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Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Explore the mega-dungeon of Undermountain in this adventure for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.
In the city of Waterdeep rests a tavern called the Yawning Portal, named after the gaping pit in its common room. At the bottom of this crumbling shaft is a labyrinthine dungeon shunned by all but the most daring adventurers. Known as Undermountain, this dungeon is the domain of the mad wizard Halaster Blackcloak. Long has the Mad Mage dwelt in these forlorn depths, seeding his lair with monsters, traps, and mysteries—to what end is a constant source of speculation and concern.
• The follow up to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Dungeon of the Mad Mage takes adventurers deep into one of D&D's biggest dungeons. Each of Undermountain's twenty-three levels is an adventure setting unto itself, and the book includes a map for each one.
• Waterdeep, known as the City of Splendors, is one of D&D’s most iconic locations. Also the setting for the board game Lords of Waterdeeep, it’s the jewel of the Sword Coast—a sprawling melting pot held together by firm laws and swift justice.
• Dungeon of the Mad Mage is the second of two Dungeons & Dragons books set in Waterdeep. It picks up where the first, Dragon Heist, leaves off, taking characters of 5th level or higher all the way to 20th level.
• In D&D, you and your friends coauthor you own legend. Guided by a Dungeon Master, you create characters and play their roles in a story, rolling dice and navigating maps as you unfold a tale as limitless as your imagination.
• Dungeons & Dragons is the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Created in 1974, D&D transformed gaming culture by blending traditional fantasy with miniatures and wargaming.
In the city of Waterdeep rests a tavern called the Yawning Portal, named after the gaping pit in its common room. At the bottom of this crumbling shaft is a labyrinthine dungeon shunned by all but the most daring adventurers. Known as Undermountain, this dungeon is the domain of the mad wizard Halaster Blackcloak. Long has the Mad Mage dwelt in these forlorn depths, seeding his lair with monsters, traps, and mysteries—to what end is a constant source of speculation and concern.
• The follow up to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Dungeon of the Mad Mage takes adventurers deep into one of D&D's biggest dungeons. Each of Undermountain's twenty-three levels is an adventure setting unto itself, and the book includes a map for each one.
• Waterdeep, known as the City of Splendors, is one of D&D’s most iconic locations. Also the setting for the board game Lords of Waterdeeep, it’s the jewel of the Sword Coast—a sprawling melting pot held together by firm laws and swift justice.
• Dungeon of the Mad Mage is the second of two Dungeons & Dragons books set in Waterdeep. It picks up where the first, Dragon Heist, leaves off, taking characters of 5th level or higher all the way to 20th level.
• In D&D, you and your friends coauthor you own legend. Guided by a Dungeon Master, you create characters and play their roles in a story, rolling dice and navigating maps as you unfold a tale as limitless as your imagination.
• Dungeons & Dragons is the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Created in 1974, D&D transformed gaming culture by blending traditional fantasy with miniatures and wargaming.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published November 20, 2018
34 people are currently reading
618 people want to read
About the author
Wizards of the Coast
429 books429 followersWizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
December 27, 2019
Decided not to wait on finishing my rating on this till I'm done running it, because for all I know that'll be 2021.
Excellent mega-dungeon, which I'm feeling better about now I've given myself permission to pick and choose through it. There are 22 levels, each one written by a different person or team, and some of them are AMAZING (shout out to the gith ones, and the one with the shadow dragon), and some just leave me pretty cold (not wild about the troglodyte battlefield, I think I'm gonna skip that). Each one has a distinct tone and arc, and it does make me kinda wish that my players were just focused on by-the-book dungeon crawl, because it would be interesting to play it as written. (I am instead jigsawing it apart and putting it back together with a plot, because my players just don't pick up on dungeon crawl as a plot when there is even a hint of anything else they could follow.)
Also quite interesting as a technical challenge because the book largely uses monsters already present in the Monster Manual, this isn't about new monsters, it's about showcasing how you could use the ones already in the core books.
Anyways don't expect any plot that you don't bring to the situation, but a fun and pretty widely-varied dungeon crawl that can take you all the way to level 20.
Excellent mega-dungeon, which I'm feeling better about now I've given myself permission to pick and choose through it. There are 22 levels, each one written by a different person or team, and some of them are AMAZING (shout out to the gith ones, and the one with the shadow dragon), and some just leave me pretty cold (not wild about the troglodyte battlefield, I think I'm gonna skip that). Each one has a distinct tone and arc, and it does make me kinda wish that my players were just focused on by-the-book dungeon crawl, because it would be interesting to play it as written. (I am instead jigsawing it apart and putting it back together with a plot, because my players just don't pick up on dungeon crawl as a plot when there is even a hint of anything else they could follow.)
Also quite interesting as a technical challenge because the book largely uses monsters already present in the Monster Manual, this isn't about new monsters, it's about showcasing how you could use the ones already in the core books.
Anyways don't expect any plot that you don't bring to the situation, but a fun and pretty widely-varied dungeon crawl that can take you all the way to level 20.
September 3, 2020
Ed Greenwood did the roleplaying world an enormous favor when he opened his personal campaign to everyone courtesy of a licensing deal with TSR. Since that day, for thousands of players across the world, the Forgotten Realms has been synonymous with Dungeons & Dragons, and Greenwood's penchant for imaginative content and world-building has stood side by side with Greyhawk as the de facto standard for medieval fantasy. Indulge me, if you will, in a quick deep dive into the Forgotten Realms, the city of Waterdeep, and the dungeon known as Undermountain.
If you've ever taken a trip through the city of Baldur's Gate, if you walked in the shoes of Volothamp Geddarm around the Sword Coast, if the adventures of Drizzt Do'Urden thrilled you through the writings of R.A. Salvatore, then the Realms have been your second home too. And just as Gary Gygax's Greyhawk setting has its legendary "Castle Greyhawk" dungeon waiting to capture unwary adventurers in its cruel and unrelenting jaws, so too do the Forgotten Realms have the city of Waterdeep and the fearsome, unfathomable depths of Undermountain.
Much has been made of Undermountain over the years, but it's cropped up in some form or another in the D&D product line since its official introduction in 1987 within FR1: Waterdeep and the North, a reference book meant to interface with the Forgotten Realms Campaign boxed set released earlier the same year. Greenwood, of course, had been using Undermountain in his own home campaign since 1975, and pieces of its history and lore trickled into official D&D lore as early as 1982 in the pages of Dragon Magazine.
In the decades hence, Undermountain has seen re-releases, revisions, and retcons regarding its layouts and denizens, but the largest and most well-regarded of them is 1991's The Ruins of Undermountain. Written for the 2E ruleset, it contains four massive poster maps, a 32-page booklet detailing a number of potential adventure opportunities and hooks, and a 128-page book detailing the first three levels of the dungeon. "Three dungeon levels" may not sound like much, but each of these levels is the size of a small city, and only some of the areas are keyed to descriptions within the text. The rest is left to the Dungeon Master to fill in and expand to fit their specific needs and players. In 1994, TSR provided an expansion in the form of another boxed set, The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels, which came with four new poster-sized maps detailing two more floors of this behemoth. Two years later in 1996, they published the first of their "Dungeon Crawl" series, which were individual modules keyed to classic campaign settings. The title? Undermountain: The Lost Level, a 32-page expansion to the dungeon's already-considerable bulk. This was followed up with two more Undermountain-themed adventures the same year: Undermountain: Maddgoth's Castle, and Undermountain: Stardock, each one featuring a new layer to the madness and an increasing challenge for PCs. Stardock, for instance, is aimed solely at high-level play. The final Undermountain-themed supplement for Second Edition, Skullport, came out in 1999 and detailed the "City beneath the City" -- Skullport is a shadowy reflection of Waterdeep, where all manner of nefarious deeds, from assassinations and thievery to outright slave trading and genocide, are plotted and carried out.
As Greenwood designed it, Undermountain contained nine full levels, and at least fourteen additional sub-levels. It was entirely possible to run a campaign through all of 2nd Edition using material exclusive to Undermountain for the duration of the 2E product line and beyond. Undermountain was the mega-dungeon against which all other mega-dungeons have been and always shall be judged.
