{"id":2706,"date":"2026-03-18T19:30:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/?p=2706"},"modified":"2026-05-08T13:20:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:20:46","slug":"chasing-the-sunset-hullift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/18\/chasing-the-sunset-hullift\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the Sunset &#038; Hullift"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/ttrpg-campaign-reports\/chasing-the-sunset\/\">Chasing the Sunset<\/a> is a <a href=\"http:\/\/arsludi.lamemage.com\/index.php\/78\/grand-experiments-west-marches\/\">West Marches<\/a>-style exploration game using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1552912590\/fellowship-2nd-edition\">Fellowship 2nd Edition<\/a>\u2018s Horizon rules.<\/p>\n<p>The fellowship: Boris the Remnant, Pierre Jardiner the Harbinger, Yonne the Rain.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/02\/chasing-the-sunset-uprain\/\">Last time<\/a>, the Fellowship was blown off-course by a storm and found themselves on the shores of the Empire.\u00a0 This time, they enter the Empire and experience its unique culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Jardiner is away with his other friends when the Trilobite approaches the Imperial port of Hullift.\u00a0 All of the Empire is geologically uplifted, so Hullift is on top of high cliff with docks projecting out high above the sea.<\/p>\n<p>INSERT PICTURE OF HULLIFT<\/p>\n<p>The docks have cranes that lower ropes to the Trilobite. Ships that visit the Empire regularly have mounting points for these ropes, but since the Trilobite does not, divers descend with the ropes and loop weight-distributing bands under the hull. The cranes then pull the Trilobite up to the western dock.<\/p>\n<p>A luxury passenger liner, the Bowyer, is suspended on the eastern dock. Below, the Whitecap is getting underway. Hullifts&#8217; cranes aren&#8217;t big enough to lift the Whitecap, so instead they lifted and replaced cargo containers on the ship&#8217;s deck.<\/p>\n<p>As the Bowyer is lowered, the rear ropes snap. The ship is still suspended by two of three cranes. It swings forward and its prow smashes into the cliff face.\u00a0 Rocks broke away from the impact, falling onto the Whitecap below. Where the Bowyer has smashed away the rocks, a thick brown substance slowly flows out. It&#8217;s somewhere between syrup and asphalt in color and consistency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> What if you put yourself over me like a shawl, then I sprint over&#8211;I can move at the speed of sound, basically&#8211;and we treat you like a rope. If you replace the third rope with your body&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> I can undulate down a rope, but I can&#8217;t replace a rope.\u00a0 If you have a physical rope, I can carry it down another rope and they can tie up.<\/p>\n<p>The Imperial dockwokers rush into action. People call for the Geologist. Boris sprints up one of the cranes holding the Trilobite and looks for a Geologist. What does a Geologist look like?\u00a0 Probably like someone on safari.\u00a0 Boris doesn&#8217;t see anyone who looks like that.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Look Closely 7-9 ask 3 question, find 1 answer the hard way<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What are the dockworkers doing? What will they do next?\n<ul>\n<li>They are very organized. The crew chief, a human woman named Dawn shouts orders. Even in this emergency, the dock-workers all run on the left side of the dock so they don&#8217;t get in each other&#8217;s way. One team pulls the broken ropes out of the crane. Another team prepares fresh ropes to replace them. Few people are running for the Geologist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Tell me about materials on the dock that might help?\n<ul>\n<li>There are spare parts and consumables in convenient places.\u00a0 Yonne grabs a smaller rope (not the huge cables that hold up ships) to lower herself to the Boywer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dockworker:<\/strong> Leave this to the professionals! We don&#8217;t need any more random elements.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Wow, that&#8217;s rude.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Is something hidden or out-of-place?\n<ul>\n<li>That stuff coming out of the ground is weird and magical.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yonne changes shape into something spiky and weird to startle the dockworker away from the spare ropes.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Changeling<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Overcome <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The dockworker is very discliplined and does not startle.<\/p>\n<p>Boris can&#8217;t find the Geologist, so he returns to the docks to ferry passengers to safety.\u00a0 The dockworkers don&#8217;t want Boris to interfere either. Boris picks one (Clavius, the one who rejected Yonne) and dashes to stand in front on him every time he turns around. Boris refuses to be ignored.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Clavius:<\/strong> What? Why do you insist on keeping me from my duty?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> I insist on saving as many people as possible. You continue your duty while I ferry people off the boat. I feel it&#8217;s a win-win situation.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Talk Sense (+wisdom, appeal to desire to get back to duty) <strong>7-9<\/strong> owe a favor<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Clavius:<\/strong> OK. If this works out, it was my idea.<\/p>\n<p>A life boat ejects from the Bowyer and falls onto the Whitecap! It&#8217;s pill-shaped with an axle through the center. The passengers sit in a cradle inside, so waves can roll the exterior without affecting the passengers. This makes it roll when it hits the Whitecap&#8217;s deck, sending the crew scrambling out of the way.<\/p>\n<p>Boris zips down a rope to the Bowyer.