This following bit is the background for yet another warhammer campaign, one that basically encompassed the adventuring around one town which served as a "base-camp" with outdoor and underground adventures in the surrounding terrain. This campaign description was made for the benefit of a couple of players who were not as familiar with the warhammer world, so forgive me if it states the obvious...

This letter is basically going to lay the framework for the adventure, and gives us all a place to begin our story. The nation we begin our campaign in is called Bretonnia, a feudal lordship under one king, directing fiefdoms overseen by many lords, and their retinue of knights, under which fall forces of commoner men at arms. The central location for the meeting of our parties is the outpost of Fonten-grois (meaning fountain of grace) which is a threadbare hamlet community a small distance from the city of Gisoreux, on the border of the forest of Arden and a minor mountain range called "the Pale Sisters". Fonten-grois was founded only twelve years ago after the conclusion of an incredibly bloody war fought between brettonia and the wood elves of loren (whos kingdom lies Southeast many weeks distance) versus the vile skaven, a race of hideous ratmen who live in massive warrens underground. The numbers of skaven were never able to be estimated until they erupted from the ground in plauge proportions, intent on claiming all brettonia for thier own. Were it not for old alliances between wood elves and the brettonians, the knight country might surely have fallen... but even in victory the blood price for the Bretonnians was immense, to say the least. Many settlements in central and almost every settlement northern brettonia smaller than a populous town could not muster enough force to halt the skaven, and so vast tracts of land laid fallow, unsettled, and uncultivated even this long after the war, with many settlers leaving the borderlands to re-settle the lands in the interior. The sparsity of population and military presence in some regions of the fiefdoms has allowed wicked pockets of orcs and goblins, skaven still unrouted from the war, as well as unabated monstrocities from the wilderness to cause threat to man and country. To counter this, the king in his great wisdom under coucil of advisors commanded the construction of several new village settlements in the "contested lands" ... these settlements were established strictly on the grounds of policing the borders and to bring men closer to the boundaries of the monsters, and to push those boundaries back with expansion. Fonten-grois is one such settlement as these, and in the twelve years since the reclaimation of the "contested lands" it is one of the last district areas to still be considered to be boundaried by extremely dangerous wilderness. For this reason, adventurers have been flocking to fonten-grois to test their mettle against the foes of men, to prove their bravery, earn fame, and capture wealth and power.

The forest of Arden has always been known as a dangerous and in many places a dark and forboding land. It's sprawling oaks shelter many foul creatures, and only the wood elves of loren enjoy any measure of security and safety within it's boundaries for long. Many Bretonnian knights earn their errantry for enduring trials within the wood, and quite a few end thier years of training strewn under it's boughs.

The "Pale Sisters" are a fairly large mountain range bordering the forest of Arden and the interior of Bretonnia, the other side of which lies the city of Marienburg, the border-city of the Empire of Karl Franz. A vast river system runs through the pale sisters, linking Fonten-grois and Gisoreux with the City of Couronne to the North, and it's surrounding villages. Although some small-boat commerce still travels through the sisters via the Grismerie River to the south and the river Sannez to the north, it is considered a dangerous route to say the least, as the mountains rocky highlands are occupied by orcs, goblins and other monsters... populating long abandoned dwarven mines and settlements within the rock. Although there is still much contention on the matter, the pale sisters were also for a time hypothesised as one of the major invasion routes the skaven used to mount their attacks on the surface, but few tunnel systems were ever found, and none were ever explored to any success. Lastly, it is a minor footnote in Bretonnian history that the pale sisters were once the location of a tremendous campaign by the early Bretonnians to purge Cults to the vile gods of chaos, who had until that time built strongholds and large and dangerous covens out of direct view of mankind. Tavern tales abound where the mines and the ruined temples lie, and evidence is not in short supply to state that some of these tales are true, indeed, brave warriors have made fortunes in the caves of the pale sisters, and failed adventurers who have lost heart and comrades are quick to trade information for drinks and gold.

Here is the setting, Now put yourself in it, if you will.