Dagnor's Cauldron

Faydwer is well known for its vast forests and high mountains, but it also has several large rivers and great lakes and one inland sea. At the southwest corner of the continent, surrounded by a narrow ridge of mountains and cliffs on all sides, sits Dagnor’s Cauldron. This roughly oval sea is the site of many mysteries and legends, and has been home to several of the continent’s most historic events. Even today it sees a steady stream of adventurers, some of whom come simply to visit such a unique setting, others looking for fame and fortune by plundering its depths or defeating the various creatures that live nearby.

Legends

During the Age of Scale, dragons ruled all of Norrath. But Brell Serilis, the Duke of Below, wished to usurp control from the dragons. He approached the gods Prexus, Tunare, and Rallos Zek, and suggested an alliance between them, to meet and discuss the fate of the world. Prexus and Tunare both agreed, and Rallos Zek grudgingly chose to participate in the discussion, though he gave no formal promise of alliance. The next question, however, was where these four gods could meet comfortably. Prexus preferred the sea, Tunare the forest, and Brell the mountains. In the end, they settled upon a corner of the continent Faydwer. The sea lapped up against the rocks, and a thick forest covered the more level plains to the west. To further accommodate the others, Brell dug a great depression into the edge of the cliffs, creating a shallow bowl filled with water, with mountains to the north and west and forest to the east. Prexus sat within the water, while Tunare perched along the shore to his right and Brell sat among the cliffs to the west. Rallos Zek deigned to crouch among the rocks to the north, and all four were content to occupy that area and discuss at great length their thoughts on this new world and how it should be governed. This was the start of The Elder Age, and the formation of what later became known as Dagnor’s Cauldron.
After their deliberations, each of the gods created a single race. Brell formed the dwarves, who took up residence in the mountains surrounding the pool. Tunare added the elves. who lived within her beloved forests. And Prexus’ contribution was the Kedge, a noble and powerful race who lived beneath the waves.

