Vecna: Eve of Ruin Adventure -- An “Off the Rails” Adventure for D&D's Anniversary

Wizards' first book for its 50th anniversary year is aiming for the stars, which is appropriate for a multiverse-spanning adventure.

Wizards' first book for its 50th anniversary year is aiming for the stars, which is appropriate for a multiverse-spanning adventure.

3D Model Vecna-1-A by Adam Spizak smaller.png

The infamous lich Vecna has a plan to recreate the D&D Multiverse in his own image, with cultists on every plane of existence working toward that goal. That's the core concept behind a 256-page adventure called Vecna: Eve of Ruin, which travels the planes, features a big cast of NPCs, several of them iconic, and is designed for characters levels 10-20.

“This is a high level adventure.... The final confrontation with Vecna is at 20th level,” said Amanda Hamon, senior game designer. “It’s another detail that means this adventure is meant to be just off the rails – as high level, as we can get, and as epic as we can get, and hopefully as memorable as we can get.”

It makes sense. Vecna has a big pop culture profile now, thanks to Stranger Things. As the god of secrets, Vecna has tremendous reach within the D&D Multiverse, which sets the stage nicely for an epic plan that will require plane hopping to thwart. With fans clamoring for higher level adventures, an adversary like Vecna is the perfect foil.

“In this book, Vecna is this constant threat. He's this constant, epic, existential threat, literally existential threat,” said Hamon.

Vecna has instructed his cultists on every plane of existence to collect secrets, steal important documents, etc.

“This is not something the the authorities are aware of in any way,” continued Hamon, “and he's created a magical link between himself and his cults, and as they are extracting those secrets in a ritual, they're funneling that energy straight to Vecna, and... he's creating a ritual that we and he are calling 'The Ritual of Remaking.' What Vecna is trying to do is to remake the multiverse at his whim to his will... if you know anything about Vecna, you know that he craves ultimate power. He sees himself as the most powerful and only important being in existence and believes that the only reason that everybody doesn't already bow to him is because it just hasn't happened yet.”

Early in the adventure, the players will interrupt some cultists extracting secrets from a kidnapped noble. In the process, they will unknowingly be linked to Vecna, making them the only people who can stop the lich god.

Vecna Concept Art Bastiene Deharme.PNG

Searching the Multiverse

While the players won't realize their fate at first, some powerful spellcasters will have discovered Vecna's scheme. Alustriel Silverhand, along with Tasha and Mordenkainen, cast a wish spell to stop Vecna, only to be surprised when the player characters appear before them.

The trio of mages then realizes that the Rod of 7 Parts is needed to stop Vecna. This will be the first appearance of the Rod of 7 Parts in 5E, and you'll get full stats for it in the book. Once all the pieces are found an assembled, it can weaken Vecna enough to banish him to back to where he came (Greyhawk).

While Harmon promised lots of epic battles in V:EoR not every NPC encountered must be fought. For example, an inquisitor in Ravenloft could be an ally.

For that matter, Strahd doesn't have to be defeated to acquire his piece of the rod. If the players can find a way to make handing it over worth his while, that's an option, as he is an opportunist, and messing with heroes entertains Strahd. Of course, if the players who start at 10th level in V:EoR began their adventuring careers in Curse of Strahd, the encounter could be very interesting. Technically, though, the DM has the choice to use the Strahd before or after the events of CoS.

V:EoR features callbacks to various D&D adventures like the Death House in CoS, Acererek's Tomb of Wayward Souls on the Isle of Serpents in Greyhawk (a companion to the Tomb of Horrors), Spelljammer's Astral Sea, Teramini, an Elven wizard guarding the Three Moons Vault for Lord Soth (Dragonlance), and more. Raistlin does not make an appearance, but a DM could decide to insert him if they choose.

Recreation of Dragon Magazine 402.PNG

Epic Illustrations​

Because this is a special project, Wizards commissioned a lot of art for it, starting with concept art from Bastine DeHarme. The image of Vecna with the moon behind him is not in the book. Rather, that piece was given to the other artists to set the mood and illustrate the look Wizards was going for.

