{"id":2809,"date":"2026-09-12T20:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T20:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/?p=2809"},"modified":"2026-10-24T05:12:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T05:12:51","slug":"chasing-the-sunset-the-academy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/12\/chasing-the-sunset-the-academy\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the Sunset &#038; the Academy"},"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: Dryden of Conwall the Collector\/Hunter, Averiela the Elf\/Elven Elite, Markus the Squire, Pierre Jardiner the Harbinger<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/14\/chasing-the-sunset-magic-lessons\/\">Last time<\/a>, the Fellowship successfully distracted Cirrus and Morgan from all the unrest in the Empire. Suddenly Pierre stopped breathing!\u00a0 This time, the Fellowship goes to the Academy to save him.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship is shocked.\u00a0 Pierre is completely rigid.\u00a0 He falls over like a statue.\u00a0 Cirrus blames herself, of course.\u00a0 Doodle folds up into a little booklet and lays on Pierre. Markus reads it aloud.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong>\u00a0 If you are reading this, something terrible has happened to <del>Ol<\/del> Pierre Jardiner.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not dead!\u00a0 A magical failsafe put me in stasis.\u00a0 To prevent secrets from falling into the hands of enemies, this note does not explain how to break my defensive spells.\u00a0 If you have no other magicians on staff, go to the Academy.\u00a0 The Academy always helps its graduates.\u00a0 P.S. &#8220;Me&#8221; means Pierre, not Doodle.\u00a0 It&#8217;s just the messenger<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s an Academy building in most major cities.\u00a0 The Fellowship has to figure out what&#8217;s wrong with Pierre, and get through his stasis, then fix the problem quickly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> I&#8217;d say we&#8217;re going to an Academy, because I&#8217;m not a magician.<\/p>\n<p>The Luna Penumbra is in the Singing Hils, which does not contain a major city.\u00a0 The ship&#8217;s navigator, Oloris Oberon, points out the nearest cities:\u00a0 Thaumatown, Bogden, and the Table of Famine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> The Platypeople, isn&#8217;t that who we saved from the werewolves? There might be a good reception for us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oberon:<\/strong> Bogden isn&#8217;t really a city.\u00a0 The Platypeople there are very happy with a simple country life. They just want to go fishing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong>\u00a0 We could go visit Edna.<\/p>\n<p>The Luna Penumbra flies to Port Fennrick.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Port Fennrick Message Board<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Yonne:<\/strong>\u00a0 The clocktower has a great view, but the biggest building is the town hall.\u00a0 Edna there is Jardiner&#8217;s old employer and the mayor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Boris:<\/strong>\u00a0 Beware of walls that are actually doors, and coffins that are full of dirt.<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship tries to understand the cryptic messages.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> I feel like coffins that are full of dirt would actually be a good thing. As opposed to bodies.<\/p>\n<p>Fort Fennrick is an amphibious city built on a river delta. Half of the buildings are on stilts connected by boardwalks. The rest are underwater.<\/p>\n<p>The Academy building is &#8220;below-board&#8221;, that is, underwater.\u00a0 They have accomodations for air breathers, of course.\u00a0 The Fellowship puts on wetsuits with big clear bubble helmets.\u00a0 Sound doesn&#8217;t go from air to water well, so each helmet has an attached tube that can connect to a port on another helmet. Once connected, the two air breathers can speak to each other.\u00a0 Averiela hopes they only need to wear these suits to enter the underwater building, but the entire building is full of water.\u00a0 The Fellowship wonders about putting a helmet on Pierre.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> He&#8217;s not breathing anyways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Do you think we should, Averiela?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> I would. Otherwise he&#8217;s going to get water in his nose and in his eyes.\u00a0 When he does start to breathe, what are you going to do?<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship wrangles a wetsuit onto Pierre, which is difficult because his limbs don&#8217;t move.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Breen<\/strong> she\/her Mer-folk receptionist<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Breen takes one of the speech pipes and holds it to her chest. Her voice sounds strange and echo-y.\u00a0 Her normal voice through the water sounds completely different.