Hype for Vecna: Eve of Ruin, one of Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition‘s tentpole releases for 2024, has increased. As one of D&D 5e‘s last hoorahs before the release of the 2024 Player’s Handbook and other new core tomes, the campaign promises stakes the edition has never attempted.

Wizards of the Coast have released a hype post and introduction to Vecna: Eve of Ruin on D&D Beyond to whet players’ appetites for the campaign. I’ll let you read it there, but it promises an epic, multiversal clash to prevent D&D‘s most infamous villain from taking control of reality.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin promises high-level play (not seen in official modules outside Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage), more settings than you can shake a stick at, and a chance to thwart the archlich once and for all.

It’s impossible to know specifics other than that. I don’t have insider information about what the campaign will look like. It’d be nice if I did.

Nonetheless, it’s still possible to guess some of what we’ll see in Vecna: Eve of Ruin from previous editions, other D&D 5e campaigns, and the few details Wizards of the Coast have announced already.

Action Across the D&D 5e Multiverse

Dungeons & Dragons has loosely united its many settings in a multiverse for many years now (although the exact cosmology has always been subject to change).

Vecna: Eve of Ruin isn’t the first adventure to cross these over. Far from it. It’s not even the first edition-ending Vecna-oriented campaign that travels the multiverse. The infamous Die Vecna Die! covers Greyhawk, Ravenloft, and finally Planescape.

From its premise alone, Vecna: Eve of Ruin threatens to top this. It makes mention of every single setting release for D&D 5e except those for other franchises (Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and the Magic: the Gathering D&D 5e settings).

D&D 5e players in Vecna: Eve of Ruin will explore the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk (Ghosts of Saltmarsh), Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Eberron, Dragonlance, and Planescape. That is a lot of different worlds for one 256-page book.

This could be an excellent way to explore all of D&D 5e‘s beloved settings (and Spelljammer) that allows for characters from any background or campaign. Alternatively, it might provide theme park versions of each world with little depth.

256 pages is really not a lot to cover seven settings, especially as they need to accommodate an actual campaign as well. Unless D&D 5e DMs shell out for half a dozen books on the side and spend hours on Google, they might struggle to do a single one of them justice.

At its best, Vecna: Eve of Ruin will make the D&D 5e multiverse feel bigger and more diverse than it ever has. At its worst, it risks making it feel very small and shallow as players visit only one location in each world or spend the entire campaign on rails.

High-Level D&D 5e Magic Items and Monsters

High-level play has had limited support in D&D 5e ever since its release.

There’s a vicious feedback loop where Wizards of the Coast put fewer resources into it since few players experience it. Then, because of how poorly resourced it is, players go out of their way to avoid it.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin breaks this trend, a rarity for D&D 5e. It starts at level ten, around the time many campaigns wind down because of book space or the DM’s failing sanity. It then goes all the way to level 20 for its final confrontation.

Interesting speculation: This seems designed so players can reprise their characters from previous D&D 5e campaigns, many of which end around tenth level. If so, this is well worth it. Who doesn’t want a bit of Avengers: Endgame crossover action to see things out?

Even if players rock up with brand-new characters, they’ll likely get powerful very quickly. High-level D&D 5e campaigns come with high-end magic items. Early loot will probably be a far cry from Potions of Healing and +1 longswords.

Vecna himself is associated with some of the most infamous magic items in D&D 5e, such as the Eye of Vecna, Hand of Vecna, and the Sword of Kas. The plot summary mentions an artifact known as the Rod of Seven Parts. I would be shocked if these were the only D&D 5e artifacts players get to handle in the campaign.

That said, they’ll need them. D&D 5e has gotten slowly better at high-level boss fights over its lifetime, with the Mythic Actions system helping make single monsters credible threats. Vecna: Eve of Ruin promises over 30 new monsters, and I doubt any of these are going to be CR 1/4 goblins.

