Vecna Eve of Ruin: WHAT IF? | D&D Lore
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- What if we made Vecna Eve of Ruin kinda cool?
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Chapter 1. PCs realize they have alternate lives, they are part of a cult of Vecna worshipers, but have no memory of this. The cult members are seeking the holy relics of the Eye and Hand of Vecna, to be returned to Vecna but where are they? Clues to their last wearabouts send the players looking.
Chapter 2. The location where the eye and hand are supposed to be is false but does lead to one of the Obelisks. As the PCs interact with the first obelisk they get echos of the world they remember, the real forgotten realms. You could replace the rod of seven parts with seven parts of the obelisk, or attune to seven different obelisks. The players can utilize the cult of Vecna that their alter-selves are a part of to gather information on the Obelisks, the Netherese, and the ritual that changed everything. Once they know where the other obelisks are they travel there to find them, attune to them, and seek answers on how to stop Vecna.
Chapter 3. Travel to the Astral Plane
Keep this chapter mostly the same, giant dying gods body in the Astral Sea. There’s an Obelisk here to attune to.
Chapter 4. Eberron
Also could keep this the same, but don’t need to explicitly call it Eberron. They travel from the Astral Plane through a mist and wind up in the Mournland. Continue the adventure as is. Again finding and Obelisk here.
Chapter 5. Barovia, a Domain of Dread.
The characters are taken not only to Barovia but are instead witness to its creation, and the curse of Strahd. Strahd is still human and the sun still shines in Barovia. Strahd is evil though, and the Vitarri know that this place is not as it should be. The party must run through castle ravenloft and find an obelisk deep in the basement. There they confront Strahd who has just made his pact with the dark powers and becomes a vampire. They fight, if destroyed he is reborn because of the curse. The party is allowed to leave the now cursed Barovia.
Chapter 6. Kyrnn.
No big changes, the rod fragment is altered to be an obelisk to attune to.
Chapter 7. Oerth.
No big changes except an Obelisk at the end of the Tomb of Wayward Souls. Also players learn to stop Vecna they’ll need a piece of Vecna, and the Eye of Vecna happens to be here on Oerth. Side adventure to go get it.
Chapter 8. Avernus
The party goes to Tiamat’s lair for the final Obelisk, run the adventure as normal but include Arkan the Cruel who has the Hand of Vecna. Players fight him to get the hand, or somehow bargain with him, or gamble ot get it. Perhaps they have a way to remove the hand without killing him? Using a wish spell? Important part is to get the hand and attune to the Obelisk.
Chapter 9. Sigil / Doomed Forgotten Realms
Party ends up back in Sigil having attuned to all of these obelisks. They learn the ritual was cast in Pandemonium in the Cave of Shattered Reflection. The PCs must go there with the hand and eye to undo the spell. Using the Spellweaver undo magic that Vecna used against him.
Chapter 10. Pandemonium.
Kas can show up here, because he’s important to Vecna and is leading an army against Lolth. If the party members get to Kas they could potentially get the Sword of Kas which will help them in their eventual fight against Vecna.
Chapter 11. PCs descend to the Cave of Shattered Reflection where Vecna ran the Ritual of Remaking. Vecna is very much aware of the PCs now, because of finding the eye and hand of Vecna, goes to stop them. PCs get thrown into different realities much like the doomed forgotten realms, but eventually break free to fight Vecna. After defeating Vecna the players can undo the ritual. Cut to the end where the PCs wake back up in the Forgotten Realms, having remembered their adventure but everyone else has no idea their whole reality was almost lost.
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Does your actual name have an actual silent _ph,_ or is this more of a "the 'F' communism stands for food" situation?
I have a whole rewrite of Vecna: Eve of Ruin that I'm working on with a few other authors. If all goes well, it should be on DMsGuild by the end of the year.
Neat! I'd love to chat about it when you're done!
@@Jorphdan I imagine you'll find a lot to like. I very much intend it as a celebration of D&D's long history.
I honestly just blended it with Doomed Forgotten Realms, so I'm going to look forward that
Question isn't their a version of vecna sitting cafe in planescape? Food for thought
I swear I didn't watch this before I commented 😂
I'm guessing that Eve of Ruin started development by WotC around the same time as Rime of the Frostmaiden was being developed. And instead of collaborating on stuff to make sure that the major common elements were retained, WotC decided to not to do that. If some Hasbro exec made this decision, then that Hasbro exec needs to be FIRED because the decision not to continue the Obelisks in Eve of Ruin has a huge disappointment and ruins Eve of Ruin.
This is a fantastic way of resolving a lot of the issues with this book. Great work.