\u00a0 She notices that three able-bodied people are carrying a fourth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breen:<\/strong> Was he out at the nightclub all night? Wait wait, don&#8217;t tell me.<\/p>\n<p>Breen reaches out to touch Pierre.<\/p>\n<p><em>Breen psychometry <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Breen:\u00a0 <\/strong>That&#8217;s weird. I can&#8217;t actually touch him. There&#8217;s a magical barrier.\u00a0 Is he OK? He&#8217;s not moving at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> No, he hasn&#8217;t been for a while.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breen:<\/strong> Oh no! Well, there&#8217;s a hospital above-board.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> We&#8217;re actually seeking out the Academy because he&#8217;s a former graduate and this seems to be a magical problem that we&#8217;re hoping for assistance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breen:<\/strong> It would help if I could hold something of his.\u00a0 He&#8217;s completely covered by this magical barrier.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll do it the old fashioned way!<\/p>\n<p>Breen leads the Academy to the archives and starts looking through yearbooks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breen:<\/strong> This is going to take forever. What else do you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, his name is Pierre Jardiner.<\/p>\n<p>Breen goes to an index and quickly finds Pierre&#8217;s information.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breen:<\/strong> We always look after our graduates!\u00a0 It seems he&#8217;s run afoul of some magical trap. My specialty is Psychometry. When I hold an object, I can see its history.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t help you, because I can&#8217;t touch him. There&#8217;s a very thin magical barrier.\u00a0 There&#8217;s an Abjuration office that specializes in defenses and taking down magic. If this is a Curse, there&#8217;s a branch with experts on Curses. Divination is a good way to figure out what&#8217;s happening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> We should start with defensive magic because it was a defensive mechanism to put his body in stasis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> OK, after that I vote for Curses.<\/p>\n<p>All the branches of the Academy are connected by portals.\u00a0 Once inside, people can walk to any building in any location.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breen:<\/strong> Since you aren&#8217;t members of the Academy, I&#8217;ll have to clear this with security and get you special permission. The thing about portals is they are good for invasions. Our hosting cities have very stringent security requirements.\u00a0 Clearly our graduate here is in grave danger, so we&#8217;ll fast track this.<\/p>\n<p>Breen takes the Fellowship to Kirk, head of security. He&#8217;s a large shark Mer-folk with bandoliers of little vials and bottles.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kirk<\/strong> he\/him Shark mer-folk alchemist.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jaws:<\/strong> The shark&#8217;s bark is as bad as their bite. Their bite is a Melee, Piercing weapon. Anyone trying to use Speak Softly, Talk Sense, or Keep<br \/>\nThem Busy against a shark must damage their Wisdom to do so, as the shark berates them and belittles them all throughout.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Street Shark:<\/strong> The shark is king of their turf. Nobody messes with them without facing the consequences. They can command other Merfolk Innocents to do as they say, without question.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Breen:<\/strong> This is an emergency. We need to get these people portal privileges!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirk:<\/strong> Well that&#8217;s very convenient.\u00a0 Strangers showing up and asking for portal privileges.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> Well, this is your graduate who obviously doesn&#8217;t know how to do magic well enough.\u00a0 either you can help us fix it, or we can leave him here. Not my problem.<\/p>\n<p>Markus steps in, using his diplomatic training from court.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> What she means is that we&#8217;re very worried about our friend.\u00a0 This is unprecedented and we don&#8217;t know what to do.\u00a0 He left a note saying to bring him to the Academy, because the Academy always takes care of its graduates.<\/p>\n<p>Kirk nods and gestures to Averiela and Markus in turn.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirk:\u00a0 <\/strong>I like being direct. I like getting the context.\u00a0 Good stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> We also have recommendations from your mayor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirk:<\/strong> That would take a while. I don&#8217;t like dealing with the other governments. I&#8217;ll allow it, but only the three of you. Your companions have to stay.<\/p>\n<p>Kirk brings out three small metal disks. They don&#8217;t have any visible moving parts, but he places them on the shoulders of Markus, Dryden, and Averiela, and they stay.