Former lead D&D designer Chris Perkins has revealed the reason behind one of the RPG’s biggest plot holes. In an interview with Polygon on February 8, Perkins explained that the design team had spent around a decade sowing the seeds of a Netherese storyline into fifth edition campaigns. From 2015 onward, mysterious obelisks appeared everywhere from Chult to Phanadlin to Icewind Dale, but their true purpose was never fully explored. The reason, Perkins says, could have been explained in 2024 campaign Vecna: Eve of Ruin – but the plotline was abandoned.
According to Perkins, the obelisks were meant to eventually tie into a time travel storyline. Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden first confirmed that these stone monuments were built by the Weavers, a species of intelligent humanoids from an alternate plane. They had some time-altering magical abilities, and some had previously been discovered by the doomed Netherese Empire, who believed they would save Netheril if it fell to ruin (they didn’t).
In Rime of the Frostmaiden (for which Perkins was the story creator and lead writer), it was also hinted that Vecna had stolen one of these obelisks and may have plans for them. Perkins tells Polygon that the obelisks were once intended to be part of a time-travel plot that would result in players returning to the past to take on the historic Netherese Empire.
However, these plans never came to fruition, because, by the time Vecna: Eve of Ruin rolled around, Perkins wasn’t as involved in adventure design, instead being called to assist in other areas of the business. While Perkins is credited as an editor on Vecna: Eve of Ruin, Amanda Hamon would instead take on the role of project lead.
My Vecna: Eve of Ruin review gave the adventure a middling score overall. There were some excellent set pieces and twists, but the campaign was plagued by the thin, two-dimensional writing that I’ve increasingly come to associate with first-party D&D products. Vecna: Eve of Ruin felt more concerned with replaying D&D’s greatest hits than developing its world or stories in new ways.
I can’t help but feel, then, that Perkins’ obelisk plotline might have been a missed opportunity. The adventures that featured these obelisks hearken back to a time that many fifth edition players are nostalgic for – when the adventures were far from balanced, but their ideas were big and ambitious. Still, it’s hard to compare a published book with an alternate version that never came to be.
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