''The Shackled City Adventure Path'' (or simply ''Shackled City'') is a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

Adventure Path An Adventure Path is a series of interlinked adventures (campaign) for tabletop role-playing games which can be played in succession and lead characters to advance from lower to higher levels, through a particular path of events. While campaign ...

designed for ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...

'' (''D&D''), originally appearing as a series of modules in ''Dungeon'' magazine, and later collected in a hardcover edition collecting all previous installments plus an additional chapter written especially for the book release. Various elements of the game were revised for the collection; the setting was enlarged to better suit the needs of a typical high-level game.

Campaign information

Location

''Shackled City'' is primarily set in the city of Cauldron. Cauldron itself is nominally located in the ''

World of Greyhawk Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for ''Dungeons & Dragons''—Dave Arneson' ...

'', although the series is designed to be easily adapted to other ''D&D'' campaign settings.

''Shackled Citys impact on Cauldron

The Adventure Paths were widely lauded throughout the gaming industry, and the collected issues of ''Shackled City'', including extensive background and location notes on Cauldron and its residents, were nominated for and received multiple

ENnies The ENNIE Awards (previously stylized as ENnie Awards) are awards for role-playing game (RPG) products (including game-related accessories, publications, and art) and their creators. The awards were created in 2001 by Russ Morrissey of EN Worl ...

in 2006.

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 crawl A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video g ...

s, urban adventures,

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

intrigue, and even extra-planar excursions.

Summary

The Adventure Path consists of the following scenarios: 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.

Reception

The reviewer from ''

Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

'' noted that: "Traditionally, the roleplaying scenario comes in just a few parts, typically a trilogy or quartet. Rarely do they come longer, although The Shackled City Adventure Path is a rare exception, consisting of 12 parts." The expanded hardcover edition of the ''Shackled City'' Adventure Path won three ENnie awards at the 2006

Gen Con Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing ...

game fair, taking home the gold award for "Best Adventure" and "Best Campaign Setting/Supplement", as well as the silver award for "Best Cartography".

Reviews

*'' Alarums & Excursions'' (Issue 405 - Jun 2009)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shackled City Adventure Path Dungeon Adventure Paths ENnies winners Greyhawk modules