\u00a0 Now that he&#8217;s near the weird goo, he realizes it&#8217;s some kind of ancinet primal magic. He also has ancient primal magic, but not from the same source.\u00a0 He tries to use his magic to affect this goo to form it into a ramp that the Bowyer can slide down if more ropes break.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Voice:<\/strong> Stop! Do not interfere!<\/p>\n<p>Boris looks up to the dock and sees the source of the voice: an old human woman with long grey hair.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Olivine<\/strong>, she\/her human Geologist<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Boris gives a thumbs-up and goes back to his original plan of ferrying people off the Bowyer. He looks for the person who most needs help. One person has a broken arm that was struck by a rock that fell when the Bowyer hit the cliff face. Boris carries them up the rope to the docks. Olivine&#8217;s assistants motion for the injured passenger to come to them.<\/p>\n<p>Four dock-workers slide down to the bowyer on ropes, then hold the ropes steady as Olivine&#8217;s assistant&#8217;s place a special seat between the ropes. They carefully lower Olivine on this seat, because she&#8217;s too old to climb ropes.\u00a0 Olivine and her assistants join a number of Imperial dock-workers already onboard, but they aren&#8217;t evacuating the passengers. Their attention is on the damaged bow of the ship and the cliff face.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Artyom<\/strong> she\/her Elf Captain of the Bowyer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Artyom:<\/strong> Seems like your emergency procedures are focusing on the wrong thing!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine:<\/strong> We&#8217;ll deal with you later.<\/p>\n<p>Yonne thinks the Whitecap needs more help than the Bowyer, which has so many people dealing with it. She dives from the dock into the sea, then swims to the hull of the Whitecap and tries to push it out from under the Bowyer.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne spends 2 Rain on Water Blast<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Water Blast: send someone flying away from you with a stream of water.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Get Away <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Get Away <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The ship is too big for her to move.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Tanager<\/strong> she\/her Lantern Captain of the Whitecap.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Tanager:<\/strong> We need all the help we can get!<\/p>\n<p>Tanager, like all Lanterns, is an extra-dimensional creature that appears as a floating little light. They project holograms of humanoid bodies in an attempt to fit in. Tanager forms her little light into a hard light bridge for Yonne to board the Whitecap.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> What a cool lady!<\/p>\n<p>Boris thinks there are too many people on the Bowyer for him to carry up the ropes one at a time. Boris looks for someone in charge. The Bowyer&#8217;s crew wants to send lifeboats off the bow, since the lifeboat launched from the stern fell on the Whitecap. The Geologist&#8217;s group is keeping people away from the bow.\u00a0 Boris asks an Imperial worker if the brown goo is toxic.\u00a0 This is very culturally insensitive! The worker is aghast?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Worker:<\/strong> Toxic? Is it going to hurt people? We&#8217;re here to help the land, not the ship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Wha&#8211;why?\u00a0 What about people?<\/p>\n<p>The worker returns to her duty.<\/p>\n<p>Two dock-workers descend from the rear crane to attach ropes to the stern of the ship. Boris thinks that the ship as a whole is being stabilized, so he goes back to rescuing individuals<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Overcome <strong>7-9<\/strong> pay a price<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Boris damages Wisdom<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Imperial dockworkers attach ropes to the Bowyer&#8217;s stern and the cranes pull. The Bowyer moves back, away from the cliff face, but the stern rises, tilting the deck. Anything unsecured slides forward.<\/p>\n<p>On the Whitecap, Yonne wonders how to help.\u00a0 She frustrated that her ideas have not worked so far.\u00a0 The ship is making best speed to get out from under the Bowyer, but it takes a while to get moving.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Overcome <strong>10+<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A child falls from the Bowyer. Yonne moves under him and forms a column of water to slow his descent. He thinks he&#8217;s in the ocean and starts swimming. Yonne disperses from under him so he&#8217;s on the deck.<\/p>\n<p>Sailors from the Bowyer climb the cables to the dock with rope ladders so that passengers can climb to safety. Olivine is working carefully with the rocks and the goo at the bow.\u00a0 Boris doesn&#8217;t like that she&#8217;s doing a ritual instead of helping people, but he doesn&#8217;t want to interfere with their culture more than he already has.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Who am I to say this is bad? I don&#8217;t know them.<\/p>\n<p>Boris looks for the strongest person around. He figures they can each climb a ladder with a trap tied around them to bring up injured people in a sort of hammock. He finds an Elf who touches the world lightly so she can effortlessly walk up the rope.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Talk Sense (+Sense, explain plan) <strong>6- <\/strong>must do difficult favor<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Elf thinks that&#8217;s a great idea, and gathers all the invalids at once.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> We could do it in groups, if we find other strapping fellows and ladies.