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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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 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
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
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.
Oh man, you helped me so much you can’t even imagine. I started to run descent into avernus as campaign. From there I wanted to go over to vecna. In my campaign I add an system for get the players mad/insane like in Cthulhu games. The dreams of vecna like Voldemort just fit so well in this idea, I just in love. Thank you very much for this video :)
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.
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
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!
I was gifted this campaign book for Christmas and was thinking of running it later with my players who are doing Curse of Strahd currently. I think I can use parts of this to make it tie together nicely without me having to be as concerned with contradictions!
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.
Your version really makes me feel hyped up! Great ideas all around, and the start being "isekai'd" into the alternative evil versions of the PCs feels like the best change to actually kickstart the story.
I have a homebrew I've been working on for years, using doomed DnD and other ideas. I just wanna say thanks! I've been a fan for a minute, and your hype with Vecna has inspired me to create my own ideas. I just wanna share some of my thoughts You're exactly right, Vecna is so powerful he should have already won on some level. I personally feel like a ritual of remaking the multiverse should need to happen at the center, Sigil. So Vecna ultimately works to get to Sigil, but he's currently hiding in his personal demiplane across the Cruel Gate. He works to leave his demiplane without getting attention from various gods. I made it so Vecna is also The Caller(a part of him) and the Caller has been sowing chaos and stealing secrets in the Domains of Dread. Long story short Vecna has control over the domains and works to absorb the Dark Powers with a Ritual of Unmaking, giving him power to then take over the whole Shadowfell, then use the obelisks to get to Sigil, which has been closed by the Lady of Pain. Kas is swayed by the Dark Powers because they are afraid of Vecna's plan. Vecna secretly whispers to Kas with the Dark Powers, swaying him to free Miska. Vecna needs the blood of a chaotic evil being to complete the Ritual. (Seems crazy there's absolutely no components as written)
There's some parts im still working on, but by the end the party either stops the ritual, stopping vecna from gaining full power. or they fail, vecna gains godly power, then he activates the obelisks creating a checkpoint for himself at that point in time. From this point Vecna could kill the party multiple times, but they'll keep resetting to his checkpoint, since they are tied to him via strings of fate. Creates a time loop situation to defeat him, while the forgotten realms are doomed all around them
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.
I loved hearing your idea of changing this up. It makes way more sense and ties everything together well. I’m totally interested to run something similar to this. Thank you for the video.
This is so good! I love your ideas and I definitely want to try and run your version of this! I'm super excited for your version of the Barovia chapter and how to weave in the obelisks.
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)
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.
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
I love your ideas! I am currently running a "Spell Weavers are working with Larloch to destroy reality" campaign that has been going for two years now and is in its last (hopefully) year. I think I can easily weave these ideas with my own ideas you gave me to make this work! I am really excited to move forward now, thanks!
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.
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.
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
I really appreciate your rework of Vecna Eve of Ruin. It addresses some of the major plot holes that you had mentioned previously. It was such a let down to hear that WOTC did not appropriately incorporate the obelisks that have been leading up to this adventure. Your proposal is an elegant solution that addresses this and creates a compelling narrative. I would love to see a fully fleshed out version available on DMs Guild.
Excellent video. In my last, and final, 5e campaign I used Vecna as one of the big bads. Some of your ideas reminded me of my campaign. Namely obtaining the hand and eye of Vecna along with the Sword of Kas. Those seem like no brainers for a Vecna adventure. If was going to go the published adventure route I would go with those DM Guild adventures before the wotc adventure.
The staff makes sense to me bc it's about order, so it could potentially undo the spell, but you still have to track down every obelisk to destroy them, stopping vecna from recasting the spell
9:45 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.
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.
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
I like what Destiny 2 The Final Shape's approach. Let there be blips of the world being changed to what Vecna wants so the party knows what's up and the stakes/timeline you have.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
I thought about combining planescape, vena eve of ruin and the golden key book, into a campaign. So the characters make it to Sigil, start getting quests from the golden key book from a silent benefactor (just need to up the difficulty of the some of the quests) rewards are all part of the rod of seven parts. Then the characters start hearing about issues with magic. Maybe anytime a spell is cast there is a 5% change per spell level something glitches and you roll on the wild magic table. Characters find out Vecna is behind the issue with magic, but who is sending the characters on the quests?
