Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This week we dive into a volcano.
Caldera Lake
The Caldera Lake is a magical lake that rests atop the most active volcano in the known world, a place that potentially has a direct portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire, due to its sheer activity and heat. The volcano erupts regularly, every 10-20 years, but the Caldera Lake keeps this in check, with the magical waters serving to supercool the lava in seconds, causing it to rain down within a mile, rather than spreading death and destruction for miles around. Even the smoke that a volcano of this size would normally generate seems to be mitigated by the waters that somehow remain crystal clear.
Lay of the Land
Caldera Lake is filled with crystal clear water, and anyone who enters it finds it to be a comfortably warm temperature, in spite of the raging inferno beneath it, which can be seen while in the water. The water isn’t natural and serves to cleanse those who bathe within it, often helping to clear many illnesses (any saving throw against disease may be rerolled within the waters, allowing for a second attempt at passing), and just generally soothing those that swim here. During eruptions, most people retreat from the Caldera, as the water increases in temperature to boiling, but during this time, it seems to allow a connection with the universe that would normally not be possible. Only those of stout heart and mind can endure the trial, however, and it is one of the few times where the water is dangerous to be in.
Dangers
Normally the Caldera Lake is not a threat, but during a volcanic eruption, there are two dangers. Anyone who isn’t in the waters of the Lake, but who is within a mile of the lake takes 1d6 points of bludgeoning damage each round that they’re in the open, as they are pelted with supercooled lava falling from the skies.
Those within the Lake take 1d6 points of fire damage (that ignores any resistance), but each round that they spend in the water, they have a 10% chance of casting the spell commune (5e / PF2), and once they do, they no longer take any fire damage from the lake, until the next eruption.
The Caldera Lake isn’t guarded, but in an area just outside the mile radius can be found a monastery carved from a single gigantic piece of supercooled lava. The monastery was once home to an order of monks known as the Order of the Flaming Hand, but they vanished during the last eruption, without a single trace as to what happened to them. The monastery is now said to be haunted, though no one has confirmed this yet.
We hope you have a lovely bath, and we’ll see you next week. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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