My Hunters Jumped into the Hedge and I Don't Know What to Do

[BadassOverlord]

Hello, first time posting here. I'm currently ST for a Hunter game where last session half the players were chasing a changeling and ended up stumbling headfirst into the Hedge while the other half are outside. I've never played/ST'd changeling before, I had mostly skimmed the book while building the antagonist so now I'm desperately reading through the rules to come up with something for next session.
For the people who are familiar with the game, what are the players likely to encounter inside the Hedge and what means do they have of getting out? The Hedge navigation rules seem a bit overcomplicated for something that is probably just going to show up this one time in the campaign, so is there a simplified way of running it? And finally, do the characters stuck on the outside have any meaningful way of helping them reach home safely?

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Neos01]

Hello, first time posting here. I'm currently ST for a Hunter game where last session half the players were chasing a changeling and ended up stumbling headfirst into the Hedge while the other half are outside. I've never played/ST'd changeling before, I had mostly skimmed the book while building the antagonist so now I'm desperately reading through the rules to come up with something for next session.
For the people who are familiar with the game, what are the players likely to encounter inside the Hedge and what means do they have of getting out? The Hedge navigation rules seem a bit overcomplicated for something that is probably just going to show up this one time in the campaign, so is there a simplified way of running it? And finally, do the characters stuck on the outside have any meaningful way of helping them reach home safely?

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.

For the people outside, the same door that opened for the prisoner could open again if someone satisfy his Vice nearby.
Also the hunters could make some occult research to find the proper meaning to open the door (its key).

For the hunter inside, lacking fae expertise he would probably simply get lost, the most effective thing he can do is to find a resident goblin and strike a bargain with it to find an exit (and the key to open it, maybe with another batgain, goblins are greedy)

[Neos01]

As for what he can find inside, any fairy tale book could provide a good example

[Tessie]

You can totally skip the Hedge navigation rules. Plenty of Changeling players do. Also, introducing the players to a new system that might only be used once (unless the Hedge becomes a repeat location in your game) is generally not a great idea so I don't recommend any homebrew replacement systems either. Just do whatever you'd do if they were navigating mundane wilderness and put a fae-like spin on it.
What you probably want to focus on is the description of the Hedge, the Thorns, trods, and Hedgeways (p.68-73 & p.198-203). Hopefully that should give you a pretty good feel for the Hedge, and that's honestly the most important part since the Hedge can look like anything.
The other thing you might want to take a look at is Hobgoblins (p.73-75 & p.252). They're the main inhabitants and their love for dealmaking is a great source of conflict and interesting complications within the game. And you can never go wrong with a goblin market since that's just more of a good thing. It's also an environment the changeling could try to use to hide, allowing the hunters to keep up the chase, or the changeling might be the one who complicates things even further by buying some means of transportation away from there (back into our world or further into the Hedge).

Note that everything written about the Hedge is written to primarily fit Changeling games. It's not geared towards other games like Hunter. You should never feel constrained by any setting material in your games and can always modify it to fit your game better (provided there are no set-in-stone expectations that it's supposed to be a particular way) and that goes double when using setting material for one game in another.

For the characters outside the Hedge, if they spend time researching how to open the Hedgeway to follow, you could have the time pass different between the realms so that they show up just slightly after the first group to keep the party together, or at least close by if the first group has advanced away from the Hedgeway.

[Teatime]

You may want to get your hands on "Collection of Horrors", particularly the chapter "No Escape". It's a micro-adventure where Hunters follow a Changeling into the Hedge and need to find a way back. If you want to go a step further you may read "Horror Recognition Guide" chapter called "The Ogre". Those two books are companion pieces to each other. The latter is a collection of novels and the former adapts those novels for use at the table. They're written for Hunter: the Vigil 1st Edition, and the Changeling in this story is paranoid, but not malicious, but they're widely considered some of the best books in CofD.

[Rhyzvanic]

For simplicity, let us assume they've landed on a Trod, and not amongst the Thorns. Being put in the Thorns as normal humans is asking for bad stuff to happen. Even Changelings don't want to do it, unless they're looking for their Icon (A unique item based upon ripped parts of their soul) and even then, sometimes they let it be found first. As in, they would rather deal with the possibility a True Fae would find their icon and deal with that situation, rather than traverse the thorns again and potentially find a dozen briarwolves or some other nonsense.

First of all, you can ignore the Hedge traveling rules. The Wyrd does have a mind of its own, but for sake of simplicity let us say it's guiding the Hunters to where they want to be. For whatever reason it takes pity on these mortals. If the Wyrd might have different ideas of the ideal location to travel to for the Hunters, but It's going to be helpful in the end. That's how I'd run traveling. While I'm unsure they would have direct means to get out of the Hedge, they may find components that are needed on the inside that the outside team needs in place to open the hedge portal from the outside.

As for characters stuck on the outside, They can and should help. Portals are triggered by certain events (as simple or complex as you want it to be) and they can totally deal with the drama of trying to unlock the correct information while the hunters on the inside are fighting for their lives/sanity. Perhaps they entreat a goblin market (Which would make for a whacky addition of the town where it to become a permanent feature, especially if they start accruing goblin debt). We also DO know that a Hallow (Safe place built inside the hedge) can use a magical device that connects with mundane telephones in the mortal world, so I would give the hunters a break and let them use their own phones (and give them a beat when it doesn't work anymore for dramatic purposes). Portals are static, so if the outside team saw where the portal was, they can re-open it again and wait for the inside team to extract from there.

As for what they might find... who knows? A changeling running in panic in the trod is going to cause a lot of panic, they might decide to lay low in a goblin market. I know there was a 1e book that explains goblin markets in great detail and I forget its name at the moment. But hopefully I've helped out with inspiration. As an aside, I find it very doubtful your hunters have iron weapons or ammunition, so please be gentle with them.

[Satchel]

I know there was a 1e book that explains goblin markets in great detail and I forget its name at the moment.

Goblin Markets.