P
art two takes place primarily in Altdorf. The city hasn’t changed physically since Spires of Altdorf, but a city’s mood is always fluid. Here are some news items and observations to give any NPC conversations more depth and flavour.t HE m ood of tHE c ity
Altdorf is bitter, volatile, and slightly manic. Bitter and volatile because, after the deprivations during the Chaos Incursion—rationing, shortages, loss of family and friends—the citizens hoped life would return to normal with victory, which has not happened. The shortages remain because food stocks are depleted, and refugees have come south. The people blame the government for mismanagement and corrupt collusion with merchants. Riots and general brawling are common, and street corner demagogues are everywhere, blaming everyone from Karl-Franz to foreigners to Elves.
But with this bitterness comes also a strange, manic energy. Believing the end near, people are throwing propriety to the winds. Bawdy satire plays
on every stage, and tavern songs are full of sharp wit and slander. Women show more cleavage and men more flair. The youthful nobility are more debauched than ever, and doomsayers declare that what the Ruinous Powers failed to win through strength of arms, they are winning with distilled spirits and deviant behaviour.
c urrEnt E VEnts
Here are a few recent troubles that have afflicted the city.
The Pay Wagon Riots
State Troops from Reikland and Averland have not yet been paid for their service in the defence of Middenheim. Both groups sent large delegations to Altdorf to demand their back pay, which has not been forthcoming.
They’ve clashed with the watch and with each other. The people were sympathetic at first, but the nightly drunken brawls are aggravating, and now Altdorf just wants them gone.
The Bread Riots
Thousands of refugees from destroyed northern towns have become beggars in Altdorf, and food grows scarce. Grain merchants, fearing that their stores won’t last the winter, have raised prices for grain astronomically.
People complain that the merchants hoard the grain while people starve.
Mobs have broken into grain warehouses and northern beggars have been beaten to death.
The Vengeance of Sigmar
For the past year, Altdorf has been spellbound by the exploits of a vigilante the people call the Vengeance of Sigmar—a masked mystery man who finds, kills and exposes Mutants, witches, warlocks, necromancers and Chaos sorcerers that the witch hunters miss. He strings them up with a tin badge of Sigmar’s twin-tailed comet nailed to their foreheads. The people love him, and have occasionally helped him escape official scrutiny.
Jealous of his successes and suspicious of his motives, the witch hunters hate him. The Temple of Sigmar and the Colleges of Magic are more sympathetic, because, unlike the witch hunters, he doesn’t make mistakes.
No honest scholars have died by his hand, whereas the witch hunters often catch the good with the bad and don’t care. The authorities want to know his identity, and either kill him or control him.
Odd Boots
There is a craze among young dandies for mismatched boots. They parade around town in boots of different colours and different styles—tall on the left, short on the right, etc. Some wilder bloods even wear boots with heels of different heights, limping grandly about town with expensive walking sticks.
A ftEr tHE A ttAck
With Karl missing and Jan revealed as a cultist, the PCs are probably ready, eager even, to hunt down this villain. What happens depends on what came before.
r Eporting to E mpLoyErs
Upon arriving in Altdorf, the PCs will undoubtedly wish to contact their employers or agents of their employers.
Avatil Foamstrider (Foolish Humans)
Characters working for the Marienburg Elf may snoop around for one of his agents. An Easy (+20) Gossip Test in the city gets the PCs a name—Lord Frederick. An encounter with the noble plays out as described under Wilhelm Schmidt.
Witch Hunter Roderick (In the Service of Sigmar)
The PCs learned in Marienburg that their witch hunter employer left the Wasteland for Altdorf, but finding the witch hunters turns out to be a harder task than they may first think. A trip to the Temple of Sigmar along with a Routine (+10) Gossip Test reveals that the templar, if he’s in the city, has not checked in with the temple and no one has seen him since he left for Marienburg.
Crispijn van Haagen (Missing Daughter!)
