Vecna’s back, and, as always, he’s up to no good.Vecna: Eve of Ruin will take your players from levels 10 to 20 as they attempt to stop the legendary lich’s ritual to remake all of existence.
This climactic adventure will whisk you and your players across the multiverse, from the Forgotten Realms to Eberron, Dragonlance, Planescape, Greyhawk, and more, as they track down the means of thwarting the Whispered One.
Let’s take a look at what this epic adventure has in store:
Play the Prequel Adventure Today!
In Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye, you'll investigate a nefarious cult preparing a deadly ritual. This adventure will introduce your party to Neverwinter, the starting point for Eve of Ruin, and may even offer a glimpse into Vecna's evil plots.
You can get your copy today in the D&D Beyond marketplace for $4.99!
What to Expect in Vecna: Eve of Ruin
This 256-page book contains everything you need to run a desperate, plane-hopping race against time for high-level adventurers. On top of the included story, Dungeon Masters will be armed with over 30 stat blocks for new, challenging monsters, plus lore-filled dossiers on legendary D&D figures that can be used in this campaign and future adventures.
DMs with a Master-tier subscription will even get access to all 32 maps and monster tokens in D&D Beyond Maps. This means you can spend more time with your party in a daring struggle against evil, rather than prepping for your sessions.
Archmages, Assemble!
When the Lich-God Vecna shows up to destroy the entirety of existence, you can bet that legendary heroes will set aside their own goals to contest the Undying King.
DMs will not only get to control this all-powerful lich as he attempts to bend the multiverse to his will, but they will get to take up the mantle of famous archmages as they work with the party to foil Vecna's ritual.
Play as High-Level Heroes
Vecna is a major league villain, which is why characters from this adventure will start at 10th level and need to get to 20th level to have any hopes of taking him on. These levels are where heroes turn from masters of the realm to legends of the multiverse. By the end of the adventure, they will need all of the abilities at their disposal to confront Vecna.
Visit Legendary Locations
This adventure will take players on a whirlwind tour of the multiverse in search of pieces of the legendary Rod of Seven Parts. Revisit the Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk campaign settings, and come up against familiar and new foes.
Celebrate 50 Years of D&D
There’s no better way to celebrate 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons than by embarking on one of its most epic quests yet. This adventure pits your party against one of D&D's most prominent villains as they race across the multiverse to assemble parts of a legendary weapon. Along the way, the party will come across a treasure trove of callbacks to beloved NPCs, iconic locations, and fan-favorite monsters.
Who Is Vecna?
Vecna is the biggest, baddest news. There’s a reason he’s called the Whispered One; he’s so evil that even saying his name could direct his attention toward you, which is a death sentence for most people.
The lich’s tale began in the first edition of D&D as a pair of magic items—the Eye and Hand of Vecna. Since then, his dark conquests across Oerth and the multiverse have been unveiled in ever more daunting detail.
Achieving immortality through lichdom, Vecna built a vast empire, only to be betrayed by this regent, Kas. During the battle that followed Kas' attempt to usurp his master, he was thrown across the multiverse and landed in the Domain of Dread known as Tovag. Vecna survived Kas’ betrayal but lost his left eye and hand in the conflict.
The lich has since continued his plight for power and immortality across the multiverse, eventually accomplishing his goal of ascending to godhood. Now, Vecna seeks to fulfill an even loftier ambition: to rule over all the multiverse.
Do You Dare Confront Vecna?
Vecna: Eve of Ruin celebrates the cumulation of 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons adventures. You will get to visit legendary locations, rub shoulders with famous archmages, and face off against one of the most deadly villains of all time.
The time of Vecna is nigh. Gather your party and prepare to save the multiverse!
Mike Bernier (@arcane_eye) is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his girlfriend, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
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Posted Feb 20, 2024Please don't screw this up! Vecna deserves some respect and good writing. Wonder if Kas will be in it?
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Posted Feb 21, 2024I’m running a similar plane-hopping/world-hopping campaign where agents of Cthulhu are behind the same world-ending shiz!