Idk if u grew up in an abusive household or where the cops came looking for someone but that door banging audio clip just sent my adrenaline spiking
I’m tying up Wave Echo Cave in Phandelver & Below, with the Forge of Spells being a Planar Forge. The Black Spider activate the Forge, and if he’s not defeated (after his Drider transformation) will disappear via Forge portal. Plans are that will is all tied into a Planescape connected campaign, as one of the PC’s is from Sigil and various threads have all been weaving this together. Plan is and epic campaign from level 5 to 20, with Vecna’s followers ie. the Spider seeking out all the black obelisk locations, as Vecna’s plan is to conquer Sigil and believes he can bind the Lady of Pain in a prison through the magic of the obelisks. Vecna will be successful in this plot at level 10 in the story progression, with Sigil as the centre of the multiverse, he cast the spells from here. From here your take on the Vecna: Eve of Ruin is perfect. In the mean time, to span levels 5-10 and tie in the current Planescape themes, the party have the option to follow the Spider through the portal, but will instead be lead to Lady Alustriel’s Sanctum. She recruits players, sharing anomalies have been popping up across Faerun, one the Forge of Spells, and Obelisk location sites. She believes the Spider is collecting shards of the obelisk’s for some nefarious plan, though no connection to Vecna as yet. Lady Alustriel commissions the party to seek out the obelisk’s sites to stop the Spider and his cultists. Perhaps they have to destroy the sites (haven’t worked out the details as yet). This first part of the adventure is the Infinity War, the party do not successfully thrawrt the plot, and will uncover clues pointing to Vecna, they will arrive back at Sigil on the Eve of Ruin. to either confront him, as he snaps his fingers… Part 2 Endgame … Vecna - Multiverse of Ruin
Their are few retelling of Strad we have to go off from both the Novel "I Strad" and a few adventure modules that really leans to me liking the idea of perhaps being a Gift to Strad from Vecna as a reward for loyal service, Vecna was once trapped in Ravenloft perhaps he found a kindred soul in Strad a soul like him perpetually trapped in his worst moments DOOMED ( you get it?) to repeat itself that he actually just reset back to those moments in time, so for example I one point during strads campaign he fall in love with a elven woman who is trying to use and betray him, but what if the players who have incite the incident, essentially acting as a agent of the dark powers to set right Ravenloft, no matter what at the end the player should like their the baddies
In regards to "Vecna wins", this could be expanded to other adventures: what if Tasha was never saved from the hags in Wild Beyond the Witchlight? Now Tasha ISN'T one of the Wizards Three, but we've got, oh, Elminster instead, and these high-level PCs who've played WBtW before and know how to save her can hop through a Planescape door and go save Tasha and have her join the cause as a fully-fledged Archfey
I'd love for this to be more of a sandbox, and having alternate quest hooks (just in a numbered list! It doesn't have to be fully laid out for us) would be a great way to make the adventure our own.
I really like this. I wish they'd approached the published adventure this way!
I love this A LOT better. I was also really disappointed by the Strad chapter. I think your idea sound very interesting! Did you explain why the PCs know everything is wrong but everyone else doesn't?
Oh I didn't really explain that sorry! My thoughts are it's because they interacted with obelisks before. Maybe they're chosen by the Lady of Pain as a safeguard to save the multiverse from Vecna.
The important aspect is that they're special, cause players should feel they are special in D&D and have an impact in the world.
It’s that easy to make a good final adventure for 5E just add some stuff to make player choice matter more and reprint the whole module I wouldn’t give the sword of Kas to Kas cuz it left him and probs wouldn’t return but it could easily find its way into the hands of someone who works for lolth and the power of the sword is how she’s winning so you can support lolth or Kas and earn different rewards depending on what you pick or you can mostly support one side and betray them at the end after getting what you need and a little more that you can steal on the way out but now you got one or two super powerful beings that’ll be after you from then on then go beat Vecna and have multiple possible endings based on previous choices like a good choice option is if they may run into strahd but he’s not evil yet so they try to peacefully make it so he never would’ve fallen being domain of dread it won’t have long term effects but perhaps an echo of the good strahd could be permitted to help in the final fight as a thank you both from strahd from giving him a glimpse of the man he could’ve been but also the dark powers cuz you gave them a new tool to torture Strahd by reminding him of of his failure to reach his potential
Your version of this adventure is WAAYYY better. Hah 😂 For real, totally swiping most of your ideas. Thank you!!
