{"id":538,"date":"2019-08-19T19:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T19:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/?p=538"},"modified":"2023-01-27T11:26:19","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T11:26:19","slug":"chasing-the-sunset-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cliffnordman.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/19\/chasing-the-sunset-pirates\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the Sunset & pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chasing the Sunset<\/a> is a West Marches<\/a>-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition<\/a>\u2018s Horizon rules.<\/p>\n

Rod the Exile<\/h2>\n

He’s a Halfling, but knows nothing of Halfling culture, because he was raised in an evil lab and experimented on. This lab, funded by a mysterious and nefarious organization, kidnaps children and brainwashes them to become spies.\u00a0 Rod lost the use of his legs, but can harness the power of electricity, which he channels through the shock collar still locked around his neck.\u00a0 He’s been out for about 1.5 years, dumpster-diving and stealing to survive. Tobit the dog is his faithful steed and closest friend.<\/p>\n

Sapphira the Spider<\/h2>\n

She is almost humanoid. She walks upright on two legs ,but has many arms, web spinners, and can spit poisoned needles from her mouth.\u00a0 Spiders live in fear of each other because they are power-hungry and often resort to cannibalism to consolidate power. Strange electrical current shimmers across their exoskeletons, like that glass sphere toy that sends harmless bolts of lightning to your fingers when you touch it. Spiders can sense each other and communicate via a special electrical frequency. Sapphira carries her babies along with her, which is unusual,since most Spider parents would eat them. She avoids killing if she can help it.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Begin<\/h2>\n
\"\"
Looking west at Port Fennrick on the delta of the Mighty River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sapphira, Rod, and Tobit are in Port Fennrick, which is built on the delta of a mighty river. They plan to head up-river to and search for a legendary subterranean Dwarven highway that Rod is sure actually exists.\u00a0 Sapphira uses her spider silk to make a harness that holds Rod more securely on Tobit’s back.\u00a0 As they approach the back of town, where the river splits into a delta, they see a gate where all travelers are being stopped by officials.\u00a0 traffic is backed up and people are grumbling.\u00a0 Rod doesn’t want to deal with that at all! he hasn’t had good experiences with authority figures or law enforcement.\u00a0 Our party slips down a sidestreet to hop a fence out of town. It’s trivial for Sapphira, since she was walk on walls, branches, and ceilings.\u00a0 Tobit is not so agile, so she drops a silk line and pulls him and Rod over.<\/p>\n

Outside of town is a jungle. Hunting birds circle overhead, looking through the canopy for weak and isolated prey to pick off. Staring into the dense foliage, Sapphira spots tripwires laid by giant spiders. Lowercase S. These are dumb beasts, used as mounts by smaller humanoids.\u00a0 Disturbing these tripwires will alert spiders lying in hiding to rush out and attack.\u00a0 Rod manuvers around the tripwires as best he can, but is forced to push through a sticker bush & takes damage.\u00a0 Sapphira was made for this challenge. She can easily climb into the trees to avoid the tripwires. If no branches are available, she can use a line of her own silk. She also an expert on webs, so she knows where the tripwires are even before she sees them.\u00a0 She leaves her mark for the other spiders to find, so they know who they were dealing with.<\/p>\n

Our party emerges from the jungle next to the mighty river.\u00a0 How will they travel upriver? For now, they walk.\u00a0 After a while, they see a raft coming downriver.\u00a0 It’s 40 feet on a side, but piloted by a single Giant using a tree trunk as a pole. The raft is damaged. If it carried cargo, there’s none onboard now, and the Giant looks scared and a bit hurt.\u00a0 Our party hails him to ask what happened and ask for a ride, but he yells something about pirates and doesn’t slow down.\u00a0 Our party decides to wait for the next upriver boat.<\/p>\n

They wait a bit longer, and the next boat that appears looks like a Viking longboat, but without the shields along the side: long, narrow hull that rises at the prow and the stern, one mast, and one row of oars on each side.\u00a0 Sapphira sneakily attaches two lines to the stern and she and Rod let the boat drag them along as if they were inner-tubing, just with no inner tubes.\u00a0 The boat’s high stern blocks them from the view of the boat’s crew.\u00a0 they overhear some chatter from onboard. the crew is worried about pirates. One man goes aloft to the crow’s nest to look about and spots the Rod & Sapphira tagging along.\u00a0 The lookout calls out, but just then the boat hits something! Its forward progress is stopped immediately and the bow is pushed up out of the water!\u00a0 The lookout falls from his perch to the deck. From their position behind the boat, our party can only see something large, armored, and spiky rising out of the water under the boat.<\/p>\n

