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Designed by: Scott McClintock, Marc Altfuldisch, Buck Wev, Billy Middleton

Fall of Vecna is the follow-up to last year’s apocalyptic Doomed Forgotten Realms campaign, Rise of Vecna, one of my favorite DMs Guild products of 2022.

Fall of Vecna picks up where Rise left off, presenting a suitably epic level 10-20 campaign that includes combing through Domains of Dread in Ravenloft, allying with monstrous creatures and questionable factions, and finally going after the archlich himself.

In case you’ve forgotten, the Doomed Forgotten Realms is a twisted What-If setting where all the official 5e campaigns happened — and they all ended in failure. Demon Lords stalk the Underdark. The Cult of Elemental Evil razed the Dessarin Valley. Tiamat was successfully freed from her infernal prison, and the Soulmonger continues to feed on dead souls.

And Vecna was behind it all.

In Rise of Vecna, we experienced this brutal, twisted world while searching for artifacts that could allow the gods to return, dealing a serious blow to the archlich.

You don’t have to play Rise to play Fall of Vecna, but I’d highly recommend it.

Fall of Vecna includes 15 chapters and over 200 pages, using the same professional layout and design that looks wholly different from the typical 5e adventure. The design is very attractive with big art pieces, embedded maps, and frequent subheadings and sidebars.

Chapter 1 begins in the ruins of Thornhold, with one of the party’s few allies — the Xanathar. The beholder has learned that Vecna originally came from Ravenloft, and perhaps by investigating his origins the party can learn how to defeat him.

After whisking off to Luskan and powering through the hellish modron-experimenting tower-dungeon, the party are transported to Ravenloft, where we spend the next seven chapters.

On the one hand, Ravenloft is awesome, and the adventure takes us to multiple domains we’ve only read about in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.

But on the other hand, it’s disappointing to leave the Doomed Forgotten Realms so soon, and for so long. The plot doesn’t particularly warrant such an extended stay, either.

After exploring a ghoul-filled mansion belonging to Van Richten himself, and an awesome floating-island, partially-destroyed castle, the party discovers a familiar who can take them to different Dark Domains that each hold a piece of Vecna.

Chapters 4-7 can be tackled in any order, though weirdly the party can choose to do as little as one chapter, or as many as all four. It doesn’t particularly matter, because the pieces themselves don’t matter.

In the end the party is taken to another lich’s castle who uses the pieces to get himself (and the party) out of Ravenloft.

castle cavitus

The sole reward for this Ravenloft excursion is to learn a secret about Vecna that only comes into play at the very end of the campaign, possibly turning his ally and protégé Acererak against him, Vader-style.

Despite my complaints about the plot up to this point, I adore everything else. Each of the Domains focuses on epic moments and cool interactions with Darklords, such as allying with Isolde to free her friends from evil fey in the Carnival, or a puzzle-filled mega-dungeon in the desert realm of Har’akir.

The campaign book also does a great job injecting optional encounters and side quests throughout each chapter. These scripted encounters add wonderful flavor to the various Dark Domains (and the Doomed Forgotten Realms), feature fun callbacks to other adventures (such as Harshnag and Tekeli-li), and add reactivity to the party’s advances through various assassins and ally appearances.

Thankfully the story picks up at the halfway point. Upon returning from Ravenloft, they discover the Xanathar has been turned into a Death Tyrant by Vecnan forces — excellent twist! Using his notes, the party needs to gather powerful allies from around the Sword Coast before assaulting the archlich in Waterdeep.

Chapters 10-13 cover the coast-trotting adventure, which includes saving Bruenor and the dwarves from the Elemental Plane of Earth, seeking Halastar in a hilarious return trip to Undermountain, and battling a kraken from a submarine with Jarlaxle and the Bregan D’aerthe.

Each of these storylines is completely awesome, and every area is enhanced with full color battle maps (cartographers include Buck Web, Christian Zeuch, and Elven Tower Cartography). Over 40 maps are included in a separate zip file with DM, player, and grid-less options. Perfection!

The campaign excels at big cinematic moments and large-scale set pieces that feel increasingly appropriate for a high-level campaign. Pacing favors dungeon crawling and combat, though there are plenty of fun opportunities for role-playing and exploring, especially during the Skullport segment of Chapter 14, which has the party dealing with hags, aboleths, mind flayers, and medusas in the ultimate hive of scum and villainy.

The endgame features multiple well-designed dungeon crawls through towers and dungeons in Waterdeep, including a clever reverse-Tomb of the Nine Gods where the party empowers the trickster gods in their own miniature dungeon crawl.

Fall of Vecna is a more than worthy successor, and the two volumes together form one of the most epic campaigns you can find on the DMs Guild.

Pros:

  • Exciting, action-filled Tier 3-4 campaign filled with big set pieces, epic battles, and memorable moments.
  • Optional Encounters provide meaningful, fun side content throughout the campaign.
  • Professional layout and design.
  • Over 40 full color battle maps (DM, Player, and grid-less versions)
  • Over 60 statblocks (over 20 original to Fall of Vecna)

Cons:

  • Half the campaign takes place in Ravenloft, instead of the Doomed Forgotten Realms.
  • First half plot is thin compared to the second.

The Verdict: Steal a mechanized titan for the dragon cult, parley with devils over a tea party, defeat a kraken in a drow submarine, and finally take on the BBEG of all BBEGs in this absolutely epic high-level campaign in the uniquely apocalyptic setting of the Doomed Forgotten Realms.

A review copy of “Fall of Vecna” was provided by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.

Support my work by using my affiliate links and pledging via Patreon.