\u00a0 Tapping a disk makes words appear: their name, &#8220;portal pass&#8221; and today&#8217;s date.\u00a0 Tapping twice shines a light in the direction of the portal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirk<\/strong>: There you go.\u00a0 You have to go through Vieport first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> Of course we do. We&#8217;re going to be in the Academy, so it&#8217;s fine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirk:<\/strong>\u00a0 That&#8217;s part of our security agreement. Inside the Academy is one security environment. Outside is the responsibility of the host government. Good luck!<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship sets off, awkwardly swimming while carrying Pierre between them.\u00a0 They walk through the portal and find themselves in an air-filled room with a dry floor. The portal holds Port Fennrick&#8217;s water back.\u00a0 From this side, it looks like a rippling mirror.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a space to remove the wetsuits.<\/p>\n<p>Vieport is busy.\u00a0 People are running back and forth. Some are arguing. Many people with guest badges wander around, lost.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fortune roll for meeting another character in Vieport: <strong>critical<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship moves through the halls, dodging people and following the beam of light from their portal passes.\u00a0 They look down one corridor and a wall of ice suddenly appears, completely blocking it!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> We are going to ignore that. We have one job right now.<\/p>\n<p>The blocked corridor isn&#8217;t the corridor they needed. They reach the portal leading to the Imperial Capital.\u00a0 A sign says, &#8220;Essential personnel only&#8221; and a guard is posted.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Sammy<\/strong> he\/him halfling guard<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> Don&#8217;t you see the sign?\u00a0 Essential personnel only<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Sammy, we have a member of the Academy in magical duress.\u00a0 I would deem him pretty essential!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> Is this the way to aberration&#8211;abjuration office?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> Yeah, the Inperial Capital does a lot of Abjuration, but it&#8217;s kind of a mess there.<\/p>\n<p><em>Markus Speak Softly <strong>7-9<\/strong> 2 questions, 1 unhelpful answer<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What can you tell me about the Imperial city?\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s some kind of social upheaval. We here people are vying for Emperor. It&#8217;s weird. Some people are saying the Emperor is dead. Some say that the Emperor used to be dead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>What were you doing? What will you do next?\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;m on guard duty. I&#8217;m here all day. Unfortunately, because of my minor in Chronomancy, that day is 128 hours.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>What would they have us do?\n<ul>\n<li>Your friend looks pretty stable. The Imperial capital is pretty unstable. I think you should go somewhere else.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> Back at Port Fennrick, we were advised that Abjuration would be a good place to start, but we are open to other courses of research and investigation.\u00a0 Is there someon else you know who could help our friend?<\/p>\n<p><em>Markus Talk Sense (+Sense, plan) <strong>7-9 <\/strong>owe a favor<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong>\u00a0 I&#8217;m not supposed to leave my post, but I could create an illusion so one of you look like me.\u00a0 You stay while I take the others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> And then would you come back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> Time is relative.<\/p>\n<p>Both Dryden and Averiela volunteer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> Wow, people jumping for this job.\u00a0 You have to settle it yourself.\u00a0 Make it quick and not too flashy.<\/p>\n<p>Dryden and Averiela step out of earshot<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Averiela, if his post is abandoned because he delays, I don&#8217;t think we have consequences.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> I think we could use this to see people coming and going. Do you really need me to carry Ol&#8217; Jardiner?\u00a0 I&#8217;m assuming this job comes with a nice set of keys.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> I will drag my feet at every corner. I&#8217;ll scuff the floor. You have Elfsight, so you can see that.<\/p>\n<p>They return.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> She won.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> Miss, you&#8217;ll have to sit down for this illusion.\u00a0 I wish I was allowed to sit down on guard duty!