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Posted Feb 21, 2024So what’s the difference between preorder perks and getting perks for backing something in kickstarter? Stop being a hypocrite. It’s the same deal. You’re just mad at WotC/Hasbro - which don’t get me wrong, you SHOULD be.
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Posted Feb 22, 2024Eberron has metrol its own domain of dread thats could be the tie in
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Posted Feb 22, 2024I really do love seeing all these campaign settings getting more time in the spotlight! It's nice to have more adventures released that aren't solely set in the Forgotten Realms.
But I really do wish Eberron would stop appearing in these extraplanar/multiversal adventures, between this and Witchlight. It's canonically separated from the D&D and inaccessible by other universes, as long as the Ring of Siberys is still intact. I wouldn't mind it so much if the writers actually gave some attention to that! The Eberron NPCs in Witchlight made no sense, considering natives to Eberron would have no idea what the Feywild was or anything about the outside cosmology.
/rant over.
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Posted Feb 23, 2024Nothing hypocritical about it. Don't back those for the same reason. Also when trying to counter a point of opinion try attacking the point made not the person, my comment is simply this. Wotc is slowing adding early access, preorder perks and soon dlc to their books. With releases being half baked. Welcome to the future hellscape paved by sentiments such as yours.
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Posted Feb 23, 2024Seeing as WoTC are doing this infinite staircase planescape'y anthology thing - and by the sounds of it aren't going to "new edition so lets reprint all the old stuff" (again!) any time soon - in years to come why couldn't we have an anthology of (non-Realms) worlds style book?
Some kind of Journeys through the Radiant Citadel but through pre-existing settings. 12 or 13 adventures say, 2 or 3 in Greyhawk, Krynn, Ravenloft, 4e's Nentir Vale, Spelljammer's The Rock of Bral, etc. (Yes, I know that this is what this book sounds like it's doing but more focused on the wondrousness/unique of each of the worlds, rather than BBEG-chasing)
Non-WoTC companies say thinks like "pitch us an idea and in our next kickstarter (or whatever) we'll work with you to release it as an adventure." Through the UA we know WoTC knows how to collect our thoughts about stuff so they could easily let the players vote on what worlds we'd love to revisit - you know that crazy old-fashioned, ask the customer what they want, give the customer what they want and they'll actually give us their money kind of idea!
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Posted Feb 23, 2024Does this mean we'll be getting some good Greyhawk content?
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Posted Feb 23, 2024Well this happens to fall perfectly into a character backstory and side adventure I'm running in Curse of Strahd, so in my case... that's the plan!
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Posted Feb 23, 2024So do you guys/gals think that Arkhan is dead?
He was the last person with the hand of Vecna... and well now that Vecna has returned it might mean that Arkhan is truly gone.
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Posted Feb 23, 2024This looks like a fantastic new adventure! But I really think that WOTC missed a golden opportunity here to take 5e into Epic Level territory. Here the Player Characters are going to be taking on Vecna, and yet we are topped out at 20th level? Yeah, I really feel this was a missed opportunity. I have two groups that I am currently running through high level adventures, and they are both on the cusp of 20th level, and I would love for WOTC to put out some official Epic Level rules and some Epic Level Adventures. Hopefully that is in the cards for 5.5e. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to seeing what all in this new adventure.
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Posted Feb 26, 2024I have the Epic Legacy Core Rulebook and I agree that it would have been a pretty cool sendoff for the last adventure book for 2014 5e. However, once Pandora's box has been opened... 2024 5e would have to support that forever and I don't think they want to do that. WotC has trouble making late-game adventures as it is. Imagine expecting them to make extra late game adventures.
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Posted Feb 29, 2024The video killed all of my hype and instead made me worry about this...
Vecna killing gods? And we're supposed to stop him on level 20? Are my favorite gods going to permanently, canonically die?
Vecna reshaping the multiverse? Why would Ao ever allow him to take over Realmspace...
This does not make any sense.
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Posted Feb 29, 2024And we get Mordenkainen ... again. Because he doesn't show up in other adventures...
Will we ever get the most famous wizard in Forgotten Realms, aka Elminster... and stop pretending that he does not exist?
