{"id":2713,"date":"2026-04-14T20:15:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/?p=2713"},"modified":"2026-05-13T18:17:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:17:45","slug":"chasing-the-sunset-research-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/14\/chasing-the-sunset-research-grants\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the Sunset &#038; research grants"},"content":{"rendered":"<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\/03\/18\/chasing-the-sunset-hullift\/\">Last time<\/a>, the Fellowship entered the Empire via Hullift and learned of its unique culture. This time, they do something about the state of emergency.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>An ambitious Imperial guardsman, Silvanus, has attached himself to the Fellowship.\u00a0 Silvanus thinks that he&#8217;ll gain status and rank by protecting Pierre, who is part of a visiting noble&#8217;s entourage,<\/p>\n<p>Yonne has an idea: use reflective minerals to bounce futher attacks from the Moon back to its source. Silvanus goes to ask his commander where they can find someone with the authority to implement such an opinion.\u00a0 Hopefully the Fellowship won&#8217;t get in trouble the one time he&#8217;s away.<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship writes on Hullift&#8217;s message board.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> DO NOT mess with the earth in any way, or you\u2019ll regret it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Ground is magic. They get upset if you so much as kick a rock. They care about rocks more than people. Very uncool.<\/p>\n<p>Silvanus returns driving a stagecoach with big off-road tires that&#8217;s pulled by four camels. The roof bears two large water tanks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong> There&#8217;s a research station nearby, so I got authorization to requisition this vehicle. Sorry for the delay. I had to refill the water tanks.<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship sets off and chats along the way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> What happens when you sit on fabric? Do you soak into the fabric? And then a little part of you is in the fabric?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> I can control my own form. It would be the opposite. When I stand up, the fabric isn&#8217;t wet.<\/p>\n<p>They arrive at a large tent on top of a hill.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Do we need badges? Are we cool to just go in?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong> Ah, I&#8217;ll introduce you.<\/p>\n<p>He leads the way. Just inside the tent is a young man sitting at a drafting table with three stacks of large paper.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mr. Snicket<\/strong> he\/him Human scribe\/seer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> I am Mr. Snicket. Welcome to the Academy Research Station. What are you names and business?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong> I am Guard Silvanus, and we have some honored guests here with some good ideas to help us with the state of emergency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Honored?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> I&#8217;ll believe it when I see it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> Alright, let me take record your names and badge numbers. Oh, hold please.<\/p>\n<p>A clock on his desk rings.\u00a0 Mr. Snicket&#8217;s eyes roll back. Without looking he picks up a quill pen and starts scribbling on a large sheet of paper.\u00a0 Boris is very tempted to move the paper slightly, but resists. After about two minutes, Mr. Snicket has drawn a nice picture of the Moon. He starts moving and speaking normally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> Sorry about that. Xander is very strict. He wants me to make observations of the Moon every hour.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> H-how? How?<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris &amp; Yonne Speak Softly <strong>7-9<\/strong> ask 3 questions, 1 unhelpful answer<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What can he tell us about how he saw the Moon?\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> I have a minor in art, so I just finished a class on automatic drawing. That&#8217;s the best way to express my scrying of detailed visual information. Xander won&#8217;t accept a verbal description. He says it&#8217;s sloppy and imprecise.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Boris:<\/strong> But you saw it from indoors.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> That&#8217;s the scrying part.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> You close your eyes and you see the Moon, then you open your eyes and you draw it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> It&#8217;s automatic drawing, so I don&#8217;t have to look at the paper. The magical image comes through me without much interaction from me.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Boris:<\/strong>\u00a0 What if there was a tremor or something and the paper got messed up?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mr. Snicket:\u00a0 <\/strong>Xander would never let me hear the end of it!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>What should I be wary of when dealing with the research team?\n<ul>\n<li>Mr. Snicket thinks this is a normal Academy field assignment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Yonne<\/strong>: What&#8217;s a minor?\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mr Snicket<\/strong>: At the Academy we have to pick our specialization. That&#8217;s our major, because it&#8217;s the most important thing we work on. We can also take a minor, which is less work, but it&#8217;s still a bit of a specialization.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> What is your major?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> Divination.