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.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How do you do something like this?

How do you just lose the core plot of your major conclusion?

This isn't "someone didn't like that direction and chose to go elsewhere". This is "yeah we just sort of dropped the ball because I got moved somewhere else". It's, frankly, sloppy.

 

[EthanSental]

A final battle under Castle Greyhawk would have been great. I'm not one for fan service, generally, but that would have 100% worked on me.

With all the Masters of the universe trailers, I read that as Castle Greyskull the first time…

 

[EzekielRaiden]

https://bsky.app/profile/winningerr.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3mehpzgnvzk2p

There's more in the thread

While that is some interesting context, if anything it makes my concerns grow, not shrink. Now we're hearing that there wasn't just one "oops, we dropped the plot", but multiple? Even if this came from a reasoned and well-supported choice to limit the scope of the project (a perfectly good thing to do!), the fact that apparently nobody knows why this happened? Not a good look for WotC. It makes them look slapdash, flying by the seat of their pants, not having any greater vision beyond "get the next book out".

 

[tetrasodium]

It makes them look slapdash, flying by the seat of their pants, not having any greater vision beyond "get the next book out".

Why the surprise? 70% or higher is hardly what could be called "vision" of any sort, yet here we are with the survey brigade edition. The obelisk netheril plot would have needed to survive a review but netheril was full of bad people & inequality.

 

[Artamo]

Probably for the best. Netheril was a horrible place filled with a lot of horrible powerful people. I can't imagine anything deserving of being called Netheril surviving this excessive review process as anything still identifiable as Netheril.

I don’t understand the context of the clip you selected to the article.

 

[Artamo]

Why the surprise? 70% or higher is hardly what could be called "vision" of any sort, yet here we are with the survey brigade edition. The obelisk netheril plot would have needed to survive a review but netheril was full of bad people & inequality.

Okay really sounds like you want to have a debate about inclusivity in games without actually saying that and just linking to the same clip over and over. Kinda not cool.

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay really sounds like you want to have a debate about inclusivity in games without actually saying that and just linking to the same clip over and over. Kinda not cool.

Weird, you might have misclicked or something. I double checked that I didn't copy/paste wrong and see three different links across the two replies you made to my post, one of the three literally describing Netheril itself beyond the bits I mentioned. Knowing about Netheril is critical to seeing the conflict. Pretty much everything about Netheril runs counter to the states review goals

 

[Artamo]

Weird, you might have misclicked or something. I double checked that I didn't copy/paste wrong and see three different links across the two replies you made to my post, one of the three literally describing Netheril itself beyond the bits I mentioned. Knowing about Netheril is critical to seeing the conflict. Pretty much everything about Netheril runs counter to the states review goals

Both of the YouTube links in the last two posts I quote-replied to go to the same discussions of Wizards’ inclusivity review policy.

 

[Artamo]

Anyways, regarding the article, it really sounds like they could’ve benefited from some internal story bibles if that was truly the intent. Also consider that possibly Perkins wasn’t as communicative as necessary to drive that point about the obelisks versus it being a mistake on the part of the designers who followed after him. Regardless, Eve of Ruin is one of those modules that I looked at and saw stuff in maps and encounters that I might have scavenged for other uses, but I’d probably never actually run the adventure itself. Ultimately I passed on it.

Come to think of it, I’ve never been particularly wowed by any the old TSR Vecna adventures.

 

[tetrasodium]

Both of the YouTube links in the last two posts I quote-replied to go to the same discussions of Wizards’ inclusivity review policy.

No they don't?

One goes here where a YouTuber calls for a survey brigade with hysteria that resulted in a video with more upvotes at the time Crawford was talking about the number of responses to the survey in question, kinda central to the 70% point.

And the other here where people from wotc describe a review process that ensures bad people and bad places where bad things happen won't show up in print where dogooding adventures could... do good. nearly everything about Netheril is all three of those things .
Edit: whatever Perkins wrote for the Netheril adventure would have needed to go through that review where it obviously died.