WotC Vecna Eve of Ruin: Everything You Need To Know

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

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

 

[Parmandur]

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

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

Wizards have their ways.

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t own any of the adventures featuring the obelisks. Can you please give some details on how they alter time in the adventures? Just trying to prep myself for a broader understanding of the time travel theme in Eve of Ruin.

Here is the verbatim text from the "What's Next?" Section after finishing the Shattered Obelisk:

Spoiler: Spoilers

The shattered obelisk is only one of several similar obelisks around the world. All are powerful artifacts with dangerous magical effects, although no two have the same powers. The earliest extant examples of these magical obelisks can rewrite reality on a grand scale.

A mysterious group called the Weavers created the obelisks to undo great calamities - often hurling a region or an entire world back in time before the calamity occurred. One of these ancient Obelisks appears in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

No one knows anything about the Weavers because the evil wizard Vecna stole the secrets of the obelisks and used them to erase the knowledge of the Weavers from existence. The lore of how to create the artifacts then seeped throughout the world. The most notable obelisk builders were wizards from the now-fallen empire of Netheril.

Netherese obelisks vary in appearance. Although always tall obelisks that narrow to a pyramidal top, they vary in height (from a dozen feet to many dozen feet) and substance (from obsidian-like stone to an unknown black metal). None of these obelisks were as powerful as those created by the Weavers, but they could nevertheless enact great and terrible changes, such as empowering the ritual in this adventure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I rather enjoy not having to know multiple encyclopedias worth of lore to play a game with my friends where what happens at the table is important. Gary and Ed's tables never impacted mine.

Where does it say you have to know everything? A lot of hyperbole here.

 

[Kurotowa]

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

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

It's probably all a side effect of Vecna mucking with reality. Remember, they said the adventure doesn't start with the Wish summoning the PCs to Sigil. It starts with the PCs investigating Vecna cultists up to no good, and getting entangled with the God of Secret's domain somehow. That's why they're marked as the ones who can defeat him, and thus the ones summoned by the Wish.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

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

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

I think this is the first time.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

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

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

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That creature that looks like a monsterous humaniod fused by metal to a merged pair of giant badgers looks like a Phyrexian to me.

 

[Parmandur]

I think this is the first time.

I don't know if there is indication that Tasha is particularly time traveling in relation to amything: that might be part of the wish.

 

[Parmandur]

That creature that looks like a monsterous humaniod fused by metal to a merged pair of giant badgers looks like a Phyrexian to me.

No, that's Miska the Wolf-Spider, a named Demon tied to the Rod of Seven Parts.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think this is the first time.

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

 

[Hexmage-EN]

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

The first time I ever learned of Tasha/Iggwilv when I started playing D&D was in the end of the Savage Tide adventure path, where she was capable of creating a portal powerful enough to let an entire eladrin army pour into Demogorgon's layer of the Abyss. Time travel comparatively isn't that much crazier.