I agree the rod dint fit in the adventure. From what others on YT they all said the same problem that Vecna wasn't anywhere in the adventure until the end. I like the idea of the doom FR and the obelisk. I would also think that die vecna die can be included as a precursor and that the lady of pain trapped him in the maze, but as the cautious mage, he had a contigency plan with the obelisk. Im running die vecna die now and might run OoTA and rime and OG phandelver. Then run my version of ruin. Would be a long narrative, but it might be worth it, lol
I gave my PC's the option of using a black obelisk as a time machine in order to avoid having Vecna escape his imprisonment from the mythal that they raised to trap him and they took it. I made Vecna the BBEG in preparation for this module / the 6e transition. So now I'm going to say that the black obelisk shunted them back in time a few weeks before Karsus' Folly; which would destroy the mythal and free Vecna. That's my sort of home-cooking hook into this module. So now they're gonna have to assemble the Rod of Law in order to unlocke the like *admin* mode of the entire black obelisk network that will allow them to go back to a future where at least their mythal won't be destroyed. I heard a lot of good suggestions here, though, Jordphan.
For these higher level modules, I don't think it's terribly uncommon for people to invent their own hooks and pick up the module content at around chapter 2 - 3. Totally legit.
sounds awesome! I love a good time travel adventure.
I don't know, i feel like this is nearly as bad as the original book. It takes a lot of shoehorning to get things to work, and a lot of assumptions on how the players will navigate the adventure.
Ha! So this is why there was a spike in sales. I'm one of the Doomed Forgotten Realms folks and thanks, as always for the kind shout out! To be honest I like your idea of the characters appearing in an alternate reality with memories of the "original" reality better than the twist we took with artificially grown organisms. Much love to you and the channel!
Your book sounds awesome, and one day I will check it out.
We are already using your products as well as @gamemasters fixes for the level 3-10 (some of them). In addition with the write I and my co-DM have done (we have a group of 8 players) we are having the players bounce back and forth to alternate FR and alternate Greyhawk - but at the end - instead of the Crystal room - they will teleported to Jabel Shammar the high fortress in Monte Cook's Ptolus City By the Spire- a foreboding and dangerous area with killer environmental effects, where Vecna is using the Entropy Sphere as part of his Ritual and whereby the Rod of Seven Parts is absolutely instrumental in stopping the other artifact AND taking Vecna down from the "Whispered One" avatar statblock to the one presented in the official WoTC dossier. We are session 06 - long way to go as we play for 6 hours every two weeks. Ill let you know how it goes!
A 22 minute video of simple changes that is at least 3 times better than the original story, thank you so much! WotC can be pitiful
No joke, the use of doomed forgotten realms was what I am running to fill the gap from level 3-10 before VEOR starts
i was just listerning to this and thought the knocking was the pinkertons finally getting to you
😂😂 They should include a "Summon pinkertons" spell in the next phb.
GameMasters did an excellent re-write as well that expands the concept of traveling through the Forgotten Realms history and brings it all back to the obelisks as well as giving the Rod of Seven parts purpose. Both your and his ideas elevate the idea of a Vecna Adventure.
Sorry to say this, but what Wotc 5E book didn't need the extra work to either fill in the lore or fix glaring things that were either missing or would make the campaign work better. Its always the same thing with their products, and its exasperating to see it happen over and over again.
I was also wondering about the Rod but was thinking of replacing the parts with small pieces of the Obelisks or parts of the Sword of Kas. The end remake of the universe was going to be the Doomed Forgotten Realms from DMguild as it is so good. Love it
Hand waving Dragonlance? Boo!
Thank you. That description is exactly what I would have wanted from that campaign. It finally brings obelisks that have been sitting around needing to be used. Hi5
This is almost exactly how I plan to run this adventure for my party. Focused more on the Doomed/Forgotten Realms and inserting the non-Toril locations in Toril or even other planes of existence. Replacing the Rod with the Obelisks is a great choice simply because of how much they've been teased over the last decade, and I think you could still include Miska as a late-game mini-boss without it, as Vecna could have reshaped both reality and history that far back. It's been a lot of front work altering the narrative, but I think it'll be a better campaign because of it. Great video, as always, Jordan!
I definitely live the idea of a rewrite of reality AND history. We are already meeting a "pre-villain" Tasha, why can't we meet a pre-vampire Kas, or pre-lich Vecna, or young and ambitious Mordekainen? Trying to defeat the enemy, who are all serving Vecna and executing his plans, seems like a strong high level concept that supports a bunch of Planeshifting, fast travelling super powerful adventurers showing up to stop him.
I commented on your earlier video this is exactly what I am doing - I am trying to get all 3 volumes printed
The idea with Ravenloft and Avernus, are great. I probably will borrow this for my little Vecna Campaign, which I started after I watched your first Obelisk video, 2 years ago. We did not play regularly but now we try to play every month at least once. Thank you for the inspiration.
Eve of Ruin, ironically was my eve, the final nail in the coffin in ruining D&D 5e for me. It showed me just how little they care about their own IPs. Its all just mass-produced names and locations without any passion or soul to it.
