I am preparing to run Vecna: Eve of Ruin, but I've changed up some parts. Spoilers.
I've taken out the whole Mordenkainen is Kas thing. Mordenkainen isn't even in my version. Also, I've changed the location of the last piece of the Rod of Seven Parts. I'm adding in the end of the old 2nd edition AD&D Rod of Seven Parts campaign where the 7th piece of the Rod is in the Citadel of Chaos where Miska the wolf spider is imprisoned.
I've changed up a lot of other stuff, but it's not relevant right now.
After getting the 6th piece of the Rod the PCs should be 17th level. I've cut out the part of the RAW adventure where they find the 7th piece of the Rod and reach 18th level. And then there's the part where Mordenkainen takes the Rod and runs off to Pandemonium. The PCs are supposed to follow him and fight some demons and such and reach 20th level before facing Vecna.
I've got levels 19 - 20 covered in my version, but I've got a gap for 17th - 19th level. I've never played/run a high level 5e game, so I'm struggling for ideas.
I want to include a Spelljammer part and send the PCs to Rock of Bral (and asteroid city kinda like Nowhere in Guardians of the Galaxy), but I have no idea why they would go there.
I have been considering having some NPCs steal the Rod, but I can't figure out a plausible way for that to happen to 16th level characters in Sigil. I've got some ideas, but it all depends on the PCs walking around actually carrying the Rod.
I'm stuck and could used some ideas.
Background:
In my game the PCs are plane traveling special agents based in Sigil that work for the Golden Vault. I'm running the PCs through all the Keys from the Golden Vault adventures (levels 1-10) and then they are given the mission to collect the Rod of Seven Parts for the 2nd half of the campaign (11-20). Once they face Miska and gain the 7th piece of the Rod, the Rod tells them (it is a sentient item in my game) the source of the chaos that has been affecting everything (there is a multiverse spanning chaos effect going on messing with reality) is something there on Pandemonium and leads them to Vecna. All throughout the campaign the PCs have visions, dreams, experience omens and such, caused by Vecna (he may even appear in some) that hint at the chaos ripping the multiverse apart and Vecna has something to do with it. Behind the scenes in the beginning, Vecna planted the seed of the chaos effect and the Rod of Seven parts being needed to resolve the event. But in reality, he needs the Rod as a sacrifice of law and order to finish his ritual. He hasn't been able to pursue the Rod himself because he has had to focus on the ritual. And he needs "trust worthy" heroes and not villainous NPCs to collect the Rod and bring it to him. The Queen of Chaos has her minions out trying to take the Rod segments from the PCs all through out the campaign. Vecna wants the attention off of him, so he has let the Queen chase after the Rod. Vecna is overconfident that his master plan will work, so he doesn't even consider that the Queen of Chaos might actually obtain the Rod.
Where is Vecna's "god power?" He is pouring all his energy into his ritual that it has weakened him and he is virtually mortal.
Where are the other gods in all this? Vecna's ritual is literally ripping the Multiverse apart and all(???) the gods are focusing all their power on keeping reality in one piece. Plus Vecna is the God of Secrets. He knows how to keep himself secret and hidden. It is not until the Rod is complete and on the same plane as Vecna that anyone has been able to find him.
There was this really great episode of a TV show ages ago and I can't remember if it was Doctor or Stargate, but anywho. In that story an artifact was stolen out of the most secure place in the universe, essentially a place that was deemed impossible to break in and steal from. The story it would turn out was that the thief had a time-traveling device that he built and he actually just went back in time and stole the artifact before it was ever put into the vault, essentially altering the timeline. The people of the vault however lived in a "warp bubble" and were protected from the time shift, so they were aware the change that took place (aka the artifact went missing) but had to figure it out.
It was all very sciency the way they figured out it had to do with time travel and they eventually found a way to identify who in the past stole it and they found the guy in the future and got the artifact from him. The way they figured it out was by looking into history for clues about the artifact when it was used and stuff like that. It was all a big investigation, research and big puzzle they had to unravel using "history".
I think you could adapt something like that with magic instead of science for the time travel thing for D&D to explain how the Rod got stolen from high-level characters.
well, in everyone's favorite 3.5 book, the epic level handbook, there's an(I think) sick monster. don't remember what its called, but its what you call in when you want an assassin for your level 29 PCs. (3.5 was weird). it looked like a humanoid, dressed in proper funerary clothes for whatever region it was in, could teleport, and carried a +10 dagger of human fright (no clue what that is) that became an ordinary +10 dagger if it wasn't wielded by one of these things. now they were made to be assassins, but you could totally make them an extremely high level theif (depower them SIGNIFIGANTLY)
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Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
DUDE! Time traveling! I hate it normally because of the headache I get arguing about it, but for this it just might work. I'm going to toss it around and see what happens. Thanks for the response!
It doesn't have to be a combat encounter. I've got high CR monsters out the wazu. I am using Milestone leveling. For the entire campaign they level up after each "mission." But the end of the Vecna game has a couple of spots where not much happens, but the PCs are expected to level up. I've removed those parts, so I'm just trying to come up with something cool that could give them a level up without me just leveling them up 2 levels for nothing.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
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Hello!
