I remember my older brother running some games in Waterdeep. He even included a cameo from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. 🙂 His campaign was primarily Greyhawk, and he sprinkled in some FR by including Waterdeep, which he interchanged with Lankhmar, since they're both very similar, massive, cities. Essentially, he said Lankhmar was the city's original name, and it became rechristened Waterdeep after the Circle of Eight came to power. The Co8 replaced the Lords of Waterdeep, but served the same function.
That’s cool that he did that, I ran it for some friends of mine a while back and they were in there, too! And yeah, Waterdeep is basically Lankhmar lol
Waterdeep and Undermoutain. Dungeon Magazine 126, 127, and 128 have a three part 3e adventure set in Waterdeep and Undermoutain. Dealing with Artor Morlin the resident Vampire Lord of Waterdeep.
Very helpful guide to some of the literal forgotten background of Waterdeep. Thank you so much for this, it's going to help my Waterdeep campaign a ton.
Fun; I'm currently in the process of converting the 2e & 5e Undermountain stuff over to Castles & Crusades. The thinking now is that it will be primarily just a megadungeon campaign, but maybe I'll add more of the Waterdeep elements. I've ported it over to my home campaign (the town is called Deepwater) so I'm free to tweak as I see fit.
Waterdeep is key to a campaigns long term prospects IMHO. They go together. Skullport is hardly as interesting in its vileness if there's no surface reflection to play off of it for example. If you've not had the pleasure of reading through Volo's Guide, I think once you do you'd be sold on the idea.
I saw the video and went to school the next day I printed off the campaign guide to undermountain and the halls of undermountain and began writing the new adventure for the after-school d&d club. after the first session, i finessed them off with a horde of ghouls dragging one player away. thanks for this video
In the words of Elminster, "Ah yes, a typical foray into Halaster's Halls. What fun!" You're welcome! Thanks for the run down on your session. Sound great! 🤣
I owned that first Waterdeep boxed set, never did much with it, and eventually gave it to a friend. However, I clearly remember sticking its city maps together onto the only bank space I had which was big enough, namely my bedroom ceiling! It took some effort, because as I stuck one corner of a map in place, another would come loose, demanding extra adhesive putty. :)
Captain, I played through a few of the areas in Undermountain as part of a friends wider campaign. I remember it being weird and superbly dangerous. I highly recommend this one for a good old fashioned Dungeon Crawl centric game.
I remember you touched on this a while back, and I wanted to hear more about it. So good timing! I wish there was just a single omnibus or source that had all ofhthe Undermountain stuff in one location so you could just run it sort of like The World's Largest Dungeon.
If you look at the playlist of videos I've done I pretty much cover everything that's been printed about Undermountain, including Dragon Magazine articles. But hunting all that down, that you don't already own is on you. lol.. I've just tried to provide a method for running it based on my own experiences, and links to the sources that you really need to get things going.
Captain, my Captain! OMG this video was so amazing because I and a bunch of friends (from highschool, many decades ago) are currently in a combo Waterdeeo/Undermountain campaign! You have pointed out everything our beloved DM is doing right and I just wish there was a way we could play 16 hours a day again, like we did when we were kids! Love your videos, my friend!
I never worry about it. What I should have mentioned in the video is that I make some room encounters but they aren't keyed to a specific room. They are keyed to the character's ability and the room encounter occurs wherever the PCs are in the dungeon.
I was thinking it would be hilarious if the portal led to a random wardrobe in the city of waterdeep. That sounds like a lot of work on the dm's part but I imagine it would be funny if the players try to find a way back in or plan on getting out in a certain area and it doesn't work. Great video, a lot of interesting information.
This video happened to pop up on my subscriptions as my friend and I were decided on a megadungeon to play in Old School Essentials Advanced. So we're going to use the original 2e version, and this video was really helpful in giving me the idea that I could reference the older modules to help fill up the dungeons with written rooms (which hopefully are better than randomly rolled ones). Excited to play this!
One of the tips I totally forgot to include was premade room descriptions with no specific location. So many rooms are rather generic. 30 x 30 rooms, 40x50 rooms etc. You can just make up your own interesting room encounters and just use them when the party is in one of the 'matching' sections.
Thank you for sharing. After your review and comparison to the 5e adventures (Dragonheist and DotMM), I started to hunt down the boxed sets. I'm really interested in running a Waterdeep+Undermountain campaign... In my +25 years playing RPGs I never thought I would be interested in Forgotten Realms!!