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> it&#8217;s cool that you figured out how to use both those things at the same time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Snicket:<\/strong> Yeah, this is the perfect internship for me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne<\/strong>: What&#8217;s that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris<\/strong>: He doesn&#8217;t get paid, just experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne<\/strong>: I don&#8217;t get paid either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris<\/strong>: We&#8217;re not on a career track.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Divination? Did you have to take Professor Thompson? He had his famous short-term exams. Is he still allowed to do those?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Snicket:\u00a0 <\/strong>No, no, those were banned. There were too many people unable to see what he was about to do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Ha! I brought some abjuration spells just in case I couldn&#8217;t divine anything. I enjoyed that class.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Am I getting this conversation right? You both had a teacher that tried to kill you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Thompson made it clear at the start of every exam that everything was survivable. You&#8217;re supposed to foresee the danger and avoid it, which is something that happens in the field. (especially around Edna)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Snicket:\u00a0<\/strong>Indelible pigments technically don&#8217;t injure anyone, so you can see who had a bad time on the exam. Anyways, who did you come here to see?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> We&#8217;re here to talk about the Moon.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Xander<\/strong> he\/him Elf researcher<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An old Elf enters from a back room. Most Elves are old, even if they look 30, but this one looks old. His hair and beard are grey.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Xander<\/strong>: The Moon! I&#8217;ve been telling people not to trust the Moon since it appeared! It&#8217;s not natural. And now it&#8217;s finally revealed its true evil purpose!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> The Moon was to fight the Vampires.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Xander<\/strong>: A bold claim!<\/p>\n<p>Pierre is very proud of being &#8220;the guy who fixed the Moon&#8221; but realizes that guy would not be popular in the Empire right now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:\u00a0 <\/strong>Anyways, I think I know a way we can beat the Moon. That&#8217;s what we came to tell you. OK, you know how the Moon attacks with a bright beam? The light is dangerous. So we need to bounce the light back to the Moon, but in a way that it won&#8217;t know that we&#8217;re doing it. Your ground is magic and you could ask it for the reflective bits to come up so when the Moon attacks it&#8217;ll bounce right back up and destroy itself!<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Talk Sense (+Sense, explain plan) <strong>7-9 <\/strong>there&#8217;s a complication<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Xander thinks Yonne&#8217;s plan has merit, but there&#8217;s another researcher on-site who is working on a different plan. A Goblin wearing Power Armor enters the tent and joins the meeting.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Gon-Chon<\/strong> she\/her Goblin magician\n<ul>\n<li>Power Armor: A 7-foot-tall suit of armor piloted by a 3-foot-tall green-skinned woman. It has four arms, each ending with a many-fingered hand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Gon-Chon:<\/strong> We don&#8217;t need to bounce the moonbeam if it never gets here. Look outside!<\/p>\n<p>Her Power Armor picks out magical reagents from small compartments on its fore-arms and chest, then makes complicated magical gestures with all four arms. The light inside the tent dims with a low rumble. The Fellowship looks outside and sees a small storm-cloud right above the tent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> That looks really cool. Are you going to do that over everyone, everywhere?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gon-Chon: <\/strong>That&#8217;s the plan. This is a research station, so it&#8217;s not completely finished.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Wouldn&#8217;t that destroy the natural cycle? Your flora and fauna would have very little time to evolve.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gon-Chon:\u00a0<\/strong>Plants and animals are pretty tough. I&#8217;m sure they can deal with it. The farmers are under cover anyways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris: <\/strong>Now I have questions! I need research into your farming techniques.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong> This is primary-school stuff. We need to work on cutting-edge weapons research.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Don&#8217;t you want something more permanent, that you only have to do once instead of forever?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Xander:<\/strong> Permanent? Nothing is permanent? Just look at young Mr. Snicket&#8217;s latest drawings. As you can see, in just a few days the face of the Moon is changing. This dark spot here, it&#8217;s getting larger. Still a negligible fraction of the total disk. Everything changes. There&#8217;s no such thing as a permanent solution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> OK, but if you break something, it&#8217;s broken forever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gon-Chon:<\/strong> No, things can be repaired, re-built, and improved. I&#8217;ve re-built this suit several times. It didn&#8217;t always have four arms.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:\u00a0 <\/strong>OK, but listen.