THE CAULDRON

The Cauldron is a volcanic rift which runs along the southern edge of the Golden Road between the city of Kormul and the broken hills of the Wormbones, gaining its name from the numerous hot springs, bubbling pools and steaming lakes within its confines.

Sometimes called the Burning Hills, due the sheets of fire that occasionally erupt from certain places in earth, it holds some of the same dangers as the Wormbones. There are hot geysers and mudflats, flames and molten rock and vents of posionous gas.

Unlike the abutting Wormbones, however, the steep ridges and hills of the Cauldron are semi-fertile, often green with short, hardy grasses, and would be more so if not for the toxic clouds that occasionally belch from the deep earth and sear the landscape.

The rift's sides are somewhat steep, but the interior is broken by numerous ridges and hills, some as high as the surrounding land.  The earth occasionally shakes and groans and the night sky is sometimes lit red by the fires of the earth as small volcanic vents along the center of the region erupt and pour lava out in small rivers or pools, or expose the magma beneath and swallow more land.

A surprising number of small villages dot the north side of the Golden Way across from the Cauldron, and the tamer sections of the rift area.  Herders also graze their livestock here and soil from the region is known to make fields elsewhere more fertile, and, farmers say, the crops they grow more tasty.

The Great School of the Rift is situated midway along its length, upon one of the highest series of hills in the region.  An academy dedicated to and run by the priesthood of Lathander, many pilgrims and travelers use the school as a rest stop, and many young dedicants of the faith and the children of the nobility are sent here to be schooled in the ancient knowledge, history and religion of the empire.