Investigate the dark undercurrents of a nefarious cult in Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye, a one-shot adventure for 3rd-level characters. It serves as a prequel to Vecna: Eve of Ruin by introducing players to the lich-god’s cultists and their evil machinations.
Pick up your copy on the D&D Beyond marketplace today for $4.99 and unveil the beginnings of Vecna's evil plot!
- The Adventure Inside Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye
- How This Prequel Adventure Ties into Vecna: Eve of Ruin
- Tips for Bridging the Prequel Adventure to Vecna: Eve of Ruin
- How to Access Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye
Battle Vecna’s Forces in Maps
All the maps and tokens from Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye are ready to use in D&D Beyond Maps!
Maps is a VTT that allows Dungeon Masters with a Master-tier subscription to quickly prep adventures and invite players to sessions. The VTT is equipped with a suite of resources—like fog of war and drawing and measuring features—to help you efficiently run dungeon crawls, combat, and exploration!
The Adventure Inside Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye
Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye is a single-session adventure for 3rd-level characters that takes two to three hours to play through.
The adventure begins with the heroes being hired to patrol the troubled streets of Neverwinter, a prominent city on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms. During their patrol, they discover a mysterious desiccated eye at the scene of a murder. This discovery sets off a series of events that take players through the sewers and catacombs beneath Neverwinter, where they will face off against the cult of Vecna.
As the party contends with the zealots who worship the god-lich, they will learn more about the mysterious eye they found and may even get an insight into the ritual the Whispered One plans to enact in Vecna: Eve of Ruin.
How This Prequel Adventure Ties into Vecna: Eve of Ruin
Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye is a prequel to Vecna: Eve of Ruin, a more expansive campaign that takes characters from 10th to 20th level. Since the prequel adventure is fit for 3rd-level characters, how they find themselves at 10th level at the beginning of Eve of Ruin is up to you as the Dungeon Master. What matters is that they are back in Neverwinter by the start of Eve of Ruin.
This adventure also ties into the plot of Eve of Ruin (without any spoilers) by introducing the party to Vecna’s cultists and hinting at the larger threat their plans pose to the multiverse.
Vecna's Supernatural Gifts
In this adventure, players have the opportunity to receive supernatural gifts from the Whispered One himself. The nature of these blessings—bestowed by the god of evil secrets—are unpredictable at best, but may aid adventurers in their plight against Vecna's machinations in Eve of Ruin.
Gaining the attention of Vecna is a dangerous gamble, and it may set up an even deadlier conflict when the party confronts the lich-god in their subsequent adventures!
Tips for Bridging the Prequel Adventure to Vecna: Eve of Ruin
Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye offers Dungeon Masters the opportunity to start their campaign with a low-level prequel before transitioning to the high-level adventure in Vecna: Eve of Ruin. This seamlessly gives the party a reason to adventure together, builds anticipation for the coming quest, and foreshadows important events yet to come.
Here are some important things to remember if you're preparing to run Vecna: Eve of Ruin after the prequel adventure:
Establish Your Party as Heroes
While starting a campaign at 3rd or 5th level is relatively common for D&D adventures, starting at 10th level can be a new experience that requires players to have a backstory to support their character's adventuring prowess. Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye gives players an established background as adventurers and ties them to Neverwinter, so they have a strong hook to adventure at the beginning of Vecna: Eve of Ruin.
Discuss What Your Players Did Between Adventures
To help smooth the time jump between adventures and invest your players in the well-being of Neverwinter (and the multiverse as a whole), consider taking the time to collaboratively craft the narrative of your party’s inter-adventure deeds:
- Did they stay in Neverwinter? If so, did they settle down and start a family or business?
- Did they stay together as a party? Or did they split up to pursue their own adventures? Maybe they agreed to return to Neverwinter on the anniversary of their adventure, which just so happens to be when Eve of Ruin kicks off.
- Have they seen any other signs of Vecna's plans during their adventures?
What the players decide their characters have done should reflect the fact that they managed to become 10th-level heroes by the beginning of Vecna: Eve of Ruin.
Prep Your Vecna Lore
Since his first mention in the original Dungeon & Dragons Eldritch Wizardry supplement, which came out in 1976, Vecna has become one of D&D’s most infamous and nefarious villains. If you’re unfamiliar with the lore surrounding this iconic character, this guide to Vecna's appearances throughout D&D's history can give you some foundational knowledge of just how big and bad Vecna can be.
