Dungeons & Dragons’ next official adventure Thanos-ifiies Vecna in a multiverse-spanning campaign

Massive tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons recently announced its product lineup for the year, including two new adventure books that players will eventually be able to use with the updated core rulebooks when they release on three separate dates across 2024 and 2025. One is an anthology of six new journeys tied together by a wish-granting genie, while the other pits high-level players against one of D&D’s biggest baddies - Vecna.

Releasing on May 21st, Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a full campaign-style book that will carry 10th-level characters all the way to level 20 - the very pinnacle of D&D’s power curve. And groups will likely need all of that mechanical juice to save the very multiverse from Vecna, a lich who has haunted the popular tabletop RPG’s settings since the very first edition.

Publisher Wizards of the Coast described Vecna: Eve of Ruin in a press release as “a high-stakes adventure in which the fate of the entire multiverse hangs in the balance”, and players will begin in the familiar climes of 5E’s Forgotten Realms before bebopping to several other universes that once acted as D&D’s setting du jour. Vecna’s multiversal hijinks will bring Planescape, Spelljammers, Eberron, Ravenloft, Greyhawk and even Dragonlance (sorry about that cancelled television show) under the The Whispered One’s lichy thumb.

Ol’ bony boy is apparently concocting a massive ritual that will wipe the gods of these worlds from existence, along with any goodness clinging to them. Amongst the book’s 256 pages will be stat blocks and lore for famous D&D characters who will seemingly pop in to help the players take down Vecna’s Thanos-esque bid for all of reality. While Vecna doesn’t bother justifying his genocide like Marvel’s Villain with a Chin, Wizards is all to happy to ride the MCU’s pop culture coattails - one section of the official description even reads, “Archmages, Assemble!”

Vecna: Eve of Ruin will hit retail on May 21st, while the digital edition will be available to purchase on D&D Beyond beginning May 7th. Two months later we get Quests from the Infinite Staircase, a collection of six adventures previously published across D&D’s many additions that have been updated and polished for use in 5E-compatible campaigns. While the Infinite Staircase isn’t a new location, its reigning figure - the “noble genie Nafas” - certainly is.

As with other anthology books such as Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel and Tales from the Yawning Portal, the Infinite Staircase serves as a framing device for the all six adventures so that groups can either tackle them separately or combine them for a campaign that takes players from the very beginning to level 13. Nafas will recruit the party to aid in granting wishes that have reached his cosmic realm from across the multiverse. Quests from the Infinite Staircase will release on July 16th of this year.

For European fans of D&D, you can also look forward to three previously released books that have finally been localised into French, Italian, German and Spanish. Adventury anthology Keys from the Golden Vaults drops on March 15th, while monster folio Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants will be available on June 24th. Finally, the recently published Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk - which recontextualises 5E’s famous starting location - can be purchased beginning in September.