\u00a0 Do you want to make a blanket that everyone has to hide under for who knows how many times the Moon will shoot, or just stop the Moon from shooting? I mean, one seems easier than the other, if you ask me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gon-Chon: <\/strong>Well, permanent cloud cover would have other advantages. Clouds produce rain, so we may be able to grow more food.\u00a0 The sunlight is really harsh&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>This draws protests from people who grew up on the surface. This contentious group could argue forever. A decision needs to be made.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong>\u00a0 Can we try and do both? Can resources be divided?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong>\u00a0 This is a state of emergency. These projects get a lot of material support.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Toss money at both projects and which ever works, works.<\/p>\n<p>Both Gon-Chon and Xander like the idea of getting bigger grants. This is military research, so the militia captain has final say. Silvanus goes to the tent flap that Gon-Chon entered through. When he pulls it aside, the Fellowship does not see the hill that the tent stands on. This tent flap is a portal to another place. All Academy buildings, like this tent, are connected by portals, like this one.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kimi<\/strong> he\/him Human Explosives Expert\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Explosives Expert:<\/strong> Kimi is Dangerous. Everything he does causes collateral damage, and he is never harmed by any collateral damage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Trust No One:<\/strong> Kimi cannot become a Companion, but he can pretend to be one. Kimi can erase a Bond someone has with him to trick them or make them fail at something they do against him. This stat is <strong>Secret<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Captain Lorber<\/strong>\u00a0she\/her Dwarf Militia Commander<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Fellowship steps through just in time for a weapons test. Kimi demonstrates a normal-looking artillery piece.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kimi:<\/strong> It&#8217;s fine. I&#8217;ve done the metallurgy. The over-pressure is totally reasonable. We can pack more energy per shell and the gun will be much smaller than you expect. Let me show you.<\/p>\n<p>Kimi is half-right. His special cartridge can handle the increased pressure. The barrel cannot. The gun explodes, sending flying metal in all directions.<\/p>\n<p><em>Kimi\u00a0Explosives Expert: Kimi is Dangerous. Everything he does causes collateral damage, and he is never harmed by any collateral damage.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Boris dashes away, outrunning the fragments.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Get Away <strong>7-9<\/strong> avoid harm<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yonne expands herself as a shield in front of Pierre.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Savior: When someone within arm&#8217;s reach would suffer harm, you may take that harm in their place.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Wobbles: Threats to the World and attacks with the Area, Burning, Dangerous, or Necrotic tags can damage you normally.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne damages Sense<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne damages Blood<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre changes a bond: <del>Yonne fed me<\/del> -&gt; Yonne protected me<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Lorber is unharmed inside heavy Dwarven armor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lorber:<\/strong> You keep ruining my material! At this point I&#8217;d do basically anything besides approve your project.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Oh! We have a different option for you, ma&#8217;am. I am Pierre Jardiner, another Academy graduate. These are my companions, Boris and Yonne.\u00a0 As you can see, launching a projectile to the Moon is a difficult and dangerous challenge. Yonne has wisely come up with a plan which deserves further consideration. She will reflect the Moon&#8217;s own deadly beeam back on itself, which requires only a sufficiently reflective surface. We don&#8217;t have to provide destructive power ourselves. But also, the best way to not be hurt is to not be hit, so I think it is also worth funding Gon-Chon&#8217;s reserach into artifical clouds to protect the Empire&#8217;s vulnerable infrastructure. In fact, we can combine them to focus the Moon&#8217;s attention of a place not protected by clouds, where we will place the reflective traps. What do you think of that?<\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre Talk Sense (+Sense, explain plan) <strong>7-9<\/strong> The Fellowship are now government contractors<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yonne&#8217;s plan to get the land to produce reflective minerals requires the involvement of a geologist. The Research Geologist is a buff lady Platyperson. Except for the tail, one might mistake her for a Dwarf from afar.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Sear<\/strong> she\/her Platyperson Geologist<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yonne doesn&#8217;t like her because her name is fire-based.\u00a0 Yonne explains her plan to the geologist. If there&#8217;s a density difference, Yonne might be able to soak into the ground and float the rocks up. She could also dissolve the top layer, but they wouldn&#8217;t like that. Yonne will run it past the Geologist first before doing it. Sear agrees to a test. Mr. Snicket shines a spotlight at a patch of ground near them and they go to work.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Technical Solution <strong>6-<\/strong> you make it worse<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sear does a ritual, and the reflective rocks are rising, but slowly. Yonne dissolves the last layer above them. That&#8217;s offensive to Sear<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sear:<\/strong> We&#8217;re supposed to be defending the land, but you&#8217;re damaging the land!