WotC Vecna Eve of Ruin: Everything You Need To Know

WotC has posted a 19-minute video telling you 'everything you need to know' about Vecna: Eve Of Ruin.

• Starts at 10th level, goes to 20th.
• Classic villains and setting, famous characters, D&D's legacy.
• Vecna wants to become the supreme being of the multiverse.
• Vecna is a god of secrets and secrets and the power of secrets are a theme throughout the book.
• A mechanical subsystem for using the power of secrets during combat.
• Going back to Ravenloft, the Nine Hells, places where 5th Edition has been in the last 10 years.
• It would be a fun 'meta experience' for players to visit locations they remember lore about.
• Finding pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts, pieces throughout the multiverse.
• Each piece in one of seven distinct planes or settings.
• Allustriel Silverhand has noticed something is wrong, puts call out to Tasha and Mordenkainen, who come to her sanctum in Sigil.
• The (10th level) PCs are fated to confront Vecna.
• Lord Soth and Strahd show up. Tiamat is mentioned but doesn't appear 'on screen'.
• Twists, turns, spoilers.
• It's a 'love letter to D&D'.

 

[vecna00]

Probably because it's been shoehorned in for marketing reasons, not because it's good for the story.

Or, and hear me out, it could be someone came up with the idea in the brainstorming meeting, people thought it was cool, and they ran with it.

You know, as people do.

Just because you're not a fan of a thing, it doesn't mean it was "shoehorned in by marketing."

 

[dead]

It literally says in SCAG, page 18:

"Early in 1487, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions abounded for months, as if the whole world was convulsing. Rumors spread of the chasms caused by the Spellplague suddenly vanishing, and stories circulated of known destinations being further away, as if the world had quietly added miles of wilderness between them."

So, no, it didn't occur outside the story in game design - the world, in-universe, did shrink and expand. As ridiculous as you might think it to be, the world, canonically and literally, did resize itself 1487 DR.

OK, thanks. I don't own SCAG. I never went beyond the 100-year timeline advance. But thanks for clarifying. Yes, it is ridiculous. Sometimes there's no need to justify game design changes in game. At the same time, though, they seem to have greatly downplayed it in that description - "Rumors spread" and "stories circulated" could just be Kender tales. I suspect it will be quietly forgotten going forward rather than burnt into the timeline of the Realms.

But coming back to Eve of Ruin, what does this mean?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I like the idea of 32 distinct dungeons! I wonder, just from a math perspective, how they will be able to keep these dungeons challenging while both prevent the players from over-leveling and keeping the XP rules as they are.

As has been mentioned before in this thread "XP rules as they are" is that milestone levelling will be used, WotC adventures don't use XP. XP was mentioned as an alternative back in CoS, but more recent adventures don't do XP at all.

Are people who have never played a WotC adventure before showing an interest in this one? Maybe it was an error for them not to have done a high level adventure before?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I wonder what these beasts are? Those ones in the bottom right look like barlguras to me, but the big ones, I have no idea!
View attachment 348980

The left one might be a demonic gargantua. Massive Aberrant Giants.

 

[Parmandur]

But coming back to Eve of Ruin, what does this mean?

Wizard time manipulation shennaigans gives WotC a handy tool to retcon, and empower DMs to retcon as they see fit.

 

[dead]

Wizard time manipulation shennaigans gives WotC a handy tool to retcon, and empower DMs to retcon as they see fit.

I'm not sure it empowers GMs, it's just another metaplot. But the way it's worded - "Rumors spread" and "stories circulated" - certainly lets GMs take it or leave it.

Is it confirmed Vecna did it? Or do we have to wait and see? (Maybe the end of the Sundering did it?)

 

[pukunui]

Is it confirmed Vecna did it? Or do we have to wait and see? (Maybe the end of the Sundering did it?)

As far as the SCAG is concerned, it was the Second Sundering that did it. It basically reset the Realms to the AD&D map while advancing the timeline further.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Or, and hear me out, it could be someone came up with the idea in the brainstorming meeting, people thought it was cool, and they ran with it.

You know, as people do.

Just because you're not a fan of a thing, it doesn't mean it was "shoehorned in by marketing."

Yeah, and probably the fact the character was marketable was also a factor? I mean, it can be both.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Has Tasha's time traveling ability been mentioned in any other sources or is this the first time?

Also, does this mean Mordenkainen also used time travel to be in this adventure? Is Mordenkainen still a mortal human in 5E? If so, he would be a very old human at this point unless he's used magic to stay young.

He was already 88 in the last published 3.X adventure but looked a lot younger.

5E has really screwed with the timeline's of everything non-FR, though, so it's impossible to gage if the 5E Mordenkainen is younger or older than the one in 3.X. Mordenkainen appears in CoS, which is explictly set in the same period as 2E's black box (ie, 100+ years prior to current 5E FR). But the novel Death Masks, which is set in 4E/5E Forgotten Realms explictly mentions Mordenkainen being there post CoS.

Safe to say, WotC just doesn't care about any of this working in a coherent sense which is a big change from how these settings functioned in 2E and 3E. (You actually could make a giant coherent multiverse timeline back then). Settings got advanced (FR), frozen (Eberron), wound back (Dragonlance, 4E Dark Sun) or completely destroyed (Ravenloft)/abandoned (5E Dark Sun).

 

[dead]

As far as the SCAG is concerned, it was the Second Sundering that did it. It basically reset the Realms to the AD&D map while advancing the timeline further.

OK, thanks for clarifying. Well, the explanation that Vecna is causing all the "timey-whimey" changes in the D&D multiverse (eg. resetting worlds) with his obelisks is really just another metaplot. I'm still uncertain if it's more fan speculation at this stage or if it has definitely been confirmed Vecna is doing this but, either way, it's an in-universe explanation for a game design change no different to the expanding and shrinking Realms example.