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.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Skeletor has a personality because we've all seen him acted out with a personality on a TV show. Vecna has a different personality every time he appears under a different Dungeon Master.

Whilst being on TV helps, you can also give a character a personality through writing. But Gygax didn’t write Vecna because he was supposed to be dead with only his hand and eye remaining, and he hasn’t had enough time on screen in adventures, novels or computer games to establish one. Strahd, Soth, Azlin etc have appeared enough to have established characters. He isn’t really in Eve of Ruin either (as a character). He is just a boss monster to fight at the end. No dialogue or interaction with the PCs.

 

[Artamo]

I mean we do get a lot of his personality in old modules as well. Vecna Lives opens with stories of his act of petty cruelty, Vecna Reborn dives deep into his beef with Kas and Die, Vecna, Die! has a whole bit where we learn he heard the "Head of Vecna" story and found it so funny he actually make a mundane copy of his own head and dropped it somewhere in the world.

For me, those weren’t modules that I have very strong associations with. That’s why I feel Vecna has largely fallen flat. If I was going to pick an “uber” lich, it’d be Acererak, personally due to the popularity of Tomb of Horrors.

 

[Artamo]

That would be because we have a template (and all the associated media) we can work off for Strahd - Dracula. There's no correlation for Vecna until recently via Stranger Things.

I think that’s fair. The module leans heavily into that association though I do think there’s been a lot of books and adventures and actual plays that have made Strahd a bit more of his own character, but I still get that POV. Vecna, and really liches in general, haven’t.

 

[Artamo]

The other point I’ll make about Vecna and Stranger Things is that has really only been relevant as far as name recognition goes. If one plays a D&D adventure expecting to see the Stranger Things versions of Vecna or Demogorgon, they’re going to be disappointed.

 

[Seramus]

It's a pretty easy step from being a powerful wizard turned lich to assuming he had to encounter a lot of pretty obscure, probably even forbidden or secret, lore in order to amass the power he did and achieve his transformation. How would he NOT have anything to do with secrets is probably a better question just based on what he is.

It  is a pretty easy step for any dark wizard. Full stop. And Vecna is  less secretive and more flashy and audacious than most. There are far more sneaky manipulative and secretive liches out there, like Szass Tam and Larloch. Or, heck, even non-secret gods like Bane had a whole Zhentarim spy network.

But what's done is done. Since he has been declared the God of Secrets, we're left to justify it retroactively and hope he acts sneaky in the future.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

It  is a pretty easy step for any dark wizard. Full stop. And Vecna is  less secretive and more flashy and audacious than most. There are far more sneaky manipulative and secretive liches out there, like Szass Tam and Larloch. Or, heck, even non-secret gods like Bane had a whole Zhentarim spy network.

But what's done is done. Since he has been declared the God of Secrets, we're left to justify it retroactively and hope he acts sneaky in the future.

Wasn't Vecna the literal god of secrets in 4e?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well what DOES "generic powerful lich" even mean, personality-wise?

"I'm undead, a powerful wizard and I'm weirdly into the tombcore aesthetic for my home."

The fact that you can almost certainly swap out the big powerful liches for one another in most TSR and WotC adventures they appear in without anything in the adventure changing is what I mean by "generic."

There are a few exceptions:

The 2E Ravenloft adventures featuring Azalin, because of the setting specificity, although even there, is he doing something that any other powerful lich wouldn't do? Probably not.

And, of course, the Vecna ones are specific to him because we have the incredibly dopey hand and eye motifs in Vecna Lives! and then the continuity-based adventures that follow that, although those plans seem to be generic evil bad guy stuff. ("I don't want to be in Ravenloft" and "I want to reshape the multiverse to suit my needs.")

This is similar to generic dragons who want treasure and to kill rivals, which isn't specific to any of them as individuals.

A non-generic villain would be the comic book and movie versions of Thanos. In the comic books, he is trying to impress Death herself so he can have sex with her. Super weird and not what any other villains are trying to do! And in the movies, he has the extremely odd idea that, to solve scarcity, he should kill off half the people in the universe instead of creating abundance or making everyone need less or something. Dopey, but again, super-specific and altruistic in an extremely weird and evil way.

Compare to generic supervillain who wants money and is either stealing it directly or holding something hostage for blackmail. (Even some very heavy hitter villains essentially do this, when they try to disrupt the world economy, or whatever.) Whether or not you like Thanos' plans, they're specific to him.

Vecna and, really, all big name D&D villains, deserve that sort of specificity.

 

[Marc17]

I'm old fashioned. Vecna's personality will always be the corrupted personality of whatever fool attaches his hand, eye, or both.

 

[Seramus]

Wasn't Vecna the literal god of secrets in 4e?

Yep! And slightly before 4E (2007) there was an article that described his Hall of Secrets, which is a place where dark practitioners could research anything they want as long as they tell Vecna what they learn.

So, he essentially became the God of Plagiarism. I can't hold it against him, though, since that's every dark wizard.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Yep! And slightly before 4E (2007) there was an article that described his Hall of Secrets, which is a place where dark practitioners could research anything they want as long as they tell Vecna what they learn.

So, he essentially became the God of Plagiarism. I can't hold it against him, though, since that's every dark wizard.

I think we've found the use-case for AI art in WotC published adventures after all!