Now, almost thirty years later, Wizards of the Coast has gone back to the Yawning Portal for another excursion. Written to slot in after the events depicted in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the titular Dungeon of the Mad Mage is 5E's re-introduction of the deadliest dungeon in all Faerun. For players disappointed that Dragon Heist ignored Undermountain in favor of a city-themed campaign, this may feel like an answer to prayers. But even at 320 pages, making it one of the largest hardcovers released so far for this rule set, is this tome big enough to tackle, as it claims, twenty-three levels of Undermountain? Meant to take characters from 5th to 20th level, Dungeon of the Mad Mage is the first true mega-dungeon-format campaign for Fifth Edition. Let's see what all the fuss is about, shall we?
Gearing Up
Let's get one thing out of the way up front. If you're wondering how the Wizards design team stuffed twenty-three levels' worth of Undermountain into a single hardback when two boxed sets and four additional supplements could barely manage 1/3rd of that total, the answer is simple: they didn't. Every map of every level of Undermoutain featured in this book contains around fifty keyed encounter areas, enough to fit on one 8.5"x11" page and thus easily photocopied (something you as the DM will want to do, because flipping back and forth between the maps and the encounter text is a nightmare). Those of you seeking a poster-filled extravaganza like the boxed sets of old will be disappointed.
What you get for your $49.99 is better thought of as 23 individual modules bound together between the covers, each with a different focus and put together by a different design team. If you've explored Undermountain through previous products, you'll run into some familiar terrain. As in earlier works, The Yawning Portal tavern serves as the primary entrance to Undermountain. In fact, a number of the maps you'll find in the book correlate almost exactly with portions of the poster maps from original Ruins boxed set, though just because the rooms are similar doesn't mean their occupants and/or contents will be. Some things, amusingly, have remained the same: there's still the same burnt-out nub of a torch laying on the floor in one of the earliest rooms of the dungeon, for instance. Others, however, have not. Players expecting to meta-game their way through the adventure will find themselves frustrated when it turns out thirty years ago, some other adventurers found that compartment at the base of the pillar and cleaned it out. Another early room contains the same three hidden alcoves as before, but while earlier incarnations had treasure in two and one of them empty, Dungeon of the Mad Mage swaps this around, putting the only piece of treasure in the alcove which was empty back in 1991. At the same time, there's just enough kept similar that grognards can't assume everything has changed. The mirrors in that one room still mess with you, and you'll still regret fooling with that statue -- that's all I'm saying. ;)
Areas like the "Lost Level", "Wyllowood", and "Maddgoth's Castle" make their returns too, and that's nice to see: the product is going a long way to incorporating lots of different elements from previous supplements, serving as a kind of "grand unifying theory" for Undermountain content, and in this, it succeeds admirably.
At the same time, not everything here is recycled or repurposed. In fact, the bulk of the book is newly built specifically for this reintroduction. The designers used the classic products discussed above as a springboard/foundation, just as they've done for other campaigns like Curse of Strahd, but don't simply retread old ground. If what you were hoping for was a complete update of the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set, this will satisfy a tiny part of that lust. If, on the other hand, what you wanted was an entirely new reason to go risking life and limb beneath the streets of Waterdeep, then you'll find that wish granted too.
The Downside
As awesome as all that sounds, there's no getting around just how small these individual levels feel (seriously, one of them is only 7 pages long, and that includes the map; the section on the infamous Skullport, the city beneath the city, is even shorter than that at six pages). And while every map includes multiple expansion slots where you can incorporate your own DM-created material, the overall effect isn't so much of one massive, inter-connected, sprawling complex as it is two dozen one-floor dungeons sewn together with the flimsiest of plot threads. Yes, there's a lot to see, and do, and fight, and loot in Undermountain, but the story holding it all together is literally: "One day this really super-strong Archmage went crazy and and spent the next few decades building this mega-labyrinth. Your party should go check that out, because I, as the DM, just dropped fifty bucks on this book."
That's exaggerating, but not as much as you might think.
If you want there to be some overarching raison d'etre for the Undermountain campaign beyond "because it's there!", you'll have to make it up yourself. While the book supplies several reasons to make individual excursions into the dungeon early on, and each "floor" includes goals for the PCs to work towards then explains how those accomplishments (or failures) tie into other levels of the campaign, once those reasons have been satisfied, the next phase of the campaign relies on the players willingly dropping back into the meat grinder for another chapter.
Finally, if there's any 5E product worthy of at least one enormous, fold-out poster map, it's Dungeon of the Mad Mage. The original boxed sets gave us a total of eight of these monsters, but we couldn't even get one here? That's the most disappointing thing of all to me as a long-time player.
Worth A Buy?
Despite all that?
Yeah, it's totally worth a buy.
Undermountain, as I said before, is the mega-dungeon before which all other mega-dungeons pay tribute. Even if you completely ignore the threadbare plot, there's still tons of material to pillage for your own personal campaign. You could even ditch all the connections and let your PCs use Undermountain not as a campaign, but a source of short, multi-session missions when they're between jobs and need something to do, or want to grind for some XP and treasure. "Let's go see if we can make it down to level five this time!" is totally something many players, especially the more casual, beer-and-pretzels sort, can get behind. Ditch the story and let them go wandering. Virtually the entire Monster Manual can be found in the depths: beholders, dragons, githyanki, a lich, and mind flayers all have carved out their own domains, in addition to your bog-standard orcs, troglodytes, drow, kobolds, goblins, and trolls. Level 15 (Obstacle Course) is worth the price of admission by itself: a single 40-encounter map that does its best to split the party and throw them up against ridiculous traps and fights, while a seemingly omniscient voice taunts and harangues them every time they make a mistake. The authors also insert some nods to older campaign settings which have yet to appear in 5E format, like Spelljammer and Al-Qadim.
If you've got the time to bind this one into a fully-functional campaign with some kind of over-arching plot, then you'll have a field day. Otherwise, Dungeon of the Mad Mage is best approached as a riotous throwback to the early days of the game, where the PCs were expected to murder-hobo their way through everything and emerge with enough loot to last five lifetimes. Approach it from that direction and you'll have a blast no matter who's playing with you. It ain't perfect, but no mega-dungeon is. You can use Dragon Heist in conjunction with it to get the layout of Waterdeep when they aren't diving into the deep end of Undermountain, but this isn't necessary in the slightest to use this product.
Three-and-a-half insane wizards out of five.
If you've ever taken a trip through the city of Baldur's Gate, if you walked in the shoes of Volothamp Geddarm around the Sword Coast, if the adventures of Drizzt Do'Urden thrilled you through the writings of R.A. Salvatore, then the Realms have been your second home too. And just as Gary Gygax's Greyhawk setting has its legendary "Castle Greyhawk" dungeon waiting to capture unwary adventurers in its cruel and unrelenting jaws, so too do the Forgotten Realms have the city of Waterdeep and the fearsome, unfathomable depths of Undermountain.
Much has been made of Undermountain over the years, but it's cropped up in some form or another in the D&D product line since its official introduction in 1987 within FR1: Waterdeep and the North, a reference book meant to interface with the Forgotten Realms Campaign boxed set released earlier the same year. Greenwood, of course, had been using Undermountain in his own home campaign since 1975, and pieces of its history and lore trickled into official D&D lore as early as 1982 in the pages of Dragon Magazine.