The contact the PCs are to meet in Altdorf is a man named Lord Frederick. A minor noble, but one with some presence in the Emperor’s court, he proves a useful contact for the characters. Finding him requires an Easy (+20) Gossip Test and he sees the PCs right away when they can give proof of their employment. Frederick listens to their report of the missing girl’s death and pays them the agreed upon amount. He adds, “It seems you are free of your obligation to Crispijn. Have you any other plans now that you’re in Altdorf?” Frederick is ambitious and he wants to increase his standing in the court. He believes that uncovering information about the Child and perhaps revealing his true nature will elevate his status considerably. He asks the PCs to continue with their investigation and promises to pay them well for their services. The exact amount is up to you, but somewhere around 50 gc for the whole lot should be sufficient. Further encounters play out as described in the following section.
Wilhelm Schmidt (We’re All Prisoners Here)
The PCs’ first visit to Lord Frederick starts the same, regardless of at what point in the adventure they visit him.
Directions to Frederick’s house are Easy (+20) to obtain, as is entry. Lord Frederick likes adventurers, and they are welcomed in. The butler brings them to his study, where Lord Frederick is reading old manuscripts. He welcomes them, sending the butler for food and drink, and asks the PCs to tell him their adventures. If they tell him they have been with the Crusade, he becomes extremely interested.
If they ask for help, he wants to know the identity of the agent of Chaos within the Crusade of the Child first, and won’t give them anything more than sympathy until they can provide it. Once they name Jan, he gives them 100 gc and helps them with information and resources.
As an agent of Government House, Frederick wants to know the details of the Chaos cultists’ plan, and the extent of Karl’s powers—if they are divine or a mutation. However, he won’t withhold help if the PCs can’t tell him these things.
If Frederick discovers that the PCs are under Karl’s spell, he is cautious, but as long as they imply they want to protect Karl from Chaos he says, “It appears our interests coincide. As dangerous as he is, the boy would be more so if he fell under the influence of the Ruinous Powers.”
On subsequent visits, they are welcomed as long as their last visit was friendly. If not, they are turned away, and guards fight if they insist on entering.
Selena Reiva (A Lovely Lady)
PCs working for Selena have no contacts in the city, and so to report to their mistress, they need to return to Marienburg, or at least send a message. It takes a considerable amount of time for any correspondence to reach Selena and twice as long for the characters to gain a reply. For now, their duty should be clear, but if they are taxed for supplies or coin, they may receive an anonymous gift from their mistress.
If the PCs Helped Fight Jan
The PCs can talk with the surviving guards, finding Jan’s note in the hand of their dead leader (Handout #10). The surviving guards order the PCs to find Jan and decipher the note. They carry their dead comrades back to camp and inform Helmut of Jan’s treachery.
If the PCs return to camp anyway, Helmut begs them to search Altdorf for Karl and Jan, and orders them to say nothing to anyone. “No one must know Karl is missing!” He sends them because he needs the guards to maintain the illusion that Karl is still in his tent.
Searching Jan’s tent reveals nothing. He carried nothing to connect him to Nurgle.
If the PCs Watched the Attack but Didn’t Participate
They see the guards carry their fallen comrades away, and then can search the scene. They find Tobias’s note in the gutter.
If the PCs are with Lord Frederick
Frederick’s spies bring him news of the strange incident. Descriptions make it clear Jan attacked someone and he dragged a child’s coffin away from the scene. Lord Frederick asks the PCs to investigate. The PCs get to the scene after the guards have left, finding the note in the gutter.
t HE s cEnE of tHE c rimE
In this last case, when the PCs reach the scene they won’t find much physical evidence. Altdorf life moves too fast. The merchants have returned to their wagons and left. The bodies have been cleared away and the blood stains are trampled into the mud.
The street is a lower-class mercantile street, lined with taverns, shops, and pie stalls catering to travellers weary from a long day on the road. Half-timbered houses tower five and six storeys above it.
A success and each further degree of success on a Gossip Test gets one of the following stories from the locals.
