Halaster the Dungeon Master

So! It's been a while. Hi, how've you been? Let's go to hell. Specifically Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells.

In the new D&D book, Descent into Avernus, the party goes to Avernus and finds it to be a blasted wasteland. A hellish wasteland one might say. But how do you traverse this wasteland? Infernal war machines, baby. Mad Max in hell, complete with warlords of the Avernian wastes. The book details several great ones and highly encourages dungeon masters to come up with a few of their own. That's where this blog comes in because I've had quite possibly the worst idea in history: throw Halaster into Avernus on a hell motorcycle with his face on it, searching for some artifact of great evil to bring back to Undermountain. This way, he could actually end up becoming a temporary ally of the party in their trek through hell, and I could use more of the Mad Mage I love so much. The only thing I'm most unsure of is what exactly he should be looking for down there. The Book of Vile Darkness perhaps? Who knows, all I know at this point is that I really want to use this idea.

Drow feature as a fairly large antagonist in Dungeon of the Mad Mage, but their lore has always rubbed me the wrong way. No society should be entirely, universally evil. But I still wanted to use drow as villains. So what did I do? I rewrote drow lore a bit. And to fill you in with how I'm going to handle drow from now on, I'm going to do what I do best, I'm going to tell you a story. A story of the ancient past, of centuries of scheming. A story of the elves.

A long, long, long time ago, too long ago to properly determine, the elves were united under Corellon. Their forms changed on a whim like their primary deity's did as they wandered the world. Lolth was second in command of the elven pantheon, a position she held with silent determination. Unfortunately, this relative peace wouldn't last. You see, it kind of sucks being second in command, especially when the first in command hardly seems to make any decisions. Corellon is a mercurial deity, wandering about, taking various forms, but never seeming to have a plan to elevate the elves. If Lolth were in charge, she could bring about a golden age of the elves. At least that's what she thinks. But Corellon would never agree to this. He is content to let his whims carry him and the elves for all eternity. So, Lolth sits back and schemes. She has all the time in the multiverse.

She schemes, and schemes, until she puts together a plan. Out there in the Outer Planes is the infinite Abyss. This plane of pure chaotic evil corrupts all that its denizens, the demons, get near. With enough powerful ones on the Prime Material Plane, the whole plane could be corrupted and dragged into the Abyss. If Lolth were of the Abyss and went through this corruption process she could wrest control of the plane not just from Corellon, but from every other power of the Prime Material Plane. A web begins to form.

Lolth carefully convinces other elven deities, among them Ghaunadaur and Eilistraee, to follow her on a journey to claim a new domain for the elves: the largely unexplored Underdark. She convinces them that the elves could be the first to claim this unconquered and dangerous domain if Corellon could ever make up his mind about anything. Convinces them that she would make a better ruler of this new group of elves. A web is woven, a plan to split from Corellon is made. Wilfully neglected is a plan to rub it in Corellon's face as Lolth is slowly corrupted by the chaotic essence of the Abyss.

And so, the plan is set into action. Lolth takes the permanent form of a spider because Corellon always hated them and publicly dares him to defy her and her new followers, attempting to trap the primary elven god in webs so as to make her escape. However, Corellon's shifting form causes this plan to backfire. What Lolth fails to realize as the planar essence of the Abyss corrupts her, a thirst for untold violence and destruction, is that Corellon is capable of great tactics when provoked. A battle takes place as Lolth, a great battle between gods. Unfortunately Lolth had failed to inform the other deities she had been leaving with of her plan to rub this in Corellon's face, so she was alone against him as Ghaunadaur and Eilistraee safely ferried the elves that would become the drow deep beneath the ground into the Underdark.

The battle ends with Corellon deciding on a semi-permanent form, that of modern elves, to battle Lolth in and Lolth being pushed to activate a failsafe. As one final act of the battle, Lolth's webs tear open a portal to the Abyss, which she flees to so she can live to scheme some more. Finally in the Abyss, Lolth absorbs some of its essence to become a demon lord and claims one of its infinite levels for herself, naming it the Demonweb Pits.

