Running Eve of Ruin. I saw a video on Youtube by Gamemasters who gave us his "fix." Now mine is pretty much his but starting at level 10 instead of level 1 like he did, so I've tweaked some things to fit that better but mostly I've adopted his fix. These are my notes to run the end of chapter one and transition into chapter two, just looking to see if anyone has other suggestions? I think this will work well and introduce the obelisks to the campaign like Gamemasters suggests. Let me know what you all think is good, bad, or things we can change.
Run chapter 1 as is. At the end of the graveyard scene, in the battle at the Sacrifice gallery, give the mage Kendri a shard of obelisk, and add this part from "Nest of the Eldritch Eye" level 3 adventure:
The runic circle suddenly hisses and flashes with lurid light. As if being extinguished, the glow of the runes dims as shadowy smoke rises from the carvings. The smoke gathers in the center of the chamber, where it coalesces into an apparition of an emaciated skull with one glowing green eye.
The apparition speaks in a hissing baritone. “Good news, Kendri. Though your efforts have been disappointing, you have brought me new... points of interest.” The apparition swivels to look at each of you in turn. “Yes, there is great potential here. May we meet again—but until then, I have my eye on you.” The apparition then explodes into streaks of shadow, passing through each of you with a whispered scream before vanishing.
Once the players take time to inspect and identify the shard, they find it has a teleportation property to it but are unsure where it might send them, if they use it they are teleported to Alustriel (potentially skipping the Evernight part of chapter 1). When they do use it to teleport, they are first teleported into a open cavern with smoky black walls (almost translucent) that appears to be made of obsidian. Within the walls they can see endless towns, streets and lands (some even alien) but are unable to pass through the walls. There is one wall made of purple crystal. When approached or touched they get a sudden image of Vecna's face looming over them and the towns and landscapes, "It won't be long now, you are almost ready, as am I." And with that they are then shunted into The Sanctum in Sigil, where they meet a surprised Alustriel Silverhand.
As they discuss how they arrived, conversation turns to it likely being that Alustriel has an obelisk in her possession that has missing shards. They go on to discuss further the findings of the cult and encounter with Vecna, if they do not know who he is Alustriel can inform them. This is worrisome to her and she calls upon two other powerful wizards for aid - enter Tasha and the REAL Mordenkainen, Kas is not going to be impersonating him, at least not for now. The wizards discuss and research, and come to the conclusion that if the obelisk were to be completed, it may be able to teleport anyone to the location the characters were attempting to access, which their best guess is that this is where Vecna is located. This is also where they discuss after research, the rod of 7 parts and where the wish spell goes wrong/fails, however the characters and the wizards 3 have a vision of Web's edge - in conclusion they believe that the wish spell was unable to directly destroy Vecna, but this could be where the first part of the rod of 7 parts lies. Due to Wish spell fatigue, the wizards encourage the players to follow up on this lead while they do further research.
- Web's Edge: They all have a vision of clouds, and stairs that stretch on and on to infinity. Then you see yourself floating past doors, finally coming across one that is open. You can see just beyond, 2 dwarves, a gnome, and a tiefling all standing in front of a large door - webs cover everything and the adventurers attempt to cut their way through the webbing. Then one by one you witness each fall to something that you cannot see. But finally, as the tiefling falls, she turns to you and whispers "Web's Edge." The door you are viewing this through closes suddenly, and a strong wind ushers you back to where this vision began, and all is dark.
While the players are off on the search for the rod parts, Alustriel is searching for the other missing shards of her obelisk to complete it. The wizards three know that the obelisk has a strong teleportation magic about it, and can use it to teleport the characters if needed. They also have heard rumors that others like it exist, and that it may, once whole, even have the ability to reverse any damage Vecna has done in case of a catastrophic failure - almost like a save point.