<\/p>\n<p>Sear tells Lorber, who is in charge of crime and punishment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lorber:<\/strong> You are not making a good start on this research project! We recognize that you are not from around here. You are not familiar with our customs, but we can&#8217;t let this go. You are confined for three days!<\/p>\n<p>Lorber&#8217;s in a tough spot, because Yonne&#8217;s project is important to the war effort, but the goal is to prevent damage to the land, not cause it. The research station doesn&#8217;t have a jail, but they cobble together a room to confine Yonne.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> In their stead, while they languish in the pseudo-jail, can I use my fire-breathing to cook the surface to create a sheen?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lorber:<\/strong> All steps of your experiment must be reviewed by Sear beforehand, so this accident doesn&#8217;t happen again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Get the land to provide things I&#8217;m allowed to polish. Like smelting. I heat it up, then Sear, with some sort of percussive instrument, get out the impurities, giving it that reflective finish.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Talk Sense (+Sense, detail a plan) <strong>7-9<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>GM Note:<\/strong> The rules say that Boris owes a favor, but it&#8217;s easier to introduce a complication, which feels like a 7-9 partial success, so I did it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sear:<\/strong> That could work. It&#8217;s up to the land, but definitely do not melt any rocks unless I explicitly give you permission.<\/p>\n<p>They start a test. Rocks start shifting, but Sear waves Boris off.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sear:<\/strong> It&#8217;s no good. We&#8217;ll try again tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>In the evening, a messenger bullet hits a funnel at the top of the communication tower and slides down to a receptable. Mr. Snicket gets all the boring administrative jobs, so he collects and reads it. He calls Xander over. Xander reads it and calls Lorber over. Lorber reads it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lorber:<\/strong> It&#8217;s official.\u00a0 The state of emergency has been lifted.\u00a0 We are to continue research, but at a lower priority. I can only fund one of you going forward. It&#8217;s only fair that we let Yonne make her case against Gon-Chon. Let us re-locate to our temporary brig.<\/p>\n<p>Yonne is surprised to see a crowd gather outside her cell.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> It was very nice of you to stay in the jail.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> I know, wasn&#8217;t it? I could leave at any time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> But we respect law and order too much to do anything so disrespectful.<\/p>\n<p>Lorber explains that she can only fund one research project without a stae of emergency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Does that mean the Moon isn&#8217;t attacking anymore?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lorber:<\/strong> This is what it says: The embodiment of the land says, &#8220;The danger has passed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sear:<\/strong> Let me read that! &#8220;Embodiment of the land&#8221;? There will be a Geologist conference about that!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>GM note:<\/strong> Gon-Chon and Yonne roll Talk Sense, and the higher roll wins. Gon-Chon has +3 Sense, because she&#8217;s an elite scientist<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pierre drops a coin just outside the tent, which makes the ground just little more conductive.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre Firesight Butterfly Effect: give ally Hope on next roll<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Making clouds is a good defense if you want to find, but if you want to defeat the Moon and not just cower forever, you need to make it stop working. We need to make it stop working.<\/p>\n<p>Yonne <em>Talk Sense (+Sense, explain plan) (+Hope) <strong>11<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lorber:<\/strong> Direct. Concise. I like it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gon-Chon:\u00a0<\/strong>Clouds are a reliable and well-known solution that have&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Lighting strikes right outside the tent, lured by Pierre&#8217;s coin!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gon-Chon:<\/strong> Oh, um, performed this defensive function since time immemorial. Check military history and see when fog and clouds have defeated regular assaults and aerial bombardments.\u00a0 This solution, which Yonne suggests is unproven and dangerous. We must provoke the enemy into attacking us, and only if they attack exactly the right point will we be able to attack back. As we have seen, there&#8217;s no gaurantee that this attack will leave the land unharmed.<\/p>\n<p><em>Gon-Chon Talk Sense (+Sense, explain plan) <strong>9<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lorber:<\/strong> Gon-Chon, that was a good argument, but I believe that decisive action to remove a threat is better than even a reliable defense that must work indefinitely. We&#8217;re pulling your funding. Pack up tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> I&#8217;m sorry that your research has crumbled around you and you lost your funding. Here&#8217;s a cookie.<\/p>\n<p>The Geologists call a conference to discuss the embodiment of the land, and Sear wants to ask if Yonne&#8217;s idea is feasible without damaging the land.\u00a0 After Yonne serves her sentence, Silvanus takes the Fellowship and Sear in the off-road camel coach to the foot of the second level: another line of high cliffs stretching across the lands.