I am preparing to run Vecna: Eve of Ruin, but I've changed up some parts. Spoilers.
I've taken out the whole Mordenkainen is Kas thing. Mordenkainen isn't even in my version. Also, I've changed the location of the last piece of the Rod of Seven Parts. I'm adding in the end of the old 2nd edition AD&D Rod of Seven Parts campaign where the 7th piece of the Rod is in the Citadel of Chaos where Miska the wolf spider is imprisoned.
I've changed up a lot of other stuff, but it's not relevant right now.
After getting the 6th piece of the Rod the PCs should be 17th level. I've cut out the part of the RAW adventure where they find the 7th piece of the Rod and reach 18th level. And then there's the part where Mordenkainen takes the Rod and runs off to Pandemonium. The PCs are supposed to follow him and fight some demons and such and reach 20th level before facing Vecna.
I've got levels 19 - 20 covered in my version, but I've got a gap for 17th - 19th level. I've never played/run a high level 5e game, so I'm struggling for ideas.
I want to include a Spelljammer part and send the PCs to Rock of Bral (and asteroid city kinda like Nowhere in Guardians of the Galaxy), but I have no idea why they would go there.
I have been considering having some NPCs steal the Rod, but I can't figure out a plausible way for that to happen to 16th level characters in Sigil. I've got some ideas, but it all depends on the PCs walking around actually carrying the Rod.
I'm stuck and could used some ideas.
Background:
In my game the PCs are plane traveling special agents based in Sigil that work for the Golden Vault. I'm running the PCs through all the Keys from the Golden Vault adventures (levels 1-10) and then they are given the mission to collect the Rod of Seven Parts for the 2nd half of the campaign (11-20). Once they face Miska and gain the 7th piece of the Rod, the Rod tells them (it is a sentient item in my game) the source of the chaos that has been affecting everything (there is a multiverse spanning chaos effect going on messing with reality) is something there on Pandemonium and leads them to Vecna. All throughout the campaign the PCs have visions, dreams, experience omens and such, caused by Vecna (he may even appear in some) that hint at the chaos ripping the multiverse apart and Vecna has something to do with it. Behind the scenes in the beginning, Vecna planted the seed of the chaos effect and the Rod of Seven parts being needed to resolve the event. But in reality, he needs the Rod as a sacrifice of law and order to finish his ritual. He hasn't been able to pursue the Rod himself because he has had to focus on the ritual. And he needs "trust worthy" heroes and not villainous NPCs to collect the Rod and bring it to him. The Queen of Chaos has her minions out trying to take the Rod segments from the PCs all through out the campaign. Vecna wants the attention off of him, so he has let the Queen chase after the Rod. Vecna is overconfident that his master plan will work, so he doesn't even consider that the Queen of Chaos might actually obtain the Rod.
Where is Vecna's "god power?" He is pouring all his energy into his ritual that it has weakened him and he is virtually mortal.
Where are the other gods in all this? Vecna's ritual is literally ripping the Multiverse apart and all(???) the gods are focusing all their power on keeping reality in one piece. Plus Vecna is the God of Secrets. He knows how to keep himself secret and hidden. It is not until the Rod is complete and on the same plane as Vecna that anyone has been able to find him.
That's the gist.
Any ideas on adventure stuff for levels 17 to 19?
Quite a pickle.
There was this really great episode of a TV show ages ago and I can't remember if it was Doctor or Stargate, but anywho. In that story an artifact was stolen out of the most secure place in the universe, essentially a place that was deemed impossible to break in and steal from. The story it would turn out was that the thief had a time-traveling device that he built and he actually just went back in time and stole the artifact before it was ever put into the vault, essentially altering the timeline. The people of the vault however lived in a "warp bubble" and were protected from the time shift, so they were aware the change that took place (aka the artifact went missing) but had to figure it out.
It was all very sciency the way they figured out it had to do with time travel and they eventually found a way to identify who in the past stole it and they found the guy in the future and got the artifact from him. The way they figured it out was by looking into history for clues about the artifact when it was used and stuff like that. It was all a big investigation, research and big puzzle they had to unravel using "history".
I think you could adapt something like that with magic instead of science for the time travel thing for D&D to explain how the Rod got stolen from high-level characters.
well, in everyone's favorite 3.5 book, the epic level handbook, there's an(I think) sick monster. don't remember what its called, but its what you call in when you want an assassin for your level 29 PCs. (3.5 was weird). it looked like a humanoid, dressed in proper funerary clothes for whatever region it was in, could teleport, and carried a +10 dagger of human fright (no clue what that is) that became an ordinary +10 dagger if it wasn't wielded by one of these things. now they were made to be assassins, but you could totally make them an extremely high level theif (depower them SIGNIFIGANTLY)
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
DUDE! Time traveling! I hate it normally because of the headache I get arguing about it, but for this it just might work. I'm going to toss it around and see what happens. Thanks for the response!
It doesn't have to be a combat encounter. I've got high CR monsters out the wazu. I am using Milestone leveling. For the entire campaign they level up after each "mission." But the end of the Vecna game has a couple of spots where not much happens, but the PCs are expected to level up. I've removed those parts, so I'm just trying to come up with something cool that could give them a level up without me just leveling them up 2 levels for nothing.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond.