We played our second session of Vecna: Eve of Ruin on Monday, 20th May, 2024. Upon consideration of our party composition at the end of the first session, we chose to replace the Fighter/Warlock with a Life Cleric, as the party was missing a primary healer – something of a problem when events don’t always permit short rests.
The party were investigating the disappearance of several important personages from Neverwinter and had come to a burial complex under the Neverwinter graveyard, where they’d discovered cultists of Vecna were responsible.
After our new party member healed the badly damaged party, they examined the room of the cultist they’d killed. He was obviously high ranking (the damage he’d inflicted upon them might have been a clue). Zed, their wizard, found the necromancer’s notes and discovered the cultists were kidnapping people with secrets and performing rituals to channel the secrets to Vecna. They’d previously learnt that the cultists were performing a ritual right now, so they had to hurry to stop them.
It wasn’t far to the ritual room at all – just a little way to the south. A lone cultist shuffling down the corridor met a quick – but probably not untimely – end, and with barely another thought, the party burst into a large room in which cultists and nothics were performing their profane ritual, with an elven cleric the poor unfortunate.
Zed cast fireball, badly wounding the nothics and the head cultist, and from there Billsay the archer took down the head cultist. Killin, the paladin, shrugged off nothic attacks, and another fireball made its way to the other side of the chamber to get the rest of the cultists, utterly disrupting the ritual.
However, the magical energy didn’t just dissipate. Instead, it rose up and engulfed the party and the elf, depositing them in yet another graveyard, but an unfamiliar one. Ghouls swiftly moved in to investigate (and feed), but Dahka Leric, our new cleric, turned them to ash.
A knocking from within a coffin alerted them to the presence of the elven cleric, Eldon Keyward. He was very grateful for his rescue, though a little surprised by where they had ended up. Investigations proved they’d been transported to the Shadowfell and the dark mirror of Neverwinter, Evernight.
Obviously, being in a city of the undead was not without its risks, so the party made their way to a nearby marketplace to look for information on a way home. A vampire information dealer immediately approached them and offered to sell them the information they needed. Zed was happy to pay – and pay with coins from Barovia, marked with the visage of Count Strahd. The merchant was suitably impressed, and she let them know that a nearby tomb had a stable gate back to Neverwinter.
They quickly made their way to the tomb. In the adventure, they’re meant to be ambushed at this point by servants of the merchant, but she’d been so impressed by the Barovian coins and things Zed had hinted at that she didn’t send them. (Don’t mess with potential servants of Strahd!)
Inside the tomb, they discovered a ghostly servant who had been contracted to serve the family for several lifetimes – and so had continued serving them even after death. She was a cheerful sort, all things considered, and was happy to chat about the Dolindar family, whose tomb this was. Upon asking about the gate home, she was unaware of its presence, but she had spotted a puzzle gate deeper in. Perhaps it led to the gate?
With no-one opposing them, the party took a door that led to the Dolindar vault – several untrapped treasures that the Dolindars no longer valued, but the party were more than happy to liberate. The next door led to the puzzle door, but its riddle was not one they could answer immediately.
They continued exploring the tomb, coming upon a brother and sister of the family who were now sorrowsworn. Incredibly, not undead, but instead monstrosities with arms that were sharp blades. No match for the party though, who dispatched them very quickly. But no more clues were forthcoming.
The party returned to the ghostly servant and questioned her further about the Dolindars. And through doing so, Zed realised what the answer to the riddle must be. Quickly returning to the door, they opened it and made their way through… to a chamber where the matriarch of the Dolindar family resided. She was a Sorrowsworn as well, though with a harpoon for an arm and protected by many a spike on the floor.
But, once again, the party far outclassed her. With her dead, the party could return to Neverwinter, where they discovered the remaining members of the cult of Vecna had fled – and slain the one captive the party hadn’t rescued.
However, Lord Neverember was happy for their successes, and how the cult was dealt with, and gave them their promised rewards. The families of the rescued captives also pitched in with some extra gold.
And so, Chapter 1 of Vecna: Eve of Ruin concluded. Next week, the quest for the Rod of Seven Parts would begin!
DM Notes: It’s very notable how easy all the encounters in this chapter were, with the sole exception of the necromancer wizard – the leader of the cult – whose Arcane Blasts are incredibly punishing. I’m not against this – it is required from a story-telling perspective. You need the characters to succeed in this scenario so that it sets up the rest of the story. I’m just hoping it was deliberate, and the subsequent adventure isn’t as easy.
My players very much appreciated how easy it was to escape Evernight. It’s almost like they were led to do so! When it comes to linear, get all obstacles out of the way writing, this was a good example of this. It’s not something I mind overmuch, but wow, isn’t it amazing that they got the information so quickly?
Don’t think about it too hard though, because somehow the vampire knows about the portal to Neverwinter despite it being guarded and behind a puzzle door. And somehow the ghostly servant doesn’t know where the matriarch of the family is, nor what lies beyond the door.
The disrupted ritual had another effect: it had linked the party to Vecna. Which, in terms of the later adventure, meant they were the only ones who could get to him. This is fine in a novel. In a game, it is causing a lot of potential problems. What happens if a character dies permanently? There’s no way of introducing a new character since they won’t have the link!
We’ve had fun so far, but the adventure hasn’t really started yet. Next week, they get to meet the Wizards Three!
I’ll be curious to see if the physical copy of the adventure has any “the following books provided inspiration” notes in the credits like other 5E books have done, because I saw nothing like that in my digital copy. To me it seems kind of insane that a book that visits so many settings and basically gives only cursory info on them doesn’t have sidebars saying “for more information about X, see Y”. Sure the best source for Neverwinter outside of the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is the 4E Neverwinter Campaign Setting, which also covers Evernight too, but that book is on the DMs Guild! You can buy it! No reason for WotC not to promote it just because its from an older edition.
Honestly it’s shocking to me that the book doesn’t seem to point people to buying Eberron: Rising from the Last War, Curse of Strahd, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, etc.
Big call to let the cleric player name their PC Dahka Leric. Each to their own of course but I find those kinds of names quickly get tiresome and definitely get in the way of any sort of immersion.
That aside, I really appreciate your work on the site and have been a reader for years now.
I didn’t notice for quite a while. Then I found it really amusing – because it’s only apparent when you pronounce the full name. So most of the time it doesn’t come up.
You mentioned that the party’s actions removed a potential ambush as they left the merchant. I always stuggle with moments like that, where good or bad decisions close off encounters or options. I love the idea of them and use them frequently but I sometimes battle with how to let the players know that their actions have had those consequences. In your example you know the players did well and avoided a potential problem but the players never will. Often I’ll try to find a way to still use the content but to give the players a benefit they can connect to their earlier actions (perhaps there are fewer ambushers and those that are there bemoan the fact that the merchant didn’t send reinforcements like usual) but other times I can’t see a way to do so or it’s just not appropriate.
In my current campaign I have a recurring NPC that the players love (well, hate actually but that’s the point of the NPC so same-same) but for whatever reason they never uncovered or I never found a way to reveal until very late in the piece that NPC had deeper motivations and connection to the story. By the time it became apparent it no longer really mattered as the campaign is closing on its finale anyway. It still worked out in-game I guess since the players still had fun with the NPC but it all felt a bit of a letdown for me as DM. Perhaps that’s just the DM’s lot or perhaps I just need to give better hints or offer better guidance. Any things or advice?
I actually told the players what occurred so they felt rewarded! Sometimes, keeping the fiction going causes more problems (and sometimes it’s absolutely the right thing to do!)