Caldero is a city of some forty thousand people inside the crater of an extinct volcano, a colony of Star City two days away on horseback. Its old formal name is the Phoenix’s Nest; locals say Ciudad Caldera or “the cauldron”.
| Type | Place (city) |
| World | Vala Cristalis |
| Government | the Mayor and a Council of nobles |
| Spanish entry | Caldero |
Layout
The tilted crater holds a walled, circular city. Its avenues (Ash, Lava, Magma, Obsidian) are concentric rings whose names change by quadrant (“south obsidian”). There are four administrative quadrants; “twelve places” are also mentioned. At the bottom lie a central lake 1.5 km wide and the flood-prone Cess; on the rim, the noble towers of the Citadel. Holes in the crater surface, “like a skimmer”, descend at a steepening angle to unknown ends.
In the south stand the Obsidian Tower of Lord Valanthru and the twin towers of Titti Frame; the Tower of Huillas was destroyed by adventurers. In the north is the courthouse-like town hall with a glass wall stained with blood in the riots. Other sites: a temple, a cathedral where history is taught, an orphanage, a locksmith’s, a guild brewery, wells, and a cemetery with a plot outside the wall for suicides. The west wall was broken by controlled demolition to admit the turtle.
Height marks rank: nobles live on the rim, the poor at the flooded bottom. Below, sewers and “an extensive network of tunnels and lost magic” with numbered labyrinth levels serve smuggling and kidnapping, since the city “was built over several places”. The gnome locksmith, accused of kidnapping the children, has a shop connected to the deepest rooms. The kidnapped boy Terren was being taken toward the city.
Government and law
A female Mayor and a weekly Council of nobles, “all mages” and very powerful, rule; the Council appoints offices such as chancellor. Power is also held by the City Guard and its Captain (accused of infiltration and of tolerating child trafficking), the Temple of Saint Cuthbert, the Bluewater Academy and private factions.
Law allows civilian hostage-taking in emergencies and “collective responsibility for sabotage against the government”, permitting execution of a saboteur’s relatives. Signed summonses compel appearance at the town hall. Taxes rose for security; a protest of seven hundred at the town hall was fired on, killing about twenty. The street says: “That Council is going to fall.”
Economy
Caldero is Star City’s main source of sulfur, obsidian and magical technique. A techno-magical industrial revolution began twelve years ago, backed by fertile land and precious-metal veins. Coin is gold, silver and copper, with “reales” for large sums and “Caldero money” at no fixed rate. To the north, a thousand-year-old dwarven bridge, “like the Golden Gate”, is the only possible crossing for the railway project of the dwarf engineer Vermission, which failed.
Climate
The climate is volcanic-tropical: sleet in December, drizzle and fog in October, occasional tremors. Winter rains flood the low zone, endangering fifty thousand people; priests try to control the water and the church shelters the displaced. At the end-of-winter festival the Mayor greeted the crowd in chains. Night brings thick fog; people stay in since three months of disappearances. A sergeant was lifted into the air and stabbed against the town hall’s glass wall.
Religion and the volcano
Saints, old gods of Díandil (Córdoba, Huilla) and a silver-bearded dwarven god are venerated. No child was ever sacrificed to appease the volcano.
“The same gem that is the world was placed inside the volcano.” The ifrit’s heart was stolen and alchemized, after which the once desert lands grew fertile. The founding catastrophe, the descent of the star, was 1,825 years ago. Lord Valanthru calls Caldero “a pressure cooker about to burst”. After the military occupation it holds a quarter of its former population.
Surroundings
A monastery (30–40 miles), the Mad Monkey Tavern (30 km), Red Lodge (a day away), druid forests (40–50 km east or more), a Mostaral community (200 km), the lost plains (200–300 km) and the nearby plains of Balaprima. A drow house (“milito”) once claimed the sector.
Conflicting accounts
- The volcano has slept for tens of thousands of years; for more than 1,500; it was active 1,500 years ago; or only the last 500.
- Foundations about 500 years old, when other species lived there, against a 1,825-year catastrophe and a 1,000-year bridge.
- Bridge width: 30–40 feet, 60 feet or 15 meters.
- Forty thousand inhabitants against fifty thousand at flood risk.
- Distance to Star City: about 70 km, “70, 80 miles”, or 100 km.
- Who rules: Mayor and Council; a chained Mayor; a Mayor absent from the Tower meeting; “no rule of law”.
Open questions
- Whether Cess and Citadel are districts or just lower and upper city.
- A disease tied to the city and its tunnels is named but not described.
- Why the place is called “Moria” in one quotation is unexplained.