It also features the magenta color that's used in all of the Vecna promotional art. “Ragenta,” quipped Greg Tito, senior communications manager.

Art directors for the concept Kate Irwin and Josh Herman used DeHarme's images to create a solid foundation of foreboding, ominous images. From that, Adam Spizak then created 3D models of Vecna, emphasizing the eye and the hand. Some of those images ended up in a promotional trailer for V:EoR, and showcases a create deal of detail, especially in Vecna's skeletal armor.

V:EoR features 30 pages of bestiary and another 11 or 12 pages called a character dossier with writeups of famous characters appearing in the adventure or that are mentioned because they're important to the plot. Because V:EoR goes back to D&D's earliest history, the book's creators aren't expecting people to know every name. Instead, they promise that everything you need to know will be in this book – no need to read Wikipedia pages.

The appearance of those storied characters also gave the team an excuse to create beautiful new art of iconic characters.

“I'm really excited for people to get their hands on it,” said graphic designer Trystan Falcone. “D&D is celebrating its 50th year. This is a book that really encompasses a lot of love notes to notes throughout D&D's history, but it's accessible [to newcomers] if maybe you saw Vecna for the first time on your favorite TV show and you want to come and kind of interact with them here and maybe all these other things. It's a chance for people to get some high-level play, which is so fun, and then have some of these classic D&D experiences.”

Among the art commissioned for the book is a recreation of the cover of Dragon magazine #402, which depicts a fight with Kas the Bloody Handed that could be considered the start of “modern” Vecna. This is the iconic fight where Kas, who had been Vecna's follower, then his betrayer and now his eternal nemesis, defeats Vecna, taking his eye and severing his hand, but ultimately, they destroy each other. Vecna, of course, regenerates over the course of centuries. Kas is thrown into Ravenloft where he becomes a vampire for awhile.

The recreated cover by Chris Rahn calls up a lot of history, and probably a lot of nostalgia. It also signals that players are being thrown into a historic epic drama.

Acererak_Martin Mottet resized.png

Other Details

Around the time of Stranger Things season 4, the Vecna Dossier was released, along with a Vecna stat block putting him at CR26. For V:EoR the stat block is “similar with little things that are modernized for the current version of the roles that we're using,” said Harmon.

One of the key differences is “Vecna's Link,” which ties them metaphysically to Vecna, putting the players on a crash course to be the only ones to stop him because they absorbed a little bit of Vecna's power and the ability to harness secrets in a good way. For example, if an NPC willingly tells them a secret, the characters get a mechanical benefit in combat or can save them for the end when they're fighting Vecna himself.

V:EoR is not a horror book, Harmon said, though it has horror elements. Instead it's more of a high-stakes, ticking time clock adventure.

Among the new monsters in V:EoR is the false lich, which serves Acererak. Blazebears come from Krynn as a result of Lord Soth's corrupting influence. Mirrorshades come from the plane of Pandemonium and are manifestations of fear and anxiety.

While V:EoR officially says it's for characters of levels 10-20, the book does give the DM guidance for how to start with characters at 13th level, since some D&D adventures end there. It also has other suggestions for how to get PCs to the minimal level to start the campaign as well as how to integrate characters from all across the multiverse.

If you pre-order V:EoR from Wizards directly before May 7, you get a bonus adventure called Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch, which is another way to get characters to 10th level. V:NotE will not be available for individual sale.

May 7 is the early access release day for D&D Beyond access to V:EoR as well as the date that physical books, with the regular or alt cover, will be available at local brick-and-mortar game and hobby stories. May 21 is the release date for other North American retailers.
 

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Beth Rimmels

Beth Rimmels

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
My concern with the adventure is that it feels like it might be too much inside baseball. Like, targeted at a small subset of really insider-y, hardcore fans. Or like watching Avengers: Endgame as the first Marvel movie you ever saw.

