The Cauldron

Named for its many geysers and hot springs, The Cauldron, much like the Hellsgate Peaks to the north of the Free Coast, is a cluster of highly volcanic mountains located in the southern Xha’en region. Though not part of the same mountain range as the Hellsgate Peaks, dwarven scholar-druids have claimed The Cauldron sits along the same great crack beneath the surface of the world, and that this great underground crack, which they call a “fault line,” also causes the regular earthquakes that rumble beneath the ground in the southern region of the Hegemony. A more popular theory is that an ancient deity of fire was defeated and slain in the region, and that her angry ghost gives rise to all the local volcanoes. Earthquakes, it is said, are simply her attempts to raise new volcanoes, while geysers and hot springs are thought to be young volcanoes, not yet fully developed. If the right rituals to appease her rage were ever to be found, so it is claimed, all the seismic and volcanic activity in the area would cease forever.
In any event, the terrain and populations of The Cauldron are similar to the Hellsgate Peaks in that many fire- and heat-loving people and monsters choose to make the small mountain range their home. The Cauldron is somewhat more easily traversed by nonmagical means than the Hellsgate Peaks, however, as the geysers are far more active than the volcanoes, and said volcanoes are in turn more easily predicted and understood in their activity than those of Hellsgate. Thus, some of the wider passes through The Cauldron range are generally reliable if a party is well-prepared and able to defend themselves.
Also unlike the Hellsgate Peaks, The Cauldron is known for neither devils nor red dragons but instead for a close-knit community of efreeti in the secretive and difficult-to-access village of Soohr-Ahmaad.

Type

Spring