The Abyss is a tear in the fabric of reality, infinite layers filled with creatures that seek only to destroy and corrupt. Most of these monsters are embroiled in the plane spanning Blood War between the chaotic evil demons of the Abyss and the lawful evil devils of the Nine Hells. These planes both desire to subjugate the multiverse but are at odds with each other, each keeping the other distracted. Lolth, a being from outside of the Abyss, is not distracted by such things, and can bring corruption and chaos directly to the Prime Material Plane if she has followers to do it with. Unfortunately, this is where the hole forms in her web.

As Lolth battled with Corellon on the surface, Ghaunadaur and Eilistraee brought the soon-to-be drow down into the strange magics of the Underdark. In short order they had chosen permanent forms as well, forms fit for life underground. Better vision in the dark at the cost of sensitivity to sunlight, primarily. Eilistraee, with her domain of dance, gifted each drow with the Dancing Lights cantrip to light their way, so they could see in color. They soon, well, soon in the terms of a godly tale, settled in underground, farming mushrooms and strange creatures, setting up clear paths through the dangers of the place, allowing strangers to stay in their cities at Eilistraee's behest and trading special goods with the surface.

Ghaunadaur, meanwhile, was furious with what he beheld. Lolth was reckless with what she had done, acting with uncharacteristic malice. He spent a long time determining where Lolth went after the battle, as she had disappeared from the face of the plane. The only subtle hints to her presence were the spiders that seemed to take a liking to the drow, who had since settled in underground. When Ghaunadaur discovered Lolth had moved to the Abyss of all places he became somehow more furious. She had placed all of these elves in danger and then fled to a plane of chaotic evil?! What for?

He confronted Lolth in the Demonweb Pits to determine why she had deceived so many, and to see if she would atone. But Lolth's true plan became clear as she laughed in his face, it wasn't expansion or taking over a new, unexplored territory for the elves she wanted. It was a plan to wrest the Prime Material Plane from where it laid, a product of the Inner and Outer Planes, and drag it into a land of violence and chaos where Lolth was in charge. Ghaunadaur lashed out at the new Spider Queen, but he was challenging a demon lord in her own domain, and Lolth had already been the second most powerful elven deity. He was outmatched. Lolth struck Ghaunadaur so fiercely that his divine essence was shattered and warped. Whatever portfolio and appearance he had once had was long gone. Ghaunadaur became That Which Lurks, referred to as such so as not to draw its unwanted attention by using its name, a god of slimes and oozes in the Underdark.

Eilistraee and the drow wept for their lost god, and Lolth's plan became clear. She sits in the Demonweb Pits and schemes to that end. Those schemes come to the modern Prime Material Plane in the form of rare cults of Lolth, consisting of drow that buy into Lolth's plan to overturn the plane and place herself and the drow in charge. The cults are cast out of the Underdark when they are discovered, which is how the cults in Undermountain got there. Most drow are content to live underground as crafters, traders, and farmers. Though they can't shake the spider aesthetic because Lolth wants them to return to her and continue her schemes.

Some insight on how I characterized Halaster now that I've played him in front of my players. I get way into the roleplay aspect of D&D but I play my characters a bit strangely. I've always done this, I get a general idea of what the character is like and then wait for things to happen to them. Once something happens to them I determine how they would react to that, like watching it happen to them and reporting on what they do. Sometimes you have no control over your own NPCs, and Halaster is no different. I obviously control what they do but sometimes it feels like writing up an incident report rather than playing them. I'll paint some word pictures of what I mean in italics.

You hear muttering with no discernable source. "Damn kids and their vandalism. No respect for a good dungeon wall." As you watch the gash in the wall, there to mark your path, fills in with smooth stone until it's like it was never there at all. Then, right as the golem rears up to attack again, you hear a scream of panic and in front of where the gash once was appears an old man with wild red eyes, even wilder white hair and a thick beard of the same color. He wears a robe covered with stitched eyes and mouths of all shapes and sizes. He points a finger pulsing with necrotic energy at the flesh golem.