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Overcome <strong>10+<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Boris and the Elf climb with the tarp full of people between them. They slip once or twice and their passengers gasp, but they the top and tip them out safely.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>GM note:<\/strong> Yonne and Boris aren&#8217;t good at moving multi-ton objects. This is frustrating, so we let the NPCs complete this scene in a montage.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Olivine collects all the displaced rocks on the Bowyer&#8217;s deck. Imperial divers find rocks that fell into the ocean.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a brief debate about whether those still count, but Olivine decides that they do. She places all the rocks back where they came from. A little of goo comes out between the rocks and hardens like glue. One can hardly tell where the Bowyer hit.<\/p>\n<p>The crew of the Bowyer evacuate all the passengers via the rope ladders. They are tired and unhappy.<\/p>\n<p>The Whitecap moves away from the docks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tanager:<\/strong> Thank you for your help, but you&#8217;d better go back to stick with your people. Since you&#8217;re water can you just jump in? Will you take the lifeboat with the other passengers?<\/p>\n<p>Yonne takes the lifeboat. She heals someone who was injured in the fall, and forms a bond with the child she caught. He always wanted to be a sailor, and now he can be a cabin boy on the Trilobite.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Cillian<\/strong> he\/him snake-folk Child Adorable, Mischief<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yonne wants to know how to make more Rain. Since she doesn&#8217;t know how to have children, she&#8217;ll adopt this one. Everyone meets up in Hullift, where there&#8217;s a big argument. A crowd of people around Olivine are arguing whether the dock-workers or the Bowyer&#8217;s crew are the ones who committed a crime against the land.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> I&#8217;m not trying to throw anyone under the bus, but technically, wouldn&#8217;t it be the person who designed the ropes that snapped?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> It&#8217;s the dock maintenance team that failed to keep these ropes properly maintained.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:\u00a0 <\/strong>Or, are the ropes flawed in their design to where they need to be maintained too often? We need an audit.<\/p>\n<p>An auditor is already on-site. The Fellowship has only increased the scope of the argument.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Does the magic stone talk? If it does, you could ask it who is responsible. I&#8217;ve met talking rocks.<\/p>\n<p>Yonne is thinking of Dwarves, but the Imperial citizens think Yonne is making like of their culture and traditions.\u00a0 Yonne wants to know what the penalty for this crime is: a fine? labor? banishment? death?\u00a0 From the conversation, she gathers that people who do something against the land must work for the land.\u00a0 There are places where Geologists work with the land in a mystical way to find acceptable rocks and minerals to remove from the land and use. It sounds a lot like being assigned to labor in a mine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> I rescind my comments about the engineers. I don&#8217;t want to cause anyone trouble.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine:<\/strong> You clearly don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going on. We were already ignoring you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> I believe it would be sensible to have laws that take into consideration the fact that accidents happen.<\/p>\n<p>Manners and social expectations are still new to Yonne, but she can tell when a lot of people are glaring at her.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Would you care to tell us what the laws are actually? Clearly something I have done is wrong, so could someone explain to me, please?<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a welcome center with a pamphlet that summarizes laws that visitors need to know. The land is very important to the Empire. The land makes them literally superior to other nations. &#8220;May the land rise to meet your feet&#8221; is a traditional farewell. Dirt is not a controlled substance, but don&#8217;t disturb any rocks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> What if someone is trapped under a rock?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome center clerk:<\/strong> We&#8217;d get a Geologist to help them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:\u00a0<\/strong>If the person is crushed and they will die within minutes&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> If someone is standing at the bottom of a hill, and a boulder rolls down on top of them, is it OK to move that boulder?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome center clerk:\u00a0 <\/strong>We&#8217;d try to pull the person out first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> If a boulder is about to fall on me, can I impede it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome center clerk:\u00a0 <\/strong>Just don&#8217;t damage it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> If it was going to damage me, but I bonked it out of the way, but it cracked.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome center clerk:<\/strong>\u00a0 That&#8217;s awful!\u00a0 Why are you so intent on harming the land?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:\u00a0 <\/strong>There are a lot of cliffs here. I just saw a rock tumble. It&#8217;s not outlandish.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome center clerk:<\/strong> It&#8217;s very Outlandish. Only someone from the Outlands would think of that.<\/p>\n<p>The clerk is aghast. Why are these foreigners trying to find situations where they are allowed to harm the land? Boris goes back to reading the pamphlets.