I hated running my first dungeon crawl. I spent hours drawing out maps of each and every single level of the dwarf-hold of Khundrukar on wrapping paper-sized rolls of 1” grid paper, memorized each room to the best of my ability, and then laid them out at my table, prepared to astound my players with an immersive, dungeon-exploration experience.
It sucked.
Or rather, it would soon suck. My players were all eager to delve into the dungeon and see what riches they could find. They had fun fighting the Great Ulfe, leader of the orc raiders camped out in the stronghold, tricking his lieutenants, befriending his wolves, and figuring out the ancient dwarf-traps left behind by the stronghold’s original inhabitants. It all smacked of an ancient history; a story that had been obscured by time, much like the ancient civilizations of our own world. And I was enjoying the ride along with them. It was damn fun D&D.
But I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t last. As they descended into the glittering, gem-studded caverns beneath, I came to the realization that the mystery the dungeon alluded to didn’t exist. The adventure certainly had a backstory—orcs invaded a mighty dwarf-hold a century ago and all sorts of nasty things have now moved in—and were plenty of interesting creatures and tense encounters, ranging from duergar to ropers to a young black dragon… but there wasn’t any point. There was no mystery of the world to unravel, like in the JRPGs I loved growing up, and there weren’t any fleshed-out characters my players could interact with.
Put another way, the story never developed. The duergar didn’t have a plan to foil; they were just another faction of monsters to kill or ally with. The dragon that lurked beneath the stronghold didn’t want anything except to maintain the status quo of duergar paying it tribute. Ultimately, traveling from an orc-infested fortress to a winding cavern filled with troglodytes didn’t make the dungeon more interesting, it just made the dungeon… more. The dungeon was very good at stringing players along, making them think that there was something more to it all… except there wasn’t. Like a bad, J.J. Abrams-style mystery box. After reaching the duergar stronghold, the players began to understand that there was no deeper meaning. Despite all the fascinating set pieces, I could feel my players losing investment the deeper they got. And feeling your players losing interest in your game burns a DM out quick.
I blamed myself for failing my players and failing myself. I felt I’d done the adventure a disservice; after all, I had called Forge of Fury my favorite adventure for years because of its inspiring locations and individual monsters. It was especially vexing because I consider myself pretty damn good at adapting adventures to suit my storytelling needs. I chopped out the middle third of Princes of the Apocalypse and changed it out with a homemade adventure in the Elemental Plane of Water and a journey to the Waterdeep-equivalent metropolis of my home campaign setting. But even though the whole point of a dungeon crawl is to allow DMs to create stories set within them and “do it yourself,” I couldn’t manage to do it.
Even though dungeons in D&D have a long history of encouraging do-it-yourself attitudes and on-the-fly improvisation, I felt obligated to “play the dungeon right” by following the text of the adventure as closely as possible. I don’t want to make that same mistake with Undermountain, and I don’t want you to, either.
Giving Halaster Depth
In my ill-fated journey through The Forge of Fury, the greatest impediment I found to telling a cohesive story was its NPCs. In a dungeon-focused adventure, most of the text is allocated to describing locations, traps, treasure, and encounters. That makes sense, but it means that most NPCs in dungeon adventures have cardboard-thin personalities. In Forge of Fury, most NPCs’ motivations and backstory were usually summed up in only a sentence (or two, if you’re lucky). I know some DMs feel constrained by overly detailed characters, but I feel the exact opposite; trying to build a cohesive story out of such shallow characters is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without any pieces. So, how do you tell a story in Undermountain? Create detailed NPCs with motivations, and then play those motivations. It's as "simple" as that.
When given complex and detailed NPCs, it’s much easier for me to take what I want and throw out the rest, rather than build up from nothing. Strahd von Zarovich is the perfect example of a richly detailed NPC becoming the lynchpin for an entire adventure. And even though he’s so thoroughly fleshed-out, Strahd’s personality and desires are easily overhauled by DMs who want something a little different. In a pinch, evocative theming can make up for a lackluster backstory and motivation, such as in the case of the prophets of elemental evil in Princes of the Apocalypse. Halaster Blackcloak, the eponymous Mad Mage, fails to live up to the theming of elemental villains or the rich emotionality of Strahd. Even though five meaty paragraphs are dedicated to Halaster’s and Undermountain’s mysterious origins, they do little to make me care about Halaster as a villain.
