Vecna: Eve of Ruin contains all the secrets behind the lich-god's plot to take over the D&D multiverse. If you're a Dungeon Master who seeks to learn what this multiversal adventure contains, read on. But know that Vecna, the Undying King, Lord of the Rotted Tower, knows when mortals pry into secrets best left unknown. If you do not wish to be transformed into a nothic by the Whispered One or, more likely, have the adventure spoiled for you, turn back now.

• Starting Vecna: Eve of Ruin
• Vecna and the Power of Secrets
• Sigil and The Wizards Three
• Walking the Planes
• The Eve of Ruin

Warning! This article contains spoilers for Vecna: Eve of Ruin.

Start Your Adventure With Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye

Nest of the Eldritch Eye is a prequel adventure to Vecna: Eve of Ruin for 3rd-level characters. This one-shot sets up Eve of Ruin by introducing your party to Neverwinter and the Whispered One's cultists. 

To get this introductory adventure, preorder a digital copy of Vecna: Eve of Ruin. Nest of the Eldritch Eye is now available for those who have preordered, and can be purchased separately after Eve of Ruin drops on May 21! 

Starting Vecna: Eve of Ruin

Artist: Katerina Ladon

Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a high-level adventure that takes players across the multiverse as they attempt to thwart the machinations of Vecna the archlich and his schemes to reshape the universe.

The adventure starts at 10th level but includes options for adjusting the difficulty of the opening chapter down to accommodate characters of 7th, 8th, or 9th level. Additionally, 11th-level characters can be used, but they don't level up at the end of the first chapter. By the end of the adventure, characters should reach level 20.

The adventure opens in the Forgotten Realms, in Neverwinter, and includes notes for bringing in characters from other realms if a player wants to use an existing character from another campaign. The DM is encouraged to work with the player in coming up with what reasons have brought the character from whatever realm they hail from to the city of Neverwinter.

The adventure works well as a follow-on from any adventure that doesn't take a character past 11th level. Some suitable adventures include:

• Curse of Strahd
• Dragon of Icespire Peak + Storm Lord's Wrath + Sleeping Dragon's Wake
• Icewind Dale: Rise of the Frostmaiden*
• Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk*
• Storm King's Thunder
• The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

* These adventures go to 12th level, but it is possible to conclude them at 11th level.

Vecna and the Power of Secrets

Artist: Katerina Ladon

Vecna: Eve of Ruin opens with the characters crossing paths with a cult of Vecna within the bowels of the city of Neverwinter. The cult is attempting to extract secrets from kidnapped nobles for some strange and eldritch reason.

While the party is (hopefully) victorious, this victory does not come without a price, and each character is left with a strange link to Vecna. This Vecna Link not only grants them a blessing but also a small fraction of Vecna's ability to draw power directly from secrets they uncover, something that comes into play throughout the adventure and can prove crucial in the final confrontation against Vecna.

Once this chapter concludes, it's up to the DM to decide how much in-game time passes before the next chapter begins. If a sense of urgency is needed, you can lead straight into the next arc, but it's also possible to allow for more exploration of Neverwinter in pursuit of evildoers to level the characters up to level 10 or engage in some downtime activities.

Sigil and The Wizards Three

Artist: Irina Nordsol

The adventure's second chapter is where the countdown to the eve of ruin begins in earnest, with the focus shifting from Neverwinter to Sigil, the City of Doors. Here we find three powerful mages, Alustriel Silverhand, Mordenkainen, and Tasha the Witch, who have gathered in Alustriel's sanctum in Sigil to combine their power to defeat Vecna. Individually, none of the three is strong enough to cast a Wish spell powerful enough to defeat Vecna, but together, they have a chance. When they cast the spell, something unexpected happens, and the characters are magically summoned to the meeting of the three wizards.

The wizards rally quickly in the face of this outcome and decide that the characters are just who they need. Weakened by casting Wish, the Wizards Three task the party with a new mission: recover a powerful artifact capable of stopping Vecna.

This artifact is the Rod of Seven Parts, the shards of which are scattered across various planes of the multiverse. Alustriel furnishes the party with the knowledge and resources to reach these planes. However, the heroes will need to find the shards themselves once they arrive at each location. Now begins the player's adventure through the multiverse.