In his regional effects on Undermountain is the ability to create a potentially infinite number of scrying sensors in the form of a 1 foot diameter ghostly floating humanoid eye surrounded by notes of light. At any time. He sees through these sensors as if he were in their spaces simultaneously and he can orient them in any direction, though they're stationary. And he wears a Robe of Eyes that allows him to see in 360 degrees around him so Halaster's attention is constantly quite split.

"Child, I have guests all over this maze. If I were to speak to them all I'd never get anything done. And I'm a very busy man. Things to learn, experiments to maintain. At this moment my attention is so split I may just go mad." He laughs for an uncomfortably long amount of time.

Second important thing! Halaster's Intelligence score is 24. For reference, the average is 10 and the highest adventurers, extraordinary people, can get without magic is 20. Cha boy is smart. Meaning all of my D&D knowledge is useful for things! I can name drop D&D monsters and lore and have it mean something! Which is exactly what I did, like when a party member was sad about the death of the flesh golem they were trying to calm down.

Halaster raises an eyebrow, "Attachment was your first mistake. A flesh golem is nothing more than an elemental spirit bound to a stitched mound of flesh. It must be overjoyed to be free, if it even remembers its imprisonment at all."

Third! He's self aware, but only a little bit. He's aware that the Knot in the Weave is what resurrects him and that it can cause madness, obsession, amplification of ambitions, and he knows he can never escape, so he figures he may as well have fun. Learn. Become the greatest wizard ever to live. He knows what happens in his dungeon always leads to destruction and most importantly he knows everyone is there by choice, by obsession with either the dungeon itself or something in it. (I noticed a theme with many NPCs and decided to make it an actual effect of the Knot in the Weave.)

When one party member sassed Halaster another tried to make up for it by saying if they had a choice that member wouldn't be here. He has reason to keep them together, because together they will clear out many of his problems and give him a show in the process. In response to saying the sassy member wouldn't be there if they had a choice, Halaster had this to say.

Halaster smiles, "If you had a choice? Of course you had a choice. If you didn't you wouldn't be here. Everyone is here by their own choice, myself included. Undermountain calls to us all, but we all choose to answer. You're all still together by choice or you'd already have been ripped apart."

And finally, his 24 intelligence means he interrupts himself a lot. Multiple trains of thought, thinking about what to replace old traps and monsters with, what new experiments to perform, where to check on next. All while meeting his newest guests face to face.

And of course, he doesn't want to spoil the spirit of the dungeon. I'll just copy his last line to the heroes wholesale, coming right after being asked where the stairs to the second floor are, which he of course knows.

Halaster doesn't directly turn his head to look at you but several of the eyes on his cloak turn to face you. "Wouldn't that spoil the surprise? Where's the tension, the drama, in the architect simply telling you the answer to the puzzle? And even if I were to tell you, would you believe a mad old man?"

He walks toward the center of the room, "A trap is useless once it's been sprung. I Wish this mess would just get itself gone." As you watch, the shattered crystal orb and wyvern bones just disappear. He continues walking toward the northernmost door, through where the debris used to be. "Now what to replace this with, was the dragon-kin a good idea? Or something more elemental? Perhaps undead was the right way to go, if Nester weren't a cackling pile of bones perhaps he'd have some input."

He interrupts himself again, waving his hand over his shoulder, the eyes in his cloak swirling about, "We will see each other again, children. Though I will see you long before you see me. I see all under the mountain. Rest well!" As he approaches the door it momentarily opens before him into a glowing gateway, then closes again once he passes through. He leaves you alone.

Why yes, Halaster did use the most powerful spell a mortal can cast, Wish, to clean up a mess on the floor. And that's how I play him, really. So powerful that he has nothing to fear, even if he could die to begin with, but the Knot in the Weave won't allow that. The Mad Mage must live on. And he will learn on until he knows all, then he'll make more things to learn.

I finally started running Dungeon of the Mad Mage! It's been a blast so far and they haven't even gone into the dungeon yet.

