The Homeworld of Vecna
A Primer on The Whispered One for Fans of Stranger Things
by Audrey “NyaPlush” Preston
[Editor’s Note: We’d like to thank the NyaPlush for preparing this for us! The popularity of Stranger Things has brought a lot of attention (and nostalgia) to D&D. Witness the Stranger Things boxed set, and the sheer volume of articles and posts about the reveal of Vecna at the end of the most recent trailer.
Stranger Things
A fan fervor is building in the Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons communities. A trailer for Season 4 released by Netflix on Tuesday, April 12th teased the next main monster, this time named after Vecna, The Whispered One, dark god of secrets and one of Dungeons & Dragons most enduring villains! What could this new foe borne from the Upside Down have in store for The Party from Hawkins? If this Vecna retains the personality or power of his namesake, they’re in for a spine-chilling war of minds that crosses the planes of reality.
There are numerous Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings, though the cast of Stranger Things would only know its first published setting, Greyhawk. This is the game world created by D&D co-author Gary Gygax, who described a pair of artifacts known as the Hand and Eye of Vecna as the remnants of a long-destroyed undead mage of legend. The myth of the artifacts and the path of ruin they lead any user down was described in the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide, an essential book outlining the game’s rules and lore, and expanded upon in each subsequent edition.
Over time, Vecna’s birthplace would be described and the dates of his rise to power enumerated. Even in the most modern edition of Dungeons & Dragons, The Arch-Lich’s homeworld is a tangible and visitable place for player characters, existing in a distinct pocket of the multiverse from the current default setting. Vecna exists in settings like Forgotten Realms and many others but originates on the planet Oerth, the Earth of the Greyhawk setting. Magic is noticeably less abundant on Oerth than in other D&D settings and it carries much of the blood and grit of pulp fantasy fiction set in a world akin to the Middle Ages. It is here Vecna’s will was forged. His ambition crosses dimensions, eternally collecting evil secrets. With that in mind, here is the brief history of The Undying King within D&D’s most classic setting, Greyhawk.
Vecna, the Mage
Vecna and his mother, Mazzel, were born to the untouchable caste in the city of Fleeth on the planet Oerth long before the present-day of the Greyhawk setting. Lore conflicts as to whether he was human or half-elven, but what is certain is that he hungered for power from a young age and quickly rose to be one of the mightiest wizards of all time. Guided in his studies by Mok’slyk the Serpent, Vecna delved the darkest corners of the arcane – forbidden magics like necromancy, the raising and control of the dead. This otherworldly tutor has been theorized by some to be the very avatar of arcane magic. His mastery of the dark arts was so great he turned himself into a lich, an undying skeletal spellcaster created through a ritual involving acts of utter evil and the death of the caster itself. Lichdom enabled Vecna to forge an Empire of Undeath spanning centuries.
Vecna, the Tyrant
“By the dawn, the heads of citizens were stacked before the burghers. Their own wives and children stared at them foremost. This was the humor of Vecna, and as his final cruelty, he allowed these burghers to depart in peace and guaranteed their safety for the remainders of their sorrowful lives.”
– from The Chronicle of Secret Times by Uhas of Neheli, Adventure WGA4 Vecna Lives
Over the next thousand or so years Vecna would wage war across the central Flanaess region, raising the dead from atop his black tower to serve eternally in his undead army. At some point he laid siege to his birthplace, where he had the city’s ruling families slain and their heads displayed on the city gates to watch them as the citizens began their exodus from Fleeth. The attack was carried out by Vecna’s general, Kas, a human who yielded a jet-black sword containing a portion of Vecna’s dark magic. Black-hearted Kas would eventually be turned undead either by the power of the sword or that of the negative energy plane, a place not unlike the Upside Down, creating the first vampire in Oerth’s history.
Vecna, the God
Unchallenged and now unconcerned with the business of mortals, Vecna set his sights on Godhood. The millennium of conquest came to a climax in a ritual to supplant the gods. The exact order of events is uncertain, but what is known is that Vecna’s top general Kas betrayed him under the suggestion of the black sword. Vecna’s left eye and hand were severed and both villains were evaporated from the prime material plane of existence.
Officially published adventures would lean into this aspect of Vecna’s villainy, depicting him as a lurking threat to player characters whose cult would conspire to see them dead. These storylines are usually reserved for mature players with high-level characters. One such adventure guides the Dungeon Master to have their players assume the role of a group of politically important wizards central to Greyhawk, feeling their dread as they are slain one by one. Some like Vecna Reborn would take him out of Greyhawk and into the setting of the classic horror adventure Ravenloft. Another adventure, Die Vecna Die!, would forge a narrative link between the second and third editions of D&D. Changes to the rules, magic, and setting were framed as the consequence of his inter-dimensional interloping. This was then used as the narrative framework for Dungeons & Dragons to explore a setting that places more space between itself and medieval fantasy.
Vecna, the Maimed
Mortal worshippers of Vecna are careful to hide their tracks and cult cells rarely grow large. They work mainly through subterfuge, extending the idea that knowledge is power to secrets. Some seek to control the nobility through gradual corruption and blackmail. All seek the Hand and Eye of Vecna, terribly cursed remnants of Maimed Lord’s being that can be attached to a being missing an eye or hand. The artifacts grant great necromantic power while eroding the user’s integrity and sense of self until only the will of Vecna remains.
The Hand, The Eye, and Vecna can be found to exist in many worlds outside of Greyhawk. Vecna himself wanders the multiverse slowly collecting knowledge and power from his followers, awaiting the chance to rise again. Perhaps, in his journey across worlds, he found himself at odds with a group of meddling mortals from Hawkins, Indiana. And perhaps there he will meet his match.
Works Cited
- Gygax, Gary (August 1979). Dungeon Masters Guide 1st (TSR, Inc.), p.157 .
- Cordell , Bruce, Eytan Bernstein, and Brian R. James (January 2009). Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 204-213.
- Cook, David (January 1991). Vecna Lives!. Edited by Mike Breault. (TSR, Inc.), pp. 6–7
- Miller, Steve (June 2000). “The Secret Library of Vecna – Things You Weren’t Meant to See”. In Dave Gross ed. Dragon #272 (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 52–57.
- Weiss, Samuel D. and Sean K. Reynolds (October 2006). “Core Beliefs: Vecna”. In Erik Mona ed. Dragon #348 (Paizo Publishing, LLC), pp. 18–33.
- Cordell, Bruce, and Steve Miller. Die Vecna Die!. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2000. TSR11662
- Cook, Monte. Vecna Reborn. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 1998.
- Cook, David. Vecna Lives!. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1990.
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