A Costermonger
“Didn’t see it start, no sir, but all of a once I hears a scream and a crash and I looks up from polishing me apples and I sees all these mad-men battering at each other with swords. Couldn’t make no sense of it. Merchants they were, bringing their wares to town. A coffin maker, a cabbage farmer, a skins and furs man. But then one—the coffin maker, a squat little fellow—starts shouting words I never heard in Sigmar’s temple. Horrible, filthy stuff. And when he’s done, some of the fellows start falling and clawing at their faces, the skin bubbling as though it were pudding on the boil. Well, tain’t ashamed to say I ran at that. Don’t pay to hang about when sorcery’s in the air.”
A Woman Tavern Owner
“I don’t know what it was about, I’m sure. Violence in the streets, and the watch nowhere to be seen, as usual. Bad for business. And vile sorcery. Thought the Colleges were supposed to prevent that sort of thing. What do we pay our taxes for? No, I didn’t see the end of it. I closed my shutters and prayed to Sigmar.”
A Young Flower Seller
“It was awful. The men…” She sobs. “The men. Their skin fell off their bones.
The smell. Their faces…” She covers her face and can’t go on.
An Urchin
“Sorcerer killed some bravos.” He shrugs. “Sort of thing y’see every day in Altdorf. ‘Course hicks like you might gawp. Give us a copper.”
A Tailor
“It was witch hunters. They saw that coffin maker for a cultist and attacked him.
Got the worst of it though. Weren’t much left of them when he was through with them. Well, he’ll get his. No sorcerer is safe in Altdorf these days. Not with the
Vengeance of Sigmar watching out for us. Where did he go? He ran off down the street somewhere, his men with him. A boy? No. Didn’t see no boy.”
If the PCs ask about the Vengeance of Sigmar, the tailor says, “Nobody knows. Nobody’s ever seen more than his shadow, but he strikes down the wicked and corrupt, whoever they are. Warlocks, Mutants, witches, all die by his hand. He’s worth a hundred witch hunters. I thank Sigmar every night that he makes Altdorf his home.”
Where did Jan/Tobias/the Sorcerer Go?
If they ask people specifically about where Jan went they get answers like these.
A Dandy
“Ran towards the Suderich (a fish market). Fat little fellow dragging a child’s coffin like it was a wagon. Appalling taste in clothes. Puffed up like a Marienburg merchant. A boy? Not unless he was in the coffin. Haw haw.”
A Cloth Merchant
“I should say I saw him! Seven feet tall if he was an inch and carrying a coffin on his shoulder like it was a carpenter’s box. His eyes glowed green and he left smoking hoof prints! Well, they’ve been covered up now. Headed for Luitpoldstrasse, it looked like.”
A Tavern Wench
“Jumped to the roofs like he had springs in his heels. Never seen the like. Coffin?
It were a sea trunk. Naw, didn’t see no boy.”
A Knife Sharpener
“Went towards the Konigplatz. By the time I looked up all I saw was a box bumping around the corner. No. Didn’t see a boy. Might be I heard a kid screaming though, now you mention it.”
J An ’ s n otE
Ideally, the PCs found Jan’s note. If not, an urchin finds the note and seeks out the PCs when rumours swirl that they’re asking about the confrontation. He offers to sell the characters the scrap for a few Pennies.
Once Jan’s trail goes cold, the PCs will be forced to figure out what his scribbled note means. Asking about someone named Ansel doesn’t work.
It’s a common name. “D’ye mean Ansel the apothecary? Or Ansel the drunk what warms a bench at the Graublaut Arms. Or maybe y’mean Ansel Anders, the tanner. His shop’s on Olendz Street. Downwind, thank Sigmar.”
Asking what Estlemann’s is has similar results if they only ask people on the street. “Estlemann’s? Sounds like a pub, hey? Never heard of it though.”
One person they ask says that the PCs aren’t the first to ask him about Estlemann’s. They describe a short fat man in nice merchant clothes. The man had bodyguards but did not have a boy with him.