@@captcorajus Do you know the 'Expedition to Undermountain - campaign book D&D 3.5' ? This is, so to speak, an adventure of its own, but there is also a bunch of new and additional as well as very interesting information in it. Check it out, it's great! Here is the excerpt of what drivethrurpg says: Expedition to Undermountainis a 224-page super-adventure that revisits the greatest dungeon in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Located beneath the city of Waterdeep, Undermountain has lured countless heroes to their doom. Like other adventures in the “Expedition” series, this product takes a classic D&D location, updates it for v.3.5, and features many " N E W " surprises. It also includes source material for the players and a new combat encounter format designed to make the Dungeon Master’s job easier, as well as information to help Dungeon Masters adapt the adventure to serve their home campaigns. Product History Expedition to Undermountain (2007), by Eric L. Boyd, Ed Greenwood, Christopher Lindsay, and Sean K. Reynolds, is as much source book as it is campaign adventure. Reworking the massive, sprawling dungeon crawl for 3.5 D&D, the campaign is designed to bring heroes from 1st level to 10th. The underground adventure location is huge, with nine main levels and about 20 sub-levels that connect to caverns, more dungeons, and the Underdark. This book is designed to let a DM turn Undermountain into a longterm campaign setting, so it provides lore, plot hooks, and details about the power groups who clash for control of Undermountain. This is a more freeform, less directed approach than the 2e AD&D mega-dungeon version of Undermountain, but which works regardless. All Things Pass.The world has changed, the mad Archmage Halaster has died (pretty definitively, according to the DM text - although let's face it, if you haven't seen the body, then it's still suspect). Once more, adventurous PCs enter the Yawning Portal to see what lies beneath. There is no central and over-riding quest that sends PCs into the dungeons; instead, a number of individual missions to find and recover objects lead to clashes and conflict with the various groups who hope to rule the shadowy passages of Undermountain. The adventure begins with a strong synopsis of Undermountain, giving DMs a solid understanding of how different levels fit together and interact. Halaster's death has the opportunity to open up a power vacuum in Undermountain, and the various factions may choose to exploit that. Note that the Encounter structure, breaking out encounters into their own pages later in the book, has caught some readers off guard: It makes reading the book a bit choppy, with more page-flipping required between encounters and the map sections than some DMs are used to, even while running the actual encounter becomes easier since all the needed information is summarized on one or two pages. Battles tend to be tactical and relatively deadly for incautious players. That's fun for many groups, but players who aren't used to working as a team may find themselves badly savaged by swarms of tiny beholder eyeballs. Also? There are stats for a swarm of beholder eyeballs. Consider yourself warned. You Can't Get There If You Don't Have a Map. Expedition to Undermountain gives a side-view cutaway map of the complex, something that has been conspicuously missing in previous Undermountain products. Cartography-wise, there are a few locations developed in Expedition to Undermountain that don't easily fit into the maps of older products. The town of Spiderhaven is one of these, as is Belkram's Fall. There's also a reasonable argument that the maps of several areas are smaller than they should be, making it a bit difficult to track PC progress through the underground settlements. That actually turns into a positive, though, when it comes time for a DM to fill out and customize undescribed areas of Undermountain, for there is plenty of space and plenty of latitude for expansion. Where's the Earth-Shattering Kaboom? Due to the nature of the beast, the DM has extensive freedom to customize his adventures within the framework that this book provides. The downside of that is that there isn't necessarily a noteworthy cinematic climax to the adventure as written. PCs have so many options on where to go and how to explore that providing a single scripted ending would be difficult. Yet even with lots of fun, exciting smaller encounters detailed within each area, DMs may want to think forward to crafting this sort of emotional and deadly conclusion to their PCs' adventures. With the tools and framework provided, they'll have a lot of options for doing so. If you're looking at a massive dungeon crawl for 3.x D&D, or if you want superb inspiration for assembling a mega-dungeon of your own, you'll find this book both useful and entertaining.
@@juliasilverstone2626 Yes, I'm aware. I did a complete rundown of EVER product ever published for Undermountain back in 2016. This wasn't a review but a 'how to', so I fixated on what I consider to be 'core' products. Expedition does have a LOT of new room entries and if you wanted to get it in 'addition to' Ruins of undermountain you couldn't go wrong, but Ruins of Undermountain has the original FULL unabridged maps for the first three levels, so in my opinion that's 'core'. Also, Hallowed Halls does essentailly the same thing as expedition to undermountain, but its very 'edition neutral' AND comes with the very cool full poster map of the Yawning Portal, which is why it appears in this video. Expedition to Undermountain's story is also not something I care for, as it ends in the death of Halaster Blackcloak, as this was a precursor to 4th edition and sets off the 'Spell Plague' in the forgotten realms. Thanks!!
What a treat that video was :) Can't wait for some more Greyhawk material hehe Keep up the good work ! Absolutely love your channel and was wondering what other youtube channels you'd recommend on the same style as yours ? Cheers !
I bought two 2e sourcebooks just to solidify my latest character’s backstory in a campaign that ended way too early. But as a mostly forever DM, this helped me realize how I can use old sourcebooks to forge something new for my two groups. Thank you! I subbed and will be binging your vids and look forward to the new stuff!
@@captcorajus Ja auch hallo mein Freund, das ist ja ne tolle Überraschung... das ja cool, du schreibst ja Deutsch 🙂 Bist du Deutscher? In deiner Info-Box standen ja noch mehr Sachen ^^ Also "Volo's Guide to Waterdeep " und "Skullport" (ich meine da gehören auch noch zwei weitere Bücher dazu, kann mich aber auch täuschen) habe ich auch.. aber da ich nur AD&D 2nd. Ed. (ca. 480 originale Artikel) sowie D&D 3.0 + 3.5 (ALLES, einfach jedes Buch was jemals rausgekommen ist + 23 D&D Bücher die es auf der Welt NUR 8 mal gibt ^^ - das darf ich hier eigentlich gar nicht erzählen aber Beweise könnte ich dir via Mail schicken, KEIN THEMA XDXDXD). Da das "Halls of Undermountain", D&D 4.0 (von 4.0 habe ich lediglich alle Dungeon-Tiles) ist, hab ich´s leider nicht zudem kenne ich das "The Blue Alley" gar nicht aber das klingt interessant: Ich habe hier im Wohnzimmer nur Teile meine Sammlung stehen, z.B. alle AD&D 2nd. Ed. Kampagnen-Boxen, ja und noch ca. 300 Bücher von anderen Systemen. Meine ganze Sammlung steht, fein säuberlich in 14 Kartons einsortiert, in meinem Schlafzimmer XD. Alles in Schutzhüllen usw.! Von den D&D 3.0/ 3.5 Miniaturen fehlen mir noch einige aber da habe ich auch vier Vitrinen voll XD. Am liebsten sammle ich, ungeöffnete/ verschweißte (Mint/near Mint) Rollenspiel-Artikel... und davon habe ich auch jede Menge. Naja letztendlich habe ich vor ca. 5 Jahren aufgehört zu sammeln und RPG spiele ich leider seit ca. 20 Jahren nicht mehr ^^ ! So jetzt muss ich mir noch mal dein Video angucken, letztes Mal würde ich gestört. Wenn du bezüglich den 23 "fast" einzigartigen Büchern (weltweit) was wissen möchtest, dann kann ich dir ne krasse Geschichte erzählen und damit du siehst, dass es die Wahrheit ist, könnte ich dir auch ein selbstgedrehtes Video von mir und den Bücher oder auch Fotos schicken... das ne krasse Geschichte wie ich an die Sachen gekommen bin :-) Ach ja, ich liebe deinen Kanal🧡💛💚💙💜 PS: Die Kampagnen-Box "Undermountain II" habe ich auch, I + II beide auf Deutsch zudem :-) Ach was habe ich das geliebt, die ganzen Dinge zu sammeln. In digitaler Form habe ich alles was es von AD&D 2nd. Ed. gibt (wenn du was brauchst schicke ich es dir gerne per Mail ;-), Mit den digitalen Sachen habe ich immer abgeglichen, was ich alles habe und was uns mir noch fehlt bzw. kaufen muss damit ich alles habe und AD&D 2nd. Ed. komplett ist - Ich glaub es waren insgesammt 680 Artikel AD&D 2nd. Ed. die es gibt. Liebe Grüße Sebastian