Yeah, you read that right. Turns out they wanted to go shopping for supplies first so I learned a few things fairly quickly. Thing number one: there is a chart in the Dungeon Master's Guide for starting gold at higher levels, check it out it may save a life (magic items are expensive, yo.)

Thing number two: I had a great idea for a shop that I'd like to offer to my fellow DMs. I used a human artificer I never thought I was going to be able to play as a shopkeeper for a magic supply and oddity shop, the Third Wish, Magic & More. Symbol is a Luck Blade with one use of Wish left, because the shop is all about luck.

(This is a Luck Blade by the way. The gemstones represent uses of Wish so the sign has one that's not cracked. It's your third and final wish.)

For any general adventuring equipment or uncommon or lower rarity magic item that a player asks for in this shop, roll a d100. On a roll of 50 or higher, the shop has it in stock and it is dug out from somewhere on one of its disorganized and crowded shelves by Rosalind, the scatterbrained owner with a penchant for brewing her own potions and a fascination with the functioning of magic items. Sell it for its listed price in the Player's Handbook if it's adventuring supplies or somewhere in the range they offer in the Dungeon Master's Guide for magic items. If a player wants to browse and see if anything catches their eye, roll on Magic Item Table B in the Dungeon Master's Guide and sell it within the range of its rarity, at your discretion.

Dungeon of the Mad Mage doesn't really have its own overarching story. It has plenty of history but as for a way to tie the megadungeon together, that's kind of on you and even the history they have is a little vague. So how do we characterize Halaster the Mad Mage? What I did was look to the past and how that shaped Halaster. Undermountain is built on the remains of an old dwarven stronghold built on the dust of an even older elven capital city. This capital city was unique in that it was completely erased from history, by the elves' choice.

But before that, let's go back to a time when this city existed. Staying in the city is a fledgling human wizard by the name of Halaster Blackcloak, starting his study of wizardry with these wise elves who have had centuries to study magic. He has spent several days indoors perfecting the casting of Prestidigitation, a minor magical trick that many learn as their first spell. He magically applies a rune he devised to represent himself to a sheet of paper only for it to disappear with a snap of his fingers, celebrates a successful casting before trying some more. When he finally leaves his room, he is surprised to find that all the high mages are assembled in the center of town, arms raised high, chanting something unfit for mortal ears to comprehend. He'd missed the news. Turns out, the elves are ascending to Arvandor, and they're going to erase their civilization from the minds of Faerun so they're not followed. As Halaster is about to ask an excited onlooker what's happening, the sky tears open and before his very eyes is the unobstructed Weave of magic that all mortals use for their spellcasting, pulled harder than it has ever been before or ever will again. It's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Shimmering threads that, pulled the correct way by the right incantation and gesture, can create a blast of flame or pull a soul from the clutches of death and so many other wondrous things. Threads are yanked and twisted and pulled by the chanting mages all around him to lock away all information about their civilization forevermore and, finally, it pulls the entire city and every elf in attendance from the face of Faerun into the embrace of their elven gods while accidentally and irrevocably tying a single human to the vast tapestry of the Weave-

And then the young wizard named Halaster wakes up in his bed. What a strange dream, right? Wait, what dream? Eh, not important. He's got magic to study with the elves. He returns to his studies with a newfound ambition. He will be good great the best at magic one day. Halaster goes on to become one of the greatest wizards of his time. What exactly he does to get there is unimportant, it's still not enough for him. Through his travels and adventures he eventually writes down every wizard spell that exists but it's still not enough.

Halaster has forgotten all about the elves' spell, as was its intention. It creates a lethargy of the mortal mind regarding information about their civilization, the mind gets disinterested and moves on to something else. Reading his oldest notes, Halaster might find things that strain the eyes to read but are forgotten about soon after. However, so great was this pull on the Weave that it pushed it together elsewhere, deep underground, creating a knot. A knot that cannot be undone. This knot has a single thread anchored to Halaster and has an equal but opposite effect, it amplifies ambition to the point of obsession.