<\/p>\n<p>Sammy&#8217;s a halfing and Averiela is an Elf, so Sammy only comes up to her belt. She sits and Sammy casts a spell. Now there&#8217;s another Sammy where Averiela was sitting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> Just tell everyone &#8220;Essential Personnel Only, you&#8217;re not allowed to go on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> What if there is essential personnel?\u00a0 I have to unock the door, right? Anything else I should now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> I doubt it.<\/p>\n<p>Sammy gives Averiela a key that unlocks the portal and leads Markus and Dryden away.\u00a0 Pierre is balanced on Dryden&#8217;s flying device.\u00a0 It&#8217;s very easy for Dryden to leave scuff marks at intersections, because he has to work hard to push Pierre around.\u00a0 Sammy doesn&#8217;t take them to a portal, but up to an office.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> This guy is a pain.\u00a0 I mean, what a wonderful guy. I&#8217;m so happy he&#8217;s around.<\/p>\n<p>Sammy goes to the door, but before he can knock, someone calls out from inside.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> Come in, Sammy!<\/p>\n<p>They enter.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Laapo<\/strong> he\/him Spider telepath\n<ul>\n<li>Telepath: <strong>Laapo<\/strong> can read the thoughts of those nearby<\/li>\n<li>Spider: <strong>Laapo<\/strong> can spin webs that hold his weight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> I was just telling these folks how great you are at mind reading and how you can fix their problem. So! I&#8217;ll leave you to it!<\/p>\n<p>Sammy quickly leaves. The Fellowship presents Pierre.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> Clearly you want this guy to start moving again. I don&#8217;t have to be a mind-reader to know that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Yes, we want him to start moving and breathing again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> If he hasn&#8217;t been breathing for&#8211;what is it for Halfings, five minutes? It&#8217;s not really a problem.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> The nice thing is he&#8217;s in a stasis. It&#8217;s a magical defense.\u00a0 He left us a note.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> So if I read his mind, I&#8217;ll be communicating with someone who knows the situation. Excellent. OK.<\/p>\n<p>Laapo comes around to Pierre&#8217;s head and uses all six of his hands to connects webs to different points on Pierre&#8217;s head.\u00a0 The webs slip off.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> Quite a magical barrier here.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Laapo<\/strong> telepathy <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> I think his stasis is as bad a problem as whatever caused it.\u00a0 I&#8217;m unable to break through. I can tell you there are layers to it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Is there a stasis-cracker around here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo: <\/strong>The Sea King has a lot of contractors for his newest military project.\u00a0 There are a lot of people who can smash things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> I don&#8217;t know if we&#8217;re open to smashing right now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo: <\/strong>Also cut, evaporate, disassemble. Someone with a precise enough spell could cut through.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Cut through safely. Would you need to be present to connect to the mind?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo: <\/strong>Oh, yes. This is quite a project you&#8217;ve got.<\/p>\n<p>Laapo pulls on an invisible spider thread, signaling someone.<\/p>\n<p><em>fortune roll: does Averiela meet anyone important on guard duty? <strong>Critical, hostile<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Averiela hides behind an illusion of Sammy, pretending to guard the portal to the Imperial Capital.\u00a0 She copies the key Sammy gave her and examines the lock on the portal.\u00a0 Hopefully all the locks in the building are similar, so she can open them all.<\/p>\n<p><em>Averiela Master of the Old Ways When you have time and safety, you can make appropriate tools for the job at hand (1 Use, Elf-Made, Useful).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>An ice witch approaches.\u00a0 Averiela has never seen Petra, but she followed her trail, and there can&#8217;t be that many ice witches in the world.\u00a0 This must be Petra, who killed the second-to-last dragon and <a href=\"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/17\/chasing-the-sunset-and-the-second-battle-of-sunpeak\/\">collapsed Sunpeak<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Petra <\/b>she\/her Vampire Avatar of Frost\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Icy shell:<\/strong> When she takes damage, a chunk of ice falls off and becomes a hazard on the ground. The first time she would be destroyed, damage this stat as her whole body shatters, but it was a decoy! Petra is somewhere else nearby.