@@captcorajus Ich habe sogar noch zahlreiche doppelte AD&D Artikel (überwiegend auf Englisch), auch in gutem Zustand.. ganz ehrlich, so nem coolen Typen wie dir würde ich die auch schenken, du musst nur das Porto und den Zoll übernehmen, bzw. es mir zurückschicken wenn du die Sachen via Post erhalten hast (In das Paket, könnte ich dir noch einen USB-Stick mit allen digitalen AD&D 2d. Ed. Büchern, allen Rolemaster 2nd. Ed. + Spacemaster 2nd. Ed. Rollenspielbüchern, packen). Wenn du magst gucke ich mal durch die Sachen durch, dass habe ich schon lange nicht mehr gemacht und darüber würde ich mich auch echt freuen. Warum schenken...? Weil Sachen schenken und allgemein GEBEN, Spaß macht (ich gebe und teile gerne, habe auch genug), gutes Karma gibt und ich bin der Ansicht, das alles Gute und Schlechte im Leben zurückkommt... Also gib mir ne Rückmeldung 🙂 Liebe Grüße Basti PS: Ich vermisse die schönen Rollenspiel-Abende sooooo 😤😢Leider bin ich in den letzten Jahren sehr krank geworden und wäre zudem fast, mehrfach, gestoben... aber jetzt ist alles relativ gut. Zusätzlich habe ich meinen Bruder vor 5 Jahren (44 Jahre jung) verloren, dass hat mich echt fertig gemacht! "Eigentlich" wäre ich aufgrund von meiner Krankheit tot, von daher gebe und schenke ich auch gerne... Über eine Rückmeldung würde ich mich freuen ☺
@@captcorajus PART 2: I even have numerous duplicates of AD&D-Books/ -items (mostly in English), also in good condition.. to be honest, I would give these to a cool guy like you. You only have to give me an feedback that you had received the items and then you can transfer me the postage-costs via PayPal back - for example. In the package, I could also put a USB-stick with all of the digital AD&D 2nd ed. books, all the Rolemaster 2nd ed. + Spacemaster 2nd ed. roleplaying books. If you like, I'll take a look through all my Items, I haven't done this for years... I would be really happy if i had an reason/ opportunity to do it. Why i want to give these books away...? Because giving/ donate things is so cool, it is fun... GIVING in general is fun (I like to give and donate, I have enough), it also gives a good karma too and I believe that every good doings and bad doings comes back in life... So if you have interest, give me feedback Best regards Basti PS: I still miss the nice role-playing evenings with my friends sooooo bad 😤😢 Unfortunately I've gotten very/ seriously ill in the last few years… I would have died almost a few times.... but currently everything is relatively good. In addition, I lost my brother 5 years ago (44 years young), that really got to me! "Actually" I would be dead due to my illness also but it seem that I have a guardian angel (may be its an Solar Aasimon ^^)... I'd be happy to get a feedback from you ☺
I was stationed on a ship in Guam, early 90s. The base bookstore only had the 2nd edition PHB, some dice, and the Undermountain box set. I ran games in the training room deep into the night with just those stuff... and I made stuff up as I went along. I mean stuff like an underground forest with Stevie Nicks as a Druid, stuff like that. The guys loved it.
Between copies of Forgotten Realms Adventures, The Forgotten Realms Atlas, Volos" Guides to Waterdeep, and the North, it's possible to have characters from all over the planet of Toril, or at least the main continent. I also ran a campaign in Waterdeep for about a year before life got in the way or I ran out of ideas not sure which anymore.
Yes, I sure did! I ran it and our group had an absolute blast. I ran the 'Summer' campaign involving the noble family the Casslanters. I had a few of the players actually crying when the children turned into little demons.
Hi Captain! Love your videos and reviews and your tips on handling encounters etc.. Never played the Under Mountain setting but I do own a Forgotten Realms City System boxed set ( collecting dust ). How does that play into what your showing? Have you done a review for it in the past and what are your thoughts on it? Thanks for the video 👍🏻.
I did a full review of waterdeep products a few years ago, check the playlist in the video information. The 'City System' is kinda fun. just a massive blow up of the core map. Its useful if you really want to get a nice 'street view' of the area the PCs are in.
If you bought Undermountain as a box of maps, its great. If you expected it to be a fully fleshed out product, you were very disappointed. I was the latter. I think a better version of this style of adventure is WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins or the S&W version of Rappan Athuk.
Skull Port adventure setting book from AD&D2ndE, .. Just up scale the grid area into tens of meters so it can dock Star Wars spaceships. As for the City of Water Deep itself, it has been used more than a few times for our 3e Star Wars campaigns. Little changes, .. necromancers zombies just turn them into droid repair shops. As for the mind flayers illthids, they are bio engineers and cloners that create psionic wild talents/ Force skill powers. They vat grow brains because they are picky eaters, or just drink a chemical protein serum each month for basic nurtruintion. . Since mind flayers are listed as lawful evil, they are strictly by the letter of the contract if not the spirit of the short-term contract. Still many like to add things not part of biology upgrades contracts and some of them look at long term clients as .. pets .. ( just don't sign off on free upgrades that haven't been properly tested yet. ) Mind flayers rather modify a chicken egg and vat grown a human host from said egg than roll the dice with stander peasant stock. Due to AD&D mind flayers spell like abilities and Plane Shift is a 7th-level spell of a 13th-level wizard, instead of 9d4+3 for AD&D and WotC3e 13d4 for hp, list a mind flayers as a 6d8 monster and a 13th-level spellcaster as base. WotC3e Psionic handbook was fun too. 4th-level spell Polymorph Other, later renamed as Baneful Polymorph " for body horror stories," with WotC3e Spellcraft DC15+spell level to learn or cast spell. Just rename & turn Polymorph into genetic reengineering. So roll DC:19 to alter someone's genetics to gain psionic wild talents or gills, night vision, organ replacements, etc .. Speed of alternation transformation is base on campaign story telling plot, from days to mere seconds for movie zombie/ghoul outbreaks. Another side note from playing WEG west end games Star Wars covering ship docks built hidden into sides of mountains or old pyramids. Just upscale square area into tens of meters and turn D&D underground dungeon maps into Rebel ground or asteroid bases.