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.
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.
A while ago I ran a one-shot "DnD&D" Dungeons and Dragons and drinking. My players made themselves as PCs and hung out in the "Interdimensional Inn" essentially a miniature of the Yawning Portal that all of the PC miniatures are stored in between sessions. This year I turned it into a campaign the first 2 PC's in my world (now a god and a celestial) are missing, and Vecna is up to something big, oh and the Interdimensional Inn is in Sigil. So when eve of ruin announced I knew I'd use it as part of the endgame. I already planned on having PC's visit the worlds we played in using Spelljammer, so the format is already there. The players are level 6 now, so I'm going to start introducing Vecna cult members who are trying to assassinate them. I'm also going to have his cult growing openly in sigil, and no one knows why Lady of Pain won't do anything. I figure in the next couple levels I'll introduce *our* wizards 3 (based on a one shot where we played Mordenkeinan, Tasha, and Fizban) And when they get to the start of Eve of Ruin I'm going to have Kas openly introduce himself because it's much more fun to have a bad guy who you know hates the bbeg, but isn't trustworthy. And I'm going to take Jorphdan's advice and the spell will be to unify the planes. Also, 2 of my players are DM's (Aren't I lucky?) So they're going to DM the chapters set in the worlds they've run or planned to run, Underdark, Ravenloft, Eberron, Avernus. Sort of a send up to D&D history, and our own campaigns.
I'm running an Exandria (Critical Role) campaign right now. I'm inspired to use this. The group is heading toward the Obelisk on Eiselcross. Plane hoping is already a part of it. Yeah, as I'm writing this, this is a great fit. Thank you.
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.
@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 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...
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.
Im currently doing a homebrew campaign where I do want to lead into this book, however I realize that the real suspense would be to focus on better setups and a much better climactic stage for the characters as they continue to head deeper into the mystery of the obelisks I was thinking of making my own sort of late game temple of the spellweavers or some riftway expanse that leads into learning about who is really causing these things
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!
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.
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.
Here is how I fixed it for my group (SPOILERS): I changed the first encounter so that they battled Vecna right off the bat, they had PC's from another campaign and a lot of them died - I actually did something really strange here and stole the beginning of Wild Beyond the Witch Light - Vecna destroyed the Fey, completely obliterated it. Everything is messed up in all the planes of existence as all that chaos from the Fey leaks into the other worlds. Also, instead of the Death House I put my group into Strahd's brother's wedding at Castle Ravenloft - you know? The one where Strahd gets cursed. IT WAS AMAZING - Strahd is dead and Sergei's bride to be is now the ruler of Raveloft (and there is no curse in Barovia). The rod was in the sun sword as its power source. Then when they go to the Astral Plane Vecna has been tracking them, I kept a lot of this encounter the same as the book . But having Vecna tracking them and slowing them down RULED - it was so fun. Now they have returned to their stronghold (which is an island off Baldur's Gate called Fexopolis - named after a now dead PC) and Baldur's Gate is burning, a new Lich ruler supplanted by Vecna is in control and the city is dead - filled with the undead (my player's haven't got there yet)... We make of these games whatever we want and I always choose fun and creativity. Thanks for your videos I watch all of them and enjoy them a great deal. Take care.
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 TH-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. 🤙
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?
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)
Curse of Strahd spoiler : - - - - - - - - - - - - - Another idea for the Ravenloft part : you get to lead the Castle guards when they come to arrest / kill Strahd after Tatyana launches herself from the Chapel balcony after the murder of Sergei's Von Zarovich, in Barovia's past, and killing Strahd in human form (more of a Fighter / Knight archetype) makes him come back as a Vampire Lord after that, so you have kind of a phase 2 boss fight there. It needs some tweaking to not break the main story by the intervention of the PCs in Barovia's past (or they DO break the story by intervening ?) The Obelisk could be underground in a side crypt in the pillar of Ravenloft, there was a similar device called a Slab of Sacrifice in the 3.5 version Expedition to Castle Ravenloft in the Subcatacombs section. Or it could be at the Amber Temple.
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??
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.
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!
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.
