Dungeons & Dragons’ newest Fifth Edition adventure, Vecna: Eve of Ruin, arrives as the first wave of a perfect storm. Over the next year, fans have the game’s 50th anniversary celebrations to look forward to, and the “One D&D” initiative will reprint and refresh the core rules in an attempt to keep the game current for many years to come.
Fifth Edition is ten years old itself now, and there has been no shortage of premade material published for it, either by Wizards of the Coast directly, or by intrepid fans who share their own creations. But, amidst this sea of ready-made adventures and the infinite well of homebrew creativity, Vecna: Eve of Ruin offers a particularly interesting option for anyone looking to start a new campaign.
We were lucky enough to check out the full book ahead of its official release date later this month, and it’s every bit as exciting as we hoped. With the adventure available now on D&D Beyond, here’s why you might want to consider Vecna: Eve of Ruin for your party’s next grand adventure.
Live (And Meet) D&D History
I’ve played D&D since 2011, back in the days of 4E, and eagerly dove into 5E once it was published. Yet, despite playing on and off for over a decade, I didn’t know the story behind Vecna—one of D&D’s “Big Bads,” if it can have such a thing—until reading Eve of Ruin’s background chapters. I’d picked up things here and there, from the Magic: The Gathering crossover or Critical Role, but largely, his was basically just another name in a rulebook’s list of deities.
Eve of Ruin puts the undead god front and center for a thrilling race to collect the seven parts of a grand relic from D&D history—and he’s not the only hall-of-famer to appear. The Character Dossier appendix reads something like a summary of Fifth Edition, with names like Mordenkainen, Acererak, Strahd, and Mordenkainen detailed.
Tour The Planes
Just as Eve of Ruin introduces you to some of the most prominent recurring names in general Dungeons & Dragons lore, so too does it take you on a tour of familiar settings from the game’s history.
Each segment of the quest has players hopping to another realm or official campaign setting, like the gothic horror plane of Ravenloft, the war-torn Krynn from Dragonlance, or the Astral Sea itself. Players can revisit worlds they’ve played in previously, or get a taste of a setting they may have only heard of before. There are twists and subversions on each that make them into something more than a shallow callback.
Vecna: Eve of Ruin demonstrates what kind of obstacles a DM can be throwing out in the last quarter of a party’s development, in and out of battle.
Hopping around should help keep the campaign’s energy level high, even if there’s long gaps between sessions, and it seems a refreshingly brisk approach to such a long adventure. Each leg of the journey has a distinct setting and a unique vibe, requiring players to draw upon all the (considerable) tools at their disposal and potentially think outside the box for an unlikely solution.
Adventure At The Highest Levels
Over the last decade, D&D 5E has seen about two dozen official adventures, but Eve of Ruin offers one thing that most of them do not: high-level play.
The vast majority of Wizards of the Coast’s official campaign modules don’t venture far beyond level 12 or 15, despite the game’s level cap being 20. A few books of standalone one-shot adventures, like Candlekeep Mysteries or Journeys Through The Radiant Citadel, offer smaller capers up to level 16, while the Planescape adventure makes a leap to level 17 for its finale. Only Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage hits that level 20 ceiling, albeit in the form of a “mega-dungeon,” where players will only reach level 20 if they explore the entirety of the biggest dungeon in the edition.
Instead, Eve of Ruin is meant to take players from levels 10-20. (There are even rules for starting under that, though a DM would be wise to accelerate the party to appropriate level through the early chapters, for the sake of their own sanities.) Though D&D belongs as much to the players and DMs as it does to its own publishers, having an official campaign from Wizards of the Coast show us what a campaign might look like in the back half of character progression is important.
Namely because those last few levels turn players into nigh-demigods, depending on how they’ve built up their characters. Running a game for a party of level 20 legends is a far cry from putting those same characters through a gauntlet of killing rats as level 1 upstarts. Eve of Ruin demonstrates what kind of obstacles a DM can be throwing out in the last quarter of a party’s development, in and out of battle—how to walk the fine line between letting players use the reality-bending powers they may have unlocked, and not letting them break the whole plot open with ease.
Fearsome Foes
To challenge a high-level party effectively, Vecna: Rise of Ruin features a bestiary full of boss-worthy adversaries. Its myriad locales necessitate a diverse assortment of foes, and thus DMs can find a diabolical smattering from Warforged and wolf-spider hybrids, to mythical demons and evil dryads. The Challenge Ratings range from 1 all the way up to Vecna at CR 26, with much of the list focused on the higher half of the scale.
Plus, with so many legendary figures appearing throughout the adventure comes a new assortment of stat blocks for them. Some, like Vecna and Strahd, have been republished with unique characteristics for their appearances here; others, like Alustriel Silverhand, are making their 5E debut in Vecna: Eve of Ruin, or are being shown at a different point in their career, like Tasha the witch.
A creature devised for a premade adventure is not trapped within that adventure, to be used only in that official material. My mind was buzzing with ways to reskin and reappropriate some of these dastardly foes for use in my upcoming campaign in a homebrewed setting. This bestiary is basically Wizards of the Coast saying, “here’s what an encounter for a level 20 party might look like,” and you can see what exactly makes these enemies so daunting for such well-seasoned heroes.
Unlike other adventures, Vecna: Eve of Ruin doesn’t complement its bestiary with a huge list of magic items. The ones that are included, however, are literally the stuff of legends. And again, you may not want to put the literal Rod of Seven Parts into your own setting, but it still offers a sterling example of how the game’s publisher transforms a mythical item into a regular, codified stat block. Tweak a few components, and you can create a new artifact of similar power for your own homebrew use.
The Ultimate Victory Lap (Or Starting Point)
Maybe you’re the lucky sort who’s been playing D&D consistently with the same core group for most of the last decade; along the way you may have embarked upon a couple full campaigns, and seen more than a few characters grow from fledgling champions to the saviors of their realm, and maybe you’ve even run one or two of the premade campaigns alluded to in Vecna: Eve of Ruin.
Or maybe you’re a newer player, perhaps one drawn to the game by any number of other games and media that draw inspiration from D&D. Maybe your group is relatively green to the “bigger picture” of the game’s lore and history.
I can strongly recommend Vecna: Eve of Ruin to players in either of those scenarios, or anything in between. Seasoned 5E adventurers might be able to put together an all-star ensemble of heroes who’ve already saved the day, and put them back on the frontlines one more time to complete their legend. Imagine returning to Ravenloft as one of the heroes you played in Curse of Strahd, or confronting Tiamat as the heir of the character you played in the Tyranny of Dragons campaign.
This adventure has the capacity to be an Avengers: Endgame moment for longtime players, especially as D&D celebrates its 50th anniversary and prepares to launch the revised rules, signaling a new era. It also has the potential to be a kicking-off point for newer players, who might complete Eve of Ruin and then turn to some of the other adventures alluded to within its pages, like The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, which features a “different” iteration of Tasha.
Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a sprawling adventure representing the best of Fifth Edition and Dungeons & Dragons itself, and I’d wager players will be talking about it for a long time to come, perhaps with the same reverence as Curse of Strahd or some of the earliest epics from the game’s earliest years.