That said I always try to find the positives in this, and for this it gave me plenty of fuel for a grand storyline of why the D&D Multiverse is breaking down on a more fundamental level. That said, I'll be exploring it through Pathfinder 2e and other TTRPGs now, who look upon it with remorse and pity, but eventually they must move on to a better existence.
Masterfully done. Superior fix to a boring WoTC adventure attempt.
I liked the doomed forgotten realms gazetteer, it was a really cool concept
I am rewriting Vecna's overall plan to use the obelisks to reassemble the first world. Rewinding key worlds all the way back into the first world that has been mentioned in other previous books. Where the other worlds and realities branched off from. And still keeping the Rod of Seven Parts to reverse Vecna's plan after it happens.
I was inpired by your obelisks theory before. The Shattered Obelisk also lay huge expectation about Vecna and Black Obelisks.
So on my approach I skip 1 chapter, I begin from 2 (I drop main plot of adventure also, no Scooby Doo reveal scene with 3 gratests magicans ever) I was curious why they put alternate version of Tasha in the campaign. I used this as a thing that make Mordekainen and Alustriel curious. What happened to Tasha from Prismeer? Why Dalmar or Raistlin from Krynn didn't respond? Well, becasue reshaping the reality already began there. This is my starting point.
For the players I choosed my old pals who played RotFM, DtA and CoS and two enthusiats of Dragonlance and Grayhawk. Each of them enocounter in their backstory mysterious cult working with secrets, and searching for mysterious gigantic artifacts made from black obsidian. Depending from the world origns of it is hidden behind diffrent myth.
The best of each world will work together to figured how stop a Vecna who will try to use their dirty truth's againt them and thier worlds. We will se how it goes, but after all why we just didn't drop this titlle? xD / Me_Shu
Full price WOTC subpar product that once again we have to fix. I'm not interested in future HASBRO WOTC content. 100% percent better story then what we got. Awesome work Jorphdan.
Awesome video! After this and your Doomed Forgotten Realms video, it sounds like you really enjoy these capstone sort of adventure just as much as I do. How would you feel about reviewing the Dreams of Red Wizards adventures from the Adventurer’s League? I don’t wanna buy the whole series just to find out they’re bad like many other AL adventures, but they still get run at conventions today so it might be worth a review. Either way, it sounds like a similar capstone story that references things like Auril, Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Storm King’s Thunder
Spoilers….
My biggest issue, outside of Vecna never being in the friggin adventure until the end and even then he’s too distracted to care unless you attack him, is whoever wrote this feels like they had no respect for the settings on display. Particularly Dragonlance really annoyed me as someone who loved the books and ran the original modules. There are no werewolves on Krynn. Orcs, drow, and lycanthropes are specifically called out as not existing in the setting. The vault only feels tangentially related to the orders, there’s only a faux Soth, and just….urgh. Why was this book just so bad??
Just picked up the first four books of Doomed thank you J they will be SO GOOD to try sometime. :D
This version is SO MUCH BETTER than the generic fetch quest of the original.
Keep the cool dungeons and settings, make the plot real, that's awesome!
Your version sounds awesome!!!
I think my big emphasis (keeping in mind how much of a Realms fan I am) is that it needs to be a celebration of each world.
Been brushing up on my Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and Eberron lore, and I have plans to work in Dark Sun and a ton of cameos by allies to help the party and give them an epic Endgame meets Return of the King climax where the refugees of all these destroyed worlds come together to fight Vecna’s army and win the party the chance to fight their way into the Cave of Shattered Reflections to confront him at last (and give them a battle where they ride Toril’s Tarasque into battle against Vecna’s Tarasquoliches made from the ones on worlds he unmade)
I liked this a lot
way better love story than Twili.... err.. a way better adventure than WotC could do
I feel like you could make a compendium to fix the 'obelisk' meta they've got in all of the modules. I feel like there needs to be an entire module written just for that thread.
Oh, you did. That makes sense. :D
Maybe Goodman Games can geta license to redo the adventure 🤣
Nice job on rewrite.
Nice reading glasses, where'd you get those?
Online! They're new :)
@@Jorphdan Get a sponsor deal for them and link to them and I might buy a pair b/c I too am old af!
100% this is awesome and I don't mind putting in the work. I was always going to use Fall of Vecna vol. 1 to get the PCs to the proper level. The obelisks are much better than the rod of seven parts and starting the adventure with PCs losing makes it more personal.
Your characters having their memories in tact in your version is pretty easy and opens up the chance of keeping the Wizards Three. The wish spell restored your memories of your old lives because only you could stop Vecna.