\u00a0 Sear doesn&#8217;t take the secret route that most Geologists take. She leads them by the &#8220;normal&#8221; route, a steep and winding stair up the cliffs.\u00a0 Pierre climbs on Boris&#8217; back and Boris goes straight up, ignoring Sear&#8217;s stairs.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Walls. You can climb along any surface with ease, even the ceiling, and you climb as quickly as you can run.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Once Sear sees that Boris is climbing with a supernatural ability and not digging his claws into the rock, she relaxes.\u00a0 Yonne oozes up the stairs behind Sear. Flowing uphill is difficult for her.<\/p>\n<p>The Geologists meet of a big rock that projects out from the rest of the rock face. High Geologist Toshi leads the meeting.\u00a0 Sear introduces the Fellowship and explains why she brough them. The Geologists will bring them out when they take up the discussion of Yonne&#8217;s plan.\u00a0 Until then, they must stay back on the &#8220;mainland&#8221;. They overhear the Geologists&#8217; conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Toshi:<\/strong> Big news: There is a personification of the land. It has taken the form of a Platyperson who burns with the heat of magma. This is unprecedented, but I&#8217;ve seen it myself. It is true. He is the one who said the danger of the Moon has passed.<\/p>\n<p>This is a huge philosophical problem for the Geologists. For generations they can trained to detect and discern the vibrations of the land, so they can interpret its will for the people. Now the land is talking to people in sentences. There&#8217;s an uproar. Some wonder how to integrate this phnomenon with their existing philosophy, while others are ready to throw the old ways out.\u00a0 Some people demand rigourous tests to determine if it&#8217;s an imposter. Others think that would be insulting to the Avatar. The Avatar is not present at the meeting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Hey guys, don&#8217;t you think it&#8217;s weird that the representation of the land is a magma Platyperson when we know a Platyperson that is named &#8220;burn&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> It can&#8217;t be her.\u00a0 She&#8217;s not on fire.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong>\u00a0 You know how I copy people? What if it&#8217;s copying others. I want to see it, but not be near it, because it&#8217;s made of magma. Does it look like Sear?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> Dwarves are made of rock, but don&#8217;t speak for the earth. I side with the rigorous testing people. I would like to talk to the embodiment of the land, but I would be nervous.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually Toshi stops the discussion, so they can deal with other business. Sear beckons the Fellowship forward and explains that these new-comers have a plan to attack the Moon with its own weapon, but brief experiments have not been successful. She seeks the wisdom of the council to see if this plan is feasible. Some Geologists say that the threat from the Moon has passed because the Avatar said so.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong> Also, we could meet with the embodiment of the land and ask if it&#8217;s a good idea. The embodiment of the land could communicate with the land.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong> And just create the reflective surface.<\/p>\n<p>One faction still doesn&#8217;t trust the Avatar, and doesn&#8217;t respect his advice. Another won&#8217;t allow Yonne, who already damaged the land, to approach the precious Avatar. Toshi decides that only Geologists may approach the Avatar and speak to him, but the Fellowship can come along and see the Avatar from afar.<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship, Sear, Toshi, and a few others board a glider that takes them from the second layer to where the Avatar is. On the way, Boris reads an introductory book on Geology.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What will happen culturally if I start practicing Geology?\n<ul>\n<li>Geology is something to aspire to, but it&#8217;s also hard. Anyone is welcome to try, but most people don&#8217;t feel a connection to the land and wash out of the training program.\u00a0 Without official training, Boris is unlikely to accomplish anything.\u00a0 Boris&#8217; ancient primal magic is similar to the ancient primal magic of the land, but his magic doesn&#8217;t give him influence over the land. If he completed the training, he&#8217;d be an above-average Geologist.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Tell me about their respect for the land. How could it hurt or help me?\n<ul>\n<li>Mining is very rare, so they don&#8217;t have much stone or metal. If you exploited the land more, you&#8217;d have more stuff, so one could argue that respect for the land causes scarcity, but they don&#8217;t think they are deprived.\u00a0 People have a lot of pride in the land, which gives them camaraderie.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Is anything hidden or out of place?\n<ul>\n<li>The book doesn&#8217;t frame the land as magical. It talks about the land&#8217;s energy and will.\u00a0 It warns against selfish use of the land&#8217;s power.\u00a0 Pulling energy from the land is stealing from the land.\u00a0 Geologists only remove the stones in which they feel no energy.\u00a0 This implies that pulling energy from the earth actually works.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Avatar is easy to spot from the air because he&#8217;s on fire and glowing like a campfire. Boris wonders if his ability to eat fire could extinguish the Avatar&#8217;s fire.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a certain distance that people avoid because of the Avatar&#8217;s heat, but there&#8217;s a ring outside that of armored knights, keeping a large crowd back. Inside the ring are some important Imperial officials, and the Avatar&#8217;s retinue.