It’s a giant crocodile, covered in metal armor, with an armored platform built on its back. It pulls back from under the boat and faces it, nose to nose.\u00a0 Nose to tail, this fearsome creature must be 40 feet long.\u00a0 A small man emerges from the armored compartment and dashes in a loop around the boat, leaving a roostertail spray behind him as he runs across the surface of the river!\u00a0 He definitely spots our party as he passes by.\u00a0 He returns to stand on the crocodile’s snout and shout to the boat’s crew, demanding that they hand over their valuable cargo.<\/p>\n

Rod and Sapphira don’t want any of this mess, so they disconnect their tow lines and discreetly start swimming to shore.\u00a0 The small speedy man, who calls himself Slick, notices and zooms to cut them off before they reach the shore.\u00a0 “Not so fast!” he says, “Stay fight there and I’ll get to you once I finish my business with the boat.” Poof, he’s back on the crocodile’s snout.<\/p>\n

Sapphira and Rod consider their options.\u00a0 Sapphira takes a bear trap from her gear and sets it in the water at their feet.\u00a0 Rod calls out to Slick, saying he’s willing to surrender all the cash and jewels he’s carrying.\u00a0 This is music to Slick’s ears, and he already has his hands in Rod’s pockets by the time the trap snaps shut on his legs.\u00a0 Slick howls in pain and tries to flee, but the bear trap has his leg stuck.\u00a0 The armored crocodile hears and responds to its master’s cry, charging straight for Rod, which means going under the boat! The hull groans and cracks, crew members are sent flying as the armored crocodile rushes forward in uncontrolled fury. Sapphira flees to shore, but Rod and Slick and the bear trap are all damaged by the attack.\u00a0 With the trap broken, Slick flees as fast as his legs can carry him, which is incredibly fast. He’s out of sight in no time.<\/p>\n

Rod ends up on top of the crocodile’s armored platform, and squares up to fight the rest of Slick’s crew, but the platform is empty. Slick was the only passenger.\u00a0 Sapphira spits needles at the crocodile’s face and eyes to distract it from her vulnerable colleague.\u00a0 Rod uses the opportunity to charge up and unleash a blast of electricity from his shock collar. Confused and hurt, the crocodile panics and starts swims away, upriver.\u00a0 This presents a dilemma for Rod who is still aboard. He and Sapphira have been looking for a ride upriver all day, but the crocodile is a dangerous vessel, and Sapphira isn’t with him.\u00a0 He bails out and stays with Sapphira and the damaged boat.<\/p>\n

Calm settles over the scene as our party ponders their next steps and the crew of the damaged boat try to recover.\u00a0 The captain intends to cancel the trip and return to Port Fennrick. Sapphira offers to protect the ship if it will bear her and Rod upriver. She hopes their swift defeat of the pirate crocodile will reassure the crew.\u00a0 the captain refuses. The boat is too damaged to continue. Half of the oars snapped and many of the crew are injured.\u00a0 The able-bodied will be bailing water the whole time that the current bears the boat back to Port Fennrick.\u00a0 During this recovery period, Rod shares a meal with a sailor named Cooper and forges a bond with him.\u00a0 Cooper says that if Rod ever needs anything, he’ll be in Port Fennrick, ready to help.<\/p>\n

Eventually the boat departs and Rod and Sapphira once more start walking upriver.\u00a0 Rod is looking for evidence of a secret underground transportation network that he heard was built by the Dwarves long ago.\u00a0 After hiking upriver for miles, he spots something odd.\u00a0 A rock on the riverbed shifts up for a moment and air bubbles out from beneath it.\u00a0 Observing it for a while indicates that the rock conceals a valve that is regulating the air in something hidden below.\u00a0 Rod looks around and finds a large rock on the riverbank that conceals a spiral staircase leading down into darkness!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chasing the Sunset is a West Marches-style exploration game using Fellowship 2nd Edition\u2018s Horizon rules. Rod the Exile He’s a Halfling, but knows nothing of Halfling culture, because he was raised in an evil lab and experimented on. This lab, funded by a mysterious and nefarious organization, kidnaps children and brainwashes them to become spies.\u00a0 … <\/p>\n

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