Vecna: Eve of Ruin is the dessert course for those who’ve feasted on D&D’s best campaigns

Over the last decade, Wizards of the Coast has rolled out a series of elaborate campaign books for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, each one customized for low-to-mid-level characters. At most, those products have topped out at around level 13, leaving fans to make their own way toward the game’s level 20 cap.

Next month, the publisher is raising the stakes with Vecna: Eve of Ruin, an adventure that begins at level 10 and goes to level 20. But it’s more than just a series of high-level encounters. It’s a celebration of everything that’s come before, and the opportunity for the franchise’s most dedicated fans to run a well-earned victory lap.

In a recent briefing, Wizards shared a few highlights from Eve of Ruin. The whirlwind tour included a surprising amount of spoilers, but before we get anywhere close to those, let’s first discuss the broad strokes.

What’s a Vecna?

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Stranger Things fans’ ears likely perked up when they saw that players would be taking on Vecna, but they should temper their enthusiasm a bit. Wizards isn’t sneaking in a way to crack Max out of the intensive care unit in Hawkins, Indiana. That’s Netflix’s problem. Instead, it’s reintroducing the original Vecna, a powerful undead villain from Dungeons & Dragons lore.

“The first mention of Vecna dates all the way back to 1976,” said senior game designer Amanda Hamon, referring to Eldritch Wizardry, a supplement for first edition D&D that Brian Blume wrote with the game’s co-creator, Gary Gygax. “[Blume] mentions the Hand and the Eye of Vecna as artifacts. There’s only one line about Vecna himself: It says he’s a lich of great power and evil [...] who can only affect people who have put on his hand and his eye.”

Hamon added that, allegedly, not even Gygax himself knew anything more about the lich that Blume had added. It was one of those open-ended bits of lore that was purposefully added at the margins so that at-home players had jumping-off points for their own adventures. And it was largely through the work of those at-home adventurers, like with the kids in Stranger Things, that the legend of Vecna began to grow. Only later, in second and third edition, would developers flesh out the character by turning him into a godlike nemesis looming over the game’s entire multiverse.

Image: Kent Davis/Wizards of the Coast

Where we droppin’?

[Ed. note: The following contains spoilers for Vecna: Eve of Ruin.]

Wizards said that Vecna’s nefarious scheme in Eve of Ruin has to do with gathering up secrets and using them as magical fuel to somehow bring about the destruction of the multiverse. To defeat him, players must gather up the scattered pieces of The Rod of Seven Parts, an ancient artifact used once before in a bygone time to banish Vecna. And though the road to finding the disparate pieces of this particular MacGuffin is long and winding — 256 pages long, in fact — the journey will be at least partially familiar if you’ve rolled a die in anger playing D&D these last 10 years.

That’s right, kids, we’re going on a road trip.

First up, players will be swept off to Sigil, the City of Doors, to get a read on the whole situation. Players likely visited that location in the 5th edition adventure called Turn of Fortune’s Wheel, which was published inside the three-volume set Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse. Expect Sigil to serve as the hub world, opening pathways to all the other dimensions players will need to visit in their quest to reassemble The Rod of Seven Parts.

Image: Evyn Fong/Wizards of the Coast

One of those places will absolutely be Ravenloft, Hamon confirmed. Dedicated players likely visited the mist-shrouded realm either during Curse of Strahd or in a homebrew campaign based on Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. Either way, that’s where they’ll come upon the latest incarnation of the vampire Strahd von Zarovich, who must be either bargained with or taken down before moving on.

Also on the docket is a trip to the Astral Sea, home to the beloved Spelljammer setting that last took center stage in 2022’s Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, yet another well-regarded three-volume set for 5th edition. There, players will need to contend with the horrifying prospect of navigating a starship lodged in the side of a dying god, as well as a whole cast of characters that formerly crewed the ship.

Image: Martin Mottet/Wizards of the Coast

Fans of Dragonlance are likewise in for a treat, as another aspect of the adventure takes them back to the world of Krynn, which players also visited in 2022 with Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Here, they’ll have the opportunity to team up with a pack of lycanthropes working against Lord Soth and his minions.

“This is one of the most intense fights,” Hamon said, “[since it’s against] a character that just won’t give up.”

Yet another chapter in Eve of Ruin will take characters to Greyhawk’s Isle of Serpents. There they’ll deal with an underling of Acererak, the magical engineer behind the legendary Tomb of Horrors — yet another location from the history of D&D that was updated for 5th edition in Tales from the Yawning Portal. But rather than be put through that particular meat grinder, players will explore an all-new dungeon called the Tomb of Wayward Souls.

What about D&D’s big revision?

“This adventure is meant to be [as] off-the-rails, as high-level as we can get,” Hamon said. “[Especially since] it’s a potentially multiverse-ending storyline.” Of course, this isn’t the end for 5th edition, either. The most popular version of D&D ever made is getting a bit of a reboot later this year thanks to a newly revised Player’s Handbook (2024) and Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024). Those two books are expected to arrive in September and November, respectively.

But won’t that make Vecna: Eve of Ruin obsolete mere months after its release? Absolutely not, assured Hamon.

“We all hope [Vecna: Eve of Ruin] is very indicative of this adventure moving on into the future,” she said, “a high-level adventure that people can play for many years to come. With the remastered core books coming out, it was a really good time to show we can make an adventure that is this scope, and have it be good for the previous version of the rules and also [for] many years to come.”

Vecna: Eve of Ruin, like all new books for D&D these days, has a fairly complicated set of release dates. Those who purchase directly from Wizards will spend a little more for their pre-order, but they’ll get their digital content two weeks early — on May 7 — plus a free low-level introductory adventure titled Nest of the Eldritch Eye. The release at local game stores is also set for May 7, and will include an opportunity to get the book with a special alternate art cover by Hydro74. Otherwise, you can find the book for sale online at places, including Amazon, where the wide release is set for May 21.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin

• $70

Prices taken at time of publishing.

• $70 at Wizards of the Coast (bundle)
• $60 at Amazon