Closing Off Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Added 2024-04-22 12:06:34 +0000 UTCLevel 1 of the Undermountain released in October of 2021. Two and a half years later it is amazing to be wrapping up Level 23 of this behemoth mapping project and looking ahead to the next adventure. It took far longer than I expected (and with a rocky middle section while my now-happy-and-healthy-2-year-old was in the NICU for 4 months) but it is incredible to be wrapping this up.
This adventure offered a lot of variety (more than I expected, TBH) given it all takes place in a dungeon. Swamps, forests, mines, tiny castles, crystal caverns, scrapyards, asteroids, spaceships, and more. It was a lot of fun to get to try and make each level feel unique!
Thank you. It may be cliche to say this wouldn't have happened without you - all my amazing Patrons - but that it absolutely the truth. There is no way I would have been able to see this through to completion without all of your amazing support. A special shoutout to the 76 incredible humans who have been here for the entirety of the Mad Mage!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
It was big. I'm a data nerd so I've been keeping running stats on the Dungeon. Here are some tidbits:
In total this adventure amounted to 137 individual maps (ie. Map A, B, C) spread across 62 releases.
If you printed out all 23 Levels of the Dungeon in a 1-inch grid and laid them top to bottom it would be 316 ft (96m) tall - so yes, a VTT is recommended.
I've had 2 children in the time it took to map the Dungeon (a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old at present)
My maps of the Dungeon cover over 11 million square feet of area based on a scale of 1 grid cell = 5 ft. That's 258 acres, or just over 1 sq km. However, this does take the full square map area, not the actual dungeon square footage.
The largest map by far was Level 3 + Skullport.
Favourite levels to map were Level 8 (Slitherswamp - swamp things!), Level 15 (Obstacle Course - lava!), Level 17 (Seadeeps - mind flayers!), Level 19 (Caverns of Ooze - spelljammer ship!), and Halaster's Tower (that statue?).
What's Next? I'll be announcing what adventure is next Monday April 29th! However, if you like a puzzle, take a good look at the Halaster's Tower maps as the answer is hidden in them.
Over the next month-ish I also have the following action items:
Foundry Module Update - to add the remaining Levels (will be a paid release for all patrons)
Clean up and repost some asset packs (free for Mapmaker+ patrons, no one will be charged anything for their release) - breaking up the now massive DOTMM pack into smaller 'by-theme' packs.
Other misc cleanup of both DotMM and WDH maps/files that have gone neglected in my task list for too long.
Waterdeep City Map - exploring this idea to some extent still, but I'd like a Waterdeep City Map to match my other content and style - will likely release a single ward to start and piece it together in the future.
WDH Chapter 2 content (expect some polls for these ones) - filling in a few gaps in the map set for WDH
...and of course, getting started on the next adventure!! Expect the first maps for this to release in mid-late May!
Again, thank you for being with me on this adventure and I hope you will stick around for the next one!
With many thanks,
Ian // Tych Maps
Comments
If you have not already done so, I can 100% reccommend the Inventor level module. I am unsure what your use knowledge is with Foundry VTT, but the module is basically turn-key ready. If you are familar with the intricacies of Monks Tile Triggers and other module setups, there are a few things you might want to do to put some personal touches on the the maps but otherwise, you can walk right in and get going. This is a massive dungeon and I would rather play in traffic during rush hour than spend countless hours putting in walls, lighting, doors, teleport tiles, and anything else. Its insane the amount of work he did and the affordable access to this project.
John D
2025-03-23 06:47:55 +0000 UTCThank you for taking the time to answer me. Those maps look great. Now to import all the actors....I might cut and paste from Roll20 (I own the module) I tried the importer (ddb adventure muncher) but since they updated the module last April, it does not work.._
Simon D. Scott
2024-10-30 03:22:06 +0000 UTCIf you are looking to run your game on Foundry you have 2 options with my content: 1) The more DIY approach - any Patreon tier will get you access to my maps, including the dd2vtt files that you can import into foundry with walls/lighting. This approach you'll need to import files one-by-one and make slight edits to walls/lights here and there before it is play ready (due to the way the data is translated from Dungeondraft to Foundry) 2) the module approach - at the Inventor tier you get access to my Foundry VTT module. You install the module and are prompted to import files and it automatically loads all the maps, with everything cleaned up and ready to go. Whichever approach you choose to take, my Patreon uses per creation billing. This means you are only charged your Tier amount when I release a new map pack, up to 4x per month (and you can set limits, ie. if you want to sub at the Inventor tier and only be charged that tier amount once per month, you can totally do that and still access all my content). The about section of my page has more details. In terms of other assets to run your game, I don't offer any actor/token art at this time, so you'll need to source your monsters and NPCs elsewhere I'm afraid. Hope this helps, and happy to answer any more questions!
Ian
2024-10-28 15:30:20 +0000 UTCHi! I'm looking forward to test drive your maps on v12 (I'm a total Foundry Newbie by the way.) I am trying to find the info in your posts and can't find it. Are the assets included in the main map bundle or we need to search "assets" and get whatever we need? (Real newbie, sorry if it has been asked before) And THANK YOU, amazing work. Really.
Simon D. Scott
2024-10-27 00:50:47 +0000 UTCAmazing work! Truly an accomplishment, you should be very proud.
Henry Fitts
2024-04-24 01:26:14 +0000 UTCSome of faction outposts (Fenerus Stromcastle's House, Asmodean Shrine, Terasse Estate, Zhenartarim Interrogation House) & the observation house (Artheyn Manor). Forgive me if I missed any or did not find any existing "repurpose-able" maps during my comparison. I am still digging into the book and remix. Also the parade route would be cool cool but much bigger scope obviously.
Jason Ginzkey
2024-04-23 17:30:38 +0000 UTCwhich locations are at the top of your list to have added?
Ian
2024-04-23 15:48:36 +0000 UTCWarterdeep city map would be awesome! I've been running DOTMM for a while now using your maps and it threw me for a loop trying to figure something out quickly when they teleported to the city from Skullport. Thanks for all your work and congrats on completing the project!
Brennon Anderson
2024-04-22 19:57:52 +0000 UTCGreat work! Regarding WDH. Can you consider filling the locations added by the remix?
Jason Ginzkey
2024-04-22 13:07:08 +0000 UTCYou’ve done an amazing job! I joined somewhere around level 12 I believe and your maps have been invaluable for myself as a dungeon master! All the best with the children and can’t wait to see what’s next.
Joey
2024-04-22 12:38:44 +0000 UTC
