D&D's Obelisk Plotline Was Supposed to Be Resolved in Vecna: Eve of Ruin

Chris Perkins has revealed that the obelisks scattered throughout various 5E adventures published by Wizards of the Coast was originally supposed to play a central role in the Vecna: Eve of Ruin adventure capping off Fifth Edition. Many Dungeons & Dragons adventures published for Fifth Edition featured mysterious black obelisks. These obelisks were revealed to be capable of time-travel and were tied to a mysterious group called the Weavers as well as the Netherese Empire. In Rime of the Frostmaiden, it was revealed that Vecna had obtained one of these obelisks and it was hinted that Vecna would use the obelisks in his plot to rewrite all of reality.

Vecna's possession of an obelisk was never followed up on, but it was apparently supposed to be a plot point in Vecna: Eve of Ruin. In a recent interview with Polygon, Perkins provided his vision for Vecna: Eve of Ruin. "The original plan, in my mind, was that we would actually culminate the story by going back in time to fight the Netherese Empire,” Perkins said. “It was always on our radar to bring Netheril back in some way. And this was the way I envisioned it happening, because the only way you could really fight Netheril again is to travel back in time."

“I was excited about the idea of a time travel adventure,” Perkins said later in the interview, “simply because it would feel very different from the other campaigns we had done up to that point. And I thought given time and attention, we could do some really fun things with Netheril and explore a style of magic that felt different from contemporary magic. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks would be sort of like the vibe I'd go for, where the magic is so weird it almost feels technological.”

Unfortunately, plans changed when Perkins' role at Wizards of the Coast shifted in his latter years with the company. “The reason it was dropped was that different people were in charge of the adventure design,” Perkins said. “I had rolled off a lot of my hands-on product work to help out with other parts of the business. And so, when I creatively walked away from the day-to-day adventure creation, we sort of lost the plot.”

Polygon has been periodically publishing interviews with Perkins, including an introspective on Rime of the Frostmaiden, and some insight on 5E's adventure design.

 

[Reynard]

Sure, but that sort of thing tends to be more small-scale than rebooting the multiverse.

Exactly. You don't need world shaking stakes for high level adventures.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sure, but that sort of thing tends to be more small-scale than rebooting the multiverse.

Unless you try to "rescue" your dead beloved/stalkee from her eternal rest on the Upper Planes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Article says: "Unfortunately, given the current slate of D&D, it’s unclear when or if this type of book might appear in the future, and it’s a big design loss."

... Is it, though? I think it remains to be seen if the new approach (if, indeed there IS a new approach) is better or worse. And usually, it's not the approach that matters, it's the execution.

Yeah, the Polygon D&D writer is all about hot takes without a lot of grounding. I assume they cut their teeth on Reddit.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, the Polygon D&D writer is all about hot takes without a lot of grounding. I assume they cut their teeth on Reddit.

Polygon legit has the worst TTRPG coverage on the mainstream internet.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

While I agree with most of what you say, the Vecna adventure we did get is just so bad.

I must admit that, as someone who treats modules as skeletons he puts the meat on and dislikes the "100% ready to run out of the box, add nothing" design style of some games, Eve of Ruin is the kind of adventure that appeals directly to what I want from published modules. It provides framework I can build on and add other modules in, it gives me ideas how to connect it to multiple other campaigns, it even has unique replayability aspect for different groups depending which of many game ideas I have run with them.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Polygon legit has the worst TTRPG coverage on the mainstream internet.

I assume the various pundits, who name search themselves to harass their critics, are not considered mainstream?

 

[Reynard]

I must admit that, as someone who treats modules as skeletons he puts the meat on and dislikes the "100% ready to run out of the box, add nothing" design style of some games, Eve of Ruin is the kind of adventure that appeals directly to what I want from published modules. It provides framework I can build on and add other modules in, it gives me ideas how to connect it to multiple other campaigns, it even has unique replayability aspect for different groups depending which of many game ideas I have run with them.

You could create your own adventure with less work than it takes to fix Eve.

 

[billd91]

I just don't buy that liches in general, who go through an enormous amount of trouble to achieve immortality, would then risk everything by being out front where epic level heroes are just itching to be the one who killed them.

That may be true for most liches, but early references to Vecna and Kas suggest he ruled over some domain at the height of his power. So having this particular lich/demigod be out there a bit more would certainly be in character.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

You could create your own adventure with less work than it takes to fix Eve.

I find it rather easy to fix and improve on published modules and it is usually pretty fun for me. I guess I'm, as they say these days, built different

 

[Reynard]

I find it rather easy to fix and improve on published modules and it is usually pretty fun for me. I guess I'm, as they say these days, built different

I find starting from scratch to be infinitely easier, especially for a home campaign. That doesn't mean I won't use modules as a resource, but acting making whatever WotC decided to do workable with my collection of misfits is juice not worth the squeeze.