Review: Kaldera of the Sickle Dancer

 

Today we're looking at Kaldera of the Sickle Dancer by Sersa Victory. This is a level 3 adventure with a 21-room dungeon inside of an active volcano. There have been a lot of volcanoes around here lately. Maybe this is my sixth sense's way of telling my to keep a watchful eye on Mt. Rainier.

The setup is that long ago a belly-dancer turned tyrant was buried inside during an eruption. The volcano stirs once more and threatens to release her again into the world. "The characters’ motivations are to put the Sickle-Dancer to the sword, plunder her volcanic jewels, and claim her cruel magical treasure." Hell yeah!

Typical of a Sersa Victory joint there is a meta-mechanic to keep things interesting. In this case, rather than random encounters we have eruption rolls. These occur every hour of real time and represent the ever-increasing volatility of the volcano, possible culminating in an eruption and a swift end to the adventure (and the PCs). Although there are a few places where the party may trigger extra rolls, I wonder if there will be enough to really put pressure on the players. I reckon this whole adventure could be knocked out in about 3-4 hours. In order to trigger the eruption they need to roll 12 on a 1d12 four times. Even if they make six rolls that's only a 0.06% chance. I don't think the players will really view the eruption rolls as much of a threat.

Formatting and organization is clear and easy to follow. It will be familiar to anyone who's run an Arcane Library adventure before. The keys are written in the OSE style (also adopted by Arcane Library) with a bolded feature and then a sentence of elaboration. "Light: Orange glow of magma chamber 100 feet below. Columns: Ionic, support cave ceiling above dripping with stalactites. Charred Relics: Taken from subjugated peoples, heaped between pillars." To be honest this isn't my favorite style. My brain has a difficult time collating these into a cohesive description that I can relay to my players. I'd rather just have a few complete sentences describing the area. But this style seems popular so maybe I'm the one who's wrong. But also, "This chamber is light by the orange glow of magma from 100 below, and ionic columns support the cave ceiling. Stalactites drip on piles of charred relics lying in heaps." is roughly the same number of words and is easier for me to parse.

The gameplay is nicely varied, with combat featuring thematic and well-designed original monsters like the flaming sword that tries to jump down your throat and the hypnotic four-armed belly dancers. Every encounter is different and every enemy has something to do besides stand and fight. The entire adventure culminates in a boss fight with colussus stomping through the magma while tearing down the ground beneath the PCs' feet. Not to mention the magic sword that deletes your entire race. The author spared no effort to make things exciting and memorable.

There are also environmental hazards and puzzles everywhere. None of the 21 rooms is wasted and each presents something to interact with and a challenge to overcome. Those challenges are usually pretty open-ended although there are some puzzles with specific solutions. Still, everything seems to be carefully designed such that party won't really encounter any show-stoppers. The more difficult puzzles are optional and momentum should stay strong throughout. Parties that just want to brute force their way through certainly can, but observant and clever players will be suitably rewarded.

And that last bit can't really be emphasized enough. There are hints everywhere, but this dungeon doesn't give you anything for free. It's unapologetically tough, both in the sense that death by lava waits around every corner, but also that the deeper mysteries and greater treasures won't be discovered unless the players investigate and pay attention. Winning the day will require a bit of critical thinking and a lot of risk-taking. As it should. When faced with a huge glass doors full of magma, the PCs can either smash through and facetank thousands of gallons of molten death, or find the mechanism that opens them with thorough exploration and a few calculated risks. 

So Kaldera has a lot of interesting interactions and gives the players a lot of choices. But some of those choices can get a little meta. In area 4, the party is presented with 3 magic bones. It also says, "Inform characters they may take one bone without danger— no wrong choice, each bone has different effect later. However, warn that eruption rolls are +1 for each bone taken beyond first." On the one hand, it's good to present the players with a choice and explain the consequences. On the other hand, you have to ask "how would the PCs know this?" This information should be communicated diegetically, with in-world clues. Here it's just giving the PCs a weird, fourth-wall breaking peek behind the curtain. In another place, if a PC takes a certain action the GM is told to announce, “A SECRET PASSAGE HAS OPENED IN THE LOWER KALDERA.” Maybe it makes sense in a tournament or convention scenario, but it seems like a very strange thing to do. 

Some of the puzzles are also a little obscure - finding one of the best magic items depends on the PC copying the dance of the aforementioned four-armed belly dancers and declaring so within 10 seconds of hearing some music. There are definitely hints to the solution but I think that particular item will stay hidden from many parties. That wouldn't be so bad per se, but also if no one thinks to do the dance (in 10 seconds!) a random PC makes a DC 18 CON check or dies instantly and a gibbering mouther shows up. That is some bullshit. Again, maybe ok for a convention or one-shot but if you pull that in an ongoing campaign you're gonna end up as the villain of a Reddit post. And then one of those YouTube channels where they just read Reddit posts.

And here's the biggest caveat of Kaldera: it's deathtrap dungeon, really designed for one-shot or convention play. It's extremely deadly. And for the most part, fair. But PCs are going to die. The intro recommends having backups ready and it's not kidding. This doesn't detract from the fun but it does detract from the utility a bit. If you drop this into your long-running campaign, players may get a little salty when their 3rd PC dies to a facefull of lava. Depending on your table it may not work for with pre-existing characters that the players have some investment in. It does a great job of foreshadowing the existence of danger but not always the severity. And most mistakes will result in an unrecoverable death. If your players go into it with eyes open, though, (and backups ready) they'll have a blast.

On a scale of 2-12, Kaldera of the Sickle Dancer gets 9 stingbats.

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