@@VinnyBloo I love drow and the AD&D "Forgotten Realms - Menzoberranzan Boxed Set". When the AD&D 2nd. Ed. Since expansion books regarding the races did not yet exist, I could refer to the information from the 'AD&D Monstrous Compendium Volume II (TSR2103)'... under 'Elf, Drow'! Later there were numerous additional books about drow. If you have the opportunity to start off like Drizzt Do'Urden, no evil alligment, no evil gods, etc., then playing a drow can have some real style or you play it in an evil campaign 🙂 Sorry for my englisch, i´m from Germany 😄
Undermountain is a tough sell to me these days. Back in the day, there was a distinct lack of what we now call "megadungeons" in print, and what was there (Greyhawk Ruins, say) was pretty mediocre. The Undermountain set amounted to some great background lore and cool maps, but since those maps were 99% unkeyed and some of the room descriptions that were there were written in a rambling style that was far from ideal for actual play, the product as a whole was more of a tease that anything else. Like a trailer for a film that never came out. These days, if you want something with this sort of scope, but fully realized, you have Stonehell, Barrowmaze (and the rest of the Gillespie oeuvre), Halls of Arden Vul, Rappan Athuk, etc. It fell on the OSR deliver on what TSR ultimately could not, and they delivered in spades.
I'm not a fan of some of what you mentioned. I found the organization on some of it crazy poor and not explained all that well. However, this video isn't really about that at all. Those so called 'empty' areas are key to making the campaign your own... and to be fair a LOT has been written since the original box set release. As I said in the video, 'exploration' really isn't the main focus of the campaign. Waterdeep the city above is as important as Undermountain is. Try watching the video in full first to see what I'm talking about. ;)
@@captcorajus Hey, 3/4 of the way through is pretty good by my standards before I get antsy and start typing. ;) But I don't disagree that the coverage of Waterdeep itself is more than adequate. It's Undermountain proper that always felt like the afterthought to me. Based on FR1 and VGtW alone, I wouldn't say we've seen numerous, markedly better takes on a FRPG city setting in the years since. The megadungeon concept, on the other hand, has undergone a renaissance of sorts that's left the official Undermountain material in the dust. I mean, if a big empty map is the draw, ones of approximately the same quality can be generated ad infinitum in the blink of an eye via computer. That's trivial. In my opinion, of course.
@@nad3936 Honestly, I personally don't want all the blanks filled in for me. I don't want to read through all that and try and piece together how it fits together. I don't want to mention anything specific, because clearly there was a TON of work done, and the creators are talented. But trying to piece all that together gave me a headache. Time and again over the years, I've used those 'empty' areas to serve many functions for stories that were started in the campaign by the PLAYERS.
@@nad3936 "Old-school" is rolling your own, sure. It can also include using a pre-made module if you'd rather not devote the time. A professional module is thus at its most useful when reasonably complete. There are instances were that's not the case because the module in question is meant specifically as a tutorial (B1, B2, and B4 all use variations on this concept). Otherwise, though, if you're going to sell a dungeon for actual money, you may as well as least key it. Otherwise, well, random maps are free. It's hard to beat free if they're all you want/need. And look, I get that FR has its fans who would style themselves defenders of all things Greenwood, but would Expedition to the Barrier Peaks get a fraction of the love it does if it was just a page of background amounting to "There's a crashed spaceship. Now go design it yourself."? No way. Because you presumably bought the dang module to save that effort. Just because Undermountain has an Emperor's new clothes effect working in its favor doesn't make it any less so.
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I truly miss all those old AD&D box sets! Unlike all ones now a days that are mostly air.
I remember my older brother running some games in Waterdeep. He even included a cameo from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. 🙂 His campaign was primarily Greyhawk, and he sprinkled in some FR by including Waterdeep, which he interchanged with Lankhmar, since they're both very similar, massive, cities. Essentially, he said Lankhmar was the city's original name, and it became rechristened Waterdeep after the Circle of Eight came to power. The Co8 replaced the Lords of Waterdeep, but served the same function.
That’s cool that he did that, I ran it for some friends of mine a while back and they were in there, too! And yeah, Waterdeep is basically Lankhmar lol
Waterdeep and Undermoutain. Dungeon Magazine 126, 127, and 128 have a three part 3e adventure set in Waterdeep and Undermoutain. Dealing with Artor Morlin the resident Vampire Lord of Waterdeep.
Wow, I didn't know that! THANKS
Very helpful guide to some of the literal forgotten background of Waterdeep. Thank you so much for this, it's going to help my Waterdeep campaign a ton.
I have the first edition Waterdeep box set .. the maps are huge and cover the whole city. Plus the Castle maps.
The ultimate double or nothing D&D experience. Deeper. Deeper. We must go deeper!
What a great comment XDXDXD ❤
Fun; I'm currently in the process of converting the 2e & 5e Undermountain stuff over to Castles & Crusades. The thinking now is that it will be primarily just a megadungeon campaign, but maybe I'll add more of the Waterdeep elements. I've ported it over to my home campaign (the town is called Deepwater) so I'm free to tweak as I see fit.
Waterdeep is key to a campaigns long term prospects IMHO. They go together. Skullport is hardly as interesting in its vileness if there's no surface reflection to play off of it for example.
