Vecna

Vecna is a fictional character from the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. He has numerous titles, including The Maimed Lord, The Master of the Spider Throne, The Whispered One, The Master of All That Is Secret and Hidden, the Dying King, and the Chained God.

History

Vecna is one of the most infamous and feared creatures in existence. Born centuries ago on Oerth (the world of the Greyhawk campaign setting), he was a student of the darkest arts and practitioner of the most vile forms of magic. In time, he became master of a great empire based on fear and horror. He first came to the world’s attention over 2,300 years ago, as a sharp-minded human youth of the Flan peoples was noticed by the Elven High King in -1747 CY. 36 years later (-1711 CY), he assumed chieftanship of his tribe by slaying the former cheiftan in combat using the magic he had learned at the hand of the elves.

Vecna’s penchant for brutality and obsession for world domination was said to have been limitless. Legends claim that he actually bred whole villages of people just to supply bodies for his experiments. Other stories say that his power stripped whole sections of Oerth of all life, creating regions like the Bright Desert (by unleashing a magical burning force in -1566 CY). Whether or not these tales are true, it cannot be doubted that Vecna’s dark and sinister armies spread death and destruction across whole continents.

When Vecna grew old, he used his magical powers to ward off the final coming of death. In time, however, even his greatest talents were unable to stay the hand of finality. Exactly what process he used is unknown, but somehow the darkest of mortals transformed himself into the deadliest of liches forty years after assuming domination of the Ur-Flannae peoples (-1671 CY).

As Vecna continued to amass power and spread evil (such as in the Four Hundred Year War waged against the elves, from -1547 CY to -1157 CY), a powerful warrior named Kas rose to become his chief lieutenant. Known as Kas the Bloody-Handed, he pronounced Vecna’s judgments and exercised power second only to the lich himself. To reward his lieutenant of this devotion and service, Vecna gave him a powerful sword in -1156 CY (Vecna had actually forged this sword in -1655 CY, almost 500 years prior, and had used it himself to slay the Elven High King at the end of the Four Hundred Year War). With the Sword of Kas in hand, none could stand against the evil warrior.

For a time, the darkness that shrouded Oerth grew even more terrible under the might of these two sinister beings. In time, however, Kas was tempted by the power of his Sword, and he turned on his master. After great battle in -1151 CY decimated the dark tower of Vecna, both combatants were destroyed. All that remained were the Sword of Kas and the Eye and Hand of Vecna.

As a creature of absolute darkness, Vecna became revered by those who would do evil. Over time, the worship and prayers of these people empowered the lingering remains of his spirit, and Vecna became a demigod. Even demigodhood, however, was not enough to satisfy the cravings of the Whispered One. Working through his avatars (material extensions/duplicates of a deity), Vecna sought to regain his empire and, using the power that would thus be his, elevate himself to the status of a greater god by wresting control of Oerth away from the other gods. Had he succeeded, all of Oerth would have been his to command, though it is doubtful that even this would have mollified the Maimed Lord.

Fortunately, Vecna’s bid to assume absolute power over Oerth failed. Further, his plans included a fatal flaw, resulting in his imprisonment in dreaded Ravenloft. The Mists, through the link forged between Vecna’s avatar and Vecna himself, claimed his fortress Citadel Cavitus from the Quasielemental Plane of Ash (a plane formed on the edges of the Elemental Plane of Fire and the Negative Energy Plane). In 581 CY, Vecna was imprisoned in Ravenloft. (One year later, the Greyhawk Wars raged, from 582-584 CY).

Vecna was wild with fury at his imprisonment, not only because he failed to understand why he could not simply break free of the accursed demiplane, but also because beyond Citadel Cavitus, beyond the Ashen Wastes and across the Burning Peaks lay the domain of Tovag, ruled by none other than the traitor Kas. When Vecna and Kas fought, Kas was not destroyed, but rather flung into the prison in Vecna's otherdimensional Citadel Cavitus. Centuries of exposure to the negative energies of the Citadel had taken their toll on Kas’s body, and he had become a vampire, his love of conquest and triumph twisted into a hunger for destruction and chaos. For one who desired only the accumulation of power and the acquisition of knowledge, Vecna’s impotence and confusion was as terrible fate as one could wish upon the Chained God.

In time, Vecna did find a way to break free from Ravenloft, and broke through into Sigil. He was soon ousted from there, and flung back to Oerth, where he managed to assume the role of God of Secrets & Intrigue. He still plots the destruction of all the other gods, so that he may take the world - and eventually all worlds - for himself.

The three D&D adventures that prominently feature Vecna are Vecna Lives! (Greyhawk), Vecna Reborn (Ravenloft), and Die, Vecna, Die! (Greyhawk/Ravenloft/Planescape).

The Head of Vecna

The Head of Vecna was a hoax that one adventuring party played on another in a campaign run by game master Mark Steuer. One of the groups tricked the other into going on a quest for the Head of Vecna, a hoax artifact that was supposedly similar to his Hand and Eye, but was simply an ordinary severed head. The hoax takes advantage of the fact that the Eye and Hand of Vecna require a person to remove their own eye or hand for the artifact to function. The characters involved in the story reasoned that they needed to decapitate themselves to gain the powers of the Head of Vecna, and several of the group actually fought to determine whose head should be cut off. After the third character died, the joke was revealed.

A full account of the story can be read at The Story of The Head of Vecna (http://www.hut.fi/~vesanto/link.fun/stupid.pcs.html).

Bizarrely enough, the Head of Vecna makes a canonical appearance in Die, Vecna, Die!. Morte Rictusgrin the floating skull makes reclutant references to it as a part of his backstory in Planescape: Torment, as well...

Trivia

The name Vecna is an anagram of Jack Vance's last name. Vance is a fantasy author whose "fire-and-forget" magic system is the inspiration for the system of "spell memorization" or "spell preparation" used in Dungeons & Dragons.