In the decades hence, Undermountain has seen re-releases, revisions, and retcons regarding its layouts and denizens, but the largest and most well-regarded of them is 1991's The Ruins of Undermountain. Written for the 2E ruleset, it contains four massive poster maps, a 32-page booklet detailing a number of potential adventure opportunities and hooks, and a 128-page book detailing the first three levels of the dungeon. "Three dungeon levels" may not sound like much, but each of these levels is the size of a small city, and only some of the areas are keyed to descriptions within the text. The rest is left to the Dungeon Master to fill in and expand to fit their specific needs and players. In 1994, TSR provided an expansion in the form of another boxed set, The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels, which came with four new poster-sized maps detailing two more floors of this behemoth. Two years later in 1996, they published the first of their "Dungeon Crawl" series, which were individual modules keyed to classic campaign settings. The title? Undermountain: The Lost Level, a 32-page expansion to the dungeon's already-considerable bulk. This was followed up with two more Undermountain-themed adventures the same year: Undermountain: Maddgoth's Castle, and Undermountain: Stardock, each one featuring a new layer to the madness and an increasing challenge for PCs. Stardock, for instance, is aimed solely at high-level play. The final Undermountain-themed supplement for Second Edition, Skullport, came out in 1999 and detailed the "City beneath the City" -- Skullport is a shadowy reflection of Waterdeep, where all manner of nefarious deeds, from assassinations and thievery to outright slave trading and genocide, are plotted and carried out.
As Greenwood designed it, Undermountain contained nine full levels, and at least fourteen additional sub-levels. It was entirely possible to run a campaign through all of 2nd Edition using material exclusive to Undermountain for the duration of the 2E product line and beyond. Undermountain was the mega-dungeon against which all other mega-dungeons have been and always shall be judged.
Now, almost thirty years later, Wizards of the Coast has gone back to the Yawning Portal for another excursion. Written to slot in after the events depicted in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the titular Dungeon of the Mad Mage is 5E's re-introduction of the deadliest dungeon in all Faerun. For players disappointed that Dragon Heist ignored Undermountain in favor of a city-themed campaign, this may feel like an answer to prayers. But even at 320 pages, making it one of the largest hardcovers released so far for this rule set, is this tome big enough to tackle, as it claims, twenty-three levels of Undermountain? Meant to take characters from 5th to 20th level, Dungeon of the Mad Mage is the first true mega-dungeon-format campaign for Fifth Edition. Let's see what all the fuss is about, shall we?
Gearing Up
Let's get one thing out of the way up front. If you're wondering how the Wizards design team stuffed twenty-three levels' worth of Undermountain into a single hardback when two boxed sets and four additional supplements could barely manage 1/3rd of that total, the answer is simple: they didn't. Every map of every level of Undermoutain featured in this book contains around fifty keyed encounter areas, enough to fit on one 8.5"x11" page and thus easily photocopied (something you as the DM will want to do, because flipping back and forth between the maps and the encounter text is a nightmare). Those of you seeking a poster-filled extravaganza like the boxed sets of old will be disappointed.
What you get for your $49.99 is better thought of as 23 individual modules bound together between the covers, each with a different focus and put together by a different design team. If you've explored Undermountain through previous products, you'll run into some familiar terrain. As in earlier works, The Yawning Portal tavern serves as the primary entrance to Undermountain. In fact, a number of the maps you'll find in the book correlate almost exactly with portions of the poster maps from original Ruins boxed set, though just because the rooms are similar doesn't mean their occupants and/or contents will be. Some things, amusingly, have remained the same: there's still the same burnt-out nub of a torch laying on the floor in one of the earliest rooms of the dungeon, for instance. Others, however, have not. Players expecting to meta-game their way through the adventure will find themselves frustrated when it turns out thirty years ago, some other adventurers found that compartment at the base of the pillar and cleaned it out. Another early room contains the same three hidden alcoves as before, but while earlier incarnations had treasure in two and one of them empty, Dungeon of the Mad Mage swaps this around, putting the only piece of treasure in the alcove which was empty back in 1991. At the same time, there's just enough kept similar that grognards can't assume everything has changed. The mirrors in that one room still mess with you, and you'll still regret fooling with that statue -- that's all I'm saying. ;)
Areas like the "Lost Level", "Wyllowood", and "Maddgoth's Castle" make their returns too, and that's nice to see: the product is going a long way to incorporating lots of different elements from previous supplements, serving as a kind of "grand unifying theory" for Undermountain content, and in this, it succeeds admirably.
At the same time, not everything here is recycled or repurposed. In fact, the bulk of the book is newly built specifically for this reintroduction. The designers used the classic products discussed above as a springboard/foundation, just as they've done for other campaigns like Curse of Strahd, but don't simply retread old ground. If what you were hoping for was a complete update of the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set, this will satisfy a tiny part of that lust. If, on the other hand, what you wanted was an entirely new reason to go risking life and limb beneath the streets of Waterdeep, then you'll find that wish granted too.
The Downside
As awesome as all that sounds, there's no getting around just how small these individual levels feel (seriously, one of them is only 7 pages long, and that includes the map; the section on the infamous Skullport, the city beneath the city, is even shorter than that at six pages). And while every map includes multiple expansion slots where you can incorporate your own DM-created material, the overall effect isn't so much of one massive, inter-connected, sprawling complex as it is two dozen one-floor dungeons sewn together with the flimsiest of plot threads. Yes, there's a lot to see, and do, and fight, and loot in Undermountain, but the story holding it all together is literally: "One day this really super-strong Archmage went crazy and and spent the next few decades building this mega-labyrinth. Your party should go check that out, because I, as the DM, just dropped fifty bucks on this book."
That's exaggerating, but not as much as you might think.
If you want there to be some overarching raison d'etre for the Undermountain campaign beyond "because it's there!", you'll have to make it up yourself. While the book supplies several reasons to make individual excursions into the dungeon early on, and each "floor" includes goals for the PCs to work towards then explains how those accomplishments (or failures) tie into other levels of the campaign, once those reasons have been satisfied, the next phase of the campaign relies on the players willingly dropping back into the meat grinder for another chapter.
Finally, if there's any 5E product worthy of at least one enormous, fold-out poster map, it's Dungeon of the Mad Mage. The original boxed sets gave us a total of eight of these monsters, but we couldn't even get one here? That's the most disappointing thing of all to me as a long-time player.
Worth A Buy?
Despite all that?
Yeah, it's totally worth a buy.
Undermountain, as I said before, is the mega-dungeon before which all other mega-dungeons pay tribute. Even if you completely ignore the threadbare plot, there's still tons of material to pillage for your own personal campaign. You could even ditch all the connections and let your PCs use Undermountain not as a campaign, but a source of short, multi-session missions when they're between jobs and need something to do, or want to grind for some XP and treasure. "Let's go see if we can make it down to level five this time!" is totally something many players, especially the more casual, beer-and-pretzels sort, can get behind. Ditch the story and let them go wandering. Virtually the entire Monster Manual can be found in the depths: beholders, dragons, githyanki, a lich, and mind flayers all have carved out their own domains, in addition to your bog-standard orcs, troglodytes, drow, kobolds, goblins, and trolls. Level 15 (Obstacle Course) is worth the price of admission by itself: a single 40-encounter map that does its best to split the party and throw them up against ridiculous traps and fights, while a seemingly omniscient voice taunts and harangues them every time they make a mistake. The authors also insert some nods to older campaign settings which have yet to appear in 5E format, like Spelljammer and Al-Qadim.
If you've got the time to bind this one into a fully-functional campaign with some kind of over-arching plot, then you'll have a field day. Otherwise, Dungeon of the Mad Mage is best approached as a riotous throwback to the early days of the game, where the PCs were expected to murder-hobo their way through everything and emerge with enough loot to last five lifetimes. Approach it from that direction and you'll have a blast no matter who's playing with you. It ain't perfect, but no mega-dungeon is. You can use Dragon Heist in conjunction with it to get the layout of Waterdeep when they aren't diving into the deep end of Undermountain, but this isn't necessary in the slightest to use this product.
Three-and-a-half insane wizards out of five.
November 24, 2022
A great big dungeon crawl that's very light on plot and woefully lacking in good loot, but serves as a fantastic setting and has some amazing NPCs to play around with. Some levels I have run pretty much exactly as the book describes them, some I have altered to fit the needs of my plot, and some I have honestly skipped altogether.
It's not really an adventure that you can open and play with no prep, but there's a lot of toys to play with, arrange, and rearrange. I've definitely enjoyed running people through this one.
It's not really an adventure that you can open and play with no prep, but there's a lot of toys to play with, arrange, and rearrange. I've definitely enjoyed running people through this one.
