Jolanda Reinhardt Adventure Introduction

You are heading home after an unsuccessful expedition in the Erzot Hills. Organised by an unknown
patron you and five others were hunting for a tomb believed to date back to a time before the
Empire, which may even have belonged to one of Sigmars forebears. Led by a man named Alfus
Lichtor, your party spent weeks searching the Hills miles from civilisation, following maps and
information only Lichtor had access to. After dozens of fruitless searches Lichtor declared the
expedition to be over clearly in the thousands of years since the Unberogen Tribe had lived in the
area the landscape had changed to such a degree that the clues and trails he was attempting to
follow had been obliterated.
Disgruntled and weary after spending so much time living in the inhospitable wilds of the Drakwald
Forest the party dis-bands with nothing to show for its labours. The measly 2 Gold Crowns a day
wages will hardly pay for the passage home and it looks likely that it will be a lean winter in the
Reinhardt household this year; the last three tomb-hunts have all lead to nothing and the summer
warmth is already waning to autumn by the time you leave the forest and find yourself in Delberz,
over one hundred and twenty miles from home.
The six of you share one last meal, sitting in virtual silence as each ponders the time they have
wasted the fruitless search. Alfus grudgingly arranges passage by coach for you to Altdorf, saying you
must make your own way from there. Alfus will return to Nuln, and the others all hail from
Talabecland you cant say that you will especially miss their company and resign yourself to the
lonely journey back to Heilgen, wondering if your husband will return before the first snows.
In Delberz you find that the rickety Ratchett Lines Coach waiting for you also has other passengers
an aloof noble lady with a servant and bodyguard, and a skinny academic with his nose in a book of
herb-lore. Even though the coach is big enough for six people, the various accessories and
accoutrements of the lady take up a good deal of room and the coach is quite crowded. The lady is
young but very haughty and arrogant, commenting frequently on the riff-raff she has been forced
to associate with on this voyage. She treats her serving maid in an appalling manner and as a result
the girl is very timid and downtrodden. The bodyguard, an unusually tall and muscular woman,
maintains a taciturn silence and glares at people without smiling while the lady prattles on about the
slovenliness of the masses. Since the academic is so absorbed in his book it looks to be a tedious trip
back to Altdorf
At the end of the first days travel the coach reaches the Coach and Horses (see hand-out 1). A high
wall surrounds the Inn, which serves as protection from the wilds when the sun goes down. As the
coach draws closer one of the coachman blows a horn and the gates open. Just as the coachman is
about to steer the horses into the gate another coach leaves the inn. You see the insignia of the Four
Seasons on the door, a rival to the Ratchett Lines Company. No sooner has the coach turned into the
road than the driver whips the horses up to a gallop and heads off along the road.
The coachmen enter the gates and you see the two-story timber-framed Inn before you. The
courtyard of the Inn is bustling with activity. The sickly-sweet smell of fresh manure hangs in the air
and a couple of grooms can be seen outside the stables busily rubbing down a team of four horses.
From the In itself comes the delicious smell of cooking and the sound of merry laughter.