Okay, I am at a loss I know this question has likely been asked in the past, but I very curious as to where people have set Cauldron in the Realms.
I am planning a game using this and so I though I would put my question out there to those of you who have already walked this path before me.
i've placed it on the eastern end of the chultan peninsula, where there are some mountains to the north in the jungle
I am sure if you do a search you can find several instances of this question being asked and answered. But, since I too am too lazy to go looking...
Most people place Cauldron either near the Lake of Steam or on the border of Chult (in the mountainous regions there). This has the least amount of work to incorporate as it already has a similar feel to what is in SCAP.
I though decided I would really like to run the game in the North and used Sundabar, which the locals have nicknamed "The Cauldron." I will have a bit more adapting to do though, things like jungle encounters being replaced with Forest ones... not too bad though.
Underneath Sundabar is an old dwarven forge of great power (link the elemental plane of fire?) that I will use to replicate the volcano exploding. The nice part is that I don't then have PCs who during the first session figure out there will be an eruption at some point.
The other main conversion point discuessed is the religious mappings. I did them this way and stand by it, but others have gone other directions...
St Cuthbert = Helm
Pelor = Selune
Wee Jas = Kelemvor
Kord = Lathander
The Kord and Pelor conversions are the ones that most people don't agree with me on. Instead of just looking at the gods portfolios and doing a port though, I looked at the churches role in the campaign. Kord was the key for me. Kord's main role in the campaign is to be primarily interested in the sporting and gaming events surrounding the Flood Festival and is a bit aloof other than that. I strongly feel Lathander's portfolio would best represent this. Pelor, on the hand, needs to be fairly small, paranoid after the accidents, and torqued off when something blocks their access to the sky. Lathander would still work for this, but since I think he is a better fit for Kord, I went with Selune who I think works very well in this role.
I would put in one caveat, whatever god your PC cleric chooses would be great to use for one of the gods in the campaign. If you can swing it I would try to replace St. Cuthbert with their religion (but there are some funky ones this wouldn't work with) since it ties them more fully into the plot. I would probably even replace Ruphus with the PC in that case.
Sean Mahoney
Sean Mahoney
I have set my campaign in Chult, on the eastern end, about midway between the two coasts. I am using both the FR pantheon and the Greyhawk pantheon, with this backstory:
Back in the day, the Greyhawk pantheon was losing strength. The FR pantheon began to take more control of domains & such and grew in popularity. Ubtao stepped forward and said that he would take dominion over Chult, so long as no other FR gods tried to establish a foothold there. He was granted that right, and the only other religions openly worshipped in Chult are the older pantheon: Kord, Pelor, St. Cuthbert, Wee Jas, and Farlanghnhngn.
Saved me a lot of headaches in the conversion process; rather than try to figure out which deities were most like the Greyhawk ones, and explain inconsistencies between the FRCS motivations and their campaign actions, I can run the module as-is.
Here goes, mind you this is long winded:
The Region that I am going to use is the Tashalar region. It fits with the climate of Cauldron, has precedence for dinosaurs (from the Jungles of Chult), and can be altered easily (not a super huge amount of source material).
Some of the Mercantile ideas presented in the region can be used for the Rundeen, Knights of the Shield, and other, much smaller mercantile alliances (ahem: the Chisel). The slavery practiced in the region is a bit disconcerting, and it will have to be addressed depending on your PC's feelings.
Since I’m a fan of places, and inserting new places into the realms, I chose the Delphin Mountains, just north of the River Amarast, if you use the web enhancement map, it’s on the southwestern tip of the letter “M” in mountains. This region has a nearly identical appearance to the region around Cauldron found in the magazines (which is my only source). The trip to Tashulta (a.k.a. Sasserine) will take about a month and a half, round trip. The area is tough enough to provide experience, and devious fun for me, throughout the AP. BTW: I'd just use the map of Sasserine from the recent Dungeon Magazine for Tashalar, since nobody seems to have done a map for it (I looked).
