Neverwinter: Monoliths of Madness is now live!

The contents in this article are taken from a test version and could be subject to change for the final version. When this happens, we will inform you.

Strange monoliths have appeared across Faerûn, spreading madness and twisting nearby creatures into monstrous servants of a dark power. The Emerald Enclave has begun a desperate campaign to destroy these mysterious monuments, but they need every willing hero to stem the tide of corruption before it spreads.

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Madness is spreading across Faerûn. Strange Altars have appeared throughout the land, corrupting nearby creatures with madness and unleashing dangerous magical anomalies in their wake.

One of these Madness Altars recently showed up in Menzoberranzan. The Madness Altar located there has started causing ambient decay, and the number of victims rises by the hour. This affliction cares not for whom the drow swore their allegiance. It targets indiscriminately. The drow are no strangers to madness in the City of Spiders, yet it would behoove you to act quickly. Tis a grim task, but must be done.

The brand-new ‘Monoliths of Madness’ event brings you back to Menzoberranzan, Northdark Reaches, Narbondellyn, and Dragonbone Vale. For 12 weeks, each week, one of the zones will feature as the mainstage for a variety of new quests. To ensure that this event isn't too easy, players will be downscaled when a zone is active.

Go to Protectors Enclave and speak with Master Arcanist Viorel Amakiir to start the Monoliths of Madness Campaign, then travel to the active zone, indicated with a modified map icon.

Tip: if you haven't played the Campaign related to the active zone yet, you are able to progress in both that Campaign and this new content!

Requirements to participate

• The Monoliths of Madness event is only available to players who have reached level 20.
• To participate in the event weeks tied to Menzoberranzan, you must have access to its zone. Talk to Sergeant Knox in Protector's Enclave and complete ‘Whispers in the Dark’ and ‘A New Ally’.
• To participate in the event weeks tied to Northdark Reaches, you must have access to its zone. Talk to Sergeant Knox in Protector's Enclave and complete ‘The Call of the King’.
• To participate in the event weeks tied to Narbondellyn, you must have access to its zone. Talk to Sergeant Knox in Protector's Enclave and complete ‘Whispers in the Dark’ and ‘A Discreet Meeting’.
• To participate in the event weeks tied to Dragonbone Vale, you must have access to its zone. Talk to Sergeant Knox in Protector's Enclave and complete ‘Forging the Shield’.
• For global rewards granted by progressing through the Nightmare, at least 500 Shards of Madness are required to be eligible.

Monoliths of Madness Campaign

By completing the new daily and weekly challenges, both global and individual progress will be reflected in the Monoliths of Madness Campaign. The Campaign has four phases, each lasting for three weeks, including three of the four zones.

The Zones offer a variety of quests that can be completed to gather Shards of Madness, a currency that grants you progress within the Campaign to unlock a variety of rewards through milestones. Rewards for the milestones include Warden's Caches, Insignia Powder, Tradebars, Legendary Dragon Keys and Mount- and Companion Upgrade Tokens.

During the ‘Can you hear him?’ phase, the new Staring Cat of Uldun-Dar Companion (Legendary) can be obtained.

Quest objectives include:

• Complete Heroic Encounters
• Defeat Enemies
• Defeat Named Encounters
• Purify corrupted altars
• Earn points
• Complete Skirmishes
• Complete a specific Dungeon or Trial

A final objective is to defeat the roaming World Boss, Maxare’xek the Mad, who pops up every few hours. Defeating the boss grants you a temporary buff that lasts an hour, allowing you to deal extra damage within the zone.

Besides all that, we need everyone's help to try to conquer this nightmare as a whole. Therefore, each Campaign phase has a global progress bar, the Nightmare Progression (server-wide), that fills up depending on player contribution. For each phase completed, everyone who participated will be rewarded. Get the Burning Hope Artifact, the Umbral Widow Mount, the Brimming Bountiful Bag and the Peeper Keeper.

At the end of a phase, rewards will automatically be mailed to your inboxes. Of course, failing to work together to conquer the nightmare means nobody gets the rewards.

Rewards within the Monoliths of Madness Campaign can be picked up by up to five characters per account, after which most rewards change to Warden's Caches.

Corrupted Altars

The Madness Altars are awake and need to be cleansed. Remember, you must defeat whatever entity is summoned as a result. There are many located across Faerûn, which means you're in for a fight.

Prepare yourself and, if you can, bring as many acquaintances as possible. This is not something you should face alone.

The zones have been updated with two corrupted altars. One of them can be activated by collecting three Lesser Abyssal Lures, which can be dropped by every enemy within the active zone. Once activated, defeat the nightmarish creature spawning from it, which purifies the altar for a while. These creatures can sometimes drop a Greater Abyssal Lure, of which you need three again to activate the other corrupted altar.

It's important to notice that doing the purification with multiple players is the best way to advance with the Nightmare Progression (server-wide), as the highest source of Shards of Madness can be obtained through purification.

Corrupted Heroic Encounters

The existing Heroic Encounters for each zone have been impacted by the mad monoliths as well! While conquering Heroic Encounters, try not to get burned, keep moving, cleanse your disease or dodge meteorites – you will be even more heroic if you manage to complete these Heroic Encounters!

Staring Cat of Uldun-Dar Companion (Legendary) ​

Obtainable through the Monoliths of Madness Campaign. 

“No one lives forever. Not even you.”

Brought forth by Wild Magic in Hazlan, the Staring Cat of Uldun-Dar are sapient, hyperdimensional cats with a penchant for delivering ominous tidings. Eerie and unnerving, these many eyed felines are surprisingly docile.