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Freezing Touch:<\/strong> Anything touching Petra will rapidly lose all heat, becoming coated in a thin layer of ice within moments. Anyone frozen this way cannot use any frozen parts of their body, and if they become fully frozen, they are Taken Out.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dangerously Sexy:<\/strong> A Vampire\u2019s beauty is beyond compare. If your Sense is damaged, you can not willingly cause harm to a Vampire, no matter what they try to do to you. You can still do as you like, as long as your actions do not cause harm to the Vampire.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Fortune roll: quality of Sammy&#8217;s illusion: <strong>partial success<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Petra:<\/strong>\u00a0 Is Sammy playing hooky again? If you don&#8217;t want me to report both of you, let me through.<\/p>\n<p>Averiela wonders if she cares what happens to the Empire.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> Sorry, ma&#8217;am, essential personnel only.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Petra:<\/strong> How dare you?<\/p>\n<p>Petra summons a gust of snow that passes through the illusion and sticks to Averiela.\u00a0 A faint outline of a verson begins to form and Petra grabs for it.\u00a0 Averiela hits the alarm button.\u00a0 The alarm triggers flashing lights and a buzzer, but also a magical trap.\u00a0 Lines of force shoot out from the walls, spaced four inches apart, forming a dense 3-dimensional grid. These lines grab anything they touch, immobilizing intruders.\u00a0 Averiela darts past Petra into the hall.<\/p>\n<p><em>Averiela Get Away <strong>10+ <\/strong><\/em><strong>avoid notice, avoid harm<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Averiela Poetry in Motion, pick another option: take someone with you<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Averiela grabs a bystander.. Another Elf.\u00a0 Humans think that all Elves look the same age, but Averiela can tell she&#8217;s much younger.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alexander<\/strong> she\/her Elf freshman<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alexander:<\/strong> Is this part of the initiation?\u00a0 I was told I would know it when I see it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> Now is the time to employ your training from the forest for dodging and ducking. You will thank me for this later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alexander:<\/strong> OK! Who do we have to escape?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> The vampire witch back there is a little problematic. Quit talking so much!<\/p>\n<p>Alexander nods and splits off, weaving gracefully between people.\u00a0 Averiela lets her go. She must be capable, or she wouldn&#8217;t be at the Academy.<\/p>\n<p>Back upstairs, Laapo goes to the door just before someone knocks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> I&#8217;d like to introduce you to Agate! He&#8217;s good at optics and cutting things. He&#8217;ll solve your problem.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve met before, and not on friendly terms.\u00a0 He built a beam weapon from mirrors that fell from the Moon and fired on the Luna Penumbra.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Agate<\/strong> he\/him Spider mad scientist\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Wall Walker:<\/strong> Spiders can walk across any solid surface with ease, no matter the surface&#8217;s orientation.<\/li>\n<li>Web-slinging: He can spin webs to cross gaps, create bridges, or bind his enemies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Agate:<\/strong> You!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Truce for the greater good!<\/p>\n<p><em>Dryden Overcome: <strong>success<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Agate<\/strong>: Why are you here?<\/p>\n<p>Dryden: The Academy always helps its graduates. That seems to be a core philosphy around here. We have a graduate in magical stasis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> I know you&#8217;re a contactor, but if you uphold our principles, it&#8217;ll look good for further dealing with the Academy.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t know&#8211;Wait, I do know. Wow. OK, if you put that aside, I told them that if anyone know how to cut through these magical defenses, it would be you.<\/p>\n<p>Agate takes a long moment to think.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Agate:<\/strong> I can do that. They&#8217;ve given me a lab. Come with me and I&#8217;ll rig up a cutter. It&#8217;ll be smaller than what I usually work with&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>The alarm blares!\u00a0 Sammy recognizes it as the portal alarm and runs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sammy:<\/strong> Noooooo!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Agate:<\/strong> Laapo, what&#8217;s the Academy principle for this?<\/p>\n<p>Laapo reaches out for some invisible magical threads.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Laapo:<\/strong> You guys are not popular! How did you get in?