Narrator Tips: Allow the players to ask any questions they want about the situation—don’t rush them into making a decision about what to do next. Exactly what they find out will depend on what they ask, but below is a detailed summary so that you know how to answer clearly.
The fox, noticing how close the players’ cats were to catching her, headed back to her den in the hollow of the log. When she went searching for her missing cub, she left the other two cubs and one of the WindClan kits, the she-cat, here sleeping. Knowing that the cats would arrive momentarily, she put the kit up front under her paw—a warning that she will hurt it if the cats come too close. Really, she has no plan to hurt the kit at all. She simply wants to get her missing cub back, and she blames the Clan cats for the fact that it is missing at all. (The kit can explain this reasoning, if the cats can get the fox to let her up so she can speak.) The other two fox cubs are now awake but hiding behind her, deeper in the den.
The fox is a clever animal, capable of communicating basic feelings by emotions—angry looks and sad whines—and pointing. She is not able to speak to the cats or make complex plans. The fox wants the cats to know that she is holding the kit until such time as her missing cub returns. She’s also hinting that if she finds out that the cats hurt her cub, she will retaliate by hurting the kit. This may be too complicated a message to get across without words, but it’s what the fox is thinking.
At first, it may seem that the fox is intentionally keeping the kit silent by covering its mouth with her paw. In fact, she is just trying to keep the kit from wriggling away and running back home. Unfortunately, at the moment, she is preventing the kit from calling out to the cats, which would help to clear up the situation.
What happens next depends entirely on how the players’ cats react to this situation. The fox is not going to make the first move.
What Happens Next: If the cats decide to attack the fox, continue with 8.
If the cats decide to leave and follow the other scent trail, continue with 14.
If the cats do anything that involves staying near the fox’s den but not starting a fight, continue with 16.
Read Aloud: “When your eyes flutter open, you can see the friendly face of your Clan’s medicine cat peering down at you.”
Narrator Tips: A significant portion (or perhaps all) of the cats have been knocked out in a fight. While it might have been possible for the other cats to finish the adventure alone, they succeed or fail as a team.
Improvise an appropriate conclusion for the cats based on their actions. As long as they acted nobly and fought courageously, their Clan leader will be proud of them and say so. There is no shame in failing as long as you try your best. If they acted rashly or, worse, failed to uphold the warrior code, the leader will give them a more stern talking-to.
Some other warriors succeeded in finishing the mission and finding the kits. As Narrator, you can decide how that happened and tell the players that tale.
What Happens Next: The adventure is over. The players’ cats do not get any Experience rewards for this adventure. The group can, however, play the adventure again, hopefully either being more careful about when to pick a fight or merely being better fighters.
Read Aloud: “Knowing that there is a second scent on the trail makes everything clear. In fact, you’re certain that this scent belongs to a fox cub, and the fox you’ve been chasing is its mother. But the cub hasn’t been moving around nearly as frequently, so the trail is difficult to follow because it is hidden under the mother fox’s scent.”
Narrator Tips: The cats are hot on the trail of the second fox. This scene will require the cats to make one final Smell Check as a group. It also provides a chance to be sure that they have put together all the various snippets of information about the cub into an accurate understanding of the situation. As Narrator, you may ask the players to have their cats make Ponder Checks to see which ones understand things most clearly, but whatever the results are, the group as a whole should get all the following information.
The two main scent trails are the cub running around and exploring the woods and the mother fox looking for him. Sometime early today, the cub’s scent was joined by the scent of a WindClan kit, and the two youngsters seem to be exploring and playing together. But then suddenly their scents stopped—they were no longer moving around—and their trail was buried under the scent of the mother fox as her search became more frantic.
In order to figure out the last place the cub and kit went, have each player make a Smell Check for his or her cat, and then add the Check totals together to get a group total.
What Happens Next: If the group total is 13 or lower, continue with 17.
If the group total is 14 or higher, this is the end of the chapter. Hand the adventure to the next Narrator and tell him or her to continue with 10.
Read Aloud: “After the better part of a day, the raccoon is still snapping at the kit and cub. Clearly it’s ready for a fight.”
Narrator Tips: This scene focuses entirely on the fight between the players’ cats and the raccoon. It uses the rules for fighting found in Chapter Five of the game rules.
From where it stands, the raccoon will hiss at the players’ cats, but it remains focused on the kit and cub perched on the branch above. The cats will need to force it away.
If the players’ cats decide to fight the raccoon, the fight will follow all the usual rules for fighting. The raccoon has a Jump score of 7, a Pounce score of 10, a Swat score of 12, and a Bite score of 10. The raccoon has Ability chips just like the players’ cats do and spends them in the same way. It has 10 Strength chips, 4 Intelligence chips, and 6 Spirit chips. For the purposes of this fight, the raccoon is treated just the same as a player’s cat except that the Narrator controls all its movements.
The raccoon will fight until it only has 7 chips remaining, and then it will try to run away. If this happens and the cats decide to chase the raccoon, they can easily catch up with it and continue the fight. However, if they let it go, the raccoon will leave Clan territory entirely and never be heard from again.
What Happens Next: If the cats decide to delay the fight and instead try to scare the raccoon away, continue with 11.
If two or more of the cats are knocked out during the fight, continue with 13.
If the cats knock out or chase off the raccoon, they win the fight and this is the end of the chapter. Hand the adventure to the next Narrator and tell him or her to continue with 20.
Read Aloud: “With a tiny grunt of exertion, the kit lifts up her head and calls out, ‘Wait! I can explain everything!’”
Narrator Tips: The kit gets her head free from the fox’s paw and attempts to explain what happened. The details are below. Use them to improvise a scene where she is trying to make things clear quickly in order to prevent a fight, but also is struggling with the fact that she is just a frightened kit and doesn’t really understand all the details of what’s going on.