Finally, in the end when the rod is complete or close to completion, Kas having gotten knowledge of the characters quest, appears (as Mordenkainen?) and steals the rod or part of it, thus returning to Pandemonium where he is waging war against Vecna in effort to supplant him. The players need the full rod to be able to complete the obelisk (as the bottom piece of the rod has part of the obelisk on it), so that they can teleport to Vecna to stop him. Kas has stolen it to supplant Vecna by summoning a demon lord to help destroy him and take his place in the ritual.
- If the players for some reason decide to help Kas in supplanting Vecna, then Kas and Miska the Demon Lord will fight alongside them and destroy Vecna. However, then the players must defeat Kas and Miska or the multiverse will still be destroyed in the same way Vecna had planned - so either way a big showdown at the end.
Once the players obtain the rod again, they use it to complete the obelisk and teleport to Vecna (without completing the obelisk, there is no way of knowing where Vecna resides), and on arrival they see that Vecna himself has a very large Obelisk of his own. He is concentrating his ritual of unmaking into the obelisk so that it will channel it's power to the other obelisks across the multiverse amplifying his spell and unraveling all. The players, unknowingly, aided in making the ritual slightly more powerful by helping Alustriel complete her obelisk which was located in Sigil, the city of Doors, essentially allowing his ritual to spread through the obelisks to the Sigil, and through the doors across the multiverse.
Glad you like it! So far we have introduced the obelisk and the wizards three. They completed webs edge mostly as written, and are currently in the astral sea. One thing I’m adding to this chapter is the actual presence of space pirates. My players preciously ran the light of Xaryxis campaign so the astral elves are now wandering raiders and pirates! So they were attacked after meeting captain inda, by a star moth ship and a large force of astral elves, just a little throw back for them which was fun.
For the Eberron chapter, I am thinking of adding the threat of the Lord of Blades as the big bad here somewhere. Death house chapter I’ll likely add something for our fighter character who is from the shadowfell and a cured lycan.
Also will sort of have visions and updates from the wizards three of parts of reality popping out of existence, like when we get back from the astral sea Alustriel will inform them that Neverwinter is just gone. There is just nothingness there now.
Running Eve of Ruin. I saw a video on Youtube by Gamemasters who gave us his "fix." Now mine is pretty much his but starting at level 10 instead of level 1 like he did, so I've tweaked some things to fit that better but mostly I've adopted his fix. These are my notes to run the end of chapter one and transition into chapter two, just looking to see if anyone has other suggestions? I think this will work well and introduce the obelisks to the campaign like Gamemasters suggests. Let me know what you all think is good, bad, or things we can change.
Run chapter 1 as is. At the end of the graveyard scene, in the battle at the Sacrifice gallery, give the mage Kendri a shard of obelisk, and add this part from "Nest of the Eldritch Eye" level 3 adventure:
The runic circle suddenly hisses and flashes with lurid light. As if being extinguished, the glow of the runes dims as shadowy smoke rises from the carvings. The smoke gathers in the center of the chamber, where it coalesces into an apparition of an emaciated skull with one glowing green eye.
The apparition speaks in a hissing baritone. “Good news, Kendri. Though your efforts have been disappointing, you have brought me new... points of interest.” The apparition swivels to look at each of you in turn. “Yes, there is great potential here. May we meet again—but until then, I have my eye on you.” The apparition then explodes into streaks of shadow, passing through each of you with a whispered scream before vanishing.
Once the players take time to inspect and identify the shard, they find it has a teleportation property to it but are unsure where it might send them, if they use it they are teleported to Alustriel (potentially skipping the Evernight part of chapter 1). When they do use it to teleport, they are first teleported into a open cavern with smoky black walls (almost translucent) that appears to be made of obsidian. Within the walls they can see endless towns, streets and lands (some even alien) but are unable to pass through the walls. There is one wall made of purple crystal. When approached or touched they get a sudden image of Vecna's face looming over them and the towns and landscapes, "It won't be long now, you are almost ready, as am I." And with that they are then shunted into The Sanctum in Sigil, where they meet a surprised Alustriel Silverhand.