For the vast majority of my players, who are casual and not hardcore, most of the settings, Easter Eggs, and "famous" characters will be totally unknown to them. Hopefully, the adventure will make people who know nothing about Lord Soth or the Mournland, Alustriel, etc. have a reason to care about them if they never heard of them before this.
The fact that most of it is played with Tier 4 PCs alone make it targeted to hardcore fans. The lack of official adventure material for high levels has long been a complaint about 5e. I'm glad that they are taking a risk and putting out a high-level adventure I will likely buy it just to support this. Also, I'm very interested in how Perkins and team create a high-level adventure. D&D 5e can be completely gonzo and tough to run. It is difficult to write good high-level adventures that will work well with most groups, using any of the official published PC options. I'm hoping it will be a master class in how to create high-level encounters. But I fear that my players will just crush it. My players are not hard-core min-maxers but they have been playing D&D and Pathfinder for decades. They like tactically challenging encounters and the current group has been playing together since 2015. Every official adventure written has been easy mode.

My last campaign was Rappan Athuk, a notoriously difficult megadungeon (a bit over blown, but still deadlier than any official WotC adventure). And still, I had to adjust it a lot for my party. I mean, yes, many (most?) DMs do will customize things a bit to fit their group. But I mean just in terms of keeping things challenging.

The biggest challenge, I think, will be making challenging high-level encounters that are not a slog or incredibly taxing on DMs to run. One of the best ways to do this, I think, is making attacks and environments punishingly deadly, rather than bloating hit points. But I think that a majority of D&D players would balk at that.

That said, I've enjoyed live streams of Chris Perkins running games in 4e and 5e and he comes up with some great, challenging encounters. And I think he did a great job with Curse of Strahd (except for Strahd himself, who is a bit squishy for level 8-10 players). So I'm hoping there will be some fun, creative, devious, and challenging encounters in this book to learn from. I also hope that there is advice for DMs on how to calibrate the challenge for different groups and good advice on running high-level encounters in 5e.
 

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MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I'm having a hard time getting excited for this. I don't like that they changed the membership of the 3 Wizards, including a time traveling Tasha to have their cake and eat it too. I don't like that there seems to be no explanation for Vecna having influence on FR when he has never been worshipped in FR (I mean at least have him resurrect and use Valsharoon as a middle man God or use the Book of Vile Darkness as a connection, explain it some how, don't just act like he's always been there when he hasn't), and vastly more confusingly Eberron, given Vecna has never been worshipped on this very much closed off world, how did he get there and build cults this fast.

I'm bored with Hell, there are other Planes in Planescape, it'd be neat if it was Arborea or Ysgard instead, although they'd probably mess that up, so maybe keeping it in Hell is for the best.

Mirrorshades could be a cool way of giving Pandemonium its own Fiendish Paragon race, but very iffy on the name.

Instead of a dying God, I'd rather have visited a Divine Dominion in the Astral Sea like Havelar or Towers of Night to get a better idea of how they work.

Don't like the Spider Dragon, cool idea, but its way too top heavy, it looks like it'd fall over face first trying to move, it needed a counter weight, like a big arse end or a tail with spider spinnets.

The whole thing feels very forced.

The ticking time clock thing sounds stressful.

Oh and Zulkir Szass Tam wants his plot back, he was doing a Ritual to remake the multiverse and get rid of the Gods back in the Haunted Lands trilogy (highly recommend it).

Szass Tam is the cooler Lich then Vecna, there I said it. It goes Szass Tam, Valsharoon, Valandra, Larloch, Vecna, Vol, Ion, some others whose name I forgot and at the bottom Acerarak (don't know why, but I just don't like Acerarak).

