this wimpy Elf man survived an attack by the Black Beast and witnessed the gorilla’s attack. That Elf was nothing special, not like the great knight Lucia, hero of many battles! Now that you mention it, there was also a commotion at the le Grind mill, and those thieves that drove a cart right off the docks into the river! Lots of adventures going on recently. Stella asks if the thieves were caught. Pan says they are being held in the garrison here in town. Stella also asks about Lady Evelynn. Pan has no reason to think she’s a troublemaker.
Stella and Buckle continue sightseeing by taking the tour at le Grind Mill. Buckle looks at the historical displays and sees a picture of the three mil owners, which confirms that the woman they saw talking to Anton in Lady Evelynn’s estate was indeed Evelynn herself. The tour guide cheerfully explains the mill’s features, and le Grind’s superiority to the other mills in town.
Tour guide: We treat our workers like family, because 18% of them are!”
Stella asks about the mill’s safety record, and the tour guide only has unsatisfying pre-approved corporate statements. Stella looks around and sees a false wall section that opens into Mill A, which is being used for real sugar production. She slips through the door and is immediately noticed by a worker. She uses a bold-faced lie to get in close and bamboozle the worker.
Stella: I was looking for the little Halfling’s room!
She steals a coin purse from the hapless worker, and offers him a Halfling Packed Lunch to not get her in trouble. He ushers her through the secret door, shielding her from the eyes of other workers. She finds Buckle in the gift shop, with a Ring Pop on each of his webbed fingers.
Next they go check out the garrison, base of “those unreasonable snakes.” the Mayor hangs back. Her last experience with the Naga was unpleasant. The crew looks around. The garrison is a small fortified building that houses the troops that guard the town. Its fortifications look different from fortifications in the real world, since it has to defend against creatures who can fly, teleport, and squeeze through porous surfaces. The dungeon in the basement has windows that are high on the dungeon walls, but just above ground level. The team peers in and sees three captives: a Halfling, a Human, and a Dwarf. These are the bandits that Gleador & Lucia met long ago, and captured in an exciting chase on the docks.
While the team is looking around, trying not to draw the ire of the Naga guards at the main door, four people approach the garrison. Three are nondescript humans in traveling gear, but their leader is an impressive human man in armor. Coils of chain are wrapped from his wrists to his elbows, and as he strides purposefully towards the guard at the entrance of the garrison, the team can hear his followers talking to him.
Follower: Really? Again?
Paladin: It’s necessary.
The Paladin asks the Naga guards at the door about the garrison. The Naga is as unhelpful and dismissive as possible.
Naga: Clearly it’s a garrison. See all the guards and the big walls? Yeah, we have prisoners here. Do you think we just let scum walk around? Are you stupid?
The Paladin rears back and punches the Naga in the face! All the Naga guards converge on him. Two of his followers also wade into the melee, but one backs away.
Javelon: Not again. I’m done. I’m out!
The Paladin and his two followers are overcome by the Naga guards and dragged into the garrison. Buckle and Stella are stunned by the sudden unprovoked aggression. They follow the follower who abandoned his associates, asking for an explanation. Javelon walks towards the docks and explains. He and the other two humans were in prison in Castellum, as town far to the northeast. They were bandits, the scourge of the area, but had finally been caught. The Paladin ended up in prison alongside them, then broke out and gave them all a chance to follow him. Better than staying in jail! They’ve been following him as he travels from town to town. He just really hates jails and gets arrested in every town that he has one so he can break out all the prisoners.
Buckle & Stella let the dangerous criminal board a ferry and sail down the river. They decide to get a room for the night that overlooks the garrison but is on the other side of the river, since they’re sure something exciting will happen during the night.
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They rent rooms at a Halfling hotel. Dinner is included. There’s a big wooden table in the main room and everyone, staff and guests, sits around it and shares food. It’s a big room with 10-foot ceilings, so Pomplamoose can fit, but she sits on the floor. Halfling style dinners have piles of food dumped directly on the table: chicken legs, ribs, grapes, nuts, and so on. Each person grabs food with their hands form the main piles and makes a personal pile in front of themself.