I was thinking about the campaign myself and kinda like the idea of a sort of disorienting opening. You start running through a temple of Vecna surrounded by other heroes and being led by figures like Alustriel or Elminster. It turns out you are in the Doomed Realms. Everything is hellish and there's no chance of victory. You already lost and this was the last ditch plan.
You kill your way through, kill some boss monster, and then get to the obelisk. Alustriel gives someone her staff and holds off Vecna for a few seconds to give you the chance to use the obelisk to send everyone back in time to before the spell was cast. You all wake up at your favorite tavern, your memories are all incredibly hazy, but you know something bad is coming in the form of Vecna and you need to stop it. Whoever had the staff now has it still. It's dormant and burned with the sheer power of the spellwork it used... and is the perfect way to give you an opening to speak to Alustriel and start everything.
Maybe keep Kas but in a different way. Have the Dark Powers have released him and he is roaming the multiverse to get the parts himself. If you don't intervene he gets it and summons Mishka during the final chapter. Or, heck, you can team up with him.
This is all rudimentary in terms of my planning. I am still months from finishing my CURRENT Frostmaiden campaign and was planning to do a heavily redone Tyranny of Dragons or Storm Kings Thunder next!
been having a play with this, made it so the obelisks contained secrets of vecna, had the first be on Dominara (my lot are big MTG fans ) , discovering the the first secret, that there was a ritual of unmaking, caused the obelisk to collapse revealing a mana syphon which started to drain the plane causing it to start to unravel, starting with the room the players are in, an emergency teleport landed them in a courtyard on sigil and that's we've began
This is FANTASTIC and I'll definitely be running it. Thanks Jorphdan!
do you think it would be possible to condense the adventure into 4-5 longer chapters with less jumping around from setting to setting? i'm interested in running this, but would like to keep it set mainly on faerun (with maybe one or two plane shifts, depending)
You're a rock star, which explains why you're "old af", lol
Love the Invader Zim Gir reference too
SO much better than the one they printed.
I really like this! I already have the Doomed Forgotten Realms books, and I was contemplating using it for Vecna you've got some great stuff to fill the gaps.
One additional thing I think I will do is swap out Tasha and Company as the quest givers and swap it with ....a tavern :P
Not just any tavern though! The World Serpent Inn! (I have a little bit of an obcession with it). Its going to be their perfect vehicle between planes and settings, help avoid the "Well if Tasha and Mordenkainen are so powerful, why don't they just do it?" and it will give us more time to explore each setting.
Now I'm just wondering if I can (or should) try insert Shattered Obelisk before all this.
Also, it should have involved the Book of Vile Darkness. In his new design, it's housed in his ribcage. At the end of the Planscape adventure, you could aquire the book from an NPC that had information on Vecnas' return.
It is empty like planescape.
I'm really not interested in the actual adventure..It has sooo many things I just don't like including Vecna being the BBEG. Just leave him on oerth and stick to some BBEG from the realms..But I thought your ideas would be worth listening to and you did not disappoint sir. 🙂
Why are most 5e campaigns so awful we have to rewrite them? I did this with Out of the Abyss, Descent Into Avernus, and the rest that I read. Only Curse of Strahd was spared, because it was the Hickman's module with extra stuff attached.
You could establish him as a major threat by letting all of the player characters start with one of the most powerful NPCs in Faerun only for him to cast time stop immediately at the start of the fight and slaughter all of them while they can do nothing about it. There is precedent
like in Vecna lives
DUDE! wHY NO LORE ON MAZTICA? My Tiefling Noble's family has holdings in Maztica. Cattle ranches that raise gourmet Cielo Azul Beef... the mysterious blue ghost-cattle of Maztica. (I made that up, because there's no lore videos.)
Its transported using an amazing fleet of small, agile, and incredibly fast freight ships that use bags of holding to transport the meat fresh/never frozen (there's no oxygen in a bag of holding, so no bacteria can grow, which keeps food fresh for as long as needed.) and use guizer-gale engines, each engine employing the power of a decanter of endless water on guizer setting. These secretive vesicles are the key to the Wormwood family's vast wealth and mercantile might.
But lets hear more about Maztica please.
Im still LOVING Planegea, discovered through your channel.
Have you reviewed Eldritch by Black Vault? I'm following their new Kickstarter, bad patch. I'm intrigued, but the rules on madness and corruption seem like they might be the jewel from Eldritch. But I'd like credible reviews. Humble video request to one of my favorite video creators.
TLDR: How to fix VEoR? Run something else. lol. I joke, but it does seem that everyone is disappointed with a LOT in that book. I appreciate you DNDtubers suffering through it so I don't have to.