December 25, 2025
7 and a half years and finished running this campaign. Figured I should mark that it's been read as I have reread it so many times and remember so little🤣🤦
January 22, 2020
Intriguingly enough, this book has a book that comes from a previous volume that I read and reviewed in this series [1], and it too uses the Yawning Portal as the connection between the events of the campaign and the world that adventurers would be familiar with. This particular book, though, has a massive and deeply complex campaign that can fully upgrade a group of characters from level 5 or so to level 20 depending on how seriously they take this campaign and how well they undertake to solve it. The campaign is deeply complex, involving multiple factions with different agendas and some choices as to which evil beings with dark agendas the characters will ally themselves with, either temporarily or fully, which means that this campaign is probably to be preferred by those who appreciate a darker approach than the usual and are not so concerned about the sorts of motivations that typically drive people to see justice and carve out their own land. After all, the land here to be fought over is the shifting and sometimes illusory domain of various evil forces and not something that one can permanently claim for oneself.
This particular book is more than 300 pages long. It begins with a Dungeon key and then an overview of the Undermountain, including various adventure hooks and the entrance into the dungeon from the Yawning Portal. After that most of the book consists of the 23 levels of the dungeon, all of which look at who or what dwells there, the exploration of the level, and the aftermath. After the dungeon level (1), arcane chambers (2), Sargauth level (3), and twisted caverns (4), there is a discussion of the magic of Wyllowwood (5) as well as a lost level (6). After that Maddgoth's castle (7), Slitherswamp (8), and the Dweomercore (9) are revealed. There is a look at Muiral's gauntlet (10), the Troglodyte warrens (11), a maze level (12), and Trobriand's graveyard (13). After that comes Arcturiadoom (14), an obstacle course (15), a crystal labyrinth (16), and the Seadeeps (17). Then comes Vanrakdoom, whose creator and lord had a very dark fate (18), the caverns of Ooze (19), as well as the Runestone Caverns and Stalagmite Tower (20). Finally, the dungeon ends with a Terminus level (21), three tiers of the Shadowdusk hold (22), and the Mad Wizard's lair itself (23). After this the book ends with a discussion of Skullport and three appendices that introduce the dungeon's deadly denizens (i), the Elder Runes deck (ii), and the Secrets deck (iii) that can be used to add randomness to the adventure.
Ultimately this scenario seems disappointing to me and not one that I would particularly enjoy playing. Most of the beings that one would interact here are evil, making it hard to find enough "good guys" to support to make this a worthwhile campaign. That said, if allying with one drow house or another or making efforts to either temporarily kill or dispossess evil wizards or involving yourself in the efforts of various beings to create alternate realities to siphon the psionic energy of others seems appealing to you, then this adventure provides a dark and morally grey to black adventure that may be appealing. As for me, I have other preferences when I am playing in adventures that this book just does not provide, but at the same time it was certainly interesting, I must admit, and something I could see as at least theoretically appealing to a certain type of player and group. And that is probably for the best. Not every sort of adventure will be appealing for everyone, and so long as something can be appealing to someone it is likely that such a thing will be provided for those people to enjoy.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2020...
This particular book is more than 300 pages long. It begins with a Dungeon key and then an overview of the Undermountain, including various adventure hooks and the entrance into the dungeon from the Yawning Portal. After that most of the book consists of the 23 levels of the dungeon, all of which look at who or what dwells there, the exploration of the level, and the aftermath. After the dungeon level (1), arcane chambers (2), Sargauth level (3), and twisted caverns (4), there is a discussion of the magic of Wyllowwood (5) as well as a lost level (6). After that Maddgoth's castle (7), Slitherswamp (8), and the Dweomercore (9) are revealed. There is a look at Muiral's gauntlet (10), the Troglodyte warrens (11), a maze level (12), and Trobriand's graveyard (13). After that comes Arcturiadoom (14), an obstacle course (15), a crystal labyrinth (16), and the Seadeeps (17). Then comes Vanrakdoom, whose creator and lord had a very dark fate (18), the caverns of Ooze (19), as well as the Runestone Caverns and Stalagmite Tower (20). Finally, the dungeon ends with a Terminus level (21), three tiers of the Shadowdusk hold (22), and the Mad Wizard's lair itself (23). After this the book ends with a discussion of Skullport and three appendices that introduce the dungeon's deadly denizens (i), the Elder Runes deck (ii), and the Secrets deck (iii) that can be used to add randomness to the adventure.
Ultimately this scenario seems disappointing to me and not one that I would particularly enjoy playing. Most of the beings that one would interact here are evil, making it hard to find enough "good guys" to support to make this a worthwhile campaign. That said, if allying with one drow house or another or making efforts to either temporarily kill or dispossess evil wizards or involving yourself in the efforts of various beings to create alternate realities to siphon the psionic energy of others seems appealing to you, then this adventure provides a dark and morally grey to black adventure that may be appealing. As for me, I have other preferences when I am playing in adventures that this book just does not provide, but at the same time it was certainly interesting, I must admit, and something I could see as at least theoretically appealing to a certain type of player and group. And that is probably for the best. Not every sort of adventure will be appealing for everyone, and so long as something can be appealing to someone it is likely that such a thing will be provided for those people to enjoy.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2020...
June 24, 2019
My overall rating for this is quite low, but there are some parts of it which I would have scored much higher. A big old-school dungeon crawl over many levels and for characters from low to high level as they progress.
There are many nice takes on the "dungeon level", with interesting and quirky stories. However, the overall story is very much (and often literally) handwaved as "a wizard did it". And the final epic battle with the Mad Mage Halastar himself, if there is one, will be followed by his magically coming back to life a week or two later.
Also, and this is just my old-school grognard history showing, I was surprised by how little magical treasure there is to be found here.
I did enjoy the read, going through a chapter at a time as bedside reading.
I would use this for ideas, the odd NPC or setting, or use a level of the dungeon here and there as an adventure in a different setting.
There are many nice takes on the "dungeon level", with interesting and quirky stories. However, the overall story is very much (and often literally) handwaved as "a wizard did it". And the final epic battle with the Mad Mage Halastar himself, if there is one, will be followed by his magically coming back to life a week or two later.
Also, and this is just my old-school grognard history showing, I was surprised by how little magical treasure there is to be found here.
I did enjoy the read, going through a chapter at a time as bedside reading.
I would use this for ideas, the odd NPC or setting, or use a level of the dungeon here and there as an adventure in a different setting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 31, 2019
The players in my Dungeons and Dragons campaign insisted that we play this next after completing "Curse of Strahd", and at first, I was a little hesitant. This module tells the story of Halaster, the Mad Mage of the title, whose domain of Undermountain is a mish-mash of settings and foes from various parts of the Dungeons and Dragons mythos. It's a bit illogical, a bit chaotic. I've been running it for a few months now and enjoying it, however -- it's definitely not a module for amateur players, but in the right hands, it's an opportunity for the characters to literally be surprised at almost any twist or turn. Full of surprises for the person running the game, as well -- who knew that my players would end up getting so attached to the magical school full of evil students? Try not to think about it too hard, and this is a fun set of adventures.
July 29, 2019
A fun Precon campaign that lasts characters from levels 5-20. I'm currently DMing this with my group and its a lot of fun. My only complaint is that it feels a bit unstructured, the levels aren't too related and whenever something doesn't fit they just say 'it was brought here by Halaster'. Overall one of the better precons.
October 11, 2020
No, I didn’t read the book from cover to cover. Unless I was going to DM this for a group that would be too much. But I did work through the material and it would be a lot of fun to “experience” it through the eyes of a player. In the hands of a good DM, this adventure could be thrilling, exhausting and extremely fulfilling.
January 29, 2019
The adventure is one giant dungeon crawl which of course means there isn't a lot of plot holding it all together but the book is a gold mine of ideas of things you can use in your game. I don't think I will ever run this adventure as is but the amount of content is worth the price.
January 23, 2022
Many of the hardcover adventures released for 5th edition D&D by Wizards of the Coast have been based on adventures from earlier editions of the game and this is no different, being loosely based on the Ruins of Undermountain box sets from AD&D 2nd edition.
