If the apprentices have not yet amassed four failures, return to scene 7 and let them try again. Note, though, that once an individual apprentice succeeds at this test, he or she does not have to perform it again.
4. Is It Dinner Yet?
Read Aloud: “None of the Clans is particularly large in number. You all easily know every member of your own Clan, and a good many of the cats in other Clans, too. But the size of a Clan suddenly seems much bigger when you look at your newly caught freshkill and realize that the hunters do not get any food until all the other Clan cats eat first.”
Narrator Tips: If the adventure has reached this scene, the apprentices have not yet gathered enough freshkill. The Narrator should keep track of how many times the apprentices’ efforts return them to this scene—it will determine what happens next.
Ask the players to discuss what they think went wrong. What advice would their cats offer to the apprentices to help them gather freshkill more quickly? Is it better to hunt small prey or large? Would things be better if the apprentices worked together in pairs or trios?
The Narrator should tell the players that the apprentices can work in teams using special rules. If a group of apprentices hunt the same creature, all of the apprentices may try each of the required Skill Checks, but only one apprentice needs to succeed in that Check in order to overcome the prey. In other words, no matter how many cats are hunting together, they only need a single success by any one of the apprentices for the whole team to succeed.
What Happens Next: If there is not enough freshkill and this was the fourth time that the adventure has reached this scene, continue with 13.
If there was not enough freshkill but the adventure has reached this scene fewer than four times, the apprentices may continue hunting. Return to 10.
5. On Patrol
Read Aloud: “Patrolling the borders of the Clan’s territory is one of the most important jobs a warrior has. It’s the best way for the Clan to keep an eye out for any new threats, and to find out if anything unusual is happening in a neighboring Clan’s territory.”
Narrator Tips: In this section, the older cats are teaching their new apprentices how to behave on border patrols. As a group, they’ve gone to an area where there is a complicated border separating ThunderClan territory, ShadowClan territory, and non-Clan forest territory.
Begin by asking the players what advice their cats would give to the apprentices. What should a cat do on patrol? How should they behave? Are there any particular tricks or dangers to look out for? Lead this as a discussion among the players to get them to roleplay what their cats might say.
When the instructional part is over, it is time for the players to take control of the apprentices again. Let the apprentices refresh their chips, if they need to. Then have them try to walk the border without crossing into the other Clan’s territory. To do this successfully, each apprentice must make one of the following Checks: Focus Check, Intelligence Check, Ponder Check, or See Check. Add together the results of these Checks to create a Group Total. If the Group Total is 12 or higher, the apprentices have successfully walked the patrol route. If the Group Total is lower than 12, the cats have crossed the border.
What Happens Next: If the apprentices have successfully walked the patrol route, continue with 11.
If this is the first or second time the apprentices crossed the border, continue with 8.
If this is the third time the apprentices crossed the border, continue with 2.
6. Waiting for Supper
Read Aloud: “It seemed certain that the apprentices were about to complete their task. You were sure they’d bring back enough freshkill to meet their goal, but you were wrong.”
Narrator Tips: The Narrator should begin by telling the players to set aside the information about their apprentices and focus on the character sheets for their usual cat characters—the apprentices have failed to return from their hunting expeditions.
One of the interesting things about roleplaying games like this is that the players will sometimes have access to different perspectives of the story and levels of ability. Over the last few scenes, the players have been able to see the actions both through the eyes of their regular cat characters and through the eyes of the apprentice cats. The more experienced cats could easily have succeeded on any and all of the tests being performed, but the apprentices often struggled to do so.
In this instance, the players know everything that happened to the apprentices up to a certain point, but not beyond. Now they must use the skills and abilities of their experienced cat characters to find the missing information and (hopefully) find the missing apprentices, too.
Ask the players what their cats are going to do about the situation. How will they go about trying to find the missing apprentices? Likely strategies include trying to follow the young cats’ trail (either by sight or scent), trying to hear faraway sounds that might hint at where they’ve gone, or simply sitting down and using the cats’ knowledge about the apprentices to puzzle out what could have happened. These activities can be represented by See, Smell, Listen, and Ponder Checks, but other possibilities exist, too. If a player’s plan seems reasonable and likely to help, figure out which Skill or Knack is appropriate, and allow the player to use that.
Since what happened to the apprentices was sudden and unplanned, getting clues is difficult. Any cat that got a total of 12 or higher on the Checks above succeeds in that action and gets a bit of an idea. However, it will take the group as a whole to puzzle this out. Add up the number of successes the players’ cats got as a group.
What Happens Next: If the players’ cats as a group got five or more successes, continue with 18.
If the total number of successes for the group was four or fewer, continue with 15.
7. Finding Your Foe
Read Aloud: “Some will say that a warrior’s most important assets are their sharp claws. But if you cannot find and follow your enemy, it doesn’t matter how sharp your claws are—you’ll never get close enough to use them.”
Narrator Tips: In this section, the players’ cats are teaching their new apprentices how to find, follow, and eventually catch a foe that is sneaking through the woods. Stalking an enemy is similar to hunting for freshkill, but other cats and wild predators are much more clever and dangerous than prey like rabbits and voles, and tracking them is a very complex task. On the other hand, clever foes can often be convinced to leave the territory simply by letting them know that their movements are being followed—a smart creature avoids unnecessary combat.
Begin by letting the apprentices refresh their chips, if they need to. Then ask the players what advice their cats would give to the apprentices. What Skills are most important when it comes to stalking? What Knacks can a cat learn to make this process easier? Are there any tricks that are useful when trying to chase down a clever foe? Lead this as a discussion among the players to get them to roleplay the things their cats might say.
When the instructional part is over, it is time for the players to take control of the apprentices again and have them try to stalk a pretend foe. In this case, it will be one of the players’ cats, though that cat will not use all of his or her sneakiness—these are just apprentices, after all. To succeed at this test, an apprentice must try all three of the following Checks and be successful at two of them: a Listen Check, a Smell Check, and a Sneak Check. These Checks must have a total of 5 or higher to succeed.