History

All three newly created races revered the place where, according to legend, their gods had first met (only the giants of Rallos Zek did not approach the pool, for their father had warned them not to trust the other races or their deities), though the elves chose to settle a great distance away in Tunaria, now called Antonica. That left the dwarves and the Kedge to co-exist, and so they did, although at times their relationship was strained; in fact, the toll of this strain is what is supposed to have led to the events that would eventually unfold in the region. In the years that followed the flight of the elves from Tunaria back to Faydwer, Kedge, elves, and dwarves found the pool for which each race had its own name a perfect place for them to meet as well, where each could stay within their preferred environment yet still talk with the others. Envoys were sent to the pool on a regular basis, and the three races dwelt relatively happily alongside each other. Since each race had interest only in its own environment, and no designs upon the others’, the three peoples had little difficulty getting along, and even offered knowledge and materials for the others’ benefit.
As time passed, however, the three races grew more apart. As ogres, orcs, goblins, and their ilk become more numerous and problematic on Faydwer, the elves and dwarves were forced to turn more attention to defending their respective homes against these powerful invaders. The Kedge simply retreated back into the sea, where they were safer. But all three races became more wary, more paranoid. They stopped meeting at the pool, and established watch-posts there instead at times their envoys still met to exchange information, but just as often sentries kept an eye on the other two races from that time forward. The elves were less concerned than the dwarves with events near the pool. In time, their forest was cut in twain by the actions of orcs, so the elves found themselves separated from their former allies. Meanwhile, the dwarves constructed a mighty guard tower in the mountains along the western edge of the pool, while the Kedge fashioned a formidable keep in the waters of the pool itself. Both races settled in. The dwarves became distracted for a time when, under the banner of King Dagnor 11, they were forced to defend their lands against the invasion of an Ogre army. Yet in time, after the ogres’ defeat, the dwarves and Kedge became even more concerned with one another’s presence. Strange abominations from the sea had begun to attack coastal settlements, and the Kedge became increasingly hostile. The dwarves worried that these attacks would become more dangerous and widespread, for they knew the Kedge had magics that allowed them to function on dry land when necessary. And indeed, their suspicion bore fruit, for a Kedge assault on Kaladim itself occurred not more than a few years after the Battle of the Shattered Spear (where the ogres had been defeated). The mountain folk began to plan ways to defeat their erstwhile allies now that matters had come to another open war.
The Kedge, however, had their own problems by this time. It was learned that the followers of some evil deity or secret necromantic cult had devised a method for enslaving the noble underwater race body and soul. Upon a Kedge’s death, these dark spellcasters could trap his soul within another creature’s corpse, transforming him into an obedient undead abomination. The Kedge, made by Prexus to reincarnate upon their death, were duly horrified by this prospect, and vowed to protect their people fromsuch a fate at any cost.
Their greatest sorcerer, Phinigel Autropos, settled at Kedge Keep to find a solution. Perhaps he felt that, because the pool had once been visited by Prexus himself, he would have better luck in those waters. Or perhaps it was the keep’s proximity to other races (or its distance from the center of Kedge society) that he found useful.
Dwarven scouts reported Phinigel’s arrival at Kedge Keep from the depths of the pool, and the event threw the dwarves of Kaladim into an uproar. Such a powerful Kedge sorcerer could only have come for one reason: the Kedge had finally set their sights on conquering the nearby lands, and he was here to spearhead their first major assault. Clearly, the Kedge would have to be stopped before their armies arrived and swarmed out of the pool and up into the mountains.
The Dwarf king, Dagnor Butcherblock IV, traveled personally to the guard tower to observe his enemies. What he saw there dismayed him greatly. The pool was now altered so that it flowed out into the ocean without pause or hindrance in the past, only a small stream had joined it to the oceanand Kedge soldiers could now enter through these waters with similar ease. Yet perhaps something could be done to keep the Kedge sorcerer from summoning reinforcements.
King Dagnor consulted with his generals and counselors, and eventually they developed a plan. They thought to cause rockslides from the mountaintops to pour down into the pool, filling it with stone, crushing the keep and its inhabitants, and blocking the passage to the ocean. Dwarven clerics advised against this, pointingout that manipulating the stone directly could anger Brell Serilis, but Dagnor was beyond caring with every passing moment, his fear grew greater. The king was certain that Phinigel was busy creating spells heralding the rise of legions of Kedge and their undead servants, who would take the mountains from the dwarves. Dagnor commanded the clerics and his engineers (along with their Erudite allies) to proceed.
The attack did succeed at its goal, but only in part. Unfortunately, the clerics had been correct, and Brell was greatly displeased (at least in part because his people chose to alter the very shape of the mountains he so loved). To punish the dwarves for their presumption, he caused the mountain range to ripple with his rage. Instead of a carefully controlled shower of rocks, entire cliffs slid off the mountains into the water, and vast portions of the mountainside tumbled down as well. Dagnor, sitting near the window of the guard tower to watch the results firsthand, felt the world tilt beneath him, as his tower was shattered and sank into the water. He and his personal guards died as a result of his own hasty command (though the dwarves do not admit to such folly; instead, they claim that Phinigel sensed the attack and retaliated, destroying the tower and murdering their king).