Essentially, this is a giant dungeon crawl, but the authors have taken care to make the levels sufficiently different from one another, and given the dungeon denizens a variety of different motivations, so that this doesn't turn into a giant 20+ level slug-fest. There is certainly the opportunity to play it that way, if the players and DM wish to do so, but diplomacy and guile can be used to succeed on many of the levels.
There is no single theme set throughout the dungeon, and it is explained throughout the adventure that this is a "living dungeon", where the denizens of various levels have changed over time. The whole dungeon is controlled, so a varying degree, by Halaster, rightly known as the Mad Mage, which also explains a lack of cohesion between the different levels.
The adventure is designed to take characters from level 5 through to level 20. As with most adventures for 5e, it's not easy to kill characters (certainly not as easy as it was in 1st and 2nd ed AD&D, but easier than D&D 4). That said, there are some areas which can result in a TPK if the party is foolish or perhaps just unlucky.
The group I have been running this for have been playing pretty much once a month (in 5-6 hour sessions) and are about to enter the final level - after about 3 years of play time. Overall, this is one of the better dungeon crawl type adventures around.
Essentially, this is a giant dungeon crawl, but the authors have taken care to make the levels sufficiently different from one another, and given the dungeon denizens a variety of different motivations, so that this doesn't turn into a giant 20+ level slug-fest. There is certainly the opportunity to play it that way, if the players and DM wish to do so, but diplomacy and guile can be used to succeed on many of the levels.
There is no single theme set throughout the dungeon, and it is explained throughout the adventure that this is a "living dungeon", where the denizens of various levels have changed over time. The whole dungeon is controlled, so a varying degree, by Halaster, rightly known as the Mad Mage, which also explains a lack of cohesion between the different levels.
The adventure is designed to take characters from level 5 through to level 20. As with most adventures for 5e, it's not easy to kill characters (certainly not as easy as it was in 1st and 2nd ed AD&D, but easier than D&D 4). That said, there are some areas which can result in a TPK if the party is foolish or perhaps just unlucky.
The group I have been running this for have been playing pretty much once a month (in 5-6 hour sessions) and are about to enter the final level - after about 3 years of play time. Overall, this is one of the better dungeon crawl type adventures around.
March 5, 2020
Forgot I finished this last year. I ran half of it and then handed off. Pacing was difficult, but it was enjoyable.
Read
September 20, 2021Yeah so I did say in my review of Dragon Heist that I'd never read this, but given it was the only 5e adventure book I had left to read, and that I was looking for some good dungeon content for something I'm working on, I suffered through 23 dungeon levels and all their hundreds and hundreds of keyed locations. Some of the levels are inspired, most are just fine and nothing to write home about, a few are pretty boring. As there's a staggering amount of combat and traps and general dungeon stuff in here, you should only run this if your party are hardcore dungeon crawlers; even then, something of this size might still be too much: if you met once a week, this could still take well over a year, maybe two if you were thorough. Anyway, below I reproduce the notes I took as I was reading through the levels.
1. Dungeon Level: your bog standard dungeon, though not without its little pieces of innovation and surprise.
2. Arcane Chambers: as above, but once again its various competing factions make it feel more alive than it might otherwise.
3. Sargauth Level: as above again, but the river is a nice environmental touch, and I enjoy the "aftermath" sections explaining the ongoing consequences of the players' possible actions.
4. Twisted Caverns: good denizens and environment, but still pretty samey.
5. Wyllowwood: finally, a good dungeon. An underground forest that can change seasons at the whim of a trapped druid. A dragon with a sword stuck in its skull. Goblin werebats! One of the best chapters in the book.
6. Lost Level: a return to the regular and mostly boring dungeon formula. I am fond of duergar for some reason tho, and there is a slaad hiding in a privy, so this level's not a total washout.
7. Maddgoth's Castle: outer caverns are boring, but there's a tiny castle that shrinks the players down to its size as they approach it. This seems fun, but functionally it's just a regular castle then because everything's relative. This time there's a slaad hiding in the hole of a guitar, which is an odd continuing theme.
8. Slitherswamp: a swamp! Bullywugs and naga and yuan-ti, all at each other's throats. It's not actually functionally that different to earlier levels, but the aesthetic shift goes a long way.
9. Dweomercore: an evil wizard academy, full of evil apprentices. This one's not bad! Lots of opportunity for good RP, and indeed fighting your way through here would be a tedious and dangerous option. Instead it's way better to get involved in the intrigue and feuds between the various shady mages.
10. Muiral's Gauntlet: this level has a PA system, so that's fun. No slaad hiding in odd places tho, what gives.
11. Troglodyte Warrens: too many monsters, too similar to previous levels. However it's hard to be entirely mad when there's a five-armed troll.
12. Maze Level: buncha drow fighting a buncha minotaurs. Boring.
13. Trobriand's Graveyard: scrap metal and weird constructs and a giant metal worm that you can ride, a burned myconid forest, fire and steel and death. Strikes a balance between zany and serious. Pretty good!
14. Arcturiadoom: too much combat (unless you think your players would relish fighting like 40 hobgoblins at once), but I always enjoy a rakshasa, and a nice forge, plus there's a "weapon of mass disintegration".
15. Obstacle Course: the running commentary from the mad mage here is very fun, as are the teleport traps and the giant lava-filled chasm, but I dunno, it lacks the frenetic pace or over-the-top feeling that I think a dungeon level like this needs.
16. Crystal Labyrinth: crystal chambers, a struggle between mind flayers and gith who ride dragons, and then an asteroid floating in orbit. Apparently dragons can breathe in a vacuum. A nice novelty level, but little more than that.
17. Seadeeps: more gith/mind flayer stuff, a giant trapped illithid worm, a rushing river and cistern, all good stuff. More importantly tho, if your players get captured or knocked unconscious here, they could end up in a Matrix fake reality version of Waterdeep. If your party's come through by way of Dragon Heist, this is an unparalleled opportunity to mess with them, otherwise you could just replace it with whatever city they've got a connection to. Undoubtedly the best level in the dungeon.
18. Vanrakdoom: vampire cultists, a sad dragon, and a dungeon half dragged into the shadowfell. I don't love it, but this sort of vivid aesthetic and gradual environmental storytelling ought to be the standard, rather that just a bunch of rooms with angry dudes in.
19. Caverns of Ooze: quality ooze content, genies engaged in competition, and a mind flayer space pirate. One of the better levels.
20. Runestone Caverns: golems ineffectually assaulting a lich's lair, an oracle that plays hold music, a jigsaw puzzle. In a plot twist, the lich is nice. This level is fine.
21. Terminus Level: a corrupted celestial holds judgement over some duergar and demons, in an abandoned mine with bleeding walls. One of the many levels that would be far more interesting if combat was presented as a non-viable solution to the problems at hand.
22. Shadowdusk Hold: big terrible mansion corrupted by the far realm. I was thinking this wouldn't be much of a combat challenge for the suggested party of 17th level, then we got to the dozen nothics, quite a lot of death slaad, a death knight with a sword that instakills on a crit, and a bloody dracolich. Not the most fun/interesting level or anything, but certainly not bad.
23. Mad Wizard's Lair: the big boss level, along with some other bits and pieces. If you've played through the previous 22 levels to get here, this absolutely needs something extra to be a satisfying conclusion, because as it stands it's just another fight with a guy in a room. Also the mad mage, as per his statblock, is also literally incapable of being permanently killed, which you might want to change if you don't want your players to be real mad at you.
As I suspected, I have zero interest in running this as-is, but there are certainly pieces I can steal and tweak and slide into campaigns elsewhere.
1. Dungeon Level: your bog standard dungeon, though not without its little pieces of innovation and surprise.
2. Arcane Chambers: as above, but once again its various competing factions make it feel more alive than it might otherwise.
3. Sargauth Level: as above again, but the river is a nice environmental touch, and I enjoy the "aftermath" sections explaining the ongoing consequences of the players' possible actions.
