How To Run Halaster The Mad Mage

As part of my continuing series on lessons from the Mad Mage megadundeon, I talk about how to have Halaster interact with your players. The text tells us that Halaster wanders the halls of his dungeons and is constantly changing its setup, gates and monsters. So it makes sense that the players would have interactions with Halaster long before they are powerful enough to take him on.
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[@777Jdude]

Hey D&D Homebrew , I've been watching since your first Mad mage Video, Your timing has been impeccable for me thus far, I have been running this Module for my friend group once a month since February last year. You have been such a great help for me , your views on static encounters have changed the ways I view encounters, your advice has embolden me to make some changes myself. This has been one of the best campaigns I've ever run and I can't thank you enough for your advice.

[@DDHomebrew]

These are the sort of comments that make doing this channel worthwhile! Glad I can be of help!

[@Jeffing_Around]

I ran Halastar like the Ice King from Adventure Time. No regrets.

[@DDHomebrew]

Nice!

[@OlOlOIIO]

Honestly. I feel like this is a pro tip: take every concept of how Strahd in the Curse of Strahd book works while in his lair. And apply it to Halaster. Halster can modify walls and doors and general space in under mountain. Strahd can just walk through walls. I mash the two and allow Halster to be able to walk through walls/floors, they just rework themselves as part of his movement. Halaster as a regional effect can have apparitions of dead adventurers stalk stalk the halls of the dungeon. Strahd can summon a a dead spirit as a specter. I applied the same concept to Halaster. I even took the concept of the Crystal heart and gave Halaster what is basically the benefits of a Ring of Shared Suffering and any wounds he would take are transferred to one of his prisoners. The omnipresence of Strahd is so iconic and well done that I felt like having their level of involvement was just perfect for making Halaster as iconic and terrifying as they should be.

[@DDHomebrew]

This is such a great idea. And it shows how you can use aspects of other big bad villains to enhance those of other modules or your own homebrewed creations. And Strahd is one of the best to emulate.

[@brettschacht4183]

Nice! My group will be exploring a heavily -modded version of this Dungeon after they finish their adventure in Phandalin. Thanks for another great video.

[@DDHomebrew]

Glad you liked it!

[@OlOlOIIO]

O: ! Did you have them travel from Phandalin to Waterdeep? My campaign is heavily centered around Phandalin so after my Forge of Spells was reignited, I ended up making the waters to the northeast of Wave Echo Cave evaporate into a thick mist that is a portal to the well of Undermountian.

[@TheGr8fuljoe]

Perhaps the mad mage is using his fun house dungeon to screen adventurers, separate the chaff from the wheat, and find new hirelings/minions? The group eventually stumbles into a room with a great feast, bandages, washbasins, and new clothes. This is where the mad mage (or his consigliere) offers the heroes a quest to find an artifact or attack a rival or sew CHAOS. Your video stirred up this thought. Thanks for setting my imagination on fire.

[@DDHomebrew]

Great idea here. The key is you can make the mad mage do anything you want. You can change the monsters, the dungeons, etc. Just use your imagination. That's the spirit behind the Mad Mage Companion that I talked about in the video. I'm not that familiar with it, so I might have the title wrong, but I get the spirit of it.

[@jriggan]

Awesome topic! (Sorry 4 long winds)😅 When the Dungeon of the Mad Mage came out, I got deeply into “Understanding Undermountain”. I have some thoughts, but maybe I will only express one of them: Have you read The Amber Chronicles? As I read the Lore text on the history of Halaster’s Delve, it reminded me of Oberon and the labyrinthine Glyph under the city of Amber. Maybe Halaster is really after the complete restoration (or undoing) of the knot in the Weave that is left over from the transplanting of the Ancient Pre-Elven City: He tunnels to unlock and connect various lost nodes or eddies of remnant power. Perhaps, long ago, he realized that the proper path had to be “walked” in order to unlock the “Gate to True Power”. But, by the time he knew How to complete the process, He was ineligible (probably, because he had entwined too much of his own raw magical strength into the re-weaving of the schematic). He needs another entity to make the journey (the “path” is likely constantly moving, and there are points along it wherein significant powers enact real change upon the mendicant?). There’s a time or crucial ceremony, suggested by the apparent immortality of not only Halaster, but his students, Durnan, possibly Mirt, and others are hinted at having been permanently connected to the Maze of Undermountain. Wether, it’s Halaster that is now only a psychic representative of the heart of the labyrinth is a problem to be determined by greater sages than I.

[@DDHomebrew]

Wow! I read those as a kid but had never made the connection. But the but the labyrinth under Castle Amber does have a similarity to the Undermountain tunnels. This is a great idea to create a mega-dungeon with an over-lord like Halaster, but with this as the underlying secret.

[@artificerworkshop1118]

The way to defeat halister in game, is to make your way to 20th century earth and locate his author, preventing him from being written. this is the only known way.

[@DDHomebrew]

Unless Halister sent someone back to take the book from the printer!

[@austinkersey2445]

Thanks for the tips! I'm thinking of running Dragonheist into this to start them off at a decent level (maybe get them up to 6-8) and then bring them into Halaster's mad world. I'm really looking into the dungeon itself as well as the characters (which while not the largest roster ever, does have some compelling characters). I'm really into Halaster and Undermountain as a character. I'm gonna run Halaster like Mark Hamill's Joker or Fire Lord Ozai. He's a malignant psychopath who has a sardonic and macabre sense of humor and can lash out in fits of violence or rage. He's also going to have a deeper, more gravelly voice than I imagine most run. I'm going to run my own ideas and strategies parallel to the players. Test them with a puxzle or a riddle they have to solve. Make the end goal of each level involve the acquisition of knowledge or comprehension. As for Undermountain itself, it will be evolving and chaotic. Have simulacrums of Halaster for each level that represent him as he was when he established that level. And, as the party progresses, the holographic representations of Halaster also descend further and further into madness. Murals and artistic depictions in various areas that become more warped and twisted the further down you go. Hell, I plan on having an M.C. Escher room to really mess with them. Sorry for the rant. Point is, your videos on Dungeon of the Mad Mage (and my own research after purchasing the book) have inspired me to want to run it. I think I'm gonna run it, and I hope my players have as much fun surviving the monsters, solving the brainteasers, and beating the bosses as I did putting them together! Thanks!

[@DDHomebrew]

Great ideas here! I think running Halaster as truly a psychopath is smart: why would he create and sustain such an elaborate underground complex unless his crazed narcissism drives him on? Check out my video on running insane npc's: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZrPlGebo76rgZI for some tips on the "crazy genius" trope! And I'm glad these videos are inspiring you to run this module.

[@conmacmara2743]

Holy fuck, I accidentally made Halaster a mad mage bbeg in my game without ever knowing this. He just seemed like the type to go mad when I read ahiut him on wiki. I had no idea this was a module, I had heard of it, but didnt know it was him.

[@DDHomebrew]

That is amazing!

[@conmacmara2743]

Good video, bad audio. I agree, my halaster is very powerful in all places.

[@DDHomebrew]

Just noticed theirs a hiss behind the audio. I have no idea how I missed that! My apologies to all who suffered.