Page 101 - Waterdeep - Dungeon of the Mad Mage_Neat

The Halaster statue has an elemental gem (air) for ample. Characters who enter the sphere can tell some-
a heart. This gem can be obtained only by shattering thing has happened when Maddgoth's castle suddenly
or disintegrating the statue. With a successful DC 12 looms twelve times larger in their vision.
Strength (Athletics) check, a character can use an action A shrunken creature or object reverts to its normal
to knock the statue off its high shelf, causing it to shatter size once it leaves the sphere, which is generated by the
on the floor. mithral spindle. No saving throw is allowed to resist the
shrinking effect, and nothing short of divine interven-
13D. CAVE OF REST
tion can suppress the spindle's magic. The spindle is
The stone giants come here to rest when they're tired. impervious to damage, and it generates a magical repul-
The cave is devoid of furnishings and ostentation. sion field that prevents creatures from approaching any
closer to it than 5 fe.et.
14. CAVE B EAR D EN When Halaster created the mithral spindle, he ex-
These caves smeU like an animal den-not surprising, empted certain creatures and objects from its shrinking
given that Qurrok keeps his cave bears here. effect. The spindle itself is unaffected, as is Maddgoth's
homunculus. Faerie dragons are also immune to the
14A. ADULT CAVE BEARS shrinking effect, and there might be other creatures and
Two adult cave bears (use the polar bear statistics) rest objects that are unaffected as well, based solely on the
here. These mates attack anyone they don't recognize, Mad Mage's whims.
defending their young in area 14b. Gnawed bones cover
the den's floor. 16A. LEDGES
These ledges are 90 feet above the cavern floor and safe
14B. YOUNG CAVE BEARS to traverse.
Two cave bear cubs (use the black bear statistics) sleep
and play here. Qurrok has hollowed out several large 16B. CAVERN FLOOR
rocks for the young bears to run through and climb on. Qurrok. If no one has raised an alarm, Qurrok the
stone giant is searching the cavern floor for interest-
15. Q u RROK's DEN ing rocks and gem deposits.
The stone giants stopped sculpting these caves when Corpses. Amid the rocks on the cavern floor are the rot-
they encountered soft sandstone beneath the harder ting corpses of two umber hulks killed by Qurrok in
stone. Qurrok has turned this area into a private den. the western caves.
Qurrok's body is a temple, and he has honed and
15A. UNFINISHED CAVE
shaped it to perfection. His extensive physical train-
Natural columns of rock support the cave ceiling, the ing gives him advantage on all Strength checks and
walls of which depict unfinished carvings of lanky stone
Strength saving throws.
giants hurling rocks. The cave is otherwise empty. Every time Qurrok loses his memory, he forgets about
his previous excursions to the bottom of this cavern.
15B. GYM
He lowers himself to the floor, discovers the mithral
This cave's walls are bereft of carvings. Resting on the
spindle, and tries to climb it to see what's at the top. Re-
floor at the north end of the cave are stone barbells and
buffed and discouraged by the repulsion field that sur-
stacks of circular stone plates with holes bored through
the middle of them. Qurrok (see area 16a) works out rounds the spindle, he starts combing the cavern floor
here, using the barbells and boulders as weights. for treasure.
When an alarm sounds in the caverns around this
16. CENTRAL CAVERN area, Qurrok climbs up to the ledge closest to the distur-
bance. If doing that puts him anywhere near his pet cave
This 180-foot-diameter spherical cavern has a domed bears in area 14, he summons them to his side with a
ceiling and a bowl-shaped floor. Along its perimeter booming, bear-like roar.
are stone ledges (area 16a) that don't quite encircle the Qurrok likes physical challenges. He neither shies
chamber. Any creature knocked off a ledge goes tum- away from combat nor backs down from a fight unless
bling down the inward-sloping rock walls to the bottom his mother, Speleosa, commands him to.
of the cavern (area 16b), which is strewn with rocks,
bones, and the bodies of two dead umber hulks.
FALLING FROM MADDGOTH'S CASTLE
At the center of the cavern, floating 10 feet above a
If a creature that is reduced to one-twelfth its normal size
smooth, 80-foot-tall mithral spindle that erupts from
falls from the castle, it will travel over 600 relative feet
the floor, is Maddgoth's castle. The stone castle is more
before hitting the cavern floor due to the reducing effect
than 60 feet away from the ledges, putting it outside the around the castle, which turns every foot of actual distance
range of some creatures' darkvision. The stone giants into 12 feet of relative distance. From its perspective, the
have never noticed it for this reason. creature would seem to fall several hundred feet before
The castle looks small enough to fit in a 20-foot-cube, suddenly growing twelve times bigger in the final 40 feet
and it floats at the center of an invisible 40-foot-radius before impact. Because the reducing effect creates more
sphere of transmutation magic that shrinks all creatures relative distance between the creature and the cavern floor,
and objects in its area to one-twelfth their normal size. a fall from anywhere on the castle deals 20d6 bludgeoning
damage on impact.
A 6-foot-tall person becomes a 6-inch-tall person, for ex-

LEVEL 7 I MADDGOTH"S CASTLE
TOO