Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Carrion Crawlers

Three carrion crawlers, one creeping along the floor and two attached to the ceiling, approach the party and attack the first adventurers to come within reach of their mucus-coated tentacles. If a carrion crawler paralyzes a character with its tentacles, it continues to make bite attacks against that character on subsequent rounds as it feeds. The carrion crawlers are too stupid and hungry to flee in the face of certain death.

Goblin Skull-Hunters

Pibble and Groin, two argumentative goblins with no affiliations of note, are scouring the dungeon for intact skulls to claim as trophies. Their constant bickering can be heard up to 60 feet away, and they flee when confronted by adventurers. If one or both goblins are captured, they can lead adventurers to the nearest Xanathar Guild watch post as well as describe its defenses, since they have observed the comings and goings of the guild's goblinoids for some time.

Shield Guardian

The Dungeon Level is home to a meandering, defective shield guardian operating under the delusion that it's a wizard's apprentice, even to the extent of pretending to cast spells. The guardian returned to this level after its wizard master perished while exploring level 4; the shield guardian's amulet can be found there (x). A rune on the shield guardian's head matches a rune inscribed on the back of its amulet.

When the shield guardian sees the characters, it wastes its actions on feeble gesticulations that suggest it's trying to cast harmful spells at them. It reverts to making normal attacks only if one or more characters enter its reach and make melee attacks against it. If the characters keep their distance and avoid harming the shield guardian, it ends its "attack" after a few rounds and wanders off, looking for other denizens to terrorize.

One-Way Secret Door

A one-way secret door built into the north wall can't be opened from the south without the aid of a knock spell or similar magic. Any character who finds the secret door also notices a 1-inch-diameter hole bored through it at a height of 5 feet. On the north side of the secret door, a human bandit quietly listens at the hole for sounds of newcomers descending the shaft. Upon hearing creatures enter the area, the bandit retreats to warn its confederates in x, 056, and 060. Characters in the room can hear the bandit's soft, retreating footfalls with a successful DC 20 Wisdom (Perception) check.

Sand

A search of the sand yields some discarded gear (two iron spikes, an empty wineskin, a tinderbox, and a pair of pants sized for an adult human) and a random trinket dropped by a frightened adventurer. Roll percentile dice and consult the Trinkets table in chapter 5 of the Player's Handbook to determine the trinket.

Shields

Sixty old shields hang on the walls; they break apart if disturbed in any way. Written in blood on the wall, concealed behind one of the shields, is the following message in Elvish:

Beyond the pillar forest, the Mad Mage waits.

Casting spells behind magic gates.

2a. Demon Reliefs

The carvings on the north wall of x depict (from east to west) a balor, a barlgura, a chasme, a dretch, a glabrezu, a goristro, and a hezrou. The carvings on the south wall depict (from west to east) a marilith, a nalfeshnee, a quasit, a shadow demon, a vrock, and a yochlol. The recessed wall that contains the nalfeshnee carving has a secret door leading to x. The recessed wall that contains the dretch carving has another secret door, which leads to x. The dretch carving has half-inch spy-holes for eyes. These holes are detected when the secret door is found.

2b. Pillar Forest

The bugbears detect the approach of adventurers with the aid of the intellect devourers' Detect Sentience trait and therefore can't be surprised. As intruders approach their location, the bugbears withdraw down the southern tunnel and circle around to warn the goblinoids in x of intruders. The bugbears know the perils of the western tunnel (x) and avoid it. Characters whose passive Wisdom (Perception) scores equal or exceed the bugbears' Dexterity (Stealth) checks notice the hiding or fleeing bugbears.

When a bugbear drops to 0 hit points, the intellect devourer in its skull teleports out to seek a new host.

Statue

The purple aura around the sahuagin statue is harmless, and casting dispel magic on the statue removes it. The statue's arm broke off long ago and rests now against the west wall, concealed beneath the dark water.

The statue's head is hollow, with holes for eyes and a larger hole for its fanged mouth. Further inspection reveals that the head has screw threads and is removable. Previous adventurers managed to unscrew it halfway before being scared off by the gray ooze. Unscrewing and removing the head exposes a hidden, charred compartment in the statue's neck. The compartment contains melted wax from candles that were used to illuminate the statue's head like a jack-o'-lantern.

Water

The water seeps through cracks in the ceiling of the alcove, drips down the walls, and accumulates in the west end of the room before slowly leaking out through smaller cracks in the floor. The water is tepid, and not fit for drinking unless a purify food and drink spell is cast on it.