Of course, the Kedge sorcerer did sense the attack he had been busy in his study, putting the finishing touches on the spell he hoped would protect his people from being turned into undead creatures. When rocks began falling from the sky, he hastened to an upper window, and watched as the mountains themselves rushed toward the keep. Convinced that this was an attack by whoever had been enslaving his people already, Phinigel decided he had not a moment to lose. He had not yet worked through the final details of the ritual, but ifhe were to wait any longer, all his work might be for naught in any case.
So the Kedge, along with assistants he had summoned for this very purpose, cast the unfinished ritual, with devastating and unexpected results (see Chapter 7). Perhaps the reasons for the failure will never be known, but it is likely that the ritual went awry at least in part because Kedge Keep was now cut off from the ocean. In this much, at least, the dwarves’ plan had succeeded, for the mountains along the southern edge had crumbled entirely, building a solid bank of dirt and rock and isolating the pool. Now it was surrounded by land on all sides, having become an inland sea of its own.
For many decades afterward, the pool remained isolated. Phinigel, after his failure, retreated back into the keep and hid himself there with his guilt and sorrow. The dwarves, angered at the loss of their king but nonetheless pleased with the pool’s separation and with the destruction of the Kedge race, named the place Dagnor’s Grave and avoided it. Various creatures, such as giant rats, snakes, and sharks, were trapped in the salty inland sea and flourished there. Then the aqua goblins arrived. It is difficult to say whence they hailed, though most likely they clambered up from the ocean and then scaled the cliffs. Somehow they found Dagnor’s Grave, and its isolation and abundant aquatic life provided an ideal home for them. The goblins settled near the south edge of the pool, though in time they split into three separate tribes, and each established its own village.
The dwarves eventually began to ge t over their fear of the pool as well. Arguably, however, what motivated them to return was nothing more than greed. When Dagnor IV fell, his mighty weapon, the Butcherblock hammer, was lost with him. The dwarves were determined to recover the hammer, along with any other artifacts trapped in the fallen guard tower. Bands of dwarves began to visit Dagnor’s Grave, searching for the ruins and for anything worthwhile among them. Although they did not find the Butcherblock hammer (for Phinigel had taken it into Kedge Keep shortly after the dwarves’ tower fell), they did discover something else. The force of the mountainside striking the pool floor had shattered the ground, exposing veins of rich metal and clusters of gems. The dwarves could not resist such treasure, even if it was located underwater. They solicited magics from their allies that allowed them to breathe underwater for extended periods, and their excavation began; dwarven soldiers fought off the aqua goblins and any other creatures that threatened the miners.
But once again the dwarves let other concerns blind them to the desires of their god. Brell Serilis was not happy to learn that his dwarves were once again in the pool, or that they were attempting to drill beneath its surface. He allowed his anger to manifest as a stream of lava flowing beneath the pool‘s floor, and the greedy dwarves cracked holes into this superheated underground river in their haste. Steam poured out through the gaps they had made, cooking the nearest dwarves instantly and heating the entire pool to a boil. The sudden temperature shift caused the ground itself to crack, forming a large fissure near the center of the pool. Above it, rock and ash floated to the surface, slowly cooling together into a small island and a collection of tiny island-rocks nearby. Kedge Keep was unaffected, for Phinigel’s magic kept the heat there to a bearable level and Brell spared the building from the brunt of the damage out of respect for Prexus and his fallen race. After this incident, the dwarves gave up any notion of mining the pool, but they continued to look for Dagnor’s remains and for his hammer. They renamed the pool Dagnor’s Cauldron, however, for steam from the lava kept the water’s temperature uncomfortably warm, and the unwary could easily be cooked alive if he stayed submerged for too long. Eventually, a band of adventurers dared to enter Kedge Keep, and they not only located but recovered the Butcherblock hammer. Dwarves continue to comb the waters, swimming through the tower’s ruins in the hopes of finding other valuable items within.
Other dangers have also appeared in and around the Cauldron. After the pool was cut off from the ocean by Brell’s Avalanche, the new land to the south came to be the home of a powerful cleric of Quellious. For many years, the cleric and his family brought peace and prosperity to their surroundings, but then they were cruelly murdered, and the entire estate cursed by a vengeful god. Ever since, the estate has become a haven for the undead, which sometimes shamble off the grounds and wander closer to the Cauldron. More recently, a trio of witches has recently settled along the southeast shore of the Cauldron, exerting their influence over the creatures who live in and around the waters and over anyone foolish enough to approach. Their wicked efforts have been partially offset by a quartet of heroic adventurers camped along the Cauldron’s northwest corner, but the witches are slowly gaining more control over the area.

Location under

Faydwer