I run 4 tables a week, and three of them are playing Vecna right now.. one of the tables has played 90% of the adventures from 5e Already. I'm totally borrowing your idea for THAT table.. and i'll have all the changes they made become UNDONE and it'll impact them the most, considering they (for example) freed Zariel.. and Arkhan is their sworn enemy... now with the time change, I'll make it so Zariel and Arkhan are married, and their old PC's, are lieutenants in their Avernian army.. it'll bother them to no end lol, Serious motivation!
I’m totally going to use some of this for my upcoming homebrew campaign set in my own world called Almarith. Mixing together this fix plus the fix released by GameMasters channel and using the new 1-12 Phandelver module is my big plan. Don’t know how it’s all going to come together, but I’m excited to try it out!
This book was such a disapointment with so much potential, I've just finished a two year-long campaign in a greatly expanded Curse of Strahd so I'm hoping down the line I can take the challenge to change this for the better too, WHY didn't they go to Tovag or Cavitus for Ravenloft's bit instead of the LAZY redo of Death House??? Why is the eberron bit so fleshed out with knowledge great for an eberron campaign, but then give us no Vecna from my understanding until the end of the adventure??
I’ve got a ton of idea for how I’m going to adjust things for my campaign (part way through Phandelver, then Eldritch Eye/Shattered Obelisk, then Eve)
The Spellforge is a piece of the Obelisk, and the Obelisks are part of the ritual of unmaking. When the ritual goes off the party will be in the eye of the storm either in Phandalin or under Neverwinter, and see their world get Thanos snapped.
Then each time they go to a world it’ll be in the process of being unmade, with only the areas around Obelisks remaining.
I love the idea of a twisted version of the domains of dread. I wanna go for a more stepford wives vibe where everything is pastel and happy as Vecna makes a mockery of Strahd’s martyr complex. I wanna have Kas show up and fight Strahd while the party makes their getaway. Maybe have a very pink wedding for Strahd and Tatiana with all the other Dark Lords as goofy versions of themselves attending.
Fantastic video, Jorphdan. Love the idea of attuning to the obelisks and actually putting them to good use! Which is to say: any use.
I'm definitely gonna pick up the Doomed FR guide. Such an incredible idea even without Eve of Ruin.
May could be this is a solution without a problem but on my Android, I cannot copy J's chapter breakdown summaries from the description box to paste into a note document. I just discovered a little life-hack: if you take screen shots of the chapter chunks in the description box with an Android phone and then Google Lens 'em, you can quickly copy and paste the selected text chunks in the screen shots into your preferred note-taking interface. I did not try to copy the text with my laptop cuz I'm on the go right now so the copy/paste issue I ran into may not be a problem on a UA-cam desktop browser.
I assume we have Jorphdan's permission to copy and paste those chapter notes into private note taking apps without any intent of commercialization of his written words, and such. 🤙
I wouldn't like to go that route, to be honest... Because there is no build up.
I mean, you end one campaign, and you go into the other, thinking you just saved the world from a threat, to find out you didn't.
I would rather go towards a direction of slowly building up tension.
Like, a prophecy that is slowly unfolding, and pieces on a chessboard that are slowly folding.
The midterm campaign would be essentially to stop these that want to bring be na back, as well as delaying the effects of whatever horrors they unleashed to make it happen.
If the players manage to deal with all threats in time, before vecna awakens... Congratulations, you stopped a time bomb.
Thing is... Vecna is resourceful. Because even a weakened vecna is still a vecna that is able to free himself. Then, the last run would be either to stop vecna from returning by his own nefarious ways...
Or to straight up fight vecna, and whoever brought him back, in case that the players didn't make it on time.
All of that, of course, before vecna brings to reality whatever plan he already had made up.
If they fail, then you have a Doomed Forgotten Realms arc.
@Jorphdan random question, but I think you did a video in the past of a desert setting in I believe the Forgotten Realms where these Alien type creatures are stuck in an abandoned city of a fallen empire. I think it's within Mulhorand but I cannot remember. Do you know what I'm talking about or am I having Mandela effect moment? 😅
I do like your adaption. The past 2 years I've been working towards 2 different scenarios that this book updated sometimes to disappointing stats. Ill me tion it here because for the most part i dont want to put it on dmsguild and guve the crappy people at hasbro ownership of my ideas. I have been aiming towards Mishka the Wolfspider being freed or one of the players think they are going to but end up freeing him and have to stop a new Obryith takeover. The Vecna story I've been working on has his cult using etheral plane (which was gone during 4e) the create something akin to the Stephen King book the dark tower to have his followers creating machines to change etheral proto-matter into actual matter to try and destroy the giant obelisk that Sigil hovers over. Possibly connected to the other obliges, but to be honest if I've never like NOTC trying to use those with reason a recon. If I was going to do anything like that it would connect to the spellweavers and Jergal (see dmsguild Jergal The Lord of the End of Everything) which could explain why after 3 editions ebberon (and if you include 5es recent look back to older campaign worlds) others are stuck in something like a time loop. Everyone is always starting at the end of the last war. Dragonlance revisited the ear of the Lance instead of being past the war of souls, etc. NOtC suck. The only thing I'm using from them is possibly stats. But story wise they've went down hill in a big way fir years now.
