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.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

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 can definitely make up an Adventure with less work than running a pre-written, but I find that I enjoy reworking the prewritten adventures. I've never run one even close to exactly like what's in the book, but I get the "gist" of it out of it, even if the details are changed. It's probably why I often don't notice when people say that an adventure is "bad". I just change what I don't like without really remarking too heavily on it.

Sometimes I notice, though!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I hate the idea that the big milestoen celebration adventure is...more Forgotten Realms

The idea that D&D needed a big milestone Avengers Doomsday style adventure to celebrate a minor rules revision at all is a terrible one.

As a regular adventure (and sequel to Rime of the Frostmaiden), a Netheril time travel adventure would have been fine.

And now they are in the rules, bastions open up the way to a more grounded high level campaign involving kingdom building and high politics. And that would suit the Greyhawk setting.