\u00a0 I don&#8217;t think you should deal with these people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Agate:<\/strong> No! I&#8217;m going to uphold the Academy&#8217;s principles. This is something I really want to do.<\/p>\n<p>Averiela catches up with the others on the way to Agate&#8217;s lab.\u00a0 She doesn&#8217;t want to reveal herself immediately.<\/p>\n<p><em>Averiela Overcome <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Agate flinches when he notices Averiela lurking nearby, but he&#8217;s resolute and continues despite all the chaos. In his lab, he puts Pierre on a table. He uses his webs to arrange a bunch of lens just so.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Agate:<\/strong> Watch THIS!<\/p>\n<p><em>Agate Finish Them (+Blood, kill) <strong>6-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Agate underestimated Pierre&#8217;s defenses. The laser reflects off of Pierre&#8217;s irregularly-shaped body, bouncing all around the room!<\/p>\n<p><em>Markus Get Away: <strong>6- <\/strong>failure<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Dryden Get Away <strong>10+ <\/strong>avoid harm, bring Pierre along<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Averiela Get Away: <strong>7-9<\/strong> avoiding harm<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Averiela Poetry In Motion: bring Markus along<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Markus stumbles, but Averiela grabs him and shoves him through the door.\u00a0 Dryden rolls to the exit and commands his Flying Device to scoop up Pierre. With Pierre out of the way, the laser blasts straight down through the table.\u00a0 Agate pulls himself up to the celing with his web and shoots a line down to turn the machine off.\u00a0 He sees that the Fellowship have all left his lab, so he slams the doors with another pair of lines.<\/p>\n<p>Dryden wonders if Agate has any other way to leave the lab.\u00a0 Surely a Spider can figure out a way. He doesn&#8217;t take the time to seal the doors from the outside.<\/p>\n<p>The portal to the Imperial Capital is locked down. The optics expert tried to kill them.\u00a0 The Fellowship needs a third option. Averiela realizes the others don&#8217;t know why there&#8217;s an alarm ringing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> While I was minding my own business, this evil witch lady (likely Petra) with a terrible attitude, demanded to go through. Of course, having taken on full responsibility, I denied the request. She became unreasonable, so I hit the alarm and evacuated the area. We&#8217;ll see what this Academy does.<\/p>\n<p>Petra might not want to explain why she hates the Fellowhip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong>\u00a0 People, we either go back and battle Petra, or we get out of here very fast!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> We still have Pierre. We gotta fix Pierre. We gotta find somebody else.<\/p>\n<p>Dryden taps his badge for directions and the light leads to an info desk.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> There is so much chaos here and we&#8217;re just trying to help our friend! He&#8217;s stuck in stasis. We need to get help, please!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Dryden Look Closely <strong>10+<\/strong> ask 3 question<\/em>\n<ul>\n<li>How can the Academy help or hurt Pierre?\n<ul>\n<li>In Hamiss, there&#8217;s an expert with crystals doing real good things with re-aligning energy.<\/li>\n<li>Surprisingly, we have an acedemic fellow (not a full member) who knows a lot of folk remedies in Bogden.<\/li>\n<li>In the imperial city of Vox Omni, they do alchemy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>What are they doing about this alarm? What will they do next?<\/li>\n<li>Is something hidden or out of place?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Which portal is closest?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Clerk:\u00a0<\/strong> It&#8217;s two portals to Vox Omni, you go back through Port Fennrick. Also two portals to our honorary professor in Bogden. Vox Omni is a much bigger facility.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:\u00a0<\/strong> I think Bogden, because an honorary faculty member won&#8217;t be caught up in the system, but willing to experiment and try things.\u00a0 Bogden! That&#8217;s where I wanted to go the first time!<\/p>\n<p>The clerk sets the portal passes to lead to the portal back to Port Fennrick.\u00a0 The person who helps air-breathers suit up for transport gives them the exact suits they used on the way in.<\/p>\n<p>In Port Fennricks&#8217; Academy branch, the portal passes only lead them so far. The beam of light goes out, but there are signs on the wall pointing the way.\u00a0 Eventually they enter a broom closet behind a utility room. It&#8217;s a dead end.\u00a0 But there&#8217;s no ceiling.\u00a0 They swim up and come out of a little pool, next to a little hut outside the palisade wall of Bogden.<\/p>\n<p>Baffle, she\/her Playperson technician<\/p>\n<p>Baffle: I don&#8217;t often get visitors from the Academy. What happened?