Echoes

Vent shafts in the ceiling connect to shop cellars in the city above. These passages carry voices from Waterdeep, but the sound is distorted so badly that words at one end can't be discerned by creatures at the other end. If the grills that cover the vent shafts are pried loose, a Tiny or gaseous creature could crawl through a shaft to escape Undermountain.

6a. Hall of Three Lords

Carved into the stone base of each statue is a name: Elyndraun (south statue), Ruathyndar (central statue), and Onthalass (north statue). These names have been crossed out with chalk; beneath them, new names have been added in Goblin: Smelly Bottom, Stupid Skull, and Born Toothless, respectively.

A detect magic spell reveals the faintest, lingering trace of magic within both fragments of the staff. The staff can be repaired with a mending cantrip. The first time the intact staff is held, it wails, "Help! Thief! Criminal!" before its magic fades forever. If the wailing occurs here, the creatures in x and 04c hear the noise and come to investigate.

6b. Rigged Secret Door

Piled up against the west side of this secret door, undetectable from the east side, is a stack of old ceramic plates that fall and break when the door is opened, alerting any bandits in x, 04c, and 04f.

6c. Uktarl's Room

Uktarl lies and cheats for fun, and he is quick to blame others for his failings as a leader. If he takes damage or sees any of his underlings slaughtered, cowardice compels him to retreat to x. The others flee to x and team up with any bandits remaining there.

A character who inspects the stone fresco and succeeds on a DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) check discovers that one of the tiny dwarf figures is the top of a stone key slotted into a cavity that hides its teeth. The key is easily removed from the fresco and unlocks the stone box in x. The bandits are unaware of the key's presence.

Uktarl keeps his bedroll inside the stone tub, along with a set of thieves' tools and enough stolen gear to create one explorer's pack.

6d. Sleeping Quarters

7a. Hall of Retreat

If they are forced to retreat to this hall, Uktarl (x) and Harria (x) make their final stand here, still blaming each other for their failures. This hall has the following features:

7b. Crypt

This area contains a cobweb-draped wooden coffin resting on a 2-foot-high block of gray stone. The coffin is intact and has an obvious 1-inch-diameter hole bored into its foot panel. The coffin's lid is unlocked.

A thin layer of grave dirt inside the coffin has been flattened down, suggesting that a creature once slept here. A vial of holy water rests atop the dirt. The coffin is otherwise empty.

8a. Hall of the Bone Throne

Halaster trapped the wyvern in a floating crystal sphere and left it here as a guardian, but adventurers released and slew the creature long ago. The wyvern's remains lie alongside the fragments of its crystalline prison.

8b. Harria's Room

Harria is a greedy, treacherous, and vindictive young woman who considers herself the world's most underrated actress and singer. She isn't able to control the golem once it goes berserk, and she retreats to x if things turn bleak.

8c. Masters of Disguise

Posing as vampires, the bandits and the doppelganger try to extort money from passing adventurers. If that doesn't work, they attack until it becomes clear they're outmatched, whereupon they flee to x in search of reinforcements.

9a. Pillared Way

9b. Rotted Corpse

The maggot-ridden corpse of a dead human lies facedown on the floor next to a discarded scimitar, a light crossbow, and a money pouch.

During a battle to rid x of giant spiders, the Undertakers lost one of their own. They left his body here to rot. A successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check reveals that the bandit died from spider bites and the ensuing poison. The bandit's leather armor is punched full of holes, but his weapons are intact. The money pouch is empty.

Eastern Doors

Halaster has placed an elder rune (see "x") on the double door leading to x, set to trigger when the doors are opened. Draw from the Elder Runes Deck to determine which rune appears. The elder rune targets a random creature in this hall and within 60 feet of the doors.

14a. Sloping Tunnel

This room is empty. The north tunnel gradually slopes down 20 feet to x.

14b. Heart in a Box

The acid floating in the domed area overhead is held there by magic. Opening the stone box without using the proper key causes the acid to fall. When the acid falls, each creature in the room takes 11 (2d10) acid damage. Any creature that starts its turn in the acid takes the same damage again. The acid floods the room to a depth of 5 feet and flows 40 feet out into the hall leading back to x before slowly draining out through tiny holes in the floor, losing 1 foot of depth per minute.

14c. Secret Room

This 10-foot-square room is empty.

South Room

Behind the door with the handaxe is a 10-foot-square room with a 1-foot-thick, 5-foot-diameter stone sharpening wheel set into the floor. Pressing down on a stone pedal previously turned the wheel, but the mechanisms under the floor have seized up with age, and the wheel no longer turns.

Treasure

A search of the manticores' nests yields the following: a chain shirt, a flail, a wooden flute (2 gp), a pouch containing 14 sp and 29 cp, a pouch containing 21 gp, and a silver necklace with a bloodstone pendant (250 gp).