I’ve bought the module so feel as though I need to run it as it’s sunk costs 😢 There are spoilers for another module below… My party is currently going through Avernus and want to do Eve of Ruin with the same characters. What I’m doing is effectively smooshing (very technical term 😂) both modules together… have Zariel being an accomplice and side kick to Vecna as her way to rewrite what has happened to her… by grabbing Elturel they are going to use the souls of those from the city as the power for the remaking ritual… have juiced up Zariel so she would be an enemy closer to level 20. Vecna has a party going through as well so they are going to run into them as they go (already run into the leader) and have heard of Vecna being seen meeting with Z… They’re going to meet with Arkhan but will find him handless (sorry Joe Manganello) and the party having beat them there and liberated the hand from him. There is obelisk which has been broken in Avernus which V and Z have broken to be able to act as siphon for the Elturel power and they need to repair it with the 7 pieces which has been scattered throughout the multiverse
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
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
Use code JORPHDAN for a free 30-day trial on all subscriptions! Try Opus! dscryb.com/jorphdan
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 😂
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!
No joke, the use of doomed forgotten realms was what I am running to fill the gap from level 3-10 before VEOR starts
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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
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
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.
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!
Oh man, you helped me so much you can’t even imagine. I started to run descent into avernus as campaign. From there I wanted to go over to vecna. In my campaign I add an system for get the players mad/insane like in Cthulhu games. The dreams of vecna like Voldemort just fit so well in this idea, I just in love. Thank you very much for this video :)
This is FANTASTIC and I'll definitely be running it. Thanks Jorphdan!
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.
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
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!
I commented on your earlier video this is exactly what I am doing - I am trying to get all 3 volumes printed
This is a fantastic way of resolving a lot of the issues with this book. Great work.
I liked the doomed forgotten realms gazetteer, it was a really cool concept
Your version sounds awesome!!!
Just picked up the first four books of Doomed thank you J they will be SO GOOD to try sometime. :D
I was gifted this campaign book for Christmas and was thinking of running it later with my players who are doing Curse of Strahd currently. I think I can use parts of this to make it tie together nicely without me having to be as concerned with contradictions!
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.
Your version really makes me feel hyped up! Great ideas all around, and the start being "isekai'd" into the alternative evil versions of the PCs feels like the best change to actually kickstart the story.
I have a homebrew I've been working on for years, using doomed DnD and other ideas.
I just wanna say thanks! I've been a fan for a minute, and your hype with Vecna has inspired me to create my own ideas. I just wanna share some of my thoughts
You're exactly right, Vecna is so powerful he should have already won on some level. I personally feel like a ritual of remaking the multiverse should need to happen at the center, Sigil. So Vecna ultimately works to get to Sigil, but he's currently hiding in his personal demiplane across the Cruel Gate. He works to leave his demiplane without getting attention from various gods. I made it so Vecna is also The Caller(a part of him) and the Caller has been sowing chaos and stealing secrets in the Domains of Dread.
Long story short Vecna has control over the domains and works to absorb the Dark Powers with a Ritual of Unmaking, giving him power to then take over the whole Shadowfell, then use the obelisks to get to Sigil, which has been closed by the Lady of Pain.
Kas is swayed by the Dark Powers because they are afraid of Vecna's plan. Vecna secretly whispers to Kas with the Dark Powers, swaying him to free Miska. Vecna needs the blood of a chaotic evil being to complete the Ritual. (Seems crazy there's absolutely no components as written)
There's some parts im still working on, but by the end the party either stops the ritual, stopping vecna from gaining full power. or they fail, vecna gains godly power, then he activates the obelisks creating a checkpoint for himself at that point in time.
From this point Vecna could kill the party multiple times, but they'll keep resetting to his checkpoint, since they are tied to him via strings of fate. Creates a time loop situation to defeat him, while the forgotten realms are doomed all around them
Thank you. This is the best Vecna fix video I have watched hands down and I intend to use a lot of your ideas!
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.
I loved hearing your idea of changing this up. It makes way more sense and ties everything together well. I’m totally interested to run something similar to this. Thank you for the video.
This is so good! I love your ideas and I definitely want to try and run your version of this! I'm super excited for your version of the Barovia chapter and how to weave in the obelisks.
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)
Man, RPG is so much fun... like, for real, only imagining this campaing gave me that "I MUST play some D&D" feeling.