If they show Jan’s note or mention Estlemann’s to a scholar, noble, wizard, priest or witch hunter, or other person of letters (Lord Frederick, for instance) they know the name. Priests and witch hunters despise Estlemann and won’t help the PCs, except to say he is a seller of forbidden books. They are suspicious of the PCs for asking. Nobles, wizards and scholars say he is a useful but shady resource, and give the PCs directions to his shop, which is in the Schlafstadt area, next to the University District.
Asking Lord Frederick
Lord Frederick has been a customer of Estlemann’s but does not like him.
“Estlemann is an antiquarian, a seller of old books. I have bought from him myself, for he procures volumes no other can find. I use him only as a last resort, however. He is dangerous to know. The witch hunters watch him constantly, owing to rumours that he deals in less savoury works as well. But no
search of his shop has ever turned up any forbidden books, so the hunters only prowl and prowl but never pounce. He will come to a bad end one day, I think. If this Jan seeks him, it is likely he is seeking some arcane tome. Be wary.” He gives the PCs directions to Estlemann’s shop.
d Ay f our —A ftErnoon
After a morning of investigation, the PCs may finally come upon Estlemann’s shop.
E stLEmAnn ’ s
Estlemann’s shop is on Hoffbann Street in the Schlafstadt, a shabby neighbourhood behind the Colleges of Law, consisting mostly of tottering grey brick buildings filled with impoverished students and the working poor. The bottom storeys are filled with dealers in antiques, second-hand furniture, tools and weapons, and old books. Hoffbann Street is all book sellers—mostly of the law and literature texts that are required reading at the university—but others sell plays, novels, political pamphlets, cheap romance literature, rare books, and art prints.
As they approach the neighbourhood, the PCs see a column of smoke rising over the rooftops. Turning onto Hoffbann, they see flames and people milling around at the far end. People run buckets from the well in the local square and throw water on the fire. Others lay wet blankets on the roofs of adjacent buildings, trying to protect them from flying cinders.
A tall brick building is on fire, and those structures on both sides are starting to catch. Burn and smoke victims huddle in the street, coughing and screaming. A crowd watches, stunned, but most people help, desperate to keep the fire from spreading. The building is an inferno, impossible to enter until the fire dies down.
Estlemann’s building is on fire. The fire started in his shop not more than a half hour ago and spread quickly. Estlemann crawled from his shop, alive but badly burned and unable to walk. He was taken to the nearly Shallyan hospital. The PCs can get directions to the hospital and Estlemann’s full name—Janus Estlemann. No one remembers if anyone visited him before the fire.
Characters talking with the locals or succeeding on an Easy (+20) Gossip Test learn some or all of the following.
• “Had it coming, didn’t he? Dealing with all them nasty books and shady villains. Only a matter of time.”
• “I never had no trouble with him. Nice enough old gent, despite what some say. Kept to himself.”
• “I warned his landlord. Ask anybody. I warned him a hundred times.
A danger to the neighbourhood, I said. Toss him out. I said. But did he listen? No. And now look what’s happened.”
Before the PCs leave, seven witch hunters arrive. Their leader, Golphus Drabben, watches the fire with grim satisfaction and then draws his sword and stops the bucket brigade. “Let it burn.” His men enforce this, asking questions about Estlemann from the locals. The bystanders, angry
that Drabben has stopped them from saving their homes, are surly and reluctant to talk. Drabben uses force. Voices are raised.
t HE s HALLyAn t EmpLE And H ospitAL
The Shallyan temple stands at the edge of the University District. The temple is a low white marble building, connected to a three-storey hospital with an enclosed yard behind. They have separate entrances. The temple sisters direct them to the hospital.
The hospital lobby is small and functional—a square room with a small door in the left wall and a large open door in the back wall guarded by two male temple guards (use statistics for Helmut’s men). Two more stand at the street exit. Hard benches run along the walls. A middle-aged sister-matron sits behind an elevated podium. There is a large ledger on the podium, and shelves of books beside her.
If the PCs ask after Estlemann, she says, “Oh yes, he’s here, the poor man.
Badly burned and both legs broken. We’ve put him in the second floor injury ward. Are you kin of his?”
Badly burned and both legs broken. We’ve put him in the second floor injury ward. Are you kin of his?”