17a. Foyer

The desiccated corpse of an unusually large basilisk lies in the middle of the floor on its back, its shriveled tongue hanging out and all six feet sticking up in the air. Clutched in one of its clawed feet is a transparent orb.

The basilisk was killed by previous adventurers and left here. Anyone who inspects the corpse discovers that the basilisk died from wounds consistent with weapon attacks and destructive spells. Two giant centipedes reside in the corpse. If the basilisk is disturbed, the centipedes emerge and attack the nearest creature.

17b. Desecrated Temple

The black pudding has 120 hit points and is held in stasis by Halaster's magic. The stasis ends and the pudding attacks if it is touched or harmed.

The statue's stone features are impossible to discern while the black pudding covers it. Once the pudding sloughs off, characters who succeed on a DC 15 Intelligence (Religion) check realize that the statue depicts Gond, the god of invention. A character who worships Gond automatically succeeds on the check. The five toppled statues once depicted other gods, but now they lie smashed beyond recognition.

The assembly of petrified creatures includes five unfortunate adventurers (a male human, a male half-orc, a female elf, and two male halflings) and six unlucky monsters (two kobolds, three goblins, and a carrion crawler).

19a. Servants' Feast Hall

This room reeks. A detect magic spell reveals auras of conjuration magic around the tables. Every day at dawn, piles of rotting meat materialize atop the tables, courtesy of Halaster. Sometime between dawn and dusk, the troll in x visits the room, spends an hour devouring half of the meat, and dutifully delivers what's left to the manticores in x.

19b. Guards' Feast Hall

Under one of the tables in this room is a copper tankard with a hinged lid (25 gp).

19c. Nobles' Feast Hall

The door to this room doesn't open easily. Inside, propped against the door, is the maggot-eaten corpse of a female dwarf adventurer wearing tattered leather armor and a matching leather skullcap. In one skeletal hand, she clutches a dagger; in the other, an empty tin flagon. On a bench in the room is her burglar's pack, complete except for the lantern and the flasks of oil.

Treasure

Two of the shelves are bare. The third holds a bronze mask molded to resemble Halaster's visage (50 gp).

23a. Nimraith's Fate

The goblins fearfully obey the bugbears in x. If their leaders are killed, the goblins flee to x (by way of x and 096).

Held together with moldy string, the yellowed skeleton is all that remains of Nimraith, a human adventurer who perished in Undermountain over a century ago.

23b. Shattered Statue

The bugbears detect the approach of adventurers with the aid of the intellect devourers' Detect Sentience trait and therefore can't be surprised. When a bugbear drops to 0 hit points, the intellect devourer inhabiting its skull teleports away to seek a new host.

This nonmagical statue has broken into seventeen fist-sized chunks of black stone. (Restoring it will take the bugbears a month.) Any character who succeeds on a DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check can ascertain what the statue depicted: three male human warriors standing together on a stone mound, facing outward and clutching swords.

23c. Goblin Den

Unless the watch post is on alert, nine goblins sleep on the floor, their weapons and shields in easy reach.

The goblins fearfully obey the bugbears in x. If their leaders are killed, the goblins flee to x (by way of x and 096).

24a. Old Gate

One of Halaster's magic gates once stood between the pillars but was destroyed during the Spellplague. The gate's destruction left behind a lingering aura of wild magic that can be perceived with a detect magic spell. When a creature passes between the pillars, roll a d12 and consult the following table to determine what happens:

24b. Dead Mage

A tiefling mage was cast out of Dweomercore, the secret academy on level 9, for spell theft and for being a suspected agent of the Arcane Brotherhood (a society of renegade wizards based in Luskan). Halaster killed the tiefling as a precaution and hung its skeleton here as a macabre decoration. If a speak with dead spell is cast on the skeleton, it answers whatever questions it must to satisfy the conditions of the spell and then intones, "Look for the little dwarves under the mountain! One of them hides the key to my heart!" This clue refers to the stone fresco in x and the magic heart in x.

25a. Dead Goblin

25b. Headless Statue

Half-buried in stone debris at the north end of this partially collapsed hall is a headless stone statue of a nude woman. Characters who take time to clear the rubble find the statue's head, which resembles the head of a cobra with its fangs bared.

26a. Hall of Many Candles

Each of the twenty-five niches contains two lit candles. Although wax runs down the sides of the candles, it never drips off them onto the niche, nor do the candles ever seem to be diminished or consumed.

A dispel magic cast on any candle causes all the candles to extinguish, then fall to the floor and break upon impact. A candle taken from its niche becomes an ordinary candle that doesn't float and burns down as any normal candle would.