Let’s take a close look at all the information Dungeon of the Mad Mage gives us about Halaster Blackcloak, then get creative and mold him into a villain that can serve as the centerpiece for an entire adventure. Halaster’s schemes should set in motion a grand scheme that echoes throughout the dungeon and spurs the characters downward to explore more of the dungeon and eventually find Halaster himself. Ideally, Halaster should be manic and multifaceted, and his motivations should be hard to pin down… but he should have a motivation.
Halaster Blackcloak
Halaster is described in greatest detail in the Undermountain Overview at the start of Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. In short, he’s a powerful wizard of mysterious origin who was inexplicably driven to create a mighty dungeon. He was driven mad by a knot in the Weave of Magic that was created when an ancient society of elves that once lived in what is now Waterdeep used a grand ritual to remove any trace of their capital city from the world. I like this. This idea has potential, but the players don’t have any chance to learn about it or interact with this history in any way during the adventure. Let’s remember it for later.
Halaster constantly appears in some way, shape, or form throughout the dungeon. Oftentimes, it is in the form of enchanted statues, but the characters have an opportunity to meet Halaster—or at least a simulacrum of him—as early as the Level 1 – Dungeon Level. Not to mention, Halaster is always watching. He is practically omniscient within Undermountain, and characters that defeat powerful monsters or otherwise create chaos in the dungeon’s ecosystem will surely draw his attention. As written, Halaster is a fairly neutral presence. He rarely takes action within the dungeon, and may even take on powerful spellcasting characters as his apprentices, if they impress him.
This is for a fairly good reason; if Halaster wanted to kill the characters, it would be easy to simply smite them where they stand the moment they proved to be a threat to him. Instead, Halaster’s madness causes him to vacillate between ire, amusement, and cordiality. This instability allows you to alter Halaster’s mood on a whim, letting you use him as a vicious enemy, a neutral observer, or a potential ally on a level-by-level basis.
The Grand Story
Even making Halaster a fully fleshed-out villain might not be enough, however. Players who have spent an entire campaign in a 23-level dungeon might need a plot more elaborate to feel like the adventure was worth the effort. Here’s one possible storyline you can use to connect the disparate levels of Undermountain into a full adventure. The following story idea is extrapolated from existing Forgotten Realms canon, but takes creative liberties in the process, creating a story that is extremely non-canon, but totally usable in a home game.
Undermountain Origins
Undermountain was created because Halaster was compelled by his own madness to build it, and to continue building it out into eternity. The Mad Mage built his original tower upon the land that would become Waterdeep by an unknown and powerful source of magic. This source was a knot in the Weave of Magic inadvertently created by an ancient elven civilization that sought to transcend reality. Halaster is more than the dungeon’s creator; he is its avatar. Halaster has died countless times, but he always returns before long. It is said that Undermountain cannot exist without Halaster, and his return is necessary to keep the dungeon from being utterly destroyed.
The truth is that the knot in the Weave has gained sentience over its millennia of imprisonment beneath the earth. It compelled Halaster to create Undermountain as a “body” for its restless mind. The being known as Undermountain feeds off of the lives extinguished in its bloodstained halls, and it compels creatures to delve into it in order to feed its hunger for mortal lives. Halaster believes himself to be the master of Undermountain, yet while he is Undermountain’s most powerful denizen, he is also the dungeon’s greatest weakness.