After dinner, the team goes to their room and looks out the window, across the bridge at the garrison. It’s a clear night, and they can see the moon and four twinkling lights near it. Those are new and unusual!
Buckle. Maybe those are rogue stars. Whatever happened to Ori?
Stella: That’s unresolved. Maybe these flashing lights are some kind of sky lighthouse.
Buckle: Maybe we’re getting more moons. Maybe those new lights will get bigger over time.
While they discuss cosmology, there’s a whistle from the garrison! Figures on the walls run around. Smoke starts pouring from one corner of the building. The big wooden doors of the garrison burst off their hinges and fly across the street. Figures rush out of the garrison and across the bridge. There’s the paladin, his two followers,and the three prisoners who were locked up there before. There’s a checkpoint at the far side of the gate, and the Naga guarding it drop barriers across the road. The Paladin hits the barriers with a palm strike and they fly into splinters! He certainly didn’t display this strength when he provoked the Naga into arresting him. That guard would not have a head anymore! Buckle and Stella rush out of the hotel towards the commotion. The Paladin doesn’t need any help escaping his pursuers, so Stella & Buckle ignore the band of fugitives and approach the garrison.
Most of the Naga are pursuing the fugitives, but some stayed behind to take care of the garrison building. The front doors are lying on the other side of the road. The hinges are gone. There’s a fire in a back corner of the building. Naga are running back and forth from the river with buckets of water to put out the flame. Buckle opens a hidden path into the garrison but burns his hands in the process. The team is inside the garrison and has a bit of time before the naga return with full buckets. They look around to see what happened. There’s a metal barred door that leads down to the prison cells that is crumpled and shoved aside. Downstairs there are broken manacles on the floor, and the locks of each cell have been wrenched out of the doors. Everything that restrains or blocks people from moving freely has been destroyed with overwhelming force. The Naga return and find strangers inside their formerly secure base! Buckle quickly convinces them that they are there to help, and organizes a more effective bucket brigade that quickly puts out the fire.
After a short time, the pursuing Naga return with no prisoners. The bucket brigade Naga mock them for failing to capture the fugitives, and the pursuing Naga mock the bucket brigade for staying back like cowards. Stella and Buckle return to their hotel and sleep for the rest of the night.
The next morning, they set off for Templeton to deliver the Mayor back to her people. It’s about a five day journey to the east. Across the river, through grain fields, past Fairmeadow. The road runs just south of a forest for much of the way. On the second night, they camp near the edge of the forest. During the night they feel small tremors coming from the forest. They get stronger, then stop. They hear scratching and rustling about 100 yards away and can see the trees swaying a bit. None of them see very well in the darkness. Stella remembers the invisible monster that threatened (or saved?) the Fairmeadow Fair. The team sets out timidly to look for the source of the rustling. They find a clearing, but can’t see anything in it because of the darkness. Stella sends Silk up a tree to see if he can see anything from there. They all see another spider on the opposite side of the clear. Buckle thinks it might be a reflection. He steps forward into the clearing and sees another Platyperson opposite him. His electro-sense does not register this Platyperson as a living being. He approaches and finds a giant mirror across the entire clearing! The side facing them is reflective, and the other side is a metal framework. The ground around it indicates that this huge object fell out of the sky. They notice that the four twinkling lights near the moon are gone.
Buckle: Apparently the sky is falling.
On the fourth day, a crowd of people traveling the opposite direction on the road rush upon the group.
Mob: Where did they go? Where are the prisoners?
Buckle: With the Paladin?
Stella: Do you work for him?
The mob are actually opposed to the Paladin and have been pursuing him for some time. Team team tell them that he has a week’s head start on them, and he was last seen in Sugar’s Crossing, thataway. The mob runs on.
So ends the long journey from Sugar’s Crossing to Templeton. A volcano looms in the distance and the Mayor excitedly says that this is her city! Next time, the team will enter the city.
End of session move. The team earns 3 boons: heal, heal, gear.
GM note: The team watched a lot of events happen this session. I’d prefer them to be more active. They had quests to do: getting Pomplamoose and the Mayor home, so one way to look at it is I threw more plot hooks then they can deal with, and they prioritized.