Hand waving Dragonlance? Boo!
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.
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
I love your ideas! I am currently running a "Spell Weavers are working with Larloch to destroy reality" campaign that has been going for two years now and is in its last (hopefully) year. I think I can easily weave these ideas with my own ideas you gave me to make this work! I am really excited to move forward now, thanks!
You're a rock star, which explains why you're "old af", lol
Love the Invader Zim Gir reference too
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
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.
Your version of this adventure is WAAYYY better. Hah 😂 For real, totally swiping most of your ideas. Thank you!!
It is empty like planescape.
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
Masterfully done. Superior fix to a boring WoTC adventure attempt.
I really appreciate your rework of Vecna Eve of Ruin. It addresses some of the major plot holes that you had mentioned previously. It was such a let down to hear that WOTC did not appropriately incorporate the obelisks that have been leading up to this adventure. Your proposal is an elegant solution that addresses this and creates a compelling narrative. I would love to see a fully fleshed out version available on DMs Guild.
Excellent video. In my last, and final, 5e campaign I used Vecna as one of the big bads. Some of your ideas reminded me of my campaign. Namely obtaining the hand and eye of Vecna along with the Sword of Kas. Those seem like no brainers for a Vecna adventure. If was going to go the published adventure route I would go with those DM Guild adventures before the wotc adventure.
The staff makes sense to me bc it's about order, so it could potentially undo the spell, but you still have to track down every obelisk to destroy them, stopping vecna from recasting the spell
9:45
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.
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.
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
I like what Destiny 2 The Final Shape's approach. Let there be blips of the world being changed to what Vecna wants so the party knows what's up and the stakes/timeline you have.
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.
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.
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
I saw the obelisks & my mind immediately went to the Steles from Torg.
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
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
I liked this a lot
way better love story than Twili.... err.. a way better adventure than WotC could do
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.
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…
I thought about combining planescape, vena eve of ruin and the golden key book, into a campaign. So the characters make it to Sigil, start getting quests from the golden key book from a silent benefactor (just need to up the difficulty of the some of the quests) rewards are all part of the rod of seven parts. Then the characters start hearing about issues with magic. Maybe anytime a spell is cast there is a 5% change per spell level something glitches and you roll on the wild magic table. Characters find out Vecna is behind the issue with magic, but who is sending the characters on the quests?
I would think to toss in the Book of Vile darkness somewhere in there to collect as it's incorporated into Vecnas redesign
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.
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.
A while ago I ran a one-shot "DnD&D" Dungeons and Dragons and drinking. My players made themselves as PCs and hung out in the "Interdimensional Inn" essentially a miniature of the Yawning Portal that all of the PC miniatures are stored in between sessions.
This year I turned it into a campaign the first 2 PC's in my world (now a god and a celestial) are missing, and Vecna is up to something big, oh and the Interdimensional Inn is in Sigil.
So when eve of ruin announced I knew I'd use it as part of the endgame. I already planned on having PC's visit the worlds we played in using Spelljammer, so the format is already there.
The players are level 6 now, so I'm going to start introducing Vecna cult members who are trying to assassinate them.
I'm also going to have his cult growing openly in sigil, and no one knows why Lady of Pain won't do anything.
I figure in the next couple levels I'll introduce *our* wizards 3 (based on a one shot where we played Mordenkeinan, Tasha, and Fizban)
And when they get to the start of Eve of Ruin I'm going to have Kas openly introduce himself because it's much more fun to have a bad guy who you know hates the bbeg, but isn't trustworthy.
And I'm going to take Jorphdan's advice and the spell will be to unify the planes.
Also, 2 of my players are DM's (Aren't I lucky?) So they're going to DM the chapters set in the worlds they've run or planned to run, Underdark, Ravenloft, Eberron, Avernus.
Sort of a send up to D&D history, and our own campaigns.
Oooh, yeah having the planes start colliding might be fun
In my homebrew I combined Tiamat with the Queen of Chaos, so the rod of seven parts works pretty well in my game...
I'm running an Exandria (Critical Role) campaign right now. I'm inspired to use this. The group is heading toward the Obelisk on Eiselcross. Plane hoping is already a part of it.
Yeah, as I'm writing this, this is a great fit.