If you've not had the pleasure of reading through Volo's Guide, I think once you do you'd be sold on the idea.
I saw the video and went to school the next day I printed off the campaign guide to undermountain and the halls of undermountain and began writing the new adventure for the after-school d&d club. after the first session, i finessed them off with a horde of ghouls dragging one player away. thanks for this video
In the words of Elminster, "Ah yes, a typical foray into Halaster's Halls. What fun!"
You're welcome! Thanks for the run down on your session. Sound great! 🤣
I appreciate your inclusion of resources spanning editions.
I owned that first Waterdeep boxed set, never did much with it, and eventually gave it to a friend. However, I clearly remember sticking its city maps together onto the only bank space I had which was big enough, namely my bedroom ceiling! It took some effort, because as I stuck one corner of a map in place, another would come loose, demanding extra adhesive putty. :)
Great Video, thanks.
Captain, I played through a few of the areas in Undermountain as part of a friends wider campaign. I remember it being weird and superbly dangerous. I highly recommend this one for a good old fashioned Dungeon Crawl centric game.
It sounds excellent thank you very much I think Waterdeep is the best city in all of swords and sorcery.
I remember you touched on this a while back, and I wanted to hear more about it. So good timing! I wish there was just a single omnibus or source that had all ofhthe Undermountain stuff in one location so you could just run it sort of like The World's Largest Dungeon.
If you look at the playlist of videos I've done I pretty much cover everything that's been printed about Undermountain, including Dragon Magazine articles. But hunting all that down, that you don't already own is on you. lol.. I've just tried to provide a method for running it based on my own experiences, and links to the sources that you really need to get things going.
Captain, my Captain! OMG this video was so amazing because I and a bunch of friends (from highschool, many decades ago) are currently in a combo Waterdeeo/Undermountain campaign! You have pointed out everything our beloved DM is doing right and I just wish there was a way we could play 16 hours a day again, like we did when we were kids! Love your videos, my friend!
Having recently keyed the original map of level one, it's over 400 encounter areas! For just that level.
I never worry about it. What I should have mentioned in the video is that I make some room encounters but they aren't keyed to a specific room. They are keyed to the character's ability and the room encounter occurs wherever the PCs are in the dungeon.
I was thinking it would be hilarious if the portal led to a random wardrobe in the city of waterdeep. That sounds like a lot of work on the dm's part but I imagine it would be funny if the players try to find a way back in or plan on getting out in a certain area and it doesn't work. Great video, a lot of interesting information.
I've been skimming through under mountain recently, so this came at a good time. Maybe I'll run it one day because I'm a big fan of the concept.
This was one of the first campaign settings I stole on PDF. Ah, memories! 😎🏴☠
Update: All of these books can be found for free, with a simple search.
Oooooooo this looks like fun!
Great video Cap!
Brilliant, Cap!
This video happened to pop up on my subscriptions as my friend and I were decided on a megadungeon to play in Old School Essentials Advanced. So we're going to use the original 2e version, and this video was really helpful in giving me the idea that I could reference the older modules to help fill up the dungeons with written rooms (which hopefully are better than randomly rolled ones). Excited to play this!
One of the tips I totally forgot to include was premade room descriptions with no specific location. So many rooms are rather generic. 30 x 30 rooms, 40x50 rooms etc. You can just make up your own interesting room encounters and just use them when the party is in one of the 'matching' sections.
Thank you for sharing. After your review and comparison to the 5e adventures (Dragonheist and DotMM), I started to hunt down the boxed sets. I'm really interested in running a Waterdeep+Undermountain campaign... In my +25 years playing RPGs I never thought I would be interested in Forgotten Realms!!
I've never really cared all that much for the 'Forgotten Realms' myself, but I've LOVE Waterdeep and Undermountain since they were released.
@@captcorajus Do you know the 'Expedition to Undermountain - campaign book D&D 3.5' ? This is, so to speak, an adventure of its own, but there is also a bunch of new and additional as well as very interesting information in it. Check it out, it's great! Here is the excerpt of what drivethrurpg says:
Expedition to Undermountainis a 224-page super-adventure that revisits the greatest dungeon in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Located beneath the city of Waterdeep, Undermountain has lured countless heroes to their doom.
Like other adventures in the “Expedition” series, this product takes a classic D&D location, updates it for v.3.5, and features many " N E W " surprises. It also includes source material for the players and a new combat encounter format designed to make the Dungeon Master’s job easier, as well as information to help Dungeon Masters adapt the adventure to serve their home campaigns.
Product History
Expedition to Undermountain (2007), by Eric L. Boyd, Ed Greenwood, Christopher Lindsay, and Sean K. Reynolds, is as much source book as it is campaign adventure. Reworking the massive, sprawling dungeon crawl for 3.5 D&D, the campaign is designed to bring heroes from 1st level to 10th. The underground adventure location is huge, with nine main levels and about 20 sub-levels that connect to caverns, more dungeons, and the Underdark.
This book is designed to let a DM turn Undermountain into a longterm campaign setting, so it provides lore, plot hooks, and details about the power groups who clash for control of Undermountain. This is a more freeform, less directed approach than the 2e AD&D mega-dungeon version of Undermountain, but which works regardless.
All Things Pass.The world has changed, the mad Archmage Halaster has died (pretty definitively, according to the DM text - although let's face it, if you haven't seen the body, then it's still suspect). Once more, adventurous PCs enter the Yawning Portal to see what lies beneath. There is no central and over-riding quest that sends PCs into the dungeons; instead, a number of individual missions to find and recover objects lead to clashes and conflict with the various groups who hope to rule the shadowy passages of Undermountain.
The adventure begins with a strong synopsis of Undermountain, giving DMs a solid understanding of how different levels fit together and interact. Halaster's death has the opportunity to open up a power vacuum in Undermountain, and the various factions may choose to exploit that. Note that the Encounter structure, breaking out encounters into their own pages later in the book, has caught some readers off guard: It makes reading the book a bit choppy, with more page-flipping required between encounters and the map sections than some DMs are used to, even while running the actual encounter becomes easier since all the needed information is summarized on one or two pages.