A Cheeky Lead-In To D&D 5e 2024

Vecna: Eve of Ruin‘s plot impetus is that Vecna is trying to take control of all reality and bend it to his whims. Honestly, he has pedigree with this sort of thing. It’s not the first time. However, it likely will be used to justify lasting changes to the game.

2024 is seeing a new version of D&D 5e release. Previously known as One D&D, this is now an updated version of the core rulebooks that still promises to change vast swathes (especially with character creation, classes, and lineages).

These changes are less severe than previous edition changes (more comparable to D&D Third Edition and D&D 3.5). However, Vecna: Eve of Ruin will likely still justify them in-universe.

Whatever Vecna achieves before he’s defeated will probably ripple through reality and subtly affect magic and other things. Previous adventure Die Vecna Die! did something very similar, with the Lady of Pain ushering in D&D 3e following Vecna’s plot. Less similar is the Spellplague, which brought about D&D 4e.

I can’t imagine the D&D 5e 2024 update will give us a multiverse under the Whispered One’s sway (which, honestly, would be awesome). Instead, it seems likely that Vecna will lose and do somewhat-told damage to the cosmos in the process.

Somewhat Arbitrary Magical Restrictions

High-level play in D&D 5e isn’t all epic artifacts, planehopping, and incredible magical power. One of the reasons D&D 5e campaigns have kept away from levels in the teens is because of how ridiculous magic can get.

The previous high-level D&D 5e campaign, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, had many restrictions on high-level spells on its lower levels. These targeted planar effects, teleportation, Wish, and more.

Vecna: Eve of Ruin may well be more open and flexible than a megadungeon that fundamentally requires the characters to play by certain rules. However, there’s no denying that high-level spells are a significant hurdle for DMs to overcome even without the constraints of a published D&D 5e campaign.

Which does beg the question of why high-level magic in D&D 5e is quite so ridiculous. If Wizards of the Coast barely want to touch it, why would home DMs make a habit of it?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Vecna: Eve of Ruin puts significant limitations on the more game-breaking spells available (especially Plane Shift. But especially Wish). It even has an easy way to justify it if Vecna has some degree of control over reality. I bet he’ll be able to cast whatever he likes.

Maybe Vecna: Eve of Ruin will surprise me and the game will finally cut loose with the possibilities of high-level D&D 5e adventures. I’d be shocked, but I’d be delighted.

A Great Many Throwbacks to D&D History

As much as Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a D&D 5e campaign, it also looks like a tribute to D&D as a whole. Wizards of the Coast have emphasized the game’s 50th anniversary in its marketing and included almost every plane they have the rights to.

On top of that, Vecna: Eve of Ruin deals with one of D&D‘s most beloved villains in a very similar situation to classic adventures from previous editions.

Wizards haven’t kept it a secret that they’re planning to throw references, NPCs, and bits of history at D&D 5e players all through the campaign. Even if they had, it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out.

As a 50th-anniversary celebration of D&D and a capstone campaign for the game’s most popular version ever, I expect Vecna: Eve of Ruin to be loaded with easter eggs.

It would be nice if it was done in a somewhat classy way. If classic D&D characters appear to deliver a few lines and then leave, this will lose its lustre by about the second plane. Hopefully, there will be a good mixture of throwaway references and significant parts for beloved figures.

The last seems likely, given that Vecna: Eve of Ruin promises the chance to work with three of D&D‘s most iconic wizards to assemble the Rod of Seven Parts. Hopefully the taste and restraint is there as well.

We recommend a bingo sheet with a Rare magical item as the prize.

These have been five things that you can probably expect to find in Vecna: Eve of Ruin. I hope to check the campaign out when it releases and see how accurate I was.

If you’re between games to check out this seminal release with, try reading ‘Five Ways to Find a Dungeons & Dragons Group‘.

If you want to make Vecna: Eve of Ruin your best D&D 5e campaign ever, check out ‘D&D 5e: Five Tips For Creating Memorable Moments As A Dungeon Master‘ to try and make the big events stick.

In general, please leave a like and check out other Artificial Twenty content. If you’ve got any comments or feedback, I’d love to hear it! Thanks so much.