Prepare to Face Vecna
Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye prepares your party for an epic saga that will take them from the dank catacombs of Neverwinter to the far reaches of the multiverse. Get your copy of the adventure now and prepare to face Vecna's undying wrath!
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 partner, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
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Posted Apr 1, 2024No thank you. Based on what is already out there, it appears "Vecna" is being used as a marketing tool for a substandard product.
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Posted Apr 2, 2024It's moreso about the fact that many of us are still interested in canon setting lore, and they're adding a pre-order bonus like a lot of games do, sometimes because said games are bad and the devs know it, so they're trying to inflate sales beforehand.
EDIT: Also, an introduction adventure should be INCLUDED, not just pulled out and used as a pre-order bonus. Stuff like that tends to be signs of bad development.
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Posted Apr 4, 2024It says in the article, if you preorder it will be available in your DND Beyond account on April 16, so you have to wait. If you don’t pre-order, then you will have to purchase it separately once it is released.
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Posted Apr 4, 2024It is just a *suggested* setup to create a hook for your characters, not sure how that is a “gatekeep?” (Unless that word has lost all meaning).
This isn’t a video game, generally you as the DM collaborate with your players to create their backstory and the reason they got together as party for *any* adventure.
This prequel is entirely optional, you don’t need it to play the main adventure and you can create your own prequel if you wish, or just use whatever hook you want to get your player charters involved in the main campaign.
The main adventure book will likely offer suggested hooks aside from playing through this pre-quel adventure, or you can create your own. If you need everything crafted for you story wise, then you probably are better off playing a video game, versus a table-top adventure.
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Posted Apr 7, 2024I want to hear about what kinda supernatural gifts people get from Vecna!
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Posted Apr 9, 2024This will still be completely available to anyone, the preorder bonus thing is only getting the adventure included with Eve. If you don't want to preorder you can just wait and buy both products separately. It's not as if this content is exclusive to pre-orderers
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Posted Apr 12, 2024I'm sure they will find a way.
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Posted Apr 12, 2024They offered similiar things in Van Richten's. They were usually very bad. For example echoing souls, you gain two proficiencies, one language and once per short rest when you roll a nat 1 it is super worse than normal. Effects include charmed by a random creature, frightened of a random creature, blinded, and incapacitated. Nothing like having an ally knock themselves out mid combat because they roll a nat 1. It's like critical fumble tables but official!
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Posted Apr 12, 2024The post states that a possible connection is that Eve of ruin takes place a year after the prologue
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Posted Apr 14, 2024With only 60 miles by road between Neverwinter and Phandalin, it should still fit nicely together. I'm going to use a party that ran Lost Mines of Phandelver (not the expanded version) for the prequel, then a level 10 party that did Tomb of Annihilation for the main campaign, see how that goes.
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Posted Apr 15, 2024The point went right over your head.
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Posted Apr 16, 2024Yo, it's 8AM EST on April 16th and I'm hype for Nest of the Eldritch Eye! I don't use DnD Beyond a lot, so I'm not sure how to access the one-shot. Anyone know how I can read through it? I've already redeemed the key back when I preordered and the one-shot itself is listed as a Sourcebook. I looked through my Sourcebooks and it wasn't there, the only thing I had for Vecna was the Vecna Dossier. Any help is appreciated!
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Posted Apr 16, 2024Nothing yet bro, waiting here as well
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Posted Apr 16, 2024Disregard my last message. If you have the dnd app in your ph it’s all the way in the bottom of the books you own. Super excited to run this one!
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Posted Apr 16, 2024I don't have the app, but I'll download it and see what I find. Thanks for the help.
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Posted Apr 16, 2024Thats exactly what im doing the stories seem to fit reletvely well
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Posted Apr 16, 2024How do i claim the adventure if i preordered the physical and digital bundle?
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Posted Apr 16, 2024Where is it? I preordered the physical + digital edition of the book so I should get this one shot
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Posted Apr 16, 2024It's here if you preordered.
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Posted Apr 16, 2024Such a great idea. I love having a prequel that introduces the setting and the mystery och the Eve of Ruin.
Vecna is such an iconic character in D&D and everyone knows that he should be feared. I'm hoping to deliver on that fear in the prequel.