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>flaming Platyperson<\/li>\n<li>a Halfling man and woman<\/li>\n<li>a Goblin with mechancial arms<\/li>\n<li>snakefolk<\/li>\n<li>full-grown harpy eaegle<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0small Pheonix<\/li>\n<li>something in a trenchcoat with a hat pulled low over a bright light<\/li>\n<li>a riding spider<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Boris doesn&#8217;t want to cause a cultural upheaval with Silvanus around. Perhaps he can sprint to a different part of the crowd to ask impertinent questions. Pierre stands behind Boris and takes his shape, so when Boris dashes away, Silvanus will still see &#8220;Boris&#8221; standing in the same place.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre Changeling You can take on a solid form in the shape of anyone you wish to imitate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre &amp; Boris The Bonds That Bind Us: When two or more players who have Bonds with each other work together side by side, they roll with Hope<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Unending Despair: You can never have Hope<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Boris Get Away <strong>7-9<\/strong> avoid harm<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Boris doesn&#8217;t move at full speed to avoid hurting people in the crowd, so Silvnaus does see that there are two of him. Yonne adds to the confusion by also taking Boris&#8217; shape.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Changeling You can take on a solid form in the shape of anyone you wish to imitate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Keep Them Busy (+Hope) <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Silvanus is ambitious, and protecting the Avatar offers more glory than protecting the friend of a visiting dignitary.\u00a0 Silvanus grabs one of the Borises. It&#8217;s solid because it&#8217;s really Pierre.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Silvanus:<\/strong> You&#8217;re tricking me! Watch out for these boars!<\/p>\n<p>The Rapid Response Team defending the Avatar moves in to secure the area:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Shield Commander <\/b><b>it\/its robot<\/b>: This powerful protector grants invincibility to the Horde. They must be take out first, or else the Horde cannot be stopped. A hemispherical robot manufactured in Thaumatown.\n<ul>\n<li><b>Diamond Command<\/b>: All nearby Horde threats, NOT including this one, are Dwarf-Made. They cannot be damaged by anything short of dragonfire or by secrets known only to Thaumatown.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Gang <\/b><b>of 120 Imperial militia, <\/b><b>various races<\/b><b>:<\/b> A cluster of enemies that rely on their numbers. They stick close and use their pointy sticks to prevent you from passing by.\n<ul>\n<li>The militia can only ever appear in Groups, Gangs, or Armies. If a Group of them is defeated, no single militia threats appear.<\/li>\n<li><b>Spear Wall<\/b>: The militia protects an area. No one can move through a Group, Gang, or Army of them, and anyone trying to Keep Them Busy fails.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Boris can easily outrun the expanding cordon, but the other Boris and the other-other Boris are in trouble. Pierre sends through bubbles to Yonne and Boris<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Let&#8217;s retreat!<\/p>\n<p>Pierre changes back to his normal form. Since he&#8217;s smaller than Boris, he figures Silvanus will lose his grip.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre Changeling You can take on a solid form in the shape of anyone you wish to imitate.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre Get Away <strong>7-9<\/strong> avoid notice<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As Pierre changes form, his body becomes softer and Silvanus&#8217; fingers dig in and hurt him as he slides out of the Guardsman&#8217;s grasp.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pierre damages Wisdom<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pierre changes form a few more times so no one can keep track of him.<\/p>\n<p><em>Yonne Get Away (+despair) <strong>10+<\/strong> avoid notice, avoid harm<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>GM Note:<\/strong> Yonne&#8217;s Grace was damaged, but she rolled three 6s (a 1\/216 chance) to get away with 14 even with Despair.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yonne returns to her normal fluid form, drops to about knee height, and flows away.<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship regroups away from the crowd.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pierre:<\/strong> Will this affect our funding?<\/p>\n<p>END-OF-SESSION MOVE<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Did we thoroughly explore a new location? YES, we met everyone at the Research Station<\/li>\n<li>Did anyone find what they were seeking? NO<\/li>\n<li>Did we discover something new about the world and its people? YES, the Empire&#8217;s respect for the land, and the Avatar<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2 Boons<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>healing<\/li>\n<li>gear<\/li>\n<\/ol>\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 entered the Empire via Hullift and learned of its unique culture. This time, they do something about the state of emergency.<\/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":[89,113,111,112,86,88],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-diary","category-chasing-the-sunset","category-rpg","tag-boris","tag-geologist-rock","tag-hullift","tag-imperial-research-station","tag-ol-jardiner","tag-yonne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713"}],"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=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2722,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions\/2722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}