Shackled City Player's Guide
Map of Cauldron
Map of Jzadirune
Treasure Tracker
Experience Tracker
Cauldron’s buildings, tightly packed and built from volcanic rock and wood, line the inner bowl of a nameless, dormant volcano. Cobblestone roads form concentric circles around a small but deep lake of cold water which fills the volcano’s basin. Although the town’s sewage seeps into the lake, local clerics routinely purify the water for the citizens in exchange for charitable donations to their temples.
A 50-foot-tall fortified wall of black malachite encircles the city, tracing the outer rim of the volcano. Four roads descend the volcano’s slopes, becoming major thoroughfares that lead to other towns and distant realms. The regions nearer the rim of the city tend to be occupied by upper class families and elite merchants. The closer one gets to the center of town (and the closer to the often pungent odors of the central lake), the shoddier the construction and the more dangerous its dark alleys become.
Most people get around Cauldron on foot, although the town has its share of wagons and carriages, most of them owned by merchants and nobles.
Cauldron’s major exports come from two sources: mines and plantations. Both industries are based in the hills surrounding the city, and are managed by the various noble families who live in the area. Obsidian and diamonds are the primary products mined in the region. Plantations usually produce sugarcane and coffee. Most of those who dwell in the city itself are either merchants, scholars, or workers in the mines and plantations in the lowlands. Water is never scarce in town, but most of the city’s food must be imported from Sasserine since the local fishing and farming enterprises are meager at best.
In general, life in Cauldron is good. The town guard deals with local troublemakers but leaves the bigger problems (like marauding monsters) to the lord mayor or one of the many churches in town. Both the lord mayor and the priests of Cauldron periodically hire adventurers to deal with such problems directly.
Townsfolk are generally pleased with the lord mayor, although a recent string of disappearances and robberies worries them. People have been taken from their homes during the night, and the town guard has been unable to identify the culprits or locate the vanished citizens. Moreover, the victims’ homes were stripped of portable valuables. It seems that no place is secure.
