Warriors: Omen of the Stars #6: The Last Hope (41 page)

Narrator Tips:
This is a whiteout. There’s so much wind and snow that you can’t see more than a few inches in front of your face. It’s a real weather condition, and it’s extremely dangerous—even more so for cats.

Describe the situation for the players and ask what their cats are going to do about it. Right now they cannot even see one another. If they want to move together and gather as a group, each cat must remember EXACTLY where the others were. To do that, each cat must make a Focus Check (it is possible to use the Alertness Knack with this Check) and get a total of 8 or higher. If any of the players’ cats fail the Check, that cat has lost its way.

If all of the cats manage to gather together, they have two options: Huddle where they are and wait for the storm to end, or try to move to the shelter of the trees in the highlands.

Huddling where they are is a sure way for the group to stay together, but it means they will spend the whole time in dangerously cold weather. All of the cats suffer 2 chips’ worth of damage from the experience. But when the whiteout ends, they have kept their bearings.

Trying to move to the trees (or any other location) is risky because the cats can no longer see anything through the blowing snow. If they want to move, they must pick one member of the group to lead the way. That cat must make a Ponder Check. If the total is 10 or higher, the group keeps their bearings and arrives at the place they were headed. If not, the group has lost its way.

What Happens Next:
If any of the cats lost their way in the whiteout, continue with
5.

If the cats were on the hilltop and they kept their bearings, this is the end of the chapter. Hand the adventure to the next Narrator and tell him or her to continue with
8.

If the cats were in the valley and they kept their bearings, this is the end of the chapter. Hand the adventure to the next Narrator and tell him or her to continue with
13.

Read Aloud:
“The trail seems to go cold momentarily. You can’t see the tracks at all. But just when you’re about to give up hope, you come across another collection of tracks—and they’re still fresh!”

Narrator Tips:
The players’ cats have found a collection of tracks that seem to have been made today. Improvise a scene that lets the cats investigate these tracks, using Skills like Ponder, See, and Smell (and Knacks like Track, Animal Lore, and Alertness) to figure out which tracks to follow.

Tell them that there are tracks from lots of different animals, but only the rabbits are prey—the others are foxes, raccoons, and maybe even a bear (if you want to give the players a bit of a scare as they worry that their cats might have to fight such a huge animal). The problem is that the rabbits seem to have been chased out of this location and run in several directions at once. There’s no easy way to tell where they might be now. It’s also unclear which of the other animals might have been chasing them.

Have the players’ cats all make Ponder or See Checks. (The Track Knack can be used with this attempt.) Then add their totals together to get a group total, which will determine the set of tracks they actually follow.

What Happens Next:
If the group total is 20 or higher, continue with
10.

If the group total is 19 or lower, continue with
13.

Read Aloud:
“In greenleaf this valley is full of grass and small streams—just the kind of place where prey can be found. It only makes sense that they would have their burrows here, too.”

Narrator Tips:
Tell the players that there are no immediate signs of prey—no tracks in the snow or obvious locations for burrows. Then ask them what their cats want to do next. How will they go about hunting for their prey? Based on their answer, decide what Skill (and perhaps an associated Knack) would be most appropriate for that activity. (It’s likely that the See Skill and the Track Knack will be helpful, or perhaps Ponder and the Animal Lore Knack.) Tell the players that only one of them may attempt the Check—too many cats fussing about will scare away potential prey.

The result of the Check will determine the next scene of this adventure.

What Happens Next:
If the Check had a total of 20 or higher, the cat has found many tracks to follow—continue with
13.

If the Check had a total of between 15 and 19, the cat has found a few tracks to follow—continue with
11.

If the Check had a total of between 10 and 15, the cat found no tracks. The cats must replay this scene again.

If the Check had a total of 9 or lower, continue with
2.

Read Aloud:
“You wander through the blowing snow for a very long time. When the weather finally clears, you have no idea where you are.”

Narrator Tips:
The players’ cats got so lost in the whiteout that they have left familiar territory entirely. The cats will have to find some kind of landmark they can use to guide their travels or they might never make it back to the Lake and their Clans.

Have each cat make a Ponder Check (adding in the Pathfinder Knack if they can and wish to) and add the results together to get a group total. If that group total is equal to 20 or less, the cats wander around for a very long time, and only find something familiar when they’re already half-starved. They have no choice but to go straight back to the Clan territories and report their mission as having been a failure.