Way more excited for Quests of the Infinite Staircase.
Yeah, I think this books is targeted at a newer generation of players who got into D&D with 5e, or folks like me who played "back in the day" and got back into the game with 5e. I love the nostalgia and romp through iconic D&D locations, meeting iconic D&D NPCs. Also, I skipped over 2e, 3e, and 4e. So this will be my first time playing D&D with Vecna being anything other than a myth or legend with some funny magic artifacts name after him (well, more accurately, made from him).
 

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
this.

the revised PHB should have released before this or in tandem with. If this is the 50th anniversary adventure launch why make you wait another 4 months for the basic rules revisions.
Makes no sense.
Because you can play with either rule set?

I won't be running this until at least early 2025 after I complete my current campaign, so I'll be running it with the 2024 rules. But I would have no issues running it with the current rules, if I was ready to start a new campaign in May.
 

dave2008

Legend

Your welcome
Thanks for the info, but why do you think he is more interesting than Vecna? Perhaps there is more to him than that wiki, but if I were to put them side by side, my first instinct would be to pick Vecna. Sell my on Velsharoon.
 

dave2008

Legend
this.

the revised PHB should have released before this or in tandem with. If this is the 50th anniversary adventure launch why make you wait another 4 months for the basic rules revisions.
Makes no sense.
well I would rather they get the core books correct than rush them out.

However, it is also true the this book is less of a celebration of the next 50 years (i.e. the new books) and more a celebration of the last 50 years.

Also, the old core books work just fine this adventure...

...and the new core books too. That has kind of being the point of this whole 2024 core book reboot.
 
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Reynard

Legend
Supporter
Let's remember this adventure is for high level characters, too. With that in mind, it makes even more sense to see this as a capstone of 2014.

What will be interesting to see, though, will be what insights can be gleaned for the 2024 DMG and especially the MM. There are going to be lots of critters in this book as well as situations requiring adjudication. That strongly suggests it is going to reveal at least some elements we have not seen yet of the 22024 rules.
 

Thanks for the info, but why do you think he is more interesting than Vecna? Perhaps there is more to him than that wiki, but if I were to put them side by side, my first instinct would be to pick Vecna. Sell my on Velsharoon.

I like Velsharoon's story better, he's less of a Gary Sue then Vecna, his relationship to other Gods is more complex and interesting having served both Mystra/Azuth and Talos, the fact that he's a Mulan God without being apart of their Pantheons, the story of how he became a demigod, his relationship to other Red Wizards, he has interesting enemies like Szass Tam and Elminster, I like in 3e, his realm was under ground in an otherwise Celestial Plane.
 

dave2008

Legend
I like Velsharoon's story better, he's less of a Gary Sue then Vecna, his relationship to other Gods is more complex and interesting having served both Mystra/Azuth and Talos, the fact that he's a Mulan God without being apart of their Pantheons, the story of how he became a demigod, his relationship to other Red Wizards, he has interesting enemies like Szass Tam and Elminster, I like in 3e, his realm was under ground in an otherwise Celestial Plane.
So you like how he is integrated into FR it seems? I don't use any official settings, so that doesn't really sell it for me, but I can see how you might find him more interesting. Thanks for sharing!
 

I'm going to be honest: WotC has a duty to do a massive Vecna adventure if they are going to elevate their IP and have it taken seriously. Vecna has been treated as the main villain of D&D for this entire edition, and has been evoked many times over the last few decades. Vecna is one of the very few villains who has impacted literature outside of itself, and a part of an even more elite club wherein Vecna is one of the few villains taken damn near wholesale to be used in another universe (Stranger Things). With a villain this popular, this well known, and with this much material, WotC absolutely must make an adventure with him, and they must try to make it a great adventure. That's what it means to respect your IP. That's what it means to be the owner and creator of specifically Dungeons & Dragons.

There are many great villains in D&D's history. Regardless of your personal taste, it is incorrect IMO to believe that WotC should just abandon the concept of Vecna. They need to use him, they need to use him well, and they need to advance/polish his story/idea if they want to their IP to be taken seriously. And with BG3 showing what happens when you take the IP seriously, WotC is motivated by both money and example to do the same here.
 


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