<\/p>\n<p>The Fellowship tells the story again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> Is Anter still here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Baffle<\/strong>: Yes, Anter is still here, but this is the sort of thing we should take care of out here. It&#8217;s not culturally acceptable to have the skills to deal with these kinds of problems.\u00a0 We like our simple life and we work to keep it.\u00a0 We could get Froob.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden<\/strong>:\u00a0 Froob is the honorary Academy member?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Baffle:<\/strong> No, that&#8217;s me: Baffle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> That&#8217;s you? Oh! That&#8217;s so cool.<\/p>\n<p>Baffle: This is a culturally sensitive thing so, please go in my hut. Make yourself at home. There&#8217;s some fish jerky.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll be back soon.<\/p>\n<p>The hut is a bit small for the able-bodied members of the Fellowship. Platypeople are about four feet tall, a little taller than Halflings.\u00a0 Baffle returns with Froob, who recognizes Dryden and Averiela, but not Markus or Pierre.<\/p>\n<p>Froob and Baffle examine Pierre and the magical barrier around him.\u00a0 Baffle has more and better technology than someone living in a wooden hut in a swamp really should<\/p>\n<p><em>Baffle Look Closely <strong>10+<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Baffle:<\/strong> This thing is pretty complicated. There are four layers. The top layer is reflection. The second layeris force. It&#8217;s hard. That&#8217;s why he keeps his shape so well. The third layer&#8211;look.<\/p>\n<p>She shines bright light on Pierre and invites the Fellowship to look through a magnifier. He seems to sparkle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Baffle:<\/strong> Those are tiny slivers of metal under high pressure.\u00a0 When you crack this open, it will explode and shred things nearby. You&#8217;d have to be made of stone to survive that. The bottom layer is time, extremely slowed down.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> Once we&#8217;ve gotten rid of these four layers, he&#8217;s restored?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Baffle:<\/strong>\u00a0 He&#8217;s free. How did he end up here? Oh, you have a little note.\u00a0 Something terrible happened to him.\u00a0 Once he gets back into normal time, that will start happening again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> He was experimenting with flying and got crushed by gravity? Maybe? He was trying to fly up, then was pushed down. He didn&#8217;t breathe, and now he&#8217;s like this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Baffle<\/strong>: He seems a normal weight. Not breathing? Good thing he&#8217;s got that time layer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> We probably need to deal with that gravity thing before we take all these layers off, otherwise he&#8217;ll just die.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> One of our companions can fly and he was experimenting to understand her magic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Baffle:<\/strong> Instead of up it went down.\u00a0 It&#8217;s still affecting him?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> We could go get her if we need go.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> We could just leave him.<\/p>\n<p>Averiela is right. There&#8217;s no time pressure. The consequences come from trying something that doesn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> Remember there was that other guy? What if it was just a conincidence when it happened?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong>\u00a0 A curse from the other little snowman evil dude?<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>GM note:<\/strong> A while back, Pierre was cursed by a spirit in a spellbook that he acquired. The spirit demanded a body, and Pierre fulfilled the letter but not the spirit of the curse by forming a snowman around a little mechanical armature. The spirit vowed revenge, but he&#8217;s a snowman hundreds of miles away.\u00a0 What could he do? Unfortunately, the other members of the Fellowship don&#8217;t remember these details.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Froob:<\/strong> If there&#8217;s a curse under this, that might be worse than the metal fragments!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> Do you know who a curse expert is and where we might find him or her?<\/p>\n<p>Their notes from the Academy indicate that Divination experts (good at gathering information) live in the Imperial Capital.\u00a0 There are Curse experts in Hamiss.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> Can we take off one of the layers here? The reflection layer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> We have an alchemist here. What if we turn the metal into something that won&#8217;t kill us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Froob:<\/strong> You know, I have a lot of experience in immersing cursed people vats of special chemicals to prevent terrible things from happening. Baffle, I hate to impose on you, but I think this is something we need to do out of town.