Battles tend to be tactical and relatively deadly for incautious players. That's fun for many groups, but players who aren't used to working as a team may find themselves badly savaged by swarms of tiny beholder eyeballs.
Also? There are stats for a swarm of beholder eyeballs. Consider yourself warned.
You Can't Get There If You Don't Have a Map. Expedition to Undermountain gives a side-view cutaway map of the complex, something that has been conspicuously missing in previous Undermountain products. Cartography-wise, there are a few locations developed in Expedition to Undermountain that don't easily fit into the maps of older products. The town of Spiderhaven is one of these, as is Belkram's Fall. There's also a reasonable argument that the maps of several areas are smaller than they should be, making it a bit difficult to track PC progress through the underground settlements. That actually turns into a positive, though, when it comes time for a DM to fill out and customize undescribed areas of Undermountain, for there is plenty of space and plenty of latitude for expansion.
Where's the Earth-Shattering Kaboom? Due to the nature of the beast, the DM has extensive freedom to customize his adventures within the framework that this book provides. The downside of that is that there isn't necessarily a noteworthy cinematic climax to the adventure as written. PCs have so many options on where to go and how to explore that providing a single scripted ending would be difficult. Yet even with lots of fun, exciting smaller encounters detailed within each area, DMs may want to think forward to crafting this sort of emotional and deadly conclusion to their PCs' adventures. With the tools and framework provided, they'll have a lot of options for doing so.
If you're looking at a massive dungeon crawl for 3.x D&D, or if you want superb inspiration for assembling a mega-dungeon of your own, you'll find this book both useful and entertaining.
@@juliasilverstone2626 Yes, I'm aware. I did a complete rundown of EVER product ever published for Undermountain back in 2016.
This wasn't a review but a 'how to', so I fixated on what I consider to be 'core' products.
Expedition does have a LOT of new room entries and if you wanted to get it in 'addition to' Ruins of undermountain you couldn't go wrong, but Ruins of Undermountain has the original FULL unabridged maps for the first three levels, so in my opinion that's 'core'.
Also, Hallowed Halls does essentailly the same thing as expedition to undermountain, but its very 'edition neutral' AND comes with the very cool full poster map of the Yawning Portal, which is why it appears in this video.
Expedition to Undermountain's story is also not something I care for, as it ends in the death of Halaster Blackcloak, as this was a precursor to 4th edition and sets off the 'Spell Plague' in the forgotten realms.
Thanks!!
Great video. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
I always love your vids! Something about the old school modules and settings is always so magical.
I think so too. Glad you enjoy them! Thank you.
What an excellent topic to cover!
What the video. Insane good resource. Many ideas. Thank you.
What a treat that video was :) Can't wait for some more Greyhawk material hehe
Keep up the good work ! Absolutely love your channel and was wondering what other youtube channels you'd recommend on the same style as yours ?
Cheers !
You have a great voice and I like the music at the beginning!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed!
I bought two 2e sourcebooks just to solidify my latest character’s backstory in a campaign that ended way too early. But as a mostly forever DM, this helped me realize how I can use old sourcebooks to forge something new for my two groups. Thank you! I subbed and will be binging your vids and look forward to the new stuff!
Awww, glad it helped! Welcome!
I love these two boxes... and I even have both in very good condition.... THX a lot, Captcorajus 😍 and greetzzzz from GERMANY
hallo, mein Freund!
@@captcorajus Ja auch hallo mein Freund, das ist ja ne tolle Überraschung... das ja cool, du schreibst ja Deutsch 🙂 Bist du Deutscher? In deiner Info-Box standen ja noch mehr Sachen ^^ Also "Volo's Guide to Waterdeep " und "Skullport" (ich meine da gehören auch noch zwei weitere Bücher dazu, kann mich aber auch täuschen) habe ich auch.. aber da ich nur AD&D 2nd. Ed. (ca. 480 originale Artikel) sowie D&D 3.0 + 3.5 (ALLES, einfach jedes Buch was jemals rausgekommen ist + 23 D&D Bücher die es auf der Welt NUR 8 mal gibt ^^ - das darf ich hier eigentlich gar nicht erzählen aber Beweise könnte ich dir via Mail schicken, KEIN THEMA XDXDXD). Da das "Halls of Undermountain", D&D 4.0 (von 4.0 habe ich lediglich alle Dungeon-Tiles) ist, hab ich´s leider nicht zudem kenne ich das "The Blue Alley" gar nicht aber das klingt interessant:
Ich habe hier im Wohnzimmer nur Teile meine Sammlung stehen, z.B. alle AD&D 2nd. Ed. Kampagnen-Boxen, ja und noch ca. 300 Bücher von anderen Systemen. Meine ganze Sammlung steht, fein säuberlich in 14 Kartons einsortiert, in meinem Schlafzimmer XD. Alles in Schutzhüllen usw.! Von den D&D 3.0/ 3.5 Miniaturen fehlen mir noch einige aber da habe ich auch vier Vitrinen voll XD. Am liebsten sammle ich, ungeöffnete/ verschweißte (Mint/near Mint) Rollenspiel-Artikel... und davon habe ich auch jede Menge. Naja letztendlich habe ich vor ca. 5 Jahren aufgehört zu sammeln und RPG spiele ich leider seit ca. 20 Jahren nicht mehr ^^ !
So jetzt muss ich mir noch mal dein Video angucken, letztes Mal würde ich gestört. Wenn du bezüglich den 23 "fast" einzigartigen Büchern (weltweit) was wissen möchtest, dann kann ich dir ne krasse Geschichte erzählen und damit du siehst, dass es die Wahrheit ist, könnte ich dir auch ein selbstgedrehtes Video von mir und den Bücher oder auch Fotos schicken... das ne krasse Geschichte wie ich an die Sachen gekommen bin :-) Ach ja, ich liebe deinen Kanal🧡💛💚💙💜
PS: Die Kampagnen-Box "Undermountain II" habe ich auch, I + II beide auf Deutsch zudem :-) Ach was habe ich das geliebt, die ganzen Dinge zu sammeln. In digitaler Form habe ich alles was es von AD&D 2nd. Ed. gibt (wenn du was brauchst schicke ich es dir gerne per Mail ;-), Mit den digitalen Sachen habe ich immer abgeglichen, was ich alles habe und was uns mir noch fehlt bzw. kaufen muss damit ich alles habe und AD&D 2nd. Ed. komplett ist - Ich glaub es waren insgesammt 680 Artikel AD&D 2nd. Ed. die es gibt.