4. Twisted Caverns: good denizens and environment, but still pretty samey.
5. Wyllowwood: finally, a good dungeon. An underground forest that can change seasons at the whim of a trapped druid. A dragon with a sword stuck in its skull. Goblin werebats! One of the best chapters in the book.
6. Lost Level: a return to the regular and mostly boring dungeon formula. I am fond of duergar for some reason tho, and there is a slaad hiding in a privy, so this level's not a total washout.
7. Maddgoth's Castle: outer caverns are boring, but there's a tiny castle that shrinks the players down to its size as they approach it. This seems fun, but functionally it's just a regular castle then because everything's relative. This time there's a slaad hiding in the hole of a guitar, which is an odd continuing theme.
8. Slitherswamp: a swamp! Bullywugs and naga and yuan-ti, all at each other's throats. It's not actually functionally that different to earlier levels, but the aesthetic shift goes a long way.
9. Dweomercore: an evil wizard academy, full of evil apprentices. This one's not bad! Lots of opportunity for good RP, and indeed fighting your way through here would be a tedious and dangerous option. Instead it's way better to get involved in the intrigue and feuds between the various shady mages.
10. Muiral's Gauntlet: this level has a PA system, so that's fun. No slaad hiding in odd places tho, what gives.
11. Troglodyte Warrens: too many monsters, too similar to previous levels. However it's hard to be entirely mad when there's a five-armed troll.
12. Maze Level: buncha drow fighting a buncha minotaurs. Boring.
13. Trobriand's Graveyard: scrap metal and weird constructs and a giant metal worm that you can ride, a burned myconid forest, fire and steel and death. Strikes a balance between zany and serious. Pretty good!
14. Arcturiadoom: too much combat (unless you think your players would relish fighting like 40 hobgoblins at once), but I always enjoy a rakshasa, and a nice forge, plus there's a "weapon of mass disintegration".
15. Obstacle Course: the running commentary from the mad mage here is very fun, as are the teleport traps and the giant lava-filled chasm, but I dunno, it lacks the frenetic pace or over-the-top feeling that I think a dungeon level like this needs.
16. Crystal Labyrinth: crystal chambers, a struggle between mind flayers and gith who ride dragons, and then an asteroid floating in orbit. Apparently dragons can breathe in a vacuum. A nice novelty level, but little more than that.
17. Seadeeps: more gith/mind flayer stuff, a giant trapped illithid worm, a rushing river and cistern, all good stuff. More importantly tho, if your players get captured or knocked unconscious here, they could end up in a Matrix fake reality version of Waterdeep. If your party's come through by way of Dragon Heist, this is an unparalleled opportunity to mess with them, otherwise you could just replace it with whatever city they've got a connection to. Undoubtedly the best level in the dungeon.
18. Vanrakdoom: vampire cultists, a sad dragon, and a dungeon half dragged into the shadowfell. I don't love it, but this sort of vivid aesthetic and gradual environmental storytelling ought to be the standard, rather that just a bunch of rooms with angry dudes in.
19. Caverns of Ooze: quality ooze content, genies engaged in competition, and a mind flayer space pirate. One of the better levels.
20. Runestone Caverns: golems ineffectually assaulting a lich's lair, an oracle that plays hold music, a jigsaw puzzle. In a plot twist, the lich is nice. This level is fine.
21. Terminus Level: a corrupted celestial holds judgement over some duergar and demons, in an abandoned mine with bleeding walls. One of the many levels that would be far more interesting if combat was presented as a non-viable solution to the problems at hand.
22. Shadowdusk Hold: big terrible mansion corrupted by the far realm. I was thinking this wouldn't be much of a combat challenge for the suggested party of 17th level, then we got to the dozen nothics, quite a lot of death slaad, a death knight with a sword that instakills on a crit, and a bloody dracolich. Not the most fun/interesting level or anything, but certainly not bad.
23. Mad Wizard's Lair: the big boss level, along with some other bits and pieces. If you've played through the previous 22 levels to get here, this absolutely needs something extra to be a satisfying conclusion, because as it stands it's just another fight with a guy in a room. Also the mad mage, as per his statblock, is also literally incapable of being permanently killed, which you might want to change if you don't want your players to be real mad at you.
As I suspected, I have zero interest in running this as-is, but there are certainly pieces I can steal and tweak and slide into campaigns elsewhere.
August 1, 2021
I wanted to learn how to build dungeons and stock with them encounters. I do not just mean monsters to fight or traps to avoid but a full adventure. So I looked to the professionals of the "world's greatest roleplaying game" and picked up the mega-dungeon known as Undermountain.
This is a review for "Dungeon of the Mad Mage".
Wow, this module is versatile. The flexibility written into this mega-dungeon is amazing. I was expecting something that was a one-size-fits all sort of thing. You know, something like the modules that Adventure's League DMs run: the players arrive for X reason, and then Y happens. Let the players react and then tell them to do Z. This book isn't written like that at all. In fact, it is so flexible it is less of a pre-written adventure and more like a pre-written setting that includes set-piece events for a DM to use or adapt for their own adventure.
For instance, the first chapter provides adventure hooks for the party but acknowledges that players can have their own reasons for entering Undermountain. The players aren't locked into a particular quest or storyline. A DM could make up their own reason. This is an easy thing to do. I found myself coming up with several hooks for venturing to particular levels; hooks that didn't have anything to do with the specific adventure suggested but just the setting provided.
The same chapter has this sidebar listing off possible motivations for Halaster Blackcloak, the Mad Mage himself, to tolerate the adventurers intruding in his lair. There are six in total, and they can change whenever the DM wants without explanation. As the book says, "he is the Mad Mage, after all". So the DM could make up some totally bonkers motivation, and that would be totally legit. If they don't want to include him, then they can leave Halaster in the background.
The dungeon levels themselves are flexible. Each level map is created with tunnels that lead off the established area. These are marked as "tunnel leads to expanded dungeon". So the DM can add rooms and events if they want, or they can pretend those tunnels don't exist and treat the area as a solid wall.
A list of wandering monsters is often provided that the DM can include if they want to shake up an existing room. Even if a player has read this book, they can still be surprised by these wandering creatures, or who may or may not appear.
Finally, while each level is written with its own storyline, the book acknowledge multiple ways that the players could resolve it, or even ignore it. This is tacit encouragement for the DM to tweak things to fit their own narrative. I see the levels more as "template settings" than hard-coded adventures. Indeed, one doesn't even have to use them for Undermountain.
Each level is designed to work within Undermountain. Of course, it is, because they are included in this book. However, they can take place elsewhere. A little tweaking of lore or re-flavoring of certain factions or items, and any given level can be its own stand-alone adventure. For example, there is no reason why Dweomercore, the school for evil mages, has to be inside Undermountain. It could be some isolated mansion in the woods, or part of an urban city with either a public reputation or secret existence.
I do not mean that this flexibility is nothing but options. There is a concrete path to walk if you choose to walk it. A DM can run this adventure exactly as it is, no changes necessary, and it would still be a complete adventure. There are storylines, individual events, monster encounters, and treasures of all kinds already provided.
Each level of the dungeon is supposed to be balanced to the party's level, and there's even a in-universe mechanic to prevent players from going to levels they may not be ready for (if the DM wants to use it). The experience gained from each level will help the party level up and be ready for the next one. As for being balanced treasure-wise, that is something I want to address.
I don't really understand the value of the wealth-per-level thing. It sounds too rigid for storytelling. Why should the same dungeon contain more or less treasure for parties of different levels? It sounds like game-ism for the sake of game-ism. The treasure found in Undermountain makes a great deal of sense with its story.
The majority of the treasure found here is from other people who have set up shop in Undermountain. The bandits, the Drow Houses, the Hobgoblin army, other adventuring parties (living or dead, but mostly dead) etc. are the ones with the treasure. This is because the player's party is not the first to go into Undermountain. Heck, the main entrance to Level One is basically a tourist attraction in the Yawning Portal tavern. Lots of adventurers have gone in and searched for loot. So the book mentions empty treasure chests, already-looted vaults, and other signs of previous adventuring parties. There is STILL treasure to be found, but it is going to be on deeper levels, in better hiding places, etc. I find this a fantastic thematic device.