Enhancement: Unflinching Will

Equip: Chance on hit to increase your and your companion's Deflect and Deflect Severity for 15 seconds. Maximum 4.5%.

Defense Power: Grim Omen ​

Grants Movement Speed, Mount Speed, and Combined Rating.

Umbral Widow Mount (Epic)​

Obtainable through the Monoliths of Madness Nightmare progression. 

Feared throughout the Underdark, the Umbral Widow cloaks itself in shadow before striking with terrifying precision. Many have entered its web, but few have ever emerged.

Equip Power: Shadow Sight

Grants Movement Speed, Awareness, and Combined Rating.

Combat Power: Tunnel Vission

A strong single target attack.

Warden's Cache

Obtainable through the Monoliths of Madness Campaign. 

A Warden's Cache gives you a chance to obtain Teal Diamonds, Violet Diamonds, Preservation Wards, Insignia Powder, Glyphs of Potency, Common Enchantments, or Enhanced Motes.

Brimming Bountiful Bag (90 slots) ​

Obtainable through the Monoliths of Madness Nightmare progression. 

Brimming with room for the treasures of every adventure.

Burning Hope Artifact (Epic) ​

Obtainable through the Monoliths of Madness Nightmare progression. 

A rose of pale petals wrapped around an ember that never dies. Legends claim it bloomed in the aftermath of a great tragedy, drawing beauty from ruin and light from despair. Its petals remain untouched by flame, yet faint cracks of molten radiance spread across them, as though hope itself is burning from within.

Grants Power, Critical Severity, Outgoing Healing, and Combined Rating.

Use: Healing Flame

Charred petals swirl around, leaving a burning trail that, instead of damaging you, invigorates and strengthens your body. Restores stamina and grants Outgoing Healing and Power.

Peeper Keeper ​

Obtainable through the Monoliths of Madness Nightmare progression. 

Recovered from the Monoliths of Madness, it now keeps an eye on your loot.

Behind the scenes

The new Monoliths of Madness event is mainly designed by Content Designer Jan Olcina and System Designer Victor Romero, who used the old Redeemed Citadel as an inspiration to make something that feels fresh again. Initially pitched as an event that revisits three existing zones and had Hunts as a stretch goal, we’re now seeing four existing zones and Corrupted Altar Hunts.

Realistically speaking, turning old zones into something new is quite a challenge, but we feel we’ve certainly done our best. Heroic Encounters have been modified by drawing inspiration from the Reaper's Challenge, and a big world boss represents how unstable and dangerous the world is becoming.

Other members of our team didn't sit still either. Most of the artwork tied to this event relates to UI changes and icons, for which Valeriia Vasileva and Javier Moreno did a tremendous job, after which Amy Skopik did the implementation, next to the necessary design work. Margherita Lucchi designed and implemented the Madness Altars.

Dedicated Youtube Playlist

The new Monoliths of Madness events might require some more explanation and strategy, which is why we now have a dedicated Youtube Playlist featuring the following creators: Aragon, Aslan Neverwinter, Erkalynn and NIKIrta.

The corrupting influence of the monoliths has spread through our Battle Pass as well! Get the Laughing Void Artifact, Voidbound Necklace, Voidbound Belt, Pika the Tressym, and loads of other crazy rewards!

>> Read more about the Battle Pass.

Inventories are cluttered, and we want to introduce a first approach to help you out here. For the following items, the stack size has been increased from 99 to 999:

• Epic Collar Choice Pack
• Genie's Gift
• Potion of Healing Rank 10
• Potion of Healing Rank 10, +1
• Most Coalescent Motes
• Most Overloads
• Most Preservation Wards
• Most Stronghold Vouchers
• Black Pearls

By default, your stacks aren't merged. Drag one stack to the other stack or click the sword button to merge them (note that bind statuses still apply and do not stack).

A while ago, we released additional Combat Enchantments. With the release of Monoliths of Madness, you are now able to equip two of them, similar to Neverwinter's original Weapon and Armor Enchantment system.

On your Enhancements tab, the Utility slot has been moved to the old Combat slot, making room for two Combat slots – one for ‘Strike’ and one for ‘Guard’.

Since Combat Enchantments do not provide Combined Rating, but still increase the Item Level, normally, equipping two Combat Enchantments would diminish your existing statistics. To avoid this, the Item Level on Combat Enchantments has been reduced by half to grant the same total Item Level as before.

Currently equipped Enchantments should have been automatically equipped to one of the two slots.

We have added the Coffer of Celestial Insignias to the Celestial Synergy tab of the Vault of Piety. A small, but richly adorned, coffer from unknown celestial origins that contains Insignia Powder and an Insignia.

Once per account per week, this new coffer can be picked up for 11 Celestial Coins. It has a guaranteed 50 Insignia Powder, and it either drops a Rare or an Epic Insignia, designed to provide a stable, passive stream of Insignia Powder to support your ongoing progression.

Those Monoliths of Madness sure have created some wild adventures, which is exactly why the Wild Adventures Lockbox is here! B-b-b-bard is the word with our latest Companion, Encore the Virtuoso, while you hopefully won't get hooked too much on the Star Angler Mount.

>> Read more about the Lockbox.

Please note that any date stated in this article could change at any moment.

We genuinely hope you have fun with our new Monoliths of Madness event, and we hope you liked our article. Our next Module, M34, is already hard on its way and we can't wait to present our upcoming Neverwinter Next stream to you to tell you all about it. Enjoy the update and look forward to more!

~ Jeroen den Hartog (Kyrië)