Much older than the young wizard in a city that no longer exists nor can it be remembered school, Halaster has gathered seven apprentices to share his knowledge with. With these Seven, he decides to build a wizard tower to dwarf all wizard towers, at the base of a mountain that will one day come to be known as Mount Waterdeep. He feels like he's been here before. There's an odd allure to this specific spot, so here will go his tower. He calls upon dao and azer and the like from other planes to build his perfect tower, ever drawn to be the greatest wizard Faerun will ever know. Once it's tall enough to rival the mountain he decides he needs a basement, drawn downward by some odd compulsion. He summons more help from beyond the Material Plane and they get to digging.

Eventually, the dig breaks into an old dwarven stronghold. The dao foreman suggests they stop but when Halaster checks it out for himself he declares that it's not far down enough, keep digging. Halaster feels a constant pull now, ever downward. Eventually basement turns to dungeon and once Halaster has a dungeon he needs it to be the best possible dungeon, but there's even more. As they get further and further down, Halaster begins discovering a strange connection to this place. With a thought, the stones around him shift and change. This place is meant for him, meant to be the ultimate dungeon. He will make it so. Deeper, they must delve deeper.

Halaster's ambition fully focused on the dungeon, his apprentices hear and see less and less of him. He gets far enough down that he steps right into the knot in the Weave, creating from it a demiplane with a smaller wizard tower in it, from which to observe his lair. All the best wizards have lairs. He is not a passive observer though, he travels the planes with his new powers and pulls traps and monsters in to make his perfect dungeon a reality. He devises new and strange magic to torment visitors and without his conscious input the knot in the Weave warps to create an obsession with Undermountain in many of the creatures who visit (an actual mechanic in the book).

The world moves on without Halaster. His tower crumbles, some of his apprentices leave, some join him and become obsessed with Undermountain right along with him. Waterdeep, the City of Splendors is built atop the dungeon in the shadow of Mount Waterdeep. A man by the name of Durnan descends through the old tower into Undermountain to plunder its riches only to leave while the going is good so he can demolish the rest of Halaster's old tower and build a tavern on top of it, the Yawning Portal, named for the well that leads to Undermountain in the center of its taproom. He uses this position to prevent folks he believes wouldn't survive the horrors of the place from descending, and to keep up with the latest news about Undermountain which still intrigues him.

Halaster continues to improve, more traps, more magic items, what do the kids look for in a dungeon these days? He even dies, but the Weave remembers his form and the Knot cannot exist without him so it restores him for the first time of many to come, mad as ever. The realization that he is immortal only drives Halaster more mad. He can never rest, he had forever to improve!

And that's roughly where we leave my Halaster when the adventure starts. An ancient and powerful wizard obsessed with becoming the perfect version of himself. The unending need to improve along with living for thousands of years has driven him quite mad and he's built a dungeon around himself pretty much because it's just a thing to do, but he's stuck here now. And soon, my players will be stuck here with him. Who knows what he could do from here.

Oh man, oh man. Fun story, I may be running Dungeon of the Mad Mage now but initially I got the book because I wanted to check out the environments and let me tell you, even if I hadn't gotten the chance to run it, getting this book would have been worth it. Choosing just one is super hard because they're all so cool! But I think I've got one for you. One of the things I got this book for was the fact that I'd heard there was a crashed spelljamming ship in it. A spelljamming ship is a vessel of any kind with a special chair in it that, when sat in by a spell caster, turns that vessel into a spacefaring ship that can fly off into space at the will of the seated spell caster complete with a gravity plane so riders don't go flying off and an envelope of air so no one dies in the cold and unforgiving void of space if it's open air like a regular boat. It can just fly off into space, and essentially allows for sci-fi/fantasy D&D because it's still the fantasy of D&D but you're in a spaceship. The one that's been taken to the dungeon for reasons is not shaped like a normal ship, it's shaped like a cuttlefish. And also what completes the whole thing is the fact that the captain of the crashed vessel is...