Manshoon’s Greatest Fear
Undermountain has created thousands of clones of Halaster Blackcloak, and sealed them in an icy crypt beneath the Mad Wizard’s lair (using one of the expanded dungeon passages in Level 23). Whenever Halaster’s body is destroyed, the dungeon ensnares his soul and places it into a new body, animating that clone and ensuring Halaster and Undermountain’s continued survival. This precarious plan was threatened by another dark wizard who lived on through countless clones: Manshoon the Manyfaced. Manshoon’s desire to take control of Waterdeep in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist was driven not by ambition, but by fear. This Manshoon is one of the few remaining clones of the original Manshoon; one of the few that survived the arcane cataclysm that ensued when all of Manshoon’s dormant clones were animated at once.
Manshoon had long known that Halaster was a threat to his schemes, but his divinations had recently revealed that Halaster’s countless clones were beginning to stir as the Mad Mage’s grip on sanity grew looser and looser. He feared that the chaos of another Manshoon War—this time instigated by the awakening of an army of Halaster Blackcloaks—would topple his well-laid schemes and perhaps even wipe out life on Faerûn. Not willing to risk the danger, Manshoon entered Undermountain and challenged Blackcloak to a spell duel for control of Undermountain. Halaster, ever-inscrutable, giggled, accepted, and demanded Manshoon bet his left arm against all of Undermountain.
Manshoon lost, and fled the dungeon in disgrace. He constructed an artificial arm and retreated to Waterdeep to take control of Waterdeep and muster a force that could crush Halaster. His efforts to take control of the city are detailed in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Meanwhile, Halaster gave Manshoon’s severed arm to the headmaster of Dweomercore as a gift. The Mad Mage treated his encounter with Manshoon as a trivial occurrence, but it caused Undermountain to realize that its master plan could be in danger.
Undermountain’s Master Plan
The greatest dungeon in Faerûn has schemed for centuries. It wants its halls to cover all of Toril, expanding beneath the sea, the Underdark, and across all continents. It wants to drive Halaster past the point of utter madness so that it can assume complete control of the Mad Mage. With Halaster completely under its control, Undermountain can fragment his soul and animate all of the clones it created to exponentially increase the speed of its growth. And once it has claimed all of Toril, perhaps this knot in the Weave could tap into the planet’s ley lines and hijack the entire Weave of Magic. Its long-term goals are beyond human comprehension, but its short-term goal of encircling Toril and hypnotically compelling its inhabitants to enter its depths are malicious enough to warrant immediate action.
Its only weakness is Halaster. Undermountain tries to exert its full control over the Mad Mage to keep him safe from harm, but he is also the dungeon’s greatest tool. It deploys Halaster methodically—but the erratic wizard is not yet under the dungeon’s complete control. His own free will and immense magical power allows him to travel as he wishes, even though Undermountain’s control constantly tugs at his mind.
The Undermountain Adventure
Now we reach the present day. Undermountain grows more powerful as Halaster’s sanity slips. The Mad Mage is practically Undermountain’s puppet, as expressed by his erratic behavior, but some part of Halaster’s threadbare mind knows he is being manipulated. To this end, he uses magic to call the characters into Undermountain. He longs to be confronted and killed in his lair, and he uses Undermountain’s countless traps and monsters to “train” worthy adventurers so that they are powerful enough to destroy him when they finally meet him in battle.
Only a wish spell, cast when Halaster is killed, can trap or destroy his soul and prevent it from being placed in a new clone. If Halaster is truly killed, Undermountain shudders in wrath and the knot in the Weave that bound its power to Undermountain and to Halaster begins to die. Its last furious act of vengeance is an attempt to collapse the dungeon on top of the characters, who must escape from the bottom of Undermountain to its top using the portals littered throughout its halls. If the characters escape the dungeon and you want an even greater “final boss” battle, the knot in the Weave could manifest in Waterdeep—as parts of the city collapse into the earth—by its remaining power to take physical form and try to destroy the characters.
This creature could be an elder tempest with the Spellcasting feature of a lich. For an even more climactic battle, it could use its command of magic to animate a Walking Statue of Waterdeep or two to do its bidding.
Then, with the knot in the Weave destroyed, all who fell under its sway are freed. Durnan still keeps the Yawning Portal open, but now it’s purely out of love for the bar he built, not because he is magically compelled to stay near Undermountain. Halaster’s soul is free to pass into the afterlife. And the thousands of pirates, drow, duergar, aberrations, beasts, and other creatures that were drawn to Undermountain like moths to flame feel a mysterious weight lift from their shoulders. They are free.
Your Own Undermountain Story
So, what do you think? Was that a bit too far-fetched? Have I been playing too many JRPGs? Would it help keep your players’ attention for 23 dungeon levels? Even if it’s not quite what you want out of Undermountain, I hope it inspired some ideas that you can use to create a dramatic through-line for your Undermountain campaign.
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and his corridor critters, Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
I love this! I have been struggling to role play Halaster as anything but the mad bad guy who wants PC's to come into his big dungeon and die. Thaks James
Jeeeeeeez!! Why wasn't this in the official release!? Super dope way to upgrade this campaign. Bravo! Glad I found this before our Session 0. Also seeing a lot of potential homebrew inspiration that I can sprinkle in here and there from the comment section.
I had a somewhat similar idea of turning Halaster into a tragic villain.
When Halaster first came to Undermount he realized that the knot in the weave was expanding and would eventually consume the entire continent if left unchecked. So created the Horned Ring to tap into the knot's power and contain it within Undermount. Over time he realized that Undermount was attempting to slowly drive him mad in protest. He determined that it would only be a matter of time until he lost his sanity so he began to groom his apprentices to take on the task of managing Undermount. Unfortunately, he was too arrogant to admit that anyone but him was up to the task so he began to descend deeper into his madness. The final blow came when Jhesiyra Kestellharp, believing Halaster had already given in, betrayed her master in hopes of saving the world from his madness. Halaster survived and was driven over the edge transforming into the Mad Mage of Undermount. Now he and Undermount are basically one, each delighting in the others madness as well as the suffering of others.
His only weakness is his inner sanctum which acts as the nucleus of Undermount. If Halaster is killed here then he is killed for good. However, without someone to command Undermount, it will spread once more. In the campaign, this would be the final gut punch: there must always be a Mad Mage of Undermount. And given how much Undermount liked Halaster it would seek to turn the next ring bearing into his image. You could then either repeat history and become the next Halaster Blackcloak, or start a new chapter and attempt to tame Undermount.
I just have to say this inspired me massively, it worked perfectly to tie in Mines of Phandelver (MoP). Luckily I had a PC who was willing to be from one of the magical academies in Waterdeep to help tie this together.
*Warning* Spoilers for those who haven't played Mines of Phandelver starter adventure.
Tie in:
Mormesk the wraith is vying for Halaster's attention, as he was a wizard in life and wants to expand his underground territory and knows that being an underling Halaster is the key to that. He guards the forge and turns all living that enter the mines into undead in an attempt to gain Halaster's attention. However, due to the Spectator guarding the magical workroom he can't produce any magical items. Halaster is aware of Mormesk's existence, but doesn't care much. The giant Wave Echo lake I made into a massive underwater channel that ties into the Underdark (I didn't let my lvl 5 players explore it quite yet, but I wanted them to know it was there).
In contrast, Nezzar, the Black Spider is trying to reopen the mines in tandem with Xanathar's guild. His goal? To also establish a foothold in the region where the guild can produce powerful weapons, and Nezzar himself wants to create a patriarchal Drow society, as he was exiled from the traditional matriarchal society (perhaps one of the groups in Waterdeep). I noticed my players loved seeing the Beholder's symbols on the bugbears and gave them a little more mystery.
Now it's convenient that one of Player Characters (PCs) is a mage from Waterdeep, she came to region to meet Iarno who was a classmate in the past. I made Iarno also from Waterdeep and familiar with Manshoon, he's been encouraged by Manshoon to align himself with the Black Spider to try and hinder Halaster spreading past Waterdeep.
Overall this gave MoP much more depth and story tie ins, and gave it's villans depth.
I know there's also a tie in for the dragon cult story (cultists in thundertree), but would love to hear other people's tie ins to other adventures!
