That is the question and i dont have the answer for it... We talked placing it on an isle within the Mooshea Isles... but let me know if you have a better idea!
Thanks,
Gabor
That is the question and i dont have the answer for it... We talked placing it on an isle within the Mooshea Isles... but let me know if you have a better idea!
Thanks,
Gabor
For purposes of the Age of Worms adventure path, which refers to Cauldron implicitly (in that the Spire of Long Shadows is shown near Cauldron, so the placement of that adventure implicitly places Cauldron), the Paizo provided AoW conversion assumes Cauldron lies on the Chultan peninsula. The exact location is due north of Samarach, on the northern slopes of the Samargol (sp?) mountains (the chain that wraps around Samarach).
--Eric
well i think the chultan peninsula is not really the type of place that the designs and artowrk for the game suggests. all the houses and the dresses of the characters are pictured as if they were medieval german style... i expect the chultan peninsula to have a more tribal and less european style and environment with a constant 40 degrees celsius and 70% humidity. there are tribes of wild dwarves and rampaging dinosaurs in the realm of Ubtao, so for me it is more like an aztec or inca civilization that i imagine to be there, though i know maztica is there for that. well it might be just me but the pictures show me something different then chult.
thanks anyway, but any other ideas?
well i think the chultan peninsula is not really the type of place that the designs and artowrk for the game suggests. all the houses and the dresses of the characters are pictured as if they were medieval german style... i expect the chultan peninsula to have a more tribal and less european style and environment with a constant 40 degrees celsius and 70% humidity. there are tribes of wild dwarves and rampaging dinosaurs in the realm of Ubtao, so for me it is more like an aztec or inca civilization that i imagine to be there, though i know maztica is there for that. well it might be just me but the pictures show me something different then chult.
thanks anyway, but any other ideas?
I'm running my campaign in just the location mentioned above on the border of the Jungles of Chult. Take a moment to look over the FR maps: this location is due north of a major population center and maybe a week's travel west of several kingdoms and additional population centers.
Cauldron is a town of 7500 and because of this smaller size I've been treating it as a trade outpost on the border of civilization and jungle. Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese trade outposts in the New World were very European in style; all the comforts of home in a smaller location on the other side of the world.
Considering also that Cauldron lies in a jungle with equatorial weather patterns (see Flood Season) and jungle-type random encounters this location has worked brilliantly for me.
Just a thought. :-) (or three)
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Well, Chult *does* seem to be a good generic fit, since there are yuan-ti, a couple of dinosaurs, and a volcano.
I ended up using the Wizard's Reach as it was a melting pot of mulan, damaran, and chondathan cultures. But I had to change a *lot* of things to keep the flavor true to the area. There's no dormant volcano (it's a tenuously patched rift into the Elemental Plane of Fire), there are no spell weavers (they are nilshai from the Ethereal Plane), and such, and Vhalantru isn't a beholder (he's an Ultroloth). These simple changes have morphed my personal SCAP into something very different from the published original.
To be honest, you can set the Adventure Path anywhere with enough work. The Moonshae isles have their own culture. Instead of gnoll tribesmen, make them werewolf northmen. Replace the beholder with a powerful evil fey critter, or the like. It can be done with some planning, some swapping out of monsters with similar CR's, or simply changing the 'window dressing'.
The Chultan Peninsula includes more than Chult itself. Several distinct jungles and several nations are found there, including not only Chult, but also Sammarach, Thindol, Tashalar, and Lapaliiya.
Mezro, located in Chult, is a fairly metropolitan city, dispite the more tribal feel of the Jungle of Chult itself. Given that the general location is given more in the Sanrach Mountains, Chult itself doesn't figure into it much.
I would place Cauldron and its volcano in the north of the Sanrach mountains, on the northern facing of the range, so as to isolate Samarach. Samarach is suppose to be paranoid and distrustful of outsiders, so it isn't likely that Cauldron has any ties to this southern neighbor.
