Former D&D executive producer Ray Winninger has responded to a Polygon interview with Chris Perkins, providing clarifying facts about the development of Vecna: Eve of Ruin. Winninger says that using the campaign to wrap up Perkins' decades-long Obelisk plotline "wasn't the original intent". Plus, contrary to the article's headline, which says the campaign "was supposed to close 5e", Winninger says "The product was certainly never intended to be any sort of 'coda' to 5e".
The interview published on February 8 asks Perkins about the unresolved plot of the obelisks, which he had dropped hints about in numerous adventures from 2015 onwards. Perkins told Polygon that the storyline was dropped because he took a backseat on adventure design, but he had originally intended for it to end with a time travel trip back to the infamous Netherese Empire. Previous campaign books had dropped hints that Vecna himself had stolen one of these obelisks.
Winninger explains on Bluesky that he "wrote the original brief" for the 2024 campaign book, Vecna: Eve of Ruin. "It was originally supposed to be a campaign that celebrated D&D's 50th by sending the players on a tour of all the classic settings we reintroduced for 5e - Ravenloft, Eberron, Spelljammer, DL [Dragonlance], and, of course FR [Forgotten Realms] - to battle a multiversal threat".
"Lots of cameos from D&D notables", he adds. "The campaign book was also supposed to include guidelines for incorporating your own homebrew world(s) into the story." "The final battle was to take place in the dungeon castle below Greyhawk, where everything started."
"Had Chris led it, I don't doubt he would have picked up the thread of the obelisks he placed in his earlier adventures (and I like the ideas he lays out), but that wasn't the original intent". "Not sure why the staff drifted away from my brief", Winninger says (presumably referring to the fact the campaign does not conclude at Castle Greyhawk), "but I'm sure they had their reasons".
Finally, Winninger says "the product was certainly never intended to be any sort of 'coda to 5e'". "We never saw the revised core books anything but a continuation of 5e."
Although the interview does discuss Vecna: Eve of Ruin, it contains no explicit quotes from Perkins connecting his obelisk plot with the campaign. Wargamer has asked Polygon to confirm if such quotes exist, and if not, why a link between the storyline and Vecna: Eve of Ruin was made. We will update this story when we receive a reply.
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