Hi Jorphdan, I felt a lot of similar pangs of frustration about the lack of obelisk content in this adventure and the fetch-questy nature of the rod of seven-parts. I'm going to be running this adventure for my regular group, and the changes you’ve suggested here have got me excited to put in the work (oh boy is there a lot of work to do) to run this adventure. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and thanks for putting the Cliffs notes in the description. Truly a great resource.
I'm not buying the Vecna book, in part because I cannot see myself using any part of it. For My Vecna gaming, I'm making it about Vecna trying to restore the First world spoken of by the dragons, because the great serpent (debating if I want to go spider, with the weave of magic being related and the wolf spider from the rods origin) that granted Vecna part of his origin is from there. I'm also rolling in the Deck of 7 parts, deck of many things, split into individual hands, with Vecnas hand being like the one ring, where he was building the deck up from the god whose godhead he took to get the last bit he needs when the wildcard fate spirit vestige within the cards struck back at Vecna to deny his victory, and cost him his hand and eye, literally and figuratively. The hands of fate scattered across the newly made multiverse and are found in the Red Hand of Doom (greyhawk), the bloody hand of Kas (domains of dread), Vecnas hand (where he's trapped/hiding), the hand the players come to possess. etc. still not sure if I'm going to use the obelisks will be used like star gates to the gate cities in the outlands and different worlds. but the cult of vecna will have members (hand/member pun acknowledged) in all worlds, they will be called the hand (like daredevils secret society/ninja) and vecna will have spies and informants everywhere called his eyes.
I am thinking (hoping) I might get to run this adventure quite modified to fit Exandria (a few players are fans of the Vox Machina show), as that is the world I'm running on.
I'm not yet sure what specific changes I'll make, as that depends a lot on what happens from 3rd to 10th level, but I do want to go full Endgame for the final part as a reason for the party to go globetrotting and bring together all the heroes and other allies, maybe a god or two, for the final fight (Raven Queen has beef), so I have some broad strokes in mind.
Only the party can enter Vecna's domain, so no allies for the confrontation with Vecna, but it's about getting them there to fight Vecna. I also want Vecna present on and off during the campaign, as I intend to make the Rod of Seven parts the final piece to his ritual (which is why he also wants the party to assemble and collect the rod and is not killing them early). The artifacts of Vecna should also be present, so Arkhan will need to lose the hand, the eye recovered from the Feywild, and the Sword of Kaas from Vasselheim. Got some other ideas too, but I like the twist at the end that Vecna just needs the rod and will bargain or fight for it so it's possible the party just hands it over and decides to join Vecna right at the end.
Also, no way I'm using the statblock provided as the final fight, it won't last a single round. Maybe not even a single turn against even a somewhat optimized party. But I'll probably use it elsewhere, like in place of the false lich. I always tweak adventures to not quite follow the book, but this will be a fun challenge for sure! Still, a fun challenge like a year or more of playing from now at the current rate.
Curse trying to schedule adults when you play with nurses who all work different shifts in different specialties! Only two of us in the group actually work office hours and are always free on weekends. ☹
I like the Obelisk approach much better. Instesf of the Wizards 3 I would go with the house of AO in there are Mechanus, Amadeus Paladine, Mystara, and the Lady of Pain as hold outs to Vecnas cast spell. They advise the gods of various worlds have sacrificed themselves to provide a moment in time for the adventurers to reach said obelisksin their domains. I would add Vecna minions and Lolth as potential factions along the way.
Jorphdan did a fine job trying to salvage this, but fundamentally this feels like a rip off of Avengers Endame. Traverse the multiverse to get McGuffins to undo the big bad. Hard pass for me.
NGL This was the one book that was hard for me. I built a 1-20 campaign that hits every adventure that has its own book. So not including compendiums or the starter kits. Though I have added one or two in as needed just for fun. But the question from the beginning I had is "why are the forgotten realms so under threat every few years?" Unless this is just the norm they can't be facing world ending threats every year or so for a decade when even one of them happening will have significant consequences. It made me think that perhaps there was a grand designer behind the decade of unrest.