Liebe Grüße
Sebastian
@@captcorajus Ich habe sogar noch zahlreiche doppelte AD&D Artikel (überwiegend auf Englisch), auch in gutem Zustand.. ganz ehrlich, so nem coolen Typen wie dir würde ich die auch schenken, du musst nur das Porto und den Zoll übernehmen, bzw. es mir zurückschicken wenn du die Sachen via Post erhalten hast (In das Paket, könnte ich dir noch einen USB-Stick mit allen digitalen AD&D 2d. Ed. Büchern, allen Rolemaster 2nd. Ed. + Spacemaster 2nd. Ed. Rollenspielbüchern, packen). Wenn du magst gucke ich mal durch die Sachen durch, dass habe ich schon lange nicht mehr gemacht und darüber würde ich mich auch echt freuen. Warum schenken...? Weil Sachen schenken und allgemein GEBEN, Spaß macht (ich gebe und teile gerne, habe auch genug), gutes Karma gibt und ich bin der Ansicht, das alles Gute und Schlechte im Leben zurückkommt... Also gib mir ne Rückmeldung 🙂
Liebe Grüße
Basti
PS: Ich vermisse die schönen Rollenspiel-Abende sooooo 😤😢Leider bin ich in den letzten Jahren sehr krank geworden und wäre zudem fast, mehrfach, gestoben... aber jetzt ist alles relativ gut. Zusätzlich habe ich meinen Bruder vor 5 Jahren (44 Jahre jung) verloren, dass hat mich echt fertig gemacht! "Eigentlich" wäre ich aufgrund von meiner Krankheit tot, von daher gebe und schenke ich auch gerne... Über eine Rückmeldung würde ich mich freuen ☺
@@captcorajus PART 2:
I even have numerous duplicates of AD&D-Books/ -items (mostly in English), also in good condition.. to be honest, I would give these to a cool guy like you. You only have to give me an feedback that you had received the items and then you can transfer me the postage-costs via PayPal back - for example. In the package, I could also put a USB-stick with all of the digital AD&D 2nd ed. books, all the Rolemaster 2nd ed. + Spacemaster 2nd ed. roleplaying books. If you like, I'll take a look through all my Items, I haven't done this for years... I would be really happy if i had an reason/ opportunity to do it. Why i want to give these books away...? Because giving/ donate things is so cool, it is fun... GIVING in general is fun (I like to give and donate, I have enough), it also gives a good karma too and I believe that every good doings and bad doings comes back in life... So if you have interest, give me feedback
Best regards
Basti
PS: I still miss the nice role-playing evenings with my friends sooooo bad 😤😢 Unfortunately I've gotten very/ seriously ill in the last few years… I would have died almost a few times.... but currently everything is relatively good. In addition, I lost my brother 5 years ago (44 years young), that really got to me! "Actually" I would be dead due to my illness also but it seem that I have a guardian angel (may be its an Solar Aasimon ^^)... I'd be happy to get a feedback from you ☺
I was stationed on a ship in Guam, early 90s. The base bookstore only had the 2nd edition PHB, some dice, and the Undermountain box set. I ran games in the training room deep into the night with just those stuff... and I made stuff up as I went along. I mean stuff like an underground forest with Stevie Nicks as a Druid, stuff like that. The guys loved it.
Oh, that's awesome. Great story!
Great vid
Between copies of Forgotten Realms Adventures, The Forgotten Realms Atlas, Volos" Guides to Waterdeep, and the North, it's possible to have characters from all over the planet of Toril, or at least the main continent. I also ran a campaign in Waterdeep for about a year before life got in the way or I ran out of ideas not sure which anymore.
Great video.
The fact that i just finished dming session 1 for a campaign i set up in waterdeep no less than 20 min ago then i see this video WILD
Oh wow, This is wild! I sure hope I said things that were useful! lol
Excelent video!
did you read Waterdeep Dragonheist aswell? I didn't know there were so many things pulled from old books in that adventure
Yes, I sure did! I ran it and our group had an absolute blast. I ran the 'Summer' campaign involving the noble family the Casslanters. I had a few of the players actually crying when the children turned into little demons.
Great stuff as always.
Best seam filler for minis.
@@DankBBQRibs hahahaha voice-to-text wins again.
Hi Captain! Love your videos and reviews and your tips on handling encounters etc..
Never played the Under Mountain setting but I do own a Forgotten Realms City System boxed set ( collecting dust ). How does that play into what your showing? Have you done a review for it in the past and what are your thoughts on it? Thanks for the video 👍🏻.
I did a full review of waterdeep products a few years ago, check the playlist in the video information. The 'City System' is kinda fun. just a massive blow up of the core map. Its useful if you really want to get a nice 'street view' of the area the PCs are in.
Also the 3 sub level modules they released added alot to the 2 box sets.
Undermountain, a dungeon created in the spirit of Gary Gygax.
Which is a funny comment as Undermountain is an Ed Greenwood creation.
Greyhawk Ruins is more of a Gygax creation.
Thank you.
I'd like to see an animation like Vox Machina with a party exploring Undermountain.
Me too! That would be great!
M I the only one that see's the Tantiv 5 and an imperial walker in the map of ruins of Undermountain. Is this a known think or M I just seeing things?
If you bought Undermountain as a box of maps, its great. If you expected it to be a fully fleshed out product, you were very disappointed. I was the latter. I think a better version of this style of adventure is WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins or the S&W version of Rappan Athuk.
This is a very good module... I have this in pretty good shape :-)
Waterdeep is like adventuring through your local Renaissance Fair.
