Dungeon of the Mad Mage šŸ’€ Levels 5-20 MEGA DUNGEON

Dungeon of the Mad Mage šŸ’€ Levels 5-20 MEGA DUNGEON

Halaster built a murder-theatre under Waterdeep. You are tonight’s cast, crew, and casualty.

TYPE

Campaign

LEVELS

5–20

LANGUAGE

English

EXPERIENCE

Open to all

AGE

18+
2 SEATS LEFT
$25.00

/ Session

Details

4 players following this game

Weekly / Friday - 3:00 AM UTC

Aug 21 / Session 31

Session Duration / 3–3.5 hours

4 / 6 Seats Filled

Top Game Master

One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.

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Schedule

Fri, Aug 21 | 3:00 AM – Session 31

Fri, Aug 28 | 3:00 AM – Session 32

Meet your party members

4/6

About the adventure

Beneath the Yawning Portal, Undermountain is waking up, and every level is at war with the one below it. Ancient gates are stirring, old safeguards are failing, and Halaster’s dungeon has begun turning on itself. Xanathar’s Guild claws at the upper halls. Drow houses scheme in ruined cities. Goblinoid warlords fortify their kingdoms. Arcane apprentices play at godhood in abandoned laboratories. Mind flayers, duergar, undead, aberrations, cults, monsters, and worse all carve out their little pieces of the Mad Mage’s private hell. Up above, Waterdeep drinks, watches, and wagers while Durnan pays good coin for trophies dragged back from the dark. This is Dungeon of the Mad Mage run for momentum: fast entry, hard objectives, clean exits, and consequences that stick. It’s an ongoing sandbox-styled campaign with a storyline built for easy drop-ins. New players get into the action fast and existing players keep moving. Bring your own torches, rope, and plausible deniability. You have the dungeon’s attention.

Game style

Roleplay Heavy

Combat Heavy

Sandbox / Open World

Dungeon Crawl

Meet the Game Master

4.9

(29)

TOP GM
Streamer
Neurodivergent
Voice Actor

4 years on StartPlaying

291 games hosted

Highly rated for: Voices, Storytelling, Creativity

Average response time: 1 hour

Response rate: 100%

About me

Watch the short video pitch for the TL;DR version of my origin story: https://youtu.be/htEhWDgKbsU I run character-driven, story-focused games, where player choices, dice rolls, and gumption drive the plot and adventures forward. I prepare situations, people and problems - and then let you decide how to handle it all. I’ve been obsessed with this stuff for most of my life. I grew up obsessed with mythology and fairy tales, and in the mid-80s I fell into D&D through Dragonlance and the old Gold Box computer games. While other kids were outside doing whatever normal kids do, I was pulling apart hit points and monster design to see how they worked. That obsession eventually led me into theatre and film. I directed Troll Bridge, a Pratchett-approved Discworld movie that received a heart-warming amount of attention, and Blood on the Game Dice, a love letter to tabletop gaming. Now days I'm back behind the DM screen, and doing what I can to torment and delight in the name of collaborative storytelling.

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Character creation

Creating your character

You’ll be creating your character on D&D Beyond with the complete official library and any available partnered content to scheme with. We use 5.5e where available, with 5e (2014 rules) filling in the gaps. Homebrew is not on the table. Characters start at level 7 and use point buy with fixed hit points. For gear, take your normal starting equipment - you may sell back anything you don’t want - then add 1,150 GP, plus one common and one uncommon magic item. You may buy additional equipment and magic items before the game at 5.5e prices. Please finish your sheet with details like height and weight; some traps pay attention to that. Completed characters must be submitted before the game so I can approve and import them into Foundry. You’ll have access to the game ~30 minutes before the session if you want to test dice rolls or poke at macros.

