And another linked question: any idea of why Dugobras, the fire giant smith, is in Vaprak's Voice?
He finished his work with the Soulcages and started forging his new armour suit, but the alliance between him and the three hag sisters seems a bit strange, even if it's good for the storyline to have the PCs finding evidences of the Cagewrights plans early.
I'll take a spin through the HC to see if theres a solid reason why hidden somewhere, but my initial "Pulled out of my (synonym for donkey)" response is:
Vaprak's voice is near the Demonskar, which is the result of seriously epic spellcasting gone bad. The leftover planar and transportive magics might still linger here and there in spots within it, and for the needs of the Cagewrights, leftover planar transportation magic to the Abyss is better than none at all, as far as building a device for planar transportation to a lower plane goes.
Hmm, your question has made me decide to look back in Fiendish Codex I and Manual of the Planes for various random portal/abyssal taint rules. Could be a fun suprise for the PCs if a stray summon monster spell "charges" a dormant pool of portal energy, and brings another abyssal creature into the area.
The Soulcages were built in China, like everything else.
Haven't read it in a long time, but I thought Dugobras built them in Vaprak's Voice. Doesn't the smithy room, with a slaad in it?, have description of remnants of the cages? At least that's the way I remember running it.
Dugobras is handing around in Vaprak's because the BBEG has asked him to stay around in case there are any last minutes smithing duties. IMC, he escaped and later reappeared in 13 Cages.
As an aside to this question I mixed up the origin of the cages a bit.
The kopru ruins in Flood Season I changed to drow ruins to creep out the drow character in the party. In the back room I placed a smashed and destroyed soulcage. The XIII contracted Triel to uncover the cage and allow them to study it, which is why she stole the wands. Once new designs had been created from the smashed and destroyed cage they brought them to Vaprak's Voice and had the new cages built.
I felt this hinted at the cages early without giving any kind of clear idea about what they were or what they meant. Foreshadowing and all that. When they find the forge later they will likely put together that the cages form before had been made there but they won't know what they are for. Until later that is...
And another linked question: any idea of why Dugobras, the fire giant smith, is in Vaprak's Voice?
He finished his work with the Soulcages and started forging his new armour suit, but the alliance between him and the three hag sisters seems a bit strange, even if it's good for the storyline to have the PCs finding evidences of the Cagewrights plans early.
The soulcages were built in the Kopru Ruins. The Fire Giant moved to Vapraks afterwards. If you read the entry on room K16 in Flood Season, it tells you about that. The cage found in Vapraks Voice is a prototype that the Fire Giant made, and is there as a clue to help PC's figure things out later on.
If you read the entry on room K16 in Flood Season, it tells you about that.
Is this only in the hardcover? I'm running from the magazines and I don't remeber that at all. I added something similar, see above, but I don't remeber any such reference. Maybe I'm just dumb, however.