The background music kind of sounds like Herbie Hancock.
Skull Port adventure setting book from AD&D2ndE, ..
Just up scale the grid area into tens of meters so it can dock Star Wars spaceships.
As for the City of Water Deep itself, it has been used more than a few times for our 3e Star Wars campaigns.
Little changes, .. necromancers zombies just turn them into droid repair shops.
As for the mind flayers illthids, they are bio engineers and cloners that create psionic wild talents/ Force skill powers. They vat grow brains because they are picky eaters, or just drink a chemical protein serum each month for basic nurtruintion. . Since mind flayers are listed as lawful evil, they are strictly by the letter of the contract if not the spirit of the short-term contract. Still many like to add things not part of biology upgrades contracts and some of them look at long term clients as .. pets .. ( just don't sign off on free upgrades that haven't been properly tested yet. )
Mind flayers rather modify a chicken egg and vat grown a human host from said egg than roll the dice with stander peasant stock. Due to AD&D mind flayers spell like abilities and Plane Shift is a 7th-level spell of a 13th-level wizard, instead of 9d4+3 for AD&D and WotC3e 13d4 for hp, list a mind flayers as a 6d8 monster and a 13th-level spellcaster as base. WotC3e Psionic handbook was fun too.
4th-level spell Polymorph Other, later renamed as Baneful Polymorph " for body horror stories," with WotC3e Spellcraft DC15+spell level to learn or cast spell. Just rename & turn Polymorph into genetic reengineering. So roll DC:19 to alter someone's genetics to gain psionic wild talents or gills, night vision, organ replacements, etc .. Speed of alternation transformation is base on campaign story telling plot, from days to mere seconds for movie zombie/ghoul outbreaks.
Another side note from playing WEG west end games Star Wars covering ship docks built hidden into sides of mountains or old pyramids. Just upscale square area into tens of meters and turn D&D underground dungeon maps into Rebel ground or asteroid bases.
Nice!!
“A tavern modeled after the underdark. And staffed by sultry servers dressed in black body suits and masks to make them look like drow”
Oh dear.
Why "Oh dear."? Sounds pretty awesome, and immersive. Believable, in-world, that a tavern like that might sprout up.
Drowface is punching down! Way down!
@@VinnyBloo Nah, that notion is too much real world. Not enough fantasy.
@@VinnyBloo I love drow and the AD&D "Forgotten Realms - Menzoberranzan Boxed Set". When the AD&D 2nd. Ed. Since expansion books regarding the races did not yet exist, I could refer to the information from the 'AD&D Monstrous Compendium Volume II (TSR2103)'... under 'Elf, Drow'! Later there were numerous additional books about drow. If you have the opportunity to start off like Drizzt Do'Urden, no evil alligment, no evil gods, etc., then playing a drow can have some real style or you play it in an evil campaign 🙂 Sorry for my englisch, i´m from Germany 😄
Undermountain is a tough sell to me these days. Back in the day, there was a distinct lack of what we now call "megadungeons" in print, and what was there (Greyhawk Ruins, say) was pretty mediocre.
The Undermountain set amounted to some great background lore and cool maps, but since those maps were 99% unkeyed and some of the room descriptions that were there were written in a rambling style that was far from ideal for actual play, the product as a whole was more of a tease that anything else. Like a trailer for a film that never came out.
These days, if you want something with this sort of scope, but fully realized, you have Stonehell, Barrowmaze (and the rest of the Gillespie oeuvre), Halls of Arden Vul, Rappan Athuk, etc. It fell on the OSR deliver on what TSR ultimately could not, and they delivered in spades.
I'm not a fan of some of what you mentioned. I found the organization on some of it crazy poor and not explained all that well. However, this video isn't really about that at all. Those so called 'empty' areas are key to making the campaign your own... and to be fair a LOT has been written since the original box set release. As I said in the video, 'exploration' really isn't the main focus of the campaign. Waterdeep the city above is as important as Undermountain is. Try watching the video in full first to see what I'm talking about. ;)
@@captcorajus Hey, 3/4 of the way through is pretty good by my standards before I get antsy and start typing. ;) But I don't disagree that the coverage of Waterdeep itself is more than adequate. It's Undermountain proper that always felt like the afterthought to me. Based on FR1 and VGtW alone, I wouldn't say we've seen numerous, markedly better takes on a FRPG city setting in the years since. The megadungeon concept, on the other hand, has undergone a renaissance of sorts that's left the official Undermountain material in the dust. I mean, if a big empty map is the draw, ones of approximately the same quality can be generated ad infinitum in the blink of an eye via computer. That's trivial. In my opinion, of course.
Nah, Undermountain is fantastic. And if you need someone else to fill in all the blanks for you...well...that surely isn't very old-school.
@@nad3936 Honestly, I personally don't want all the blanks filled in for me. I don't want to read through all that and try and piece together how it fits together. I don't want to mention anything specific, because clearly there was a TON of work done, and the creators are talented. But trying to piece all that together gave me a headache. Time and again over the years, I've used those 'empty' areas to serve many functions for stories that were started in the campaign by the PLAYERS.
@@nad3936 "Old-school" is rolling your own, sure. It can also include using a pre-made module if you'd rather not devote the time. A professional module is thus at its most useful when reasonably complete. There are instances were that's not the case because the module in question is meant specifically as a tutorial (B1, B2, and B4 all use variations on this concept). Otherwise, though, if you're going to sell a dungeon for actual money, you may as well as least key it. Otherwise, well, random maps are free. It's hard to beat free if they're all you want/need. And look, I get that FR has its fans who would style themselves defenders of all things Greenwood, but would Expedition to the Barrier Peaks get a fraction of the love it does if it was just a page of background amounting to "There's a crashed spaceship. Now go design it yourself."? No way. Because you presumably bought the dang module to save that effort. Just because Undermountain has an Emperor's new clothes effect working in its favor doesn't make it any less so.
I love Undermountain, I love huge dungeons. Over spring break I am going to run a solo campaign with the help of ChatGPT. Can not WAIT.
Crazyyyy... but a great idea 🙂