If you’re reading this article, you’re a Dungeon Master planning on running Vecna: Eve of Ruin for your table. This adventure for 10th- to 20th-level characters follows the party in an epic race across the multiverse as they attempt to stop Vecna from remaking the multiverse.

To help you start your prep, we’ll walk you through the first chapter of the adventure and point out the pertinent information you’ll need to prepare.

Without further ado, grab your preferred DM notetaking method, and let’s prep the first chapter of Vecna: Eve of Ruin!

• What Happens in the First Chapter of Vecna: Eve of Ruin?
• Setting the Foundation for High-Level Adventure
• Get Ready for a Dungeon Crawl
• Into the Shadowfell
• Onto Multiversal Adventure

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

This article contains spoilers for Vecna: Eve of Ruin and Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye and is meant for the Dungeon Master’s eyes only.

The dark secrets contained within this article will destroy the minds of any player who happens to glimpse them (or it might just ruin your experience), so you’ve been warned!

What Happens in the First Chapter of Vecna: Eve of Ruin?

Artist: KATERINA LADON

If you haven’t read the chapter or need a brief recap, here’s what occurs in chapter 1:

• Beginning: The party is hired by Lord Neverember to root out the cause behind the mysterious kidnapping of Neverwinter citizens. They are told to start looking in Hallix Mausoleum in Neverwinter Graveyard.
• Hallix Mausoleum: In the Hallix Mausoleum, the party dungeon crawls through a series of subterranean rooms filled with Vecna cultists and Undead, rescuing the missing people along the way.
• Dark Ritual: Eventually, they discover a ritual underway in which one of the missing people is being sacrificed. When they try to disrupt the ritual, they are shunted into the Shadowfell and are given a new ability: Vecna’s Link.
• The Shadowfell: The players must navigate Evernight, the Shadowfell version of Neverwinter, which is full of Undead and other monsters. They’ll seek out information on how to return to Neverwinter in the Corpse Market.
• Chapter End: When they manage to return to the Material Plane, the party discovers that Vecna’s cult has scattered, and Lord Neverember rewards the party.

Setting the Foundation for High-Level Adventure

The first chapter in Vecna: Eve of Ruin is designed for level 10 characters, but there is some leeway. Under the Lower-Level and Higher-Level Characters section, you’ll find guidelines for balancing this chapter for levels 7 to 11 characters.

This can be beneficial if you’re coming into Eve of Ruin from another campaign, like Dragons of Icespire Peak.

Whichever level you decide to start this adventure, your player’s characters will be established heroes at the start of the adventure, so it’s important to put them in that frame of mind.

Tie Your Characters to the Adventure

As always, you’ll want to work with your players to create characters who are motivated to fulfill the quest they are tasked with. Vecna: Eve of Ruin will present player characters with tons of cataclysmically dangerous scenarios. So, if “Because if I don’t do anything, Vecna wins” isn’t a good enough reason for them to adventure, they’ll need to dig deep to discover what reasons they have to continually put themselves in harm's way.

During your session 0, you could ask players:

• Ties to Neverwinter. Why is Dagult Neverember seeking your help to find missing people who are thought to be held in a dangerous part of Neverwinter?
• Ties to Vecna. Vecna’s cultists exist everywhere. Has your character had any interaction with them in the past?
• Heroic Story. How have you become a heroic, 10th-level adventurer?
• What Motivates Them? Do they have a family to protect? Perhaps their late uncle instilled a belief that “With great power comes great responsibility.” Maybe they’re not valiant and want to usurp Vecna as the most powerful wizard to ever exist.

If you or your players struggle to develop a tie to the adventure or how their character arrived in Neverwinter, consider the 10th-Level Backstories table in the introductory chapter.

Read up on Neverwinter

The first chapter jumps right into a dungeon crawl with little preamble. If you want to allow the party to set their roots in Neverwinter, you could run a short prologue of the player’s day-to-day lives in this bustling and cosmopolitan city.

The map below will help you deal with city navigation:

Artist: Jared Blando

You could also watch Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (at least the Neverwinter parts) to get a feel for the city, which is featured heavily in the second half of the film.

Seeing as the players will leave Neverwinter in chapter 2 and won’t return until the end of the adventure, this can be skipped for players who are gung-ho to get started cracking some Vecna-worshipping skulls.

Get the Prequel Adventure Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye

If you need help setting the stage for Vecna: Eve of Ruin, you can run its prequel adventure Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye for your players.

This one-shot for 3rd-level parties introduces your players to Vecna’s cultists and establishes their reputation in Neverwinter. This can help get the story rolling when you jump into the events of Eve of Ruin.

Get Ready for a Dungeon Crawl

Artist: MARK BEHM

The first chapter of Vecna: Eve of Ruin takes players into the catacombs under Neverwinter to retrieve the missing citizens and confront a hive of Vecna-worshipping cultists.

The party is told that the missing victim’s last divined location was Hallix Mausoleum, so they know exactly where to start looking. But what they don’t know are the implications of saving these kidnapped citizens.

Impose a Time Limit

Even though the kidnappings supposedly happened over the past several days, I’d try to keep any preparations or discussions short. You want to impress upon the party that time is of the essence, which is why your party (Lord Neverember’s crack team of specialist adventurers) has been called in. Perhaps the diviners from the House of Knowledge have detected a surge of evil magic, which means a vile ritual is taking place.