As they discuss how they arrived, conversation turns to it likely being that Alustriel has an obelisk in her possession that has missing shards. They go on to discuss further the findings of the cult and encounter with Vecna, if they do not know who he is Alustriel can inform them. This is worrisome to her and she calls upon two other powerful wizards for aid - enter Tasha and the REAL Mordenkainen, Kas is not going to be impersonating him, at least not for now. The wizards discuss and research, and come to the conclusion that if the obelisk were to be completed, it may be able to teleport anyone to the location the characters were attempting to access, which their best guess is that this is where Vecna is located. This is also where they discuss after research, the rod of 7 parts and where the wish spell goes wrong/fails, however the characters and the wizards 3 have a vision of Web's edge - in conclusion they believe that the wish spell was unable to directly destroy Vecna, but this could be where the first part of the rod of 7 parts lies. Due to Wish spell fatigue, the wizards encourage the players to follow up on this lead while they do further research.
- Web's Edge: They all have a vision of clouds, and stairs that stretch on and on to infinity. Then you see yourself floating past doors, finally coming across one that is open. You can see just beyond, 2 dwarves, a gnome, and a tiefling all standing in front of a large door - webs cover everything and the adventurers attempt to cut their way through the webbing. Then one by one you witness each fall to something that you cannot see. But finally, as the tiefling falls, she turns to you and whispers "Web's Edge." The door you are viewing this through closes suddenly, and a strong wind ushers you back to where this vision began, and all is dark.
While the players are off on the search for the rod parts, Alustriel is searching for the other missing shards of her obelisk to complete it. The wizards three know that the obelisk has a strong teleportation magic about it, and can use it to teleport the characters if needed. They also have heard rumors that others like it exist, and that it may, once whole, even have the ability to reverse any damage Vecna has done in case of a catastrophic failure - almost like a save point.
Finally, in the end when the rod is complete or close to completion, Kas having gotten knowledge of the characters quest, appears (as Mordenkainen?) and steals the rod or part of it, thus returning to Pandemonium where he is waging war against Vecna in effort to supplant him. The players need the full rod to be able to complete the obelisk (as the bottom piece of the rod has part of the obelisk on it), so that they can teleport to Vecna to stop him. Kas has stolen it to supplant Vecna by summoning a demon lord to help destroy him and take his place in the ritual.
- If the players for some reason decide to help Kas in supplanting Vecna, then Kas and Miska the Demon Lord will fight alongside them and destroy Vecna. However, then the players must defeat Kas and Miska or the multiverse will still be destroyed in the same way Vecna had planned - so either way a big showdown at the end.
Once the players obtain the rod again, they use it to complete the obelisk and teleport to Vecna (without completing the obelisk, there is no way of knowing where Vecna resides), and on arrival they see that Vecna himself has a very large Obelisk of his own. He is concentrating his ritual of unmaking into the obelisk so that it will channel it's power to the other obelisks across the multiverse amplifying his spell and unraveling all. The players, unknowingly, aided in making the ritual slightly more powerful by helping Alustriel complete her obelisk which was located in Sigil, the city of Doors, essentially allowing his ritual to spread through the obelisks to the Sigil, and through the doors across the multiverse.
Love this, have you advanced the alternate plot lines any further?
Glad you like it! So far we have introduced the obelisk and the wizards three. They completed webs edge mostly as written, and are currently in the astral sea. One thing I’m adding to this chapter is the actual presence of space pirates. My players preciously ran the light of Xaryxis campaign so the astral elves are now wandering raiders and pirates! So they were attacked after meeting captain inda, by a star moth ship and a large force of astral elves, just a little throw back for them which was fun.
For the Eberron chapter, I am thinking of adding the threat of the Lord of Blades as the big bad here somewhere. Death house chapter I’ll likely add something for our fighter character who is from the shadowfell and a cured lycan.
Also will sort of have visions and updates from the wizards three of parts of reality popping out of existence, like when we get back from the astral sea Alustriel will inform them that Neverwinter is just gone. There is just nothingness there now.