I'm gonna try a new thing! Dungeon of the Mad Mage is filled with all sorts of environments, and Halaster updates the contents of the floors regularly. That's great news for a DM that wants to spice up their game, because you can basically add anything that you've ever wanted to try out! I had an idea for one such encounter for the first floor that I wanted to share with you all to use or adapt for your own games.

This encounter is set on the first floor of Undermountain, near the start of the campaign. It's in a room referred to as the Pillar Forest which is, unsurprisingly, filled with pillars. Normally there's not much in here besides the first major decision point of the dungeon with three ways to go that could all lead to vastly different sessions. I've decided to add a small combat encounter here that starts like so:

Opening Description

"Thin, translucent blue threads flicker into existence all around you suddenly. They fill the whole room, anchored between the pillars, the walls, and the ceiling. They form a tangled, semisolid web that you can pass your hand through with some resistance and leaves your hand feeling oddly chilly. It is an extraordinarily strange sensation. You feel like something has noticed you."

Encounter Summary

Halaster brought two phase spiders to this level, large spider like monstrosities that can move between the Border Ethereal and Material Plane at will which have laid down a semi-Ethereal web throughout this room. They hunt creatures that disturb it, taking turns swapping from the Border Ethereal to the Material Plane, appearing as if they are one spider that can teleport to those without magical sight, or the ability to travel to the Border Ethereal to see for themselves that two individual entities assail them. Adventurers have been caught in their web this time, and the spiders are hungry.

Mechanics and Monsters

2 phase spiders lurk here in the Border Ethereal. They cannot be seen from the Material Plane without magic such as a Robe of Eyes or truesight. They can't be affected by anything on the Material Plane, though they can't affect anything there either without using their Ethereal Jaunt trait to jump to the Material Plane. This is a phase spider:

The room is filled with semi-Ethereal webs. For any creature that does not have the Web Walker trait (like phase spiders do,) this room is difficult terrain on both the Material and Ethereal planes. Being of Ethereal nature, the webs cannot be destroyed unless the attempt is made from the Border Ethereal, though they fade away once both phase spiders are defeated. Allow a DC 15 Arcana check to determine the Ethereal nature of the webs, and the creatures that created them.

Tactics

After the introduction, which you can change however you see fit, let your players ponder over the webs for as long as you desire (possibly rolling that Arcana check mentioned above,) then you can have one of the phase spiders roll a Stealth check. If it beats everyone's passive Perception scores, roll initiative and the phase spiders get one surprise round where the one that made the Stealth check uses its bonus action to Ethereal Jaunt back to the Material Plane and make one Bite attack. The other spider hangs back in the Border Ethereal, getting near to a character far from the first spider, but not using its Ethereal Jaunt. Depending on your preference, it can use the Ready action to prepare a Bite attack at the creature it got near to, should they use a spell or some other effect to enter the Border Ethereal and thus be able to be attacked by it. Use one initiative roll for both of the spiders and have them act on the same turn. If the stealth check is lower than any character's passive Perception, they don't get a surprise round and one spider appears from the Border Ethereal latched onto some of the Ethereal webs, with none of the party being surprised when you roll initiative. On their next combined turn the spider on the Material Plane makes a Bite sttack, then both spiders use their Ethereal Jaunt at the same time, swapping planes in an effect that looks like they are one spider teleporting, though the one that appears will have none of the damage they inflicted on the first, and the second spider that is now on the Material Plane makes a Bite attack. Of course their tactics will vary if the players do have ways to follow them to the Border Ethereal but, generally they will use their bonus actions to swap planes with each other on each turn. Whether the players can chase the Phase Spiders onto the Border Ethereal or not, this should make for an interesting encounter with more challenges than appear at first glance.

Conclusion

In the end, once both spiders are dead the webs slowly fade out from both the Material and Ethereal planes, freeing the party up to decide where to go from here.

Warning, this post will contain spoilers for the end of the Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage module. If you're DMing this module like I will be, or you don't care about spoilers and are just interested in some homebrew ideas for lair actions for everyone's favorite Mad Mage Halaster Blackcloak, check it out!