In my game thus far I had it be Tiamat. The first adventure which would be both first and last in my campaign. Everything was all masterminded by ancient chromatic dragons seeking to please her in some sort of contest to see who could undo the realms the most during the grand plot to free her. It also explained why unifying people against the cult was so difficult and why they kept doing round about things. I think maybe if I want to include this I will have to make Vecna the ultimate mastermind. Or maybe the reason why Tiamat did the thing was because she was trying to beat him to the punch.
Check out the sequel to the 1e Ravenloft module for exactly the sort of flipped narrative you’re suggesting for Borovia, only in that case it was somehow a parallel world with a good version … or maybe I’m remembering wrong. It went over very poorly, but the material is out there.
I wonder... been seeing a great deal of vids all with the same message, that this adventure is fundamentally broken as an attempt to make a "greatest hits" album... I wonder if, based on all the "we are leaning into AI from now on", how much of this was compiled by AI perhaps as their big experiment with AI content production.
I wish I could get hard copies of the Doomed Forgotten Realms books, but last I checked there was no POD option for the Gazeteer book or the doomed Vecna adventure...
Thanks for the recomendation: "Buy a well-loved and well-written 3rd party adventure and run it instead of this one".
We dont need those cash-grab wotc books.
Is there anyway that these notes could be given to us to help wtih this adventure (maybe a bit more detail)? I am going to be running in the in next couple months and these changes and ideas are 1000 times better than what is in the actual book (though I don't think it is that bad). Plus I love the Doomed Forgotten relams as a setting as well
This is great! A far better storyline than what we were given. My only recommendation: after the PCs thwart Vecna and wake up the next day, would be to offer the players a choice: remain 20th lvl and retire the character or let them reset to the level prior to the start of the campaign. That way, if they've grown to enjoy that character, they can continue playing them in a new adventure and make new and different choices or let the PC "out to pasture" with a nice conclusion.
I would keep the fetch quest for the rod at 7 parts, add in the obelisks because they have the knowledge of what vecna changed and you need that to bring it back normal. For barovia Sergei makes the dark pack becoming the vampire making Strahd miserable.
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The obelisks either made by him or leftover by the netherrees. Are you used to cast a massive dutymantic spell. Rewriting all of history leading it towards evil alignment.
Honestly I like the fact the adventure uses the Rod & Miska, I just wish it used them well. Maybe have it so that the 7 parts are imbedded in the obelisks and Vecna has already released Miska. So the party has to shatter the obelisks to reassemble it and stop the Wolf Spider before they can confront Vecna?
Clearly Vecna destroyed the crystal spheres and the Phlogiston and the normal Spelljammer universe would be restored if people defeated Vecna. 😜
That was very fun and got me excited again for Vecna Eve of Ruin. I need to buy Dooned Forgotten Realms and check it out…
Good recommendation. I have several games running for vecna. Ive already started doomed for one of them. For the other 3, the players are going to stop vecna from finding the hand and eye, using another youtubers recommendation to run death house, and the prequel on dndbeyond to set up the prequels into the maingame.
Edit- and yes id run it as you described. Its pretty good.
I really like this! I'll finish a big campaign with Orcus soon and I'm planning on a Mephistopheles campaign sometime soon but this goes on the list
Most of theor official 5e books seem to have fallen flat since the edition started. I remember 2nd and 3rd edition being awesome. Shouldn't have fired all their old writers.
I love the idea of using the cursed Forgotten Realms as the backdrop for the curse. And tying in the hand and eye and the obelisks instead of just the rod. And seeing Strahd make his dark bargain is great.
It’s like it’s Wotc’s duty to release trash modules. As if they can’t fathom making something of genuine quality.
I've yet to see a 5e published WotC adventure that didn't take a dedicated DM rewriting it to make more useful.
Maybe the party can discover/obtain something Tiamat related in Krynn to entice Arkhan the cruel once in Avernus?
I feel like it wouldn't be that hard to take what you had here and combine it with what is already published. Like the whole thing with the wizards using a wish could easily be why we have memory of the way things are supposed to be
WotC’s descent into oblivion would be kinda funny if into was just so damn sad (for what it is doing to the brand of D&D)
Lol you aren't the only OAF here (watching your content on my phone with my reading glasses on)
honestly glad you started the whole thing just suggesting people try other stuff instead of fixing this one unless they were set on it. WotC has just done nothing of late that makes me want to support their stuff.
I will probably end up doing obelisks instead of the rod. Great ideas!
The problem is it’s official and ment to finally to show how to run high level play
I plan on letting vecna win Thanos style and remaking thr world using the planegea book
Does anyone have any ideas on how to make attuning to the obelisks cooler than normal attuning?
Dungeon Master is back with milk boys and girls 🎉🎉
I saw the obelisks & my mind immediately went to the Steles from Torg.