If the group total is 21 or higher, the mission is still a failure in that they did not accomplish what they’d intended. But as Narrator, you may want to give them a small story bonus for such a great effort. If so, run the group through scene 19, saying that in their search for familiar land, the cats came across a small warren of rabbits. Instead of ending the scene as described, though, have the players’ cats suddenly see other Clan cats come into the clearing. The players’ cats wandered so far off course that they have intruded on the area that another group of warriors was supposed to search. Although they will bring some fresh-kill back for the Clans, the mission was not a success, and the players’ cats have to tell their leaders that the effort failed.

What Happens Next:
The adventure is over. The players’ cats do
not
get any Experience rewards for this adventure. The players’ cats
can,
however, play the adventure again.

Read Aloud:
“Look! Over there! Did you see that flash of fur? Are the foxes back?”

Narrator Tips:
The players have just finished dealing with the foxes (in one way or another), so you can have some fun playing with their expectations at the beginning of this scene. You can ask them to make See Checks (even allowing the Track Knack) and if they don’t have impressive totals, you can hint that what they saw
might
have been a fox.

Of course, if any of them get very good results (totals of 12 or higher), you should absolutely tell them the truth of the situation. (As Narrator, you sometimes get the fun of intentionally misleading the other players, but when the cats perform a task well, you should always reward them with useful results.)

In any case, the deception should be short lived. Tell the players that their cats see a group of rabbits—scrawny, skinny rabbits, but rabbits just the same. Half the rabbits scamper up a nearby hill; the other half run deeper into the valley. Almost immediately, the rabbits are out of sight. Perhaps they’ve gone over a rise or behind a snowdrift. Perhaps they’ve reached their burrows and gone underground. Perhaps they heard the cats approaching and have gone into hiding. There’s no way for the cats to know without investigating further. But which group of rabbits will they follow?

What Happens Next:
If the players’ cats decide to follow the rabbits up the hillside, continue with
7.

If the players’ cats decide to follow the rabbits in the valley, continue with
21.

Read Aloud:
“In greenleaf this hill is shaded by tall trees. Now, even with the trees bare, the snow is clearly less deep than it was in the valley. But as you step away from the trees, the wind becomes quite strong and the snow gathers in drifts.”

Narrator Tips:
Tell the players that there are no immediate signs of prey—no tracks in the snow or obvious locations for burrows. Then ask them what their cats want to do next. How will they go about hunting for their prey? Based on their answer, decide what Skill (and perhaps an associated Knack) would be most appropriate for that activity. (It’s likely that the See Skill and the Track Knack will be helpful, or perhaps Ponder and the Animal Lore skill.) Let them all make Checks for their appropriate skills.

Any cat whose Check total was 13 or higher is thoroughly absorbed in the hunt. Tell their players that the cats are certain that there are no tracks or clues to be found here.

If a cat’s total was 12 or less, tell that player the cat was distracted by the howling wind and drifting snow.

Then have all the cats make a Focus Check (with which the Alertness Knack can be used) and add all the cats’ individual results together to create a group total. As a bonus to this total, add +2 for every cat that wasn’t distracted by the winds on the earlier Check. If the group total (including the bonus) is equal to 20 or higher, they notice that the wind isn’t just stronger on the hilltop, it’s increasing because bad weather is about to blow in. It would be best for the cats if they found shelter somewhere.

There really are only three options open to the cats—try to press on despite the weather (which they automatically do if they failed to notice the coming storm), seek shelter under the tall trees, or try to outrun the storm and get down into the valley.

What Happens Next:
If the cats press on or head toward the valley, continue with
2.

If the cats decide not to seek shelter, continue with
8.

Read Aloud:
“The sound of the wind and the bite of the blowing snow only increase as night falls. Huddling together for warmth, hopefully you can dream of a beautiful, warm newleaf.”

Narrator Tips:
Briefly describe what it is like for the cats, as they lay on top of one another, like they did when they were kits. When the weather turns this bad, it’s the only thing you can do. And despite the terrible conditions, the familiarity of the situation provides a feeling of safety as they drift off to sleep.

Their dreams, however, are not of carefree days when they were kits. Instead, they each receive a message from StarClan. The details of each dream should be tailored to the individual cats—featuring cats and situations from their past (both past games, and the background story each player has created for his or her cat). This will require you, as Narrator, to improvise extensively but, since this is a dream, it also gives you the freedom to take a stronger hand in crafting the scene.

In dreams, things don’t always happen in the logical way they do in real life—you can move the players’ cats from place to place, or even time to time. You can make the situation as strange as you like, even put the cats in extremely dangerous situations since, no matter what happens, they will awake safe and sound when the dream is over.

Before beginning the dream, ask each player how many chips they have of each color. Although they may have to spend chips on actions in the dream, when they awaken they will get those chips back, plus the normal Healing a cat gets every morning. (See Chapter Five of the game rules.)