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>GM note:<\/strong> This would be like someone trying to figure out ways to legally kill a Bald Eagle, if Americans actually cared about Bald Eagles.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The pamphlets explains that each settlement has three leaders: geologist, logistics chief, and militia commander. If there&#8217;s a problem they can&#8217;t handle, they send the problem &#8220;uphill&#8221; which seems to be an expression, but there is another, higher plateau far inland. A rapid response team is dispatched to deal with it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Rocks seem incredibly important to this culture. I want to know more about what makes cultures tick. Is there any place that teaches outsiders about your Geology practices?<\/p>\n<p>The Empire likes to show off their culture. Hullift is a tourist town, so Olivine usually does a show in the evenings. Tonight she&#8217;s dealing with the accident, but if the Fellowship stays through the next day, they can watch her show. The clerk also recommends Imperial food. Imperial gourmets are known for having very sensitive palettes.<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship spends the night in Hullift. The Moon is almost full, so it rises shortly before sunset. When it does, it&#8217;s dark, like a new moon.\u00a0 Shortly after sunset, there&#8217;s a commotion in the town. The Empire declares a state of emergency! The Empire has been attacked. Not here, somewhere else.<\/p>\n<p>In the morning, Pierre comes through Infinite Windows and looks up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> The Moon is down. It&#8217;s fine. Are you OK? Did anything happen last night?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne<\/strong>: A bunch of things happened. There was a ship, and it crashed into the cliffs, and then people started going down to the ship and we thought they were going to fix the ship but they totally did not and fixed the cliff. They were really mad at the boat person. And also, this boy I found. His name is Cillian. We&#8217;re going to bring him back to Vieport, probably, and he wants to learn how to be on a ship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> So, we were attacked by the Moon last night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> I thought you defeated the Moon already.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre<\/strong>: We fixed the Moon. We should be heroes there!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Oh, the people on the Moon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Not the actual Moon itself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong>\u00a0 It bounces sunlight. That&#8217;s what it does. They focused the mirrors on us and blasted our ship in half. The Empire is helping us fix it, which we think is good, except they might put&#8211;Oh!<\/p>\n<p>Pierre brings out Doodle, his two-dimensional strange beast. Words appear on Doodle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Doodle:<\/strong> The badges are tracking devices.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> How dare they&#8211;the people on the Moon, I mean&#8211;how dare they attack Pierre. We should get a giant mirror and bounce it back.<\/p>\n<p>Pierre examines the Fellowship&#8217;s badges, but he&#8217;s shaken and not his usual methodical self.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre Look Closely <strong>6-<\/strong> ask 1 question find out the hard way<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What will happen if I tamper with the badges?\n<ul>\n<li>As Pierre fiddles with his badge, it launches a little purple flare into the air.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> What if you were in a building?!<\/p>\n<p>In a few minutes, a security guard shows up. He knows it was a Magic badge from the color of the flare, so he goes straight to Pierre.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Silvanus<\/strong> he\/him Elf Imperial security<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong> What&#8217;s going on? We can&#8217;t be too careful. There&#8217;s a state of emergency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> I don&#8217;t know. I was just trying to adjust it and something happened.<\/p>\n<p>Silvanus writes Pierre&#8217;s badge number on a slip of paper, folds it into a small capsule, and loads the capsule into a pistol. He shoots at a tower in the middle of town.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Do you ever miss?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanius:<\/strong> We try not to. That would be a waste of resources.<\/p>\n<p>He deploys a funnel, a smaller version of the ones on the tower. In a few minutes, a bullet hits his funnel and is guided to the narrow end, where Silvanus picks it up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong> Pierre Jardiner. Academy graduate. It says here you&#8217;re with a diplomatic party on the eastern frontier. It&#8217;s the Empire&#8217;s duty to protect you, so I must ask you not to tamper with your badge. Please be more careful in the future.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Can you set these off remotely? Like, oh no! Pierre is lost in the city! Could you find him by making his badge go off?<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Speak Softly <strong>6-<\/strong> ask 3 questions, 1 false answer, 1 unhelpful answer<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What can he tell me about how the badges function?\n<ul>\n<li>The badges help keep everyone safe. The badges protect people who are in danger.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>What does he want? How could we help him get it?\n<ul>\n<li>He is hoping that his exemplary service in this time of emergency will get him promoted. Seems that Pierre is important to the Empire. If he protected Pierre and Pierre could give him a recommendation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>What would they have us to next?