LOVE this!
If I'd have known I was going to run DotMM after LMoP, these types of tie-ins would have been gold.
At the conclusion of Phandelver, the group used Tresendar Manor to create an Adventurer's Guild in cooperation with the Rockseeker Brothers, Phandalin, and the Lord's Alliance. The only tie-in I had to start the new adventure was, after some passage of time, the group decides it's time to expand the franchise. Gundren suggests they go to Waterdeep to setup a chapter there and to speak to an old friend named Volo.
Brilliant! I am going to use this for sure.
There’s another approach: rather than prepping a plot, prep a situation and let the story come from the players’ decisions.
The dungeon was never a vehicle through which the DM got to tell a story. The dungeon was a vehicle through which players got to explore strange new places, seeking out weird life and glorious treasures. Along the way, players interacted with the dungeon’s inhabitants, made decisions, and the inhabitants of the dungeons reacted. Drama ensued. The aftermath is the story.
if your run through of The Forge of Fury ran out of steam, why did that happen? Was it because you weren’t creative enough? Or was it because your players weren’t proactive enough? Were they passive participants, expecting you to do most of the narrative heavy lifting? Because that sucks.
See, here’s the problem: D&D gets boring when the players expect - and the DM provides - a guided tour. If there’s a shared assumption that there’s some sort of implied plot to journey through, then that robs the players of the real freedom that’s possible. The players just jump through the hoop and then look to you expectantly for the next plot hoop. In other words, the way it ought to work is that the DM presents the situation, but then it’s up to the players to make it memorable by interacting with it. Then the DM needs to be ready to react to whatever crazy stuff the players come up with. But if the players start losing interest, it’s because they aren’t exercising the freedom that they probably don’t realize they have (and the DM didn’t know they were supposed to encourage and provide a setting for). Provide the sandbox, but it’s up to the players to build the sandcastle.
In my DotMM campaign, my players set off an arms race between the Drow and the hobgoblins. I got to create drow with shotguns and sniper rifles. The players managed to play both sides against each other, and eventually arranged for a mutually-assured destructive ambush showdown that slaughtered most of the drow and all of the hobgoblins. After that, the players looted the bases and went home. The best part is that I had no idea whatsoever that that outcome was a possibility, let alone going to happen.
In my evil Tyranny of Dragons campaign, hostile fire giants were threatening to interfere with stuff the players cared about, so the characters threw a jar of brown mold into the fire giants’ volcanic lair. Now the landscape for a hundred miles around is a brown mold-covered wasteland. The players still tell that story, but only because they created it via their decisions.
We once had a TPK via magical thermo-nuclear explosion that came about through an amazing series of strange coincidences, (un)lucky die rolls, and player decisions.
And this one time, a PC hit a dragon turtle with a shark. Hilarity ensued. And then a dolphin chase. It was close.
Anyways.
Coming up with interesting NPCs is great, and there’s a lot of potential with Halaster. But in the scenario you describe at the end of the article, I gotta ask: what if the players don’t? What if the players don’t bite at the plot hook of destroying Halaster like he wants them to? What if they decide to do something else? What if they’re simply not interested in your plots? What if the plot that you want them to follow starts to feel more like a railroad, and the players start trying to undermine it?
To paraphrase Justin Alexander (of The Alexandrian), don’t prep plots or storylines: prep situations.
P.S., Perkins has already inserted a ton of situations in DotMM. It’s amazing. Once players realize that they’re free to do literally whatever they want, go wherever they want, then they’ll come up with plots and stories all on their own, and it’ll all unfold before your very eyes. It’s a beautiful thing.
This is awesome and really helpful my party will soon have to face his wrath
Phenomenal stuff.
Please tell us when you homebrew it!
Holy shit that is awesome I'm definitely using that. Might write up the backstory and have it be an item in the dungeon like The Tome of Halaster or the The Tome of the Undermountain. Perhaps Halaster has a split ego and the half that wants to escape from the Undermountain's clutches wrote the book and placed it for adventurers to discover.