26b. Empty Closet

Behind this door is an empty, 10-foot-square room.

26c. Ooze Your Janitor?

Just around this corner is a gelatinous cube. The first character to walk around the corner is surprised by the cube unless that character has a passive Wisdom (Perception) score of 15 or higher.

26d. Mirror Gate to Level 10

This tunnel comes to a dead end, mounted on the north wall of which is a mirror gate to level 10 (see "x"). Worked into the mirror's stone frame is the graven image of a human wizard wielding a wand. The rules of this gate are as follows:

• The gate opens for 1 minute when the mirror is touched with a magic wand that has at least 1 charge remaining.
• Characters must be 11th level or higher to pass through this gate (see "x"). The first creature to pass through the gate triggers an elder rune (see "x").
• A creature that passes through the gate appears in x, in the closest unoccupied space next to the identical gate located there.

Demiplane

The demiplane looks like a 30-foot-square stone room with the following features:

When it meets a character for the first time, Halaster's simulacrum says, "Well, don't just stand there like a boob. Ask me three questions about Undermountain. Two of my answers will be true, and one will be false."

The simulacrum knows everything that Halaster knows and makes good on its offer, answering the character's first question with a lie and the second and third questions with the truth. After answering three questions, it turns to slush and is destroyed. The simulacrum won't provide any additional information and can't leave the demiplane. The demiplane remains even after the simulacrum is destroyed.

Removing the Halaster mask does not affect the demiplane. By tossing the mask through the misty doorway, a character inside the demiplane can enable others to use it to enter from the Material Plane.

28a. West Chamber

Two bugbears stand guard in this empty room. When confronted by any threat, they retreat along the curved northern tunnel to x, gather reinforcements, and make their stand in x.

28b. Obelisk of the Eye

A detect magic spell reveals a faint aura of divination magic surrounding the obelisk, and the goblinoids believe (incorrectly) that Xanathar can see through the obelisk's eye to keep watch on them.

The first character to touch the obelisk with a bare hand receives the following telepathic message in Common: "I cast my eye into the future and see in yours a perilous descent. South of here, beyond a secret passage, waits the Two-Headed King. Look to his left. There you will see the path you are destined to take." These words seem to emanate from within the obelisk and are meant to sound soothing, but a character who hears the words can discern a hint of subdued madness in them with a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Insight) check. (The obelisk was created by Halaster and sounds just like him.) The obelisk's "vision" refers to the secret passage at x, the two-headed statue in x, and the stairs west of the statue that lead down to level 2.

Casting dispel magic on the obelisk renders it nonfunctional. Toppling the obelisk requires a successful DC 25 Strength (Athletics) check and causes it to break into myriad pieces on the floor.

28c. East Chamber

The goblins have orders to kill any gricks that emerge from the eastern tunnel. Having lost several of their companions to the gricks in x, the goblins are jittery and afraid for their lives.

28d. Concealed Spiked Pit

The 10-foot-square section of floor at the end of this tunnel doubles as the lid of a 30-foot-deep pit with stone spikes at the bottom. Any creature weighing 50 pounds or more that stands on the lid falls into the pit as the lid swings open, taking 10 (3d6) bludgeoning damage from the fall and 11 (2d10) piercing damage from the spikes. The lid remains open for 1 hour, then automatically snaps shut as the trap resets.

A character searching the tunnel for traps spots the pit with a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check. Hammering spikes between the edges of the lid and the surrounding walls keeps the pit from opening.

30a. Zigzagging Hall

This hall was designed to thwart archers by reducing their line of sight. Other than a few scattered bones on floor, it contains nothing of interest.

30b. Guard Room

Lying on the floor is a battered helm, a tattered suit of leather armor, two halves of a shattered wooden shield, a rusty longsword, a rotting quiver, several broken arrows, and a longbow with a snapped string.

A secret door in the west wall leads to a dusty tunnel that connects to x.

32a. Empty Bedchamber

Every wall of this empty room is carved with a floor-to-ceiling fresco of a cavern wall, giving the room a cave-like quality.

32b. Bathroom

The southern half of the room contains a sunken basin with a drain at the west end and a stone drain plug nearby. A heavy stone spigot sticks out of the south wall above the basin.

Surprisingly, this facility still works. When the spigot is turned, clean, hot water pours into the basin. The water is supplied and heated by natural sources below.

Fountains

Each fountain consists of a blue marble basin enclosed by a 1-foot-high stone retaining wall with drainage holes on the inside of the rim to prevent overflow. Carved above each basin is a bas-relief of a dwarf's face with an open mouth. Water from an underground river once flowed out of the mouths and into the basins, but no longer. Both basins are dry, and the dwarves' stone beards are stained and discolored.

