Shackled City
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The Shackled City Adventure Path (or simply Shackled City) is a role-playing game adventure designed for the Dungeons & Dragons game, originally published as articles in Dungeon magazine, and later re-printed as a hardcover book (ISBN 0-9770071-0-3), collecting all eleven articles plus one additional article that was not published earlier. Various parts of the game were revised for the collection. Notably, the city of Cauldron was enlarged to better suit the needs of a typical high level game.
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[edit] Location
The adventure begins, and is primarily set in the city of Cauldron (to which the title refers). The city is nominally located in the World of Greyhawk, though it is designed to be easily adapted to other campaign settings.
Located in the caldera of a dormant volcano, Cauldron is a medium-sized city.
In the World of Greyhawk, the Adventure Path is set in the Amedio Jungle, east of the Sea of Dust, and southwest from the Azure Sea.
[edit] Purpose
The adventures are designed to begin with first level characters and to end with characters at or near twentieth level, taking them through twelve distinct adventures that span basic dungeon crawls, urban adventures, political intrigue, and even extra-planar excursions.
[edit] The Adventure Paths
The Adventure Paths are an ongoing element of Dungeon magazine, of which the Shackled City was the first. The next adventure path is called Age of Worms, and it contains a few elements that carry over (such as the Ebon Triad, who are minor characters in Shackled City) but each Adventure Path stands on its own as a campaign.
The third Adventure Path, Savage Tide, begins just north of Cauldron, in the city of Sasserine, and includes at least one character from the Shackled City storyline.
[edit] Summary
The entire Adventure Path consists of the following adventures:
- Life's Bazaar By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #97. In this adventure the player characters investigate kidnappings. The trail leads to a slaving operating from Underdark passages below the city.
- Drakthar's Way, added for the hardcover collection. In this adventure small bands of goblins raid and vandalize the city. The player characters track the goblins to a hideout in a series of caves below the city that lead out the side of the mountain. The goblins are led by a vampiric bugbear.
- Flood Season By James Jacobs, Dungeon #98. In this adventure the city of Cauldron is threatened by flooding during the rainy season. Magical wands of "control water" normally used to control the flooding are stolen and taken to a lair below the city. The player characters presumably track down and recover the stolen wands.
- Zenith Trajectory By David Noonan, Dungeon #102. The player characters are asked to rescue Zenith Splintershield, a dwarf who has been missing since heading into the Underdark to fight evil. Zenith has gone insane and is treated as prophet by the kuo-toa (fish-people) who captured him.
- The Demonskar Legacy By Tito Leati, Dungeon #104. In this chapter, the heroes must find a missing paladin to stop an incursion by Cauldron to nearby Redgorge. After retracing his steps through a jungle, a giant-controlled cavern, and an otherworldy maze, they must face the demonic architect of the area's strife.
- Test of the Smoking Eye By David Noonan, Dungeon #107. Following their warning from a dying paladin to "seek the sign of the smoking eye", a mysterious plane-wanderer asks for their help in completing a series of test to redeem an abandoned layer of the Abyss.
- Secrets of the Soul Pillars By Jesse Decker, Dungeon #109. After several assassins attempt to kill the heroes, they are traced back to the temple of Wee Jas. After assaulting the temple and fighting its undead inhabitants, they are led to an ancient frozen spell weaver complex, where a powerful oracle is guarded by a horrific undying dragon.
- Lords of Oblivion By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #111. An ally of the heroes is kidnapped and taken to a safe house of the Last Laugh, Cauldron's thieves guild. Once they break in and rescue him from the den of thieves, they learn of a secret meeting among some of the realm's most horrific criminals at a noble's mansion. In addition, their beholder overlord is practicing unholy rituals in the complex below.
- Foundation of Flame By Chris Thomasson, Dungeon #113. The Cagewrights begin their plans in earnest now, awakening the volcano on which Cauldron is built. Spewing lava, earthquakes, and collapsing buildings require the heroes help to get everyone evacuated. Worse, demodands begin to emerge from a planar rift already building, and a certain local dragon gets riled up by it all.
- Thirteen Cages By Chris Thomasson, Dungeon #114. The heroes must march on the Cagewrights' headquarters, in the heart of a volcano, before their ritual is complete and a permanent gate to Carceri is opened above Cauldron.
- Strike on Shatterhorn By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #115. What few Cagewrights remain must be hunted down and exterminated in their jungle retreat.
- Asylum By Christopher Perkins, Dungeon #116. When the twisted mind of Adimarchus, imprisoned Demon Prince of Madness, leaks into Occipitus and begins resurrecting his followers, the heroes realize they must go to the otherworldly asylum of Skullrot where Adimarchus is imprisoned and destroy him utterly.
During the course of the adventure, the city is nearly destroyed by an eruption of the volcano under it, which is triggered by magical forces. Shattered, but still inhabited, the city of Cauldron still exists at the end of the adventure.