Cauldron is most likely a city that was at some time nominally considered part of Thindol. Thindar, the capital, is slowly loosing control over various parts of the country, so its not too hard to see Cauldron being formed by Thindolese that just drifted away.
Many of the nations in this region were part of the Shoon Empire, and as such the cities in this region are definately metropolitan in feel. Cauldron could very easily exist as it appears in the AP. Of course, everyone in this region is pretty paranoid about the manipulations of the Yuan-ti, but that just gives you an interesting campaign hook to throw in.
As far as the racial makeup of Cauldron if it is in this location, If you go by Thindol, the most likely nation for it to have split off from, you have Chultans, Tashalans, and Gold Dwarves making up the majority of "Standard" races in this land, and if you assume that some of the less paranoid of Samarach might have somehow migrated north, that adds Halruaans to the human racial mix. Chultans are similar (but by no means identical to) africans in appearance and culture, Tashalans are olive skinned and black haired, and Halruaans are the survivors of the northern Netherese cultures.
Actually, it seems like a really good fit for the city in the Realms . . .
Just a side note. You can run the paranoia about yuan-ti easily without it, but if you want some more background about the region and the nations around this new home for Cauldron, Serpent Kingdoms is the FR book for you.
When I was DMing SC, I placed Cauldron on the western bank of the Lake of Steam.
I put Cauldron in Tashalar, south of Tashluta (which also lies in a dormant volcano)in the Hazurk Mountains, east of the Chultan Peninsula. It is surrounded by the Black Jungles, home of the yuan-ti Se'sehen clan, which is currently busy trying to reconquer their lost kingdom of Serpentes. Cauldron is a former outpost of the Shoon Empire and made its fortune through the kawah (coffee) trade and woodcutting (zalanthar wood mostly). A constant flow of caravans from Lapaaliya and Tashluta come and go during the dry season and merchants from all over Faerun bring their own goods to make substantial profits under the watchful eye of the Rundeen... Thus, Cauldron is a very cosmopolitan city, from the Waterdhavian Kormallis trader who hires half-orcs mercenaries to the city Watch, to the Chultan ranger guiding woodcutting parties while dodging yuan-tis hunters.
To me it's more like a E. Rice Burroughs-"Tarzan" campaign than an Aztec-Mexican country. Chultan Peninsula is a great place to play the Shackled City AP, IMHO. "Serpent Kingdoms" is a very helpful supplement if you want to use this part of Faerun.
Bran.
I put Cauldron in Mount Notehow, north-east of Neverwinter.
My "Cauldron" is Sundabar in the North. If you wanted the least conversions, I would recommend Chult. It has the jungle and all, the styles you see are because the elevation of Cauldron changes the ambient temp from the surrounding lands. That said, I haven't found it much work converting it to Sundabar. Also, the fiery forge used by the dwarves there will serve as the volcano with out yelling to PCs from day 1 "We live in a volcano, this WILL erupt at some point."
Sean Mahoney
How about just dropping it on Elminster?
;)
GGG
Actually, you could just make it a more temperate sort of rainforest (like Washington State) and put it nearly anywhere there's woods and mountains on the map.
Honestly the biggest change I have had to make so far is that the Lucky Monkey was renamed the Wolves Den. Once we get there I will make the lycanthropes be were-wolves instead of were-baboons. That will be a little extra paper work but not a big deal. So really it will just be a few monster changes.
Sean Mahoney
i have to note that i have chosen one of the mountains of the eastern part of the chultan peninsula to place cauldron after all. the dinos and apeman and jungle stories require the setup...
Understandable. As I said before, should be easy enough for me to change them to comparable CR werewolves. As for dinos, well, I hate them in D&D, they just grate on me. So I would be swapping them out anyway. They aren't really even in the plot so much as the environment as random encounters so they should be only the smallest of adjustments to change.