36a. Gricks!

36b. Trapped Fellow

An adventuring party called the Fine Fellows of Daggerford descended into Undermountain one tenday ago. One of its members, a thief named Kelim the Weasel (NE human spy), wandered off, snuck into this corner of the dungeon, found a spellbook left behind by a long-dead adventurer, and inadvertently aroused the gricks. With his escape route cut off, Kelim sealed himself in the closet to avoid being eaten. He drilled a small hole in the door so that he could peer out of it and get some fresher air. He wants to sneak out while the gricks are asleep or distracted, but he's too scared to leave. He has been without food or water for two days.

If rescued, Kelim gives his saviors a stolen spellbook as a token of gratitude. Beyond that, he's an unreliable coward who will betray anyone to save his own skin. He doesn't know where the rest of his adventuring party is (see level 2) and doesn't seem to care.

36c. Upside-Down Throne

The top half of the room is under the effect of a permanent reverse gravity spell. The effect takes hold of any creature or object more than 10 feet off the floor. A successful dispel magic (DC 18) ends the effect, causing creatures and objects on the ceiling to fall if there's nothing to counteract the effect of normal gravity on them.

Map Carving

This elaborate image is a cross-section map of Undermountain, with what is clearly Mount Waterdeep and the City of Splendors at the top, and twenty-three hollowed-out dungeon levels stacked below it. Each dungeon level has its own stylistic side view, but no names or details are included to suggest what a level is called or what it contains. Three features stand out:

• Next to the third level is a bas-relief of a flaming skull.
• Next to the sixteenth level is a bas-relief of a comet.
• Next to the twenty-third (lowest) level is a bas-relief of a tower with a tiny rune engraved above it.

Close inspection reveals that the flaming skull, the comet, and the tower are buttons that can be pressed.

Pit

The open pit used to be 30 feet deep, but now the bottom 10 feet of the hole are filled with stone rubble. Its sides are smooth and can't be ascended or descended without magic or climbing gear.

Revenant

When a half-elf cleric of Waukeen named Halleth Garke accused his adventuring companions of withholding treasure from him, the other members of the Fine Fellows of Daggerford (not including Kelim in x, who had already wandered off) beat Halleth to death and threw his body into the pit. Halleth "awoke" the next day as a revenant, compelled to find and kill the three who murdered him. Unfortunately for him, he is unable to climb out of the pit without assistance and has been pacing down there for days.

If the characters pull him up, Halleth points to the secret door in the south wall and offers to join the party until he locates his "friends," a shield dwarf named Copper Stormforge and two humans named Midna Tauberth and Rex the Hammer. Halleth no longer has access to his cleric spells, and his companions stole his gear (including his holy symbol), along with a wholly incorrect map of the Sargauth Level (level 3). He is willing to let the characters keep the map once they help him confront his killers and retrieve it. He believes the map is authentic and accurate. When the three Fine Fellows die, Halleth becomes a corpse again; if the characters helped him, award them XP as though they had defeated the revenant in combat. See level 2 for more information on Halleth's killers.

39a. Hall of the Two-Headed King

Characters will most likely enter this hall through the secret door in the west wall. This 30-foot-high room has the following features:

The statue is life-size and depicts a dwarf king standing atop a 3-foot-high stone pedestal. Sprouting from the king's neck is a deformed, mostly featureless second head with an elongated, toothless mouth. The inscriptions on the pedestal have been worn away. On the king's brow rests an engraved stone circlet, and his large hands grasp the handle of a stone warhammer, the head of which is planted at his feet.

Halaster used stone shape spells to create the statue's second head and rub away the inscriptions on the pedestal. Even the Mad Mage is unaware, however, that the statue hides a secret. Any character who examines the statue and succeeds on a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check notices that the king's warhammer is a separate piece of stone that can be rotated. When the warhammer is turned so that the weapon's backside faces forward, the pedestal rises another 3 feet, revealing an open cavity that contains a magic circlet identical to the one worn by the statue—but fashioned from gold rather than stone.

39b. Bugbear Den

Three bugbears sit in the middle of the floor, eating from a sack of dead rats and stirges. One of them has an intellect devourer in its skull, which is controlling it like a puppeteer. Because of the intellect devourer's Detect Sentience trait, the bugbears can't be surprised by the adventurers. When the intellect devourer's host drops to 0 hit points, the intellect devourer teleports away to seek a new host.

39c. Goblin Hall

39d. Old Forge

The ettins lived in the Underdark until Xanathar's minions found them. The brands on the ettins' foreheads signify their servitude under the beholder.