Waterdeep - Dungeon of the Mad Mage

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Staircase. West of the statue, stairs descend 200 feet
to level 2. (These stairs are not immediately visible to
characters entering through the secret door.)
Noise. The sound of squabbling goblins emanates from
a tunnel leading north.
The statue is life-size and depicts a dwarf king
standing atop a 3-foot-high stone pedestal. Sprouting
from the king's neck is a deformed, mostly featureless
second head with an elongated, toothless mouth. The
inscriptions on the pedestal have been worn away. On
the king's brow rests an engraved stone circlet, and his
large hands grasp the handle of a stone warhammer, the
head of which is planted at his feet.
Halaster used stone shape spells to create the statue's
second head and rub away the inscriptions on the ped-
estal. Even the Mad Mage is unaware, however, that the
statue hides a secret. Any character who examines the
statue and succeeds on a DC 15 Wisdom (Perception)
check notices that the king's warhammer is a separate
piece of stone that can be rotated. When the warham-
mer is turned so that the weapon's backside faces
forward, the pedestal rises another 3 feet, revealing an
open cavity that contains a magic circlet identical to the
one worn by the statue- but fashioned from gold rather
than stone.
Treasure. The gold circlet is a circlet of blasting.


39B. BUGBEAR DEN
Three bugbears sit in the middle of the floor, eating
from a sack of dead rats and stirges. One of them has
an intellect devourer in its skull, which is controlling
it like a puppeteer. Because of the intellect devourer's
Detect Sentience trait, the bugbears can't be surprised
by the adventurers. When the intellect devourer's host
drops to 0 hit points, the intellect devourer teleports
away to seek a new host.


39c. GOBLIN HALL
Goblins. Nineteen loud, mean, starving goblins bicker
and fight over scraps of moldy food in this long hall.
Dead Goblin. A twentieth goblin lies dead on the floor,
the victim of an argument that ended badly.

39 D. O LD FORGE

Ettins. Two ettins, a female named Krung-Jung and a
male named Bokk-Nokkin, live in this foul-smelling
room. Branded on each of their foreheads is the sym-
bol of Xanathar: a circle with ten equidistant spokes
radiating outward from it and a dot in the center.
Forge. A blackened forge dominates the north wall. The
magic that once heated the forge expired long ago.
The ettins keep their treasure inside it (see "Treasure"
below). An iron anvil stands atop a 3-foot-high circular
stone dais in front of the hearth.
Hammer. Hanging above the anvil from thick iron
chains is a 7, 000 -pound stone hammer, 10 feet long
and 8 feet wide. Carved into one side of its stone head
are the Dwarvish runes for earth and water; the other
side is carved with similar runes for air and fire.


LEVEL I I DUNGEON LEVEL

Trophies. A 10-foot-wide, 20-foot-long, 2-foot-high slab
of stone dominates the southeast corner of the forge.
The ettins' latest trophies- two dead and rotting car-
rion crawlers-lie atop it.
The ettins lived in the Underdark until Xanathar's
minions found them. The brands on the ettins' fore-
heads signify their servitude under the beholder.
Treasure. Stored at the back of the forge are two
large sacks. One sack contains 1,400 cp and 350 sp.
The other contains 120 iron ingots worth 5 sp each.
Each ingot weighs 1 pound and is stamped with a ham-
mer on one side and an anvil on the other.

4 0. FEARFUL MIMICRY


Statu es. This T-shaped hall has three alcoves, two to
the north and one to the south. In each alcove is a
beautifully carved granite statue depicting an 8-foot-
tall, helmed elf warrior hefting a spear.
Mimic. Stone rubble is piled up behind the statue in the
southernmost alcove. The spear held by this statue
appears to be made of gold. (Both this statue and its
spear are a m imic. The creature uses its fake gold
spear as a lure.)
The mimic is a Large specimen with 75 (lOdlO +
20) hit points. It knocked over the original statue and
pushed the broken pieces into the back of the alcove,
assuming the shape of the statue afterward.

4 1. C RACK E D C EILING
Stirges. A 5-foot-wide, 30-foot-long, 45-foot-deep crack
has opened in the middle of the 30 -foot-high ceiling,
spilling rubble onto the floor. Twenty stirges roost at
the top of this fissure.
Tools. Old pickaxes and shovels are stored in two stone
wheelbarrows parked in the northwest corner.
The stirges hang like bats in the ceiling fissure and
descend en masse to feed on creatures that make too
much noise or shine light up at them. Bugbears come
here occasionally to catch and kill stirges for food.

AFTERMATH


Defeating the Undertakers means that future parties of
adventurers can explore this level of the dungeon with-
out paying tolls for safe passage. The gang's removal,
however, also allows bugbears, goblins, wererats, and
other Xanathar Guild operatives to set up new watch
posts in the bandits' former hideouts.
Destroying the Xanathar Guild outposts makes this
level a much safer place for a while, but it a lso spells the
end of the force that kept the grells, the gricks, and other
predatory monsters in check. Such creatures begin to
expand their territory, occasionally bumping up against
one another with predictably bloody results.
One thing that never changes is the steady influx
of new blood from the Yawning Portal. At any time,
another group of adventurers might descend to seek
their fortune in Undermountain. Such a group, perhaps
encountered as the characters make their way back to
Waterdeep, could greet the characters as friendly rivals
or as competition that must be eliminated.
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