\n<ul>\n<li>Stay out of trouble. Follow the rules and everything will be fine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Is it some kind of rapidly-expanding foam, or&#8211;I shouldn&#8217;t touch it.<\/p>\n<p>Silvanus takes an interest in the Fellowship and elects himself as chaparone and tour guide. The next evening, when they go to see Olivine&#8217;s Geology performance. he encourages them to try Imperial street food. Yonne doesn&#8217;t like this guy, so she changes form to imitate him and copy his faces.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Changeling: take the form of anyone you meet<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Silvanus buys some flatbread with bean paste or grain paste. Everything is various shades of brown. Boris doesn&#8217;t want to disappoint him, so he takes the one that Silvanus thinks is the best. Boris lifts it to his mouth. As it passes the threshold if his teeth, it turns to mist and then nothing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Mmmm, delicious. The best I&#8217;ve had so far.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Keep Them Busy <strong>7-9<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus<\/strong>: You&#8217;re making fun of me, aren&#8217;t you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> I&#8217;m not!\u00a0 It sounds ridiculous, but I can&#8217;t taste things, so I was just trying to enjoy the experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Oh, let me try some!<\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre Keep Them Busy <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pierre knocks the platter over. All the food falls on the ground.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> I can still eat it.<\/p>\n<p>Yonne slides over the food and it starts dissolving.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Look Closely <strong>6-<\/strong> ask 1 question, find out the hard way<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What will happen if I eat that bright red food over there?\n<ul>\n<li>Yonne&#8217;s been looking at drab, earth-toned food for a while. Once she takes some of the red stuff and compares it to Boris&#8217; Fire Badge, she sees it&#8217;s rather dull. Empire food all mostly tastes the same, all pretty bland.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Olivine starts the Geology show. The spectators form a ring around them. She talks about the Empire&#8217;s great history, and how we must work in concert with land. She puts her palm on the ground and when she raises her arm, a big rock that weighs hundreds of pounds rises with it. She spins it around and replaces it, and it fits to perfectly that the edges are hard to see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine:<\/strong> We mustn&#8217;t smash and grab like miners, crushing through what we think is unimportant to extract. We must work with the land.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the show, Olivine makes a big gesture, and lights illuminate a hill outside of town. It has really intricate carvings and tunnels forming beautiful patterns hundreds of feet across. This is the result of extracting stone according to the land&#8217;s direction.<\/p>\n<p>After the show, Boris has questions for Olivine:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Do Dwarves live in the Empire?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine:<\/strong> It&#8217;s not fair to make sweeping generalizations about groups of people. Some Imperial Geologists are Dwarves. It&#8217;s fine for them in their mountains, but we don&#8217;t want Dwarves digging here.<\/p>\n<p>Boris: I&#8217;m wondering how them being rocks and deciding that mining is OK to do, influences your cultural practices.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine<\/strong>: They can do what they like in their mountains.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne<\/strong>: I think it&#8217;s this specific land.<\/p>\n<p>Yonne still looks like Silvanus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine:<\/strong> This guardsman here has seen the show a few times. He knows what&#8217;s up.<\/p>\n<p>Boris knows enough socialization to not keep talking, but he doesn&#8217;t understand the Empire&#8217;s classification of different rocks.<\/p>\n<p>Yonne slips away and returns in her own form.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> That was very fancy. What do the lines me?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine:<\/strong> These are the shapes that were revealed to me by communing with the stone. These are the natural lines of the world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> I learn language to communicate with people. How does it work with rock? Do you hear language, like me, or is it in your head, or, I don&#8217;t know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Olivine:<\/strong>\u00a0 It&#8217;s hard to explain to someone who hasn&#8217;t experienced it, but I would relate it to vibrations. As I move over the earth, I feel how it vibrates differently.<\/p>\n<p>Olivine has important duties elsewhere, so she excuses herself.<\/p>\n<p>NO END-OF-SESSION MOVE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition\u2018s Horizon rules. The fellowship: Boris the Remnant, Pierre Jardiner the Harbinger, Yonne the Rain. Last time, the Fellowship was blown off-course by a storm and found themselves on the shores of the Empire.\u00a0 This time, they enter the Empire and experience its &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/18\/chasing-the-sunset-hullift\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Chasing the Sunset &#038; Hullift&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,5],"tags":[89,111,86,88],"class_list":["post-2706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-diary","category-chasing-the-sunset","category-rpg","tag-boris","tag-hullift","tag-ol-jardiner","tag-yonne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2706"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2711,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions\/2711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}