As far as religions go, the area worships Chauntea, Savras, Waukeen, and a few others (mostly evil religions). I ignored the basic text of the source (Serpent Kingdoms, Page 126 through 128) and added a few religions in. The big four that you will be concerned with will be: Pelor, Kord, Cuthbert, and Wee Jas. The direct translation that you can read would be Waukeen for Pelor (makes sense in the region, and would most likely be a shrine), Savras for Wee Jas, Chauntea for Cuthbert, and nothing for Kord (which hurts a lot). I personally would change it to Helm for Cuthbert, Lathander/Chauntea for Pelor, Tempus for Kord, and Savras/Azuth/Kelemvor for Wee Jas. This makes sense for the region, and you can put in the city’s history the importance of Helm in a non-region region. Tempus makes sense with the battles against both the yuan-ti and migratory Gnolls (recent event… forshadowing much later adventures) that plague the region.
The next thing I would do is limit the Character Regions. Keep them around the Shining Sea. The furthest east (and most landlocked) I would allow would be Luiren for halflings. I’d also add a region in for gnolls in Dambrath (specifically the Gate of Iron Fangs and the Gnollwatch Mountains). I’d say no Waterdhavians unless you as a DM and they as a player have one HECK of a story to tell. If a player wants to play an elf, such as a Sun elf, I’d allow Evermeet just to make things easier for the Player.
If you’re into extra races and such, Goliaths and Raptorans make for Excellent PC’s from Chult, Sammarach, and Thindol. Other races include Gnolls from Dambrath, Wemics and Centaurs from the Shaar, and Lizardfolk fit just about anywhere from Dambrath on west. I’d ignore the regional restrictions on Genasi, Tieflings, and Aasimar given the rich history of the regions involved. You could even add in the Axani and Cansin from forever ago (1st Epic dragon Magazine preview, can’t remember number). The other thing I’ve done is created a “Townie” Region (choose one of masterwork weapons <Longsword, Kukri, Dwarven Waraxe> or a potion (or three), Mercantile background, Education, Silver Palm feats) for Humans, Rock Gnomes, and Gold Dwarves. This makes for some interesting roleplaying, and allows you to foreshadow some events while making the character something important to the player.
Most of the information in the above post comes from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Serpent Kingdoms, Shining South, Unapproachable East, and Champions of Valor, with Cameos from Races of Stone and Races of the Wild. Other sources include conversations with KnightErrantJR and the Wizards of the Coast Web enhancements for Serpent Kingdoms (check the Maps, they ROCK).
Whew! You were warned, it was long winded.
/d
The biggest problem with placing the SCAP in Forgotten Realms is not where to place it, but how to convert the cosmology from the generic/Greyhawk original to the cosmology used in Forgotten Realms. The generic/Greyhawk setting uses the Great Wheel, which is heavily alignment based, while Forgotten Realms uses a more tree-like, faith-based structure. Also, there is no correspondence to Carceri in the Forgotten Realms cosmology.
If you want to keep the campaign as close as possible to the original Carceri is probably best replaced with the Barrens of Doom and Despair. In that case you could use Hoar instead of Graz'zt, since his domain is located there and the imprisonment of Adimarchus is something that fits his theme.
If you are prepared to do some more work you could use the Supreme Throne instead of Carceri, but then you should probably give the Church of Cyric a more central role in the campaign.
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Good point about the cosmology.
Because the Wizards' Reach is a halfway point between the Unapproachable East and the Heartlands, I used a mix of replacement deities (St. Cuthbert = Assuran, Wee Jas = Kelemvor/Jergal, Kord = Anhur).
I replaced Carceri and the demodands with The Nine Hells and devils. The trapped bad guy is Levistus.
Also, instead of a gate funneling a volcano, I made the interplanar rift to the Elemental Plane of Fire (channeling that heat back to Levistus' ice cube).
Finally, instead of running Strike on Shatterhorn, I'm going to use an assault on Icerazer from Frostburn, heading towards Taskaunt.