The artwork and maps and all that stuff look good too. I just don't want to go into detail about it. Rest assured that flipping between the map and the descriptions of the rooms keyed to the map is an easy thing to do. I did just that when I was reading through the book to get a sense for how the level was laid out.
As a dungeon master, my reaction to reading even the first several levels was, "I want to play through this with someone."
Trickster Eric Novels gives Dungeon of the Mad Mage an A+
This is a review for "Dungeon of the Mad Mage".
Wow, this module is versatile. The flexibility written into this mega-dungeon is amazing. I was expecting something that was a one-size-fits all sort of thing. You know, something like the modules that Adventure's League DMs run: the players arrive for X reason, and then Y happens. Let the players react and then tell them to do Z. This book isn't written like that at all. In fact, it is so flexible it is less of a pre-written adventure and more like a pre-written setting that includes set-piece events for a DM to use or adapt for their own adventure.
For instance, the first chapter provides adventure hooks for the party but acknowledges that players can have their own reasons for entering Undermountain. The players aren't locked into a particular quest or storyline. A DM could make up their own reason. This is an easy thing to do. I found myself coming up with several hooks for venturing to particular levels; hooks that didn't have anything to do with the specific adventure suggested but just the setting provided.
The same chapter has this sidebar listing off possible motivations for Halaster Blackcloak, the Mad Mage himself, to tolerate the adventurers intruding in his lair. There are six in total, and they can change whenever the DM wants without explanation. As the book says, "he is the Mad Mage, after all". So the DM could make up some totally bonkers motivation, and that would be totally legit. If they don't want to include him, then they can leave Halaster in the background.
The dungeon levels themselves are flexible. Each level map is created with tunnels that lead off the established area. These are marked as "tunnel leads to expanded dungeon". So the DM can add rooms and events if they want, or they can pretend those tunnels don't exist and treat the area as a solid wall.
A list of wandering monsters is often provided that the DM can include if they want to shake up an existing room. Even if a player has read this book, they can still be surprised by these wandering creatures, or who may or may not appear.
Finally, while each level is written with its own storyline, the book acknowledge multiple ways that the players could resolve it, or even ignore it. This is tacit encouragement for the DM to tweak things to fit their own narrative. I see the levels more as "template settings" than hard-coded adventures. Indeed, one doesn't even have to use them for Undermountain.
Each level is designed to work within Undermountain. Of course, it is, because they are included in this book. However, they can take place elsewhere. A little tweaking of lore or re-flavoring of certain factions or items, and any given level can be its own stand-alone adventure. For example, there is no reason why Dweomercore, the school for evil mages, has to be inside Undermountain. It could be some isolated mansion in the woods, or part of an urban city with either a public reputation or secret existence.
I do not mean that this flexibility is nothing but options. There is a concrete path to walk if you choose to walk it. A DM can run this adventure exactly as it is, no changes necessary, and it would still be a complete adventure. There are storylines, individual events, monster encounters, and treasures of all kinds already provided.
Each level of the dungeon is supposed to be balanced to the party's level, and there's even a in-universe mechanic to prevent players from going to levels they may not be ready for (if the DM wants to use it). The experience gained from each level will help the party level up and be ready for the next one. As for being balanced treasure-wise, that is something I want to address.
I don't really understand the value of the wealth-per-level thing. It sounds too rigid for storytelling. Why should the same dungeon contain more or less treasure for parties of different levels? It sounds like game-ism for the sake of game-ism. The treasure found in Undermountain makes a great deal of sense with its story.
The majority of the treasure found here is from other people who have set up shop in Undermountain. The bandits, the Drow Houses, the Hobgoblin army, other adventuring parties (living or dead, but mostly dead) etc. are the ones with the treasure. This is because the player's party is not the first to go into Undermountain. Heck, the main entrance to Level One is basically a tourist attraction in the Yawning Portal tavern. Lots of adventurers have gone in and searched for loot. So the book mentions empty treasure chests, already-looted vaults, and other signs of previous adventuring parties. There is STILL treasure to be found, but it is going to be on deeper levels, in better hiding places, etc. I find this a fantastic thematic device.
The artwork and maps and all that stuff look good too. I just don't want to go into detail about it. Rest assured that flipping between the map and the descriptions of the rooms keyed to the map is an easy thing to do. I did just that when I was reading through the book to get a sense for how the level was laid out.
As a dungeon master, my reaction to reading even the first several levels was, "I want to play through this with someone."
Trickster Eric Novels gives Dungeon of the Mad Mage an A+
May 2, 2019
This is an incredibly huge dungeon of some 25 levels or something crazy. Additional areas on each level to expand your own dungeon areas and a good link into Waterdeep areas around the Yawning Portal (see Tales of the Yawning Portal) as the entrance is via that bar and a well in the bar. Levels could easily be pulled out for use in other campaigns and patched together in different ways. Excellent source material for any campaign.
February 8, 2020
This is a gigantic fun house dungeon. It has the feel of an old adventure from 1st edition or the old box sets. It has no plot to speak of. It just is a gigantic dungeon crawl designed to take players from 5th to 20th level. There are 23 levels of dungeon in it.
The main problem with it is a lack of new monsters. Often it will shove a modified monster into the text and say it is like this monster but with these changes. It pretty much ignores the monster's in Volo's and Mordenkainen and while it does have a few new monsters, it struggles to fill out the higher levels with critters. It would have been better if they had had two less levels and added new monsters to cover the upper levels. In particular, the penultimate level (22) Shadowdusk Hold does not in my opinion work, which is a shame because part of the reason that I wanted this was very high level play (It's 17th level) and this is not useable. So it would have worked better with new monsters or at least some better guidance on how to integrate monsters from Mordenkainen into it. It can also get a bit samey with the same monsters being repeated over and over again (especially frustrating when they have published alternatives). There are, apparently, about 30 Archmages in the world (I thought they were very rare) and they all live in this dungeon.
The Monster repetition and selection is the bad part. The rest is good. It is going to be the rare group that wants to play through 23 levels of plotless dungeon crawl, but for those whose do this is going to be great. It is an old school funhouse dungeon crawl where the emphasis is on room by room challenge and weirdness. Each level is different and has its own unique vibe. Some of these are excellent such as the Crystal Caverns or Maddgoth's Castle. They are all justified in their weirdness by"a mad wizard did it" which, as a fan of White Plume Mountain, I think is a great justification. What I wanted it for was to use individual levels (or sometimes pairs of levels) to insert into an ongoing campaign for when I am feeling lazy. Around 20 of these levels are good enough that I would consider using them. It is also (with Yawning Portal) virtually the only material by Wizards of the Coast that can be dropped into a third tier campaign. I bought it as a resource for that and it fulfills that in spades. So I think of it more as a collection of 23 dungeons than as anything else. Usually, each level is linked thematically a little bit to the one above and the one below, but it is easy to work around this. Anyway, as a source of weird dungeons to drop into a 2nd or 3rd tier campaign it is excellent. Otherwise, it is only for those who want to spelunk their way through about 1000 dungeon rooms in a row.
The main problem with it is a lack of new monsters. Often it will shove a modified monster into the text and say it is like this monster but with these changes. It pretty much ignores the monster's in Volo's and Mordenkainen and while it does have a few new monsters, it struggles to fill out the higher levels with critters. It would have been better if they had had two less levels and added new monsters to cover the upper levels. In particular, the penultimate level (22) Shadowdusk Hold does not in my opinion work, which is a shame because part of the reason that I wanted this was very high level play (It's 17th level) and this is not useable. So it would have worked better with new monsters or at least some better guidance on how to integrate monsters from Mordenkainen into it. It can also get a bit samey with the same monsters being repeated over and over again (especially frustrating when they have published alternatives). There are, apparently, about 30 Archmages in the world (I thought they were very rare) and they all live in this dungeon.