Sean Mahoney
My Cauldron is in Erlkazar (east of Tethyr). Erlkazar was detailed briefly in Lands of Intrigue boxed set. I chose the city of Tibold in Carrelath Barony as the right place for Cauldron. Tibold was founded 4000 years ago and it is a mining town so it fits quite well. There are not many details about Erlkazar in the boxed set, so you can modify things without greatly affecting Realms background. The jungle is a problem, but I'll replace it with deeply forested valleys within the Snowflake Mountains. The area is also a melting pot of tethyrians, amnians, calishites and people from the Vilhon Reach which is just about perfect.
Chult seems like a remote place to me. OK for the jungle, but Cauldron just doesn't seem to fit there.
Understandable. As I said before, should be easy enough for me to change them to comparable CR werewolves. As for dinos, well, I hate them in D&D, they just grate on me. So I would be swapping them out anyway. They aren't really even in the plot so much as the environment as random encounters so they should be only the smallest of adjustments to change.
Sean Mahoney
Sean,
What did you subsitute in for the dinos? I too am planning on running SCAP in Sundabar.
My "Cauldron" is Sundabar in the North. If you wanted the least conversions, I would recommend Chult. It has the jungle and all, the styles you see are because the elevation of Cauldron changes the ambient temp from the surrounding lands. That said, I haven't found it much work converting it to Sundabar. Also, the fiery forge used by the dwarves there will serve as the volcano with out yelling to PCs from day 1 "We live in a volcano, this WILL erupt at some point."
Sean Mahoney
How did you change Flood Season's beginning? Is there a lake in Sundabar too, that needs to be controlled with the spring melting, or are the wands needed for a whole different type of threat? (e.g. wands of control weather against freezing winds, or hurricane storms?)
Sean,
What did you subsitute in for the dinos? I too am planning on running SCAP in Sundabar.
Well, since I am running the game online (actually had to miss todays session due to travelling for work) this seems to be taking a long time. We are currently in the middle of the final battle in Life's Bazaar.
That said, dire wolves were mentioned earlier as a CR equivelent alternative and I think that would be a great way to go. It certainly would have far more "northern" feel to it.
Sean Mahoney
How did you change Flood Season's beginning? Is there a lake in Sundabar too, that needs to be controlled with the spring melting, or are the wands needed for a whole different type of threat? (e.g. wands of control weather against freezing winds, or hurricane storms?)
Well, my experience living up here in the Northwest of the US is that you get a lot of rain, so it is no stretch of the imagination that flooding can be a real problem, and this is something like what I imagine the north as (with harsher winters).
In this case I used the map from Shackled City for Sundabar, so I had as little changes as possible, including the lake. I described the city as having earthenworks built up and then walls at the top. The city itself slopped down from this earthworks (they make the walls higher and therefor more defensible), making the whole city a bowl shape in which water often collects into the central lake system.
So basically it is just cauldron transported off a mountain and called something else. Although for the locals backgrounds I gave out I told them that the bowl like shape of the city had caused the more synical locals to dub the place the "cauldron."
Sean Mahoney
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When I was DMing SC, I placed Cauldron on the western bank of the Lake of Steam.
Really? so did i. I placed Cauldron in the Almir mountains because one idea i was tossing around but dropped was that 'Lord Orbius Vhalantru' was not just one beholder but a sort of "timeshare" between a entire hive of them!(not a pleasent thought)
The main problem was the calish majority in area did not reflect the medeveal wetsern euro look from the AP, so i had cauldron founded by the shoons but the city tripled its population during the "black days" of the begining of Tethyr's civil war with the Tethyrians the majority. the noble houses of cauldron except the knowlerns,vanborens,aslaxins and 'Vhalantru' fled the country's chaos(the current king and queen of tethyr consider them exiles and if any of them returned,they will be tried and punished for the crimes against the people they(well mostly the taskerhills) commited before the civil war. the royal family did offer amnesty to the Tercivals but Alek refused.)