The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels boxed set is a supplement for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition game which was originally published by TSR. This is an expansion and the second supplement published for Undermountain, the megadungeon under the city of Waterdeep in the Forgotten Realms setting. This was published as a box set and can be found on sites such as Amazon, and is also available as a PDF for $9.99, a softcover print on demand book for $17.99 or both book and PDF for $19.99 from RPGNow.
The box set is comprised of the following items:
128 page perfect bound softback
32 page saddle stitched softback
16 page saddle stitched Monstrous Compendium booklet
4 A1 poster maps
8 approximately half A4 cards
The two softbacks have full colour covers, with the front of the Campaign Guide being the same as that on the box itself, and they have black and white illustrations inside them. Most of the new monsters in the Monstrous Compendium booklet also have illustrations of them.
The Ruins of Undermountain II: Campaign Guide
This is a 128 page perfect bound softcover book by Jean Rabe and Norm Ritchie of which two pages are the front matter and the Contents and one page is an advert for another product. The book isn’t divided into numbered chapters, but it is divided into several major sections. The first of these is the Introduction, which covers using the box set, expanding Undermountain, what these levels are like, rumours – which can function as adventure seeds – and gate effects. Gates are the only way of entering the Deep Levels.
The next three sections – Wyllowwood, Trobriand’s Graveyard and Muiral’s Gauntlet – detail the three main levels shown on three of the poster maps. Each of these has two sections, Core Rooms and Areas of Interest. Wyllowwood has a third, brief, section, entitled The Hunt, regarding some priests of Malar the Beastlord who are likely to hunt players through that level. Each section starts off with how players are going to enter the level, such as gate locations and how they work.
The final three sections are New Spells, New Magical Items and NPCs of the Deep Levels, which describe new priest and wizard spells and new magical items encountered in these levels, as well as several important non-player characters that players may encounter.
The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Adventures
This is a 32 page saddle stitched booklet by Donald Bingle of which one page is the front matter and Table of Contents. This is a collection of three adventures, all nominally set within Undermountain. However, all of these areas are entered through gates, or teleportation, and are not physically connected with any of the areas detailed in the Campaign Guide. They are, in fact, completely separate and independent of the previously described locations.
Monstrous Compendium Booklet
This is a 16 page saddle stitched booklet covering eleven new monster types. Six of these are single monsters whilst the other 5 are each divided into three types, making twenty-one new creatures in total. A substantial proportion of the booklet – 4 pages – is used to describe Trobriand’s Automatons, which are encountered in Trobriand’s Graveyard, with a further page devoted to one automaton of which there is only one in that area.
Poster Maps
These are four full colour maps of Undermountain, each of which folds out to approximately A1 in size. Three of these cover a different level of Undermountain, as described in the Campaign Guide; the fourth has the layouts for the locations for all three of the adventures in The Adventures, as well as another, unused layout of a small complex. Although all of these appear to be next to each other, going by the map, this is not actually the case.
Cards
There are eight cards in the box, all double sided and with a variety of different tables on them. Five of these cards cover 20 different mechanical traps, one card covers 10 different magical traps, one card covers 12 different dungeon illusions and one card has a number of new treasure tables.
The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels in Review
This supplement is comparatively text heavy, with a few black and white illustrations scattered throughout the two main books, up to about half a page in size, as well as a few black and white area maps. The layout style is quite a bit different from Undermountain I. It has a two column layout rather than a three, and the text font and line spacing are both larger, so the amount of content is substantially reduced. Although it appears that the second box set is similar in size to the first, going by the page count, it contains probably only around two thirds of the actual written material as the first did. The map scales are also different, so although the maps are the same size, those in Undermountain II cover a much smaller area.
By this point all pretence had been given up that the new monsters could be inserted into Monstrous Compendium binders, and they were neither loose-leaf nor hole punched. Instead, this is a booklet of monsters, and it does make looking them up easier by having them all in a separate booklet. Most of these monsters are described as only being encountered in Undermountain – Dungeons & Dragons has a tendency to introduce new monsters that only appear in one supplement with no real rational explanation to why. At least with these an attempt is made.
Rather more of each of the poster maps have been covered in the two books than was in Undermountain I – they do, after all, cover less area – but there are, however, still a number of regions, buildings and complexes that can be developed by the DM. Consequently, once again, these will need expanding on, fleshing out or otherwise deciding how they should be used, or unused, before playing the levels.
The levels are also much more standalone, rather than being connected to Undermountain as a whole, due to only being accessed by gates, and the same goes for the areas covered in the adventure book. This makes them easier to adapt to any other setting. Undermountain II does not need to be used with Undermountain I at all, and the first boxed set is not required to use this one. In fact, there really aren’t any supplements beyond the basics that are referred to. This supplement gives very little impression of being part of a coherent whole; rather, it seems like six separate, unconnected locations that have simply been packaged together. Just as in the first boxed set, the various cards can easily be used in any dungeon setting. This can be used to expand Undermountain, but it does not have to be used as such.
The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels is in some ways inferior to the first, and it is certainly not as good value for money going by the actual amount of contents, but on the other hand it is far more suitable for use in any other setting.
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