The current party

Mohgar: Half-Orc | Barbarian / Fighter / Path of the Zealot Monty: Tabaxi | Rogue / Swashbuckler Randar Bloodhammer: Deep Gnome | Cleric / Wizard / War Magic Trout Half-Peak: Goliath | Sorcerer / Wild Magic Sorcery

What to expect

Preparing for the session

šŸ’¬ Discord: Install the app (not the browser version), make an account, and join the server link I send after you book. šŸ’» VTT: Foundry runs in your browser, you don’t need to buy anything. Use Edge for best performance (Chrome’s fine). Turn on hardware acceleration. šŸ“œ D&D Beyond: Make your character there and send me the link before your first run - I'll need to import them into Foundry. It's free to sign up. šŸŽ§ Audio gear: Headphones required. If we hear pets, fans, traffic, or typing, please enable push-to-talk. šŸŽ¬ Tech check: Join Discord 10 minutes early for a quick audio check and chatter. Then we kick the doors off their hinges. šŸ›°ļø Connection: Stable internet. If your Wi-Fi is powered by sadness, plug in. Turn off your VPN and downloads.

What DM Dan Knight brings to the table

🐲 Master subscription on D&D Beyond for sharing the entire official 5e digital library āš’ļø Foundry VTT on Molten Hosting for accelerated network speeds šŸŽ¼ Syrinscape for licensed atmosphere and music šŸ—ŗļø Only the best third-party maps, tokens, and animation assets available šŸŽ™ļø Discord Nitro for exceptional speech clarity 🌈 A welcoming and inclusive game for everyone of all walks of life I run games from my studio with production-quality camera, lighting and audio. With a background in film, theatre, AV, and design, I bring a production mindset to the table. The space is built for your character to take centre stage with a focus on presentation, flow, and narrative punch - so every session plays like a live show built around your party’s story. Watch my video pitch here: https://youtu.be/htEhWDgKbsU

Homebrew rules

āž¤ Backgrounds are decoupled from ability score modifiers and origin feats, and you can select and adjust those appropriate to your character. You can leverage your backgrounds for skill check advantages in circumstances that would narratively favor your background. āž¤ Drinking a potion as a full action provides maximum results on all rolls. Drinking as a bonus action rolls dice as normal. Administering a potion to another is a full action with dice rolls. āž¤ Critical hits provide maximum damage, followed by an additional roll of all dice. āž¤ No reactions when surprised. āž¤ No flanking, but gain advantage on attacking targets out of their line of sight. Reactions can be spent to turn to face an attacker before the attack is resolved.

Equipment needed to play

Internet

Computer

Microphone

Headphones

Safety

How DM Dan Knight creates a safe table

This is high-energy, heroic survival horror in FaerĆ»n’s deadliest death trap: the content warnings below are a feature, not a bug. If the fiction gets too close to home, that’s completely valid. The table runs on an open-door policy: you can step away, call a break, or tap out at any time with zero judgement. Intimacy fades to black and stays offscreen. There’s no racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia at the table. Any bias toward fantasy peoples (orc hate, drow misandry, etc.) is roleplay only, and it earns in-world consequences. PvP only happens with explicit consent from everyone involved. Villains may threaten ugly things, but we don’t linger on it, we keep it offscreen, and player characters never perpetrate it. We always close with a quick debrief so nobody leaves carrying anything heavy. For everyone’s safety, sessions have their audio recorded.

Content warnings

Alcohol Use
Body Horror
Cults
Death
Deep or Large Bodies of Water
Devils / Demons / Fiends
Emotional Abuse
Extreme Violence
Gore
Insects
Language/Cursing
Mind alteration
Murder
Mutilation
Nightmares about Traumatic Events
Paralyzation
Prejudice
Small Spaces (Claustrophobia)
Snakes
Spiders
Suffocation
Torture
Fire
Mental Illness
Abuse
Animal Death
Blood
Character Death
Drowning
Hostages
Kidnapping
Illness
Mind Control
Mutilation of Corpses
Slavery
Human Trafficking (adult only)
Violence
Panic Attacks
Cannibalism
Freezing
Mass Death
Trauma
Uncanny Valley

Safety tools used

Frequently asked questions