Thank you.
SO much better than the one they printed.
Lol you aren't the only OAF here (watching your content on my phone with my reading glasses on)
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.
@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? 😅
Vecna: Endgame
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...
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.
Im currently doing a homebrew campaign where I do want to lead into this book, however I realize that the real suspense would be to focus on better setups and a much better climactic stage for the characters as they continue to head deeper into the mystery of the obelisks
I was thinking of making my own sort of late game temple of the spellweavers or some riftway expanse that leads into learning about who is really causing these things
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!
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.
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.
Not only would I run this, but I'd pay for it
Here is how I fixed it for my group (SPOILERS): I changed the first encounter so that they battled Vecna right off the bat, they had PC's from another campaign and a lot of them died - I actually did something really strange here and stole the beginning of Wild Beyond the Witch Light - Vecna destroyed the Fey, completely obliterated it. Everything is messed up in all the planes of existence as all that chaos from the Fey leaks into the other worlds. Also, instead of the Death House I put my group into Strahd's brother's wedding at Castle Ravenloft - you know? The one where Strahd gets cursed. IT WAS AMAZING - Strahd is dead and Sergei's bride to be is now the ruler of Raveloft (and there is no curse in Barovia). The rod was in the sun sword as its power source. Then when they go to the Astral Plane Vecna has been tracking them, I kept a lot of this encounter the same as the book . But having Vecna tracking them and slowing them down RULED - it was so fun. Now they have returned to their stronghold (which is an island off Baldur's Gate called Fexopolis - named after a now dead PC) and Baldur's Gate is burning, a new Lich ruler supplanted by Vecna is in control and the city is dead - filled with the undead (my player's haven't got there yet)... We make of these games whatever we want and I always choose fun and creativity. Thanks for your videos I watch all of them and enjoy them a great deal. Take care.
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 TH-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. 🤙
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?
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)
I really like this. I wish they'd approached the published adventure this way!
I will probably end up doing obelisks instead of the rod. Great ideas!
Curse of Strahd spoiler :
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Another idea for the Ravenloft part : you get to lead the Castle guards when they come to arrest / kill Strahd after Tatyana launches herself from the Chapel balcony after the murder of Sergei's Von Zarovich, in Barovia's past, and killing Strahd in human form (more of a Fighter / Knight archetype) makes him come back as a Vampire Lord after that, so you have kind of a phase 2 boss fight there. It needs some tweaking to not break the main story by the intervention of the PCs in Barovia's past (or they DO break the story by intervening ?) The Obelisk could be underground in a side crypt in the pillar of Ravenloft, there was a similar device called a Slab of Sacrifice in the 3.5 version Expedition to Castle Ravenloft in the Subcatacombs section. Or it could be at the Amber Temple.
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??
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.
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!
Maybe the party can discover/obtain something Tiamat related in Krynn to entice Arkhan the cruel once in Avernus?
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.
I’ve bought the module so feel as though I need to run it as it’s sunk costs 😢
There are spoilers for another module below…
My party is currently going through Avernus and want to do Eve of Ruin with the same characters. What I’m doing is effectively smooshing (very technical term 😂) both modules together… have Zariel being an accomplice and side kick to Vecna as her way to rewrite what has happened to her… by grabbing Elturel they are going to use the souls of those from the city as the power for the remaking ritual… have juiced up Zariel so she would be an enemy closer to level 20. Vecna has a party going through as well so they are going to run into them as they go (already run into the leader) and have heard of Vecna being seen meeting with Z…
They’re going to meet with Arkhan but will find him handless (sorry Joe Manganello) and the party having beat them there and liberated the hand from him.
There is obelisk which has been broken in Avernus which V and Z have broken to be able to act as siphon for the Elturel power and they need to repair it with the 7 pieces which has been scattered throughout the multiverse
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
Does anyone have any ideas on how to make attuning to the obelisks cooler than normal attuning?
Love it! Wizards - Hire this guy!
Now that we know grey hawk is the official setting, will we get some content on it?
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
Your setup is also similar to the old gold box ssi Pools of Darkness game.
Yeah I'm keeping my own version of what the obelisks do and how they work.
I'm over WotC screwing things up.
That does seem like a more epic story and a fitting capstone for 5e.