The Monster repetition and selection is the bad part. The rest is good. It is going to be the rare group that wants to play through 23 levels of plotless dungeon crawl, but for those whose do this is going to be great. It is an old school funhouse dungeon crawl where the emphasis is on room by room challenge and weirdness. Each level is different and has its own unique vibe. Some of these are excellent such as the Crystal Caverns or Maddgoth's Castle. They are all justified in their weirdness by"a mad wizard did it" which, as a fan of White Plume Mountain, I think is a great justification. What I wanted it for was to use individual levels (or sometimes pairs of levels) to insert into an ongoing campaign for when I am feeling lazy. Around 20 of these levels are good enough that I would consider using them. It is also (with Yawning Portal) virtually the only material by Wizards of the Coast that can be dropped into a third tier campaign. I bought it as a resource for that and it fulfills that in spades. So I think of it more as a collection of 23 dungeons than as anything else. Usually, each level is linked thematically a little bit to the one above and the one below, but it is easy to work around this. Anyway, as a source of weird dungeons to drop into a 2nd or 3rd tier campaign it is excellent. Otherwise, it is only for those who want to spelunk their way through about 1000 dungeon rooms in a row.
June 10, 2025
TLDR the book has problems maintaining continuity but has several sparks for a creative DM to work with, which will reward both DM and players.
I ran this all the way through every Monday night for nearly three years. Like many of these campaign books, there are significant shortcomings in providing DMs with supplemental materials for running the game, but that also creates opportunity for creativity and for putting one's own spin onto the adventure. The greatest challenge for me as a DM was bringing enough variation to the dungeon to keep players engaged, while also rewarding players for keeping track of larger continuities and overarching plot. There are resources out there, very useful, that help adapt the game to turn Halaster into a kind of gameshow host. inspired by the X-Men villain Mojo, I ran with this idea with great success. I also expanded the character of Jaesirya and her importance to the dungeon, and also expanded the idea that Halaster and the dungeon were one and the same, making the dungeon alive and making the players always watched by both Halaster and by an interplanar audience. I replaced the Troglodyte Warrens level, finding too many consecutive drow levels, and also added a banjo-kazooie inspired trivia game run by Halaster before the final battle. Lots of adjustments to monsters were needed to challenge even my only mildly experienced players. I recommend browsing reddit for advice in ramping up the difficulty of the big bad on each level. There were dozens of other small additions I made from improvisation or inspired planning, and reading far ahead was rewarding in helping me come up with more big picture connections. The game dragged a lot when I didn't have enough time to do this planning ahead, but at other times the game dragged from the sheer size of the dungeon. In the end, though, all my players stayed on for the duration of the campaign, including a few new ones, and I'm grateful to the trust they put in me to see this through. I recommend this book to only experienced DMs who can tie continuity together and fill in gaps, which I thought I was pretty successful at. I even managed to tie the ending into the next campaign: 1930s Call of Cthulhu, relating the media control themes I developed into a being crossing realities and pulling the strings of Halaster and of media in 1930s New York.
I ran this all the way through every Monday night for nearly three years. Like many of these campaign books, there are significant shortcomings in providing DMs with supplemental materials for running the game, but that also creates opportunity for creativity and for putting one's own spin onto the adventure. The greatest challenge for me as a DM was bringing enough variation to the dungeon to keep players engaged, while also rewarding players for keeping track of larger continuities and overarching plot. There are resources out there, very useful, that help adapt the game to turn Halaster into a kind of gameshow host. inspired by the X-Men villain Mojo, I ran with this idea with great success. I also expanded the character of Jaesirya and her importance to the dungeon, and also expanded the idea that Halaster and the dungeon were one and the same, making the dungeon alive and making the players always watched by both Halaster and by an interplanar audience. I replaced the Troglodyte Warrens level, finding too many consecutive drow levels, and also added a banjo-kazooie inspired trivia game run by Halaster before the final battle. Lots of adjustments to monsters were needed to challenge even my only mildly experienced players. I recommend browsing reddit for advice in ramping up the difficulty of the big bad on each level. There were dozens of other small additions I made from improvisation or inspired planning, and reading far ahead was rewarding in helping me come up with more big picture connections. The game dragged a lot when I didn't have enough time to do this planning ahead, but at other times the game dragged from the sheer size of the dungeon. In the end, though, all my players stayed on for the duration of the campaign, including a few new ones, and I'm grateful to the trust they put in me to see this through. I recommend this book to only experienced DMs who can tie continuity together and fill in gaps, which I thought I was pretty successful at. I even managed to tie the ending into the next campaign: 1930s Call of Cthulhu, relating the media control themes I developed into a being crossing realities and pulling the strings of Halaster and of media in 1930s New York.
December 1, 2018
Started off very strong. But just got more and more ridiculous with each higher-level dungeon. Archmages everywhere. Beholders, dragons, and mind flayers as common henchmen. And the usual underdark tropes that we see virtually everywhere in Forgotten Realms adventures.
It would be nice if WotC could produce something that is really plot oriented and story driven rather than depending on magic do to and explain everything. Ultimately disappointing.
There are some good things that can be mined and used elsewhere, however. Particularly in the earlier levels.
It would be nice if WotC could produce something that is really plot oriented and story driven rather than depending on magic do to and explain everything. Ultimately disappointing.
There are some good things that can be mined and used elsewhere, however. Particularly in the earlier levels.
October 19, 2021
In the town of Waterdeep rests a tavern called the Yawning Portal, named after the huge well in its common room. At the bottom of this ruined well is a labyrinthine dungeon rejected by all but the most daring adventurers.
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (PDF-Online Reading-Download-Summary-Review): https://www.toevolution.com/blog/view...
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (PDF-Online Reading-Download-Summary-Review): https://www.toevolution.com/blog/view...
October 19, 2022
What a wild ride! This is a very dense campaign. Made to either stand alone or as a companion to Waterdeep Dragon Heist. Where Dragon Heist is very heavy on the role play, Mad Mage is an amazing dungeon crawl that I am sure will set the standard for dungeon crawl campaigns to come. A whopping 32 level dungeon rife with stories and insight into the lives of those who dwell there.
September 21, 2025
Okay so technically I did not read this but I did experience it as a player for about two years as my party slowly progressed through the dungeon. We made it all the way up to level 20 and completed the dungeon. Lots of fond memories. My favorite level was the forest one with the archdruid, we returned there often.
April 12, 2019
Amazing maps and tonnes to do for the party. I'm still disappointed by the lack of magic items and treasure in these adventures. There are also very few stat blocks for monsters or NPCs in the manual.
December 1, 2022
As a deep, wacky megadungeon it delivers. Maps scaled to 10ft instead of 5ft cubes is disappointing as so much of this game is tactical encounters. Like the freewheeling nature of Dragon Heist a little more.
December 17, 2022
its a very cool campaign, the dungeons are very cool and I love how many layers and secrets it has inside, its just not my type of game. Ran part of it for my friends and had a lot of fun, but there are better premade campaigns out there.
April 10, 2019
Holy hell, there are a ton of dungeons in this book! Very cool. Hope I get to play it some day.
July 18, 2019
There's not really much to say about Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, the sequel to Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, that I didn't mostly say about the latter book, other than that Dungeon of the Mad Mage is indeed a worthy sequel to Dragon Heist. I've played—and DMed—enough D&D sessions to recognize that Dungeons of the Mad Mage will absolutely challenge even experienced players of D&D, and even if this adventure gets . . . weird in more than a few places, I did find a cohesive ecology to the entire massive dungeon, as well as recognized some of the same ancillary "perks" regarding NPCs and so forth. All in all, a worthy addition to the D&D canon.
August 13, 2019
A good, solid dungeon crawl with interesting twists.
January 7, 2021
A few more pictures would have been great
February 1, 2021
Giant dungeon crawl.
Each level can be seen as completely different - but that destroys most of the continuity between levels.
Each level can be seen as completely different - but that destroys most of the continuity between levels.
November 29, 2021
We had to play Waterdeep first - before tackling Mad Mage. This is a wonderfully detailed dungeon crawl. Dense and detailed. It will take our crew some time.
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