Therefore, there’s no time to rally the city’s militia as the lives of the kidnapped townspeople are at stake.

This time restraint can also keep the party pressing through the dungeon, even if their resources begin to dwindle. Telling them there’s no time to leave the dungeon and rest can force them to be creative and strategic.

To keep the time crunch believable, you can let the party make any pre-adventure preparations in a flashback before the party meets with Lord Neverember.

Prepare for the Party’s Plans

While a hack n’ slash party might waltz into the catacombs and start decapitating cultists, a more stealth-inclined party might see an opportunity to infiltrate the cultists’ ranks by posing as Vecna-worshipping zealots.

Consider preparing a series of challenges for parties who attempt this method. For example, Hannel and Algra (C16) like to exercise their authority over junior cultists. This means they may have the party, who look to be new recruits, perform unsavory tasks, like drinking from the Unholy Basin in C14.

Make Note of Important NPCs

Three of the captured townspeople have a secret that can help activate the party’s Power of Secrets ability after receiving their Vecna’s Link feature. They won’t develop this feature until the latter half of the first chapter, but secrets discovered before the link is established can still be used.

Here is where each townsfolk is, what their secret is, and how the party can reveal it:

• Eldon Keyward is in C26. He doesn’t have a secret, but he is in the process of being sacrificed by the cult leader.
• Indrina Lamsensettle is in C20. She knows that Lord Neverember doesn’t have a legitimate claim to his title. She will only reveal this secret to parties that haven’t mentioned Lord Neverember hired them.
• Sarcelle Malinosh is in C5. She recently had a vision of Vecna’s ritual. She will reveal this secret to characters who notice something is bothering her (other than her current state as a prisoner).
• Umberto Noblin is in C11. He’s secretly a historian who specializes in Vecna research. The party can learn his secret by providing him with some food. He then tells the party all they want to know about Vecna.

You may want to consider how the rescued citizens escape the catacombs when rescued. The party will likely want to press on through the dungeon because of the pre-established time crunch, so maybe give them extra cultist robes for the freed kidnappees to wear as they sneak through the tunnels to safety.

The party must save the kidnapped townsfolk before engaging Kendri Nex in area C26. Any prisoners left behind when the party is shunted to the Shadowfell will be lost by the time the party returns.

You’ll want to warn the party so that they’re not caught off-guard. You could do this by allowing the party to make Arcana or Insight checks and telling any character that succeeds about the dangerous coalescing energy in the next room. This information could be provided without a check to players who find the note about Crevices of Dusk in C25.

Into the Shadowfell

Artist: CALDER MOORE

The dungeon crawl ends with the party discovering a ritual taking place in C26. If they disrupt the ritual by killing Kendri or silencing any of the chanting cult fanatics, they’ll immediately be transported to the Shadowfell via the Crevice of Dusk that opens in the ritual chamber.

Connection to Vecna

During the party’s unceremonious trip to Shadowfell, they’ll experience a vision of cults across the multiverse collecting and sacrificing secrets to Vecna. This connects them to Vecna, which manifests in the Vecna’s Link ability.

This also means they can start spending secrets as per the Power of Secrets rule described in the introduction.

Returning to the Material Plane

In order to return to the Material Plane and continue the adventure, the party will have to find a way to travel across the planes back to Neverwinter.

While Eldon has a suggestion for where they can start looking for a solution, see if the party has any ideas to get themselves back to the Material Plane, and, if you’re comfortable with improvising, let them explore these options.

Evernight is a cool set piece for adventure and can even be a place where the party can gain levels if they weren’t at 10th level when they started this chapter.

If the party isn’t sure how to proceed, here are some options:

• As per the book, Eldon suggests they ask around at the Corpse Market (Evernight’s version of a farmer’s market) to see if anyone knows the location of another Crevice of Dusk.
• A savvy spellcaster with Banishment may decide to banish the party back to the Material Plane. For a party of four 10th-level characters plus Eldon, this can be achieved with one 4th-level spell slot and two 5th-level spell slots.
• You could homebrew a quest in which the party acquires a scroll of Plane Shift by completing a quest for a faction in Evernight.

Onto Multiversal Adventure

When the party returns from their detour to Evernight, they’ll be rewarded with a house, a construction crew, and potentially some gold if they rescued the captured civilians.

Chapter 2 of Eve of Ruin assumes some time has passed after the events of chapter 1 but doesn’t give any firm timelines. This allows the players more time to set their roots in Neverwinter or pursue any tasks that suit their interests.

Maybe they use their newly renovated house as a lab and tinker away on magic items to better prepare themselves for future adventures. Or, any character who is curious about the visions they received could spend time researching Vecna. They may even seek the aid of Umberto (as long as he was rescued) to see what details they can uncover about the dangerous lich and why they’ve developed a connection to him.

If your players need help deciding what to spend their time on, the Interim Events table at the beginning of chapter 2 has some more examples.

Vecna Awaits!

After this first chapter of Vecna: Eve of Ruin, the stakes of the adventure become perilously elevated, and your party begins its race across the multiverse to stop Vecna’s ritual.

Along the way, they’ll meet famous archmages, travel to iconic locations—like Eberron, Dragonlance, Planescape, Greyhawk, and Sigil—and encounter legendary foes.

Now, it’s time to adventure forth and see if your party is a match for one of the greatest threats the D&D multiverse has ever known!

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.