Walking the Planes

Artist: Jedd Chevrier

The end of chapter 2, as well as chapters 3 through 8, take the players on a whirlwind tour of the planes in search of the shards of the Rod of Seven Parts:

Toril

The first shard takes the characters back to Faerȗn on the plane of Toril. Home to Alustriel Silverhand, the Sword Coast is perhaps its most famous region and where you can find the cities of Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate.

The characters are taken deep into the Underdark of Faerȗn to Web's Edge, a safe house for agents of the demon-god Lolth. Here, they will encounter cultists of Lolth as they hunt down a shard of the Rod of Seven Parts. However, danger lurks in the halls of Web's Edge, including Ker-arach the spiderdragon. That's right. Spider. Dragon.

The Astral Sea

After returning to Sigil, the characters can follow their shard's desire to be made whole out into the Astral Sea. Here, they'll find the wreckage of a spelljamming vessel embedded in the drifting corpse of a dead god. The shard the players seek lies within the hold of the ship, but they must contend with chaotic magic, rival explorers of the husk, and aggressive creatures native to the Astral Plane.

Once the players recover the shard of the Rod, they can return to Sigil and prepare to recover the third part.

Eberron

This arc of the adventure takes the players to a world nestled within the deep ethereal and usually inaccessible from other planes: Eberron. Arriving on a plane where the scars from the Last War are still very fresh, the party must venture deep into the ruined wasteland of the Mournland. Here, they will find animated spells, living constructs, and twisted mutants while searching for the piece of the Rod of Seven Parts they seek. Their search leads them to a massive warforged colossus that they must traverse at great risk.

Barovia

Following their excursion to Eberron, the player's next stop is Barovia. Here, the characters will visit a location familiar to many a Dungeon Master: the infamous Death House. Within these haunted walls, Strahd von Zarovich himself, the vampire lord of this realm, seeks to wield the power of the shard found here.

Krynn

Pursuit of the fifth piece of the Rod of Seven Parts brings the party to the world of Krynn not long after the war spread across the land. Their initial lead proves to be a dead end for the party, as they discover the shard has been moved by allies of the death knight Lord Soth. The characters must stop the ritual to recover the fragment of the rod and aid the newfound allies they make while on this plane.

Oerth

Piece six of the Rod takes the players to Mordenkainen's and Tasha's home plane of Oerth and into the bowels of the Tomb of Wayward Souls. This tomb is a trap-filled dungeon crafted by the lich Acererak, architect of the Tomb of Horrors and Tomb of the Nine Gods. At the heart of the tomb, the characters encounter an avatar of Acererak bound to the rod piece.

Avernus

The final rod piece brings the heroes to the first layer of the Nine Hells of Baator, the eternal battlefield of Avernus. The players won't be getting involved in the Blood War, however, and instead will be attempting to steal the rod from a casino called the Red Belvedere. Riding across the hellscape of Avernus on an infernal war machine to reach the casino, the PCs will cross paths with a champion of the Dragon Queen Tiamat and maybe even the five-headed dragon god herself.

The Eve of Ruin

With all seven pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts gathered, the heroes are ready to face Vecna and attempt to thwart his secret-powered ritual. Crossing through a series of demiplanes containing the possible versions of the multiverse Vecna wishes to create, the heroes clash with Vecna in his inner sanctum in the midst of his reality-shaping ritual.

Drawing on the power of the secrets they have gathered, the party will need every advantage they can muster against the archlich as the fate of the multiverse hangs in the balance.

Begin Your Epic Adventure!

Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a multiverse-spanning, high-level adventure that celebrates D&D's 50th anniversary with a thrilling race to stop one of the game's most dangerous villains! Along your journey to face off against Vecna in an epic, 20th-level showdown, you'll encounter some of D&D's most legendary characters while traversing iconic locations across the various planes.

Gather your allies and ready your weapons because the time of Vecna is upon us!

Davyd is a moderator for D&D Beyond. A Dungeon Master of over fifteen years, he enjoys Marvel movies, writing, and of course running D&D for his friends and family, including his wife Steph and his daughter Willow (well, one day). They live with their two cats Khatleesi and Mollie in the south of England.