<\/p>\n<p>Baffle nods. Froob thinks out loud.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Froob:<\/strong> It&#8217;ll be several baths. Two. No, one and a jug.\u00a0 I can make the solvent in a jug and apply it with a cloth to remove the reflection layer. That leaves the force layer containing the metal layer. I have a bath with a two-part solution: one dissolves the force, and the other transmutes the metal.<\/p>\n<p>Dryden reaches behind his cloak and pulls out a vial.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> OK. solvent. I&#8217;ve used some before. I once used this when&#8211;let&#8217;s just say there was a certain chest I wasn&#8217;t supposed to get into.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markus:<\/strong> OK, so whatever&#8217;s harming him, the time is saving him.\u00a0 So it&#8217;s OK to undo the other layers.\u00a0 But the reflection layer has saved him. Are we going to remove all the layers except for time?<\/p>\n<p>Froob confirms that the solvent removes the reflection layer. The bath removes the force layer. The metal will shoot out, and the bath will transmute it into something harmless.<\/p>\n<p>Averiela thinks identifying the metal would be helpful, but she can&#8217;t see, even with her Elfsight, with the reflection layer intact. She will wait.<\/p>\n<p><em>Froob remove reflection layer (+hope, Dryden&#8217;s solvent) <strong>7-9<\/strong> complication<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dryden&#8217;s solvent is too effective. It starts dissolving his hands!<\/p>\n<p><em>Dryden damages Blood<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The reflection layer is gone!\u00a0 Now Averiela stares at the tiny flakes of metal<\/p>\n<p><em>Averiela Look Closely <strong>7-9<\/strong> ask 3 questions, find out 1 answer the hard way<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tell me about the Jardiner&#8217;s defensive magic. How could it hurt or help me?\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s made by someone who is good at magic, had a long time to plan, and is scared of a lot of things. He used himself as a focus to magnify the power of the spell. When the trigger condition happened, the spell activates extremely quickly.\u00a0 It could stop a bullet.\u00a0 It&#8217;s hard to pull the two of them apart because the magic comes from him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Is something hidden or out of place?\n<ul>\n<li>Without the reflective layer, Averiela can see through the other three layers and see a different spell inside.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>GM note:<\/strong> I don&#8217;t like this answer. a magician did it, but not by doing magic. In the meantime, I&#8217;ve thought of a better hint that I will give in the recap of the next session: Pierre&#8217;s nose and mouth are filled with water vapor, not air.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Tell me about the metal shards. How could they hurt or help me?\n<ul>\n<li>The metal is zinc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Froob:<\/strong> Zinc? Oh no, this will make it worse!\u00a0 The simple alchemical transmutation for zinc is platinum, which is about eight times denser.\u00a0 Then the force layer dissolves, the zinc will explode out and have its momentum multiplied when the bath transmutes it.\u00a0 That will go right through the tub and maybe throgh this hut as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> No gold?<\/p>\n<p>Baffle gives him a very dirty look.\u00a0 Froob looks intimidated.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Froob:<\/strong> Of course not! I would never!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Averiela:<\/strong> We got rid of the reflective layer, and now we know what we&#8217;re dealing with. Maybe some of the other wizards can tell what happening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dryden:<\/strong> If we wrap him in something that will take all the force&#8211;If we were on the Luna Penumbra, we have exosuit.<\/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: Dryden of Conwall the Collector\/Hunter, Averiela the Elf\/Elven Elite, Markus the Squire, Pierre Jardiner the Harbinger Last time, the Fellowship successfully distracted Cirrus and Morgan from all the unrest in the Empire. Suddenly Pierre stopped breathing!\u00a0 This time, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/12\/chasing-the-sunset-the-academy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Chasing the Sunset &#038; the Academy&#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":[16,33,15,64,83,86,24,32],"class_list":["post-2809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-diary","category-chasing-the-sunset","category-rpg","tag-averiela","tag-bogden","tag-dryden","tag-luna-penumbra","tag-markus","tag-ol-jardiner","tag-port-fennrick","tag-vieport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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=2809"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2816,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions\/2816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}