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Posted Feb 29, 2024You're free to your opinion, but if you don't think level 20 is an appropriate level to be facing a god killer, then I'm not sure how you'd run a level 20 adventure. The power level 20 characters hold individually is great, 4 to 6 of them adventuring together aren't going to be overly challenged by anything short of a minor deity.
As for why Ao would allow any of this to take place, Ao's inaction is his greatest flaw and has been since the beginning. He wouldn't stop Vecna unless Vecna was trying to meddle in mortal affairs beyond using an avatar or champion. And while Ao is omnipotent, he isn't omniscient (as far as I know anyway). You can keep secrets from him. Vecna, as the god of secrets, would be the best villain to successfully do so.
And thus, it's entirely believable Ao wouldn't intervene until it was too late due to believing divine intervention makes things worse not better and Vecna simply keeping his plan a secret until he was ready to pull it. In fact, as the god of secrets, I wonder if keeping such a powerful secret would make him even more powerful.
As for your favorite gods dying permanently... That will sting. If it makes you feel better, gods cannot be permanently killed so long as people still believe in them. They will reincarnate eventually, which is only delayed by another being (mortal or god) taking the opportunity to steal their domain. This is what happened with Mystra, who is a reincarnation of a previous god of magic. She was killed by her lover Ceric, who stole her domain for some time, until Ceric was defeated. She then reincarnated as Mystra and reclaimed her domain.
Hope this helps somewhat build your hype up again.
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Posted Feb 29, 2024Hopefully it's not embarrassingly easy like most level 12+ play. The intro has my hopes up but...
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Posted Feb 29, 2024This is sadly wrong. So are some of the informations presented by you above. Gods can be permanently killed and so was the first Mystra after Helm struck her down durin Times of Troubles. She was then replaced by a mortal known as Midnight who took her name and domain... Yet the original Mystra, (previously Mystryl) remains dead.
No. It is not. The omnipotent being shouldnt and actually cannot be killed in lore by anything. That's the point of omnipotent being. Which Ao is within Realmspace. Even if he's not paying attention the the mortal affairs, he's directly monitoring what all gods are doing and makes sure that all of them do their job properly. Even if Vecna were to make all of his plans, Ao should and could stop this Chaos Bomb from ever affecting his world without a thought. And even if it were to affect it, Ao should be able to reverse it instantly.
Vecna posing a threat to Ao is simply idiotic.
It's literally stated that if every god in existence were to challenge him, they wouldnt stand a chance. If a omnipotent character can be defeated then it's not omnipotent character.
Bahamut is a Lesser Diety. In 5e he is barely what he used to be in previous editions and so is Tiamat. A small portion of Bahamut's power in a form of Aspect (and he can have several of those) is a CR 30 creature. Mind you this small portion is probably less than 10% of his actual power. Said aspect can literally take down a group of 6 level 20 characters, granted with some difficulty.
Now, going by this video, you will be fighting against a being that will "kill" several gods... Beings far above that. Imagine going against 10-20 aspects of Bahamut, all at once. This could be compared to fighting a weak diety... And now you will be fighting something that has killed gods of higher caliber.
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Posted Feb 29, 2024I just wish that the new spellcasting trait in these recent books wasn't a thing. I'd rather have a full list of things to choose from and the the capacity to upcast on a statblock then just innate spellcasting for everything not a player. I get the feeling that all these archmages and liches set to appear in the adventure (and Strahd, ig), aren't really going to have the tactical flexibility that a wizard should have, just generic videogame-esque basic attacks, maybe counterspell with a condition tacked onto it.
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Posted Feb 29, 2024This looks cool. I know a bunch of people ask about high level stuff. I'm curious to see the the Vecna is the same as the Vecna Dossier stat block, mainly because I almost wanted to make a 1shot where you fought them, but it just looks like a miserable encounter (counterspells and things that didnt' really feel like power moves) unless you mess with it a lot. Maybe it's just because I haven't run anything at that level.
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Posted Feb 29, 2024I hope to run this as a follow up to Curse of Strahd. I think that would be pretty amazing, but it'll be up to the players of course.