On Monday, 13th May, 2024, my group of four players stepped into the 50th Anniversary adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Vecna: Eve of Ruin. With a combination of two brand new and two existing 10th level characters, they came to the city of Neverwinter, where as recognised heroes they were contacted by Lord Neverember, who had a problem.
The problem? Missing citizens. And worse than that, prominent citizens! Why, think of the damage to the reputation of the city if even the greatest couldn’t walk safely through the streets!
Lord Neverember needed them found. He had paid for the services of the priests of Gond, Wonderworker in the city, and they had divined that the kidnapped citizens had been taken to the local cemetery – the Neverdeath Graveyard. The priests had divined they’d entered the Hallix Mausoleum, but there the trail had vanished – and that required strong magic to block the god’s eyes!
So, experienced adventurers were in order.
The four heroes?
- Billsay, Human Fighter (Battle Master Archer)
- Cevan, Tiefling Warlock/Fighter
- Killin, Earth Genasi Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)
- Zed Jehro, Human Wizard (War Magic)
Billsay and Cevan are created new for this campaign; Killin and Zed are from previous campaigns.
The four made their way to the graveyard, and soon discovered the Mausoleum. The initial chamber contained six stone coffins, which Cevan immediately moved to open using his trusty crowbar. It was strenuous and loud, and as he opened one after another, revealing naught but a few scraps of cloth, something noticed his actions. From a set of stairs to the south climbed a group of five wights, surprising all the party save for Zed!
Zed immediately caught all five wights in a fireball spell, but it did not inflict enough damage to slay them all. So, Cevan and Killin moved to engage the wights, taking a few hits before they were able to defeat the undead horrors.
“Neverdeath”, huh? Who calls their graveyard that and expects things to go well?
Descending into the chamber the wights had emerged from, they discovered a few woollen cloaks and a couple of wide-brimmed hats. (These would likely engage the players more than most other treasures later!) They also discovered a newly formed tunnel to a neighbouring crypt.
They made their way into that tunnel and discovered a larger room with many doors leading off it, one up a set of stairs and marked with a painted eye. Curious and curiouser!
South led to a large chamber with a lot of pipes and a large pool of water, inside which the party could see movement! Zed called out in Aquan to the inhabitants and discovered a friendly Water Elemental who was more than happy to chat with sociable humans. Because, as it turned out, there were some very unsociable humans nearby – cultists, with an unhealthy fascination with hands and eyes.
These cultists had deposited a struggling gnome in a cell to the south. The party lack anyone with skill with thieves’ tools, and as they considered whether they wanted to use a knock spell, the helpful elemental offered to burst it open. He did so – much to the gnome’s surprise!
This indeed was one of the four missing citizens, a historian named Umberto Noblin. They engaged him in conversation, attempting to find a reason for his capture. During the conversation, aided by leading questions from Zed, he revealed he’d recently been making a study of the personage/god known as Vecna and his origins, which involved a long friendship and later betrayal and rivalry from a warlord named Kas. As Zed was now convinced that Vecna was involved somehow, this was confirming his suspicions.
The party escorted Umberto outside and returned to their investigations.
Another locked door from the main chamber led to a crypt where the second of the prisoners was held: a wild magic sorceress who had lost her magic due to some unfortunate mishap. Zed questioned the sorceress whether she knew anything about Vecna, and she revealed that she’d had visions – visions of a possible future! – where a desiccated form had enacted some terrible magic, but more than that she was uncertain. Was that Vecna she saw?
Once more, they escorted the prisoner out of the dungeon.
Returning, they found a room to the south with lot of pipes with wheels and levers, but restrained themselves from tampering with them, as they might have the unfortunate effect of disturbing the water elementals’ habitat, something the party was loath to do.
Instead, they proceeded to another room that held a long-time resident of the crypt, a marid (water genie) who had once been bound by the now-extinct Waterclock Guild and was whiling away the years by putting together a broken clock. He was a content soul, but happy to converse with the party, especially once he realised they’d befriended the water elementals outside.
Apart from his history, he could tell them of the coming of the cultists, and how unimpressed he was with their treatment of the elementals. As the party concurred with his dismissal of the cultists’ characters, he suggested a way to cause a lot of discomfit for them: by tampering with the pipes in the room they’re already explored, they could flood the cultists’ chambers.
So, they did that – and knowing the cultists would likely come to investigate, the party set an ambush. It worked, somewhat, although a mage with the cultists was able to fireball the party, the ghouls and cultists that attacked were no match for the skills of the heroes.
With the cultists defeated, they continued onwards into a fairly damp chamber and surprised two more mages. They didn’t get much of a chance to fight back, although a cone of cold spell did engulf Cevan and Killan, for a minor amount of damage – Killan’s protection against spells proving very effective.
While searching for treasure, the group then found their first secret door, which lead to a short passageway. It opened onto another room – and this one, a necromancer was studying a set of notes, accompanied by a nothic.
No negotiations followed, save those of fire and steel. But it was a hard-fought battle. The necromancer summoned zombies to distract the archer and mage, and used arcane blasts to take down Cevan and severely wound Killan. It was a battle that could have ended very badly for the party, but they were eventually victorious. They needed healing, but they were alive.
And, at that moment, we’d been playing for three hours. It was 10 pm on a Monday evening, and it was time to end. We had work tomorrow!
We will continue this adventure next week, where I expect we’ll finish Chapter 1 of the action. The party may reconfigure a bit – it’s now painfully aware that they have extremely limited healing capabilities; only a paladin who would prefer to use her spell slots for smiting! (At present, the thought is that Cevan will change to be a cleric, but we’ll discuss that through the week).
As for the adventure so far: I’m very positive on its start. The dungeon has a good variety of encounters, and I particularly like that role-playing from the heroes can give them advantages against the cultists. The elementals and the marid are very well realised – although some of the text about the elementals is contradictory. (I feel an important phrase got removed during the editing process).
Flawless? Certainly not – and there are a few too many five-foot-wide corridors (and there’s shortly going to be two large creatures in a space that barely contains them). But the underlying structure of this dungeon is sound, and it makes me hopeful for the rest of the adventure!