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D&D Ideas — Vecna

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is Vecna, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of Vecna the artifacts associated with this D&D villain are perhaps more iconic than the archlich himself. And speaking of artifacts we’ve got several of our own sequestered within the Mage Forge. Unlock the secrets of the Mage Forge! Elevate your games with intriguing and engaging magic items from the most common to the mightiest artifacts! Preorder your collection of 250 magic items before it’s too late here! You can find a ton of creatures for your game in Nerdarchy the Website’s Monster Category. You can get Nerdarchy the Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Vecna is undoubtedly the most famous lich in D&D with roots all the way back in 1979’s Eldritch Wizardry. Three artifacts have been associated with Vecna since as long as I can remember — the Hand and Eye of Vecna and the Sword of Kas. Each one, all or any combination of the three could mark the culmination of a campaign. An interesting campaign might focus on a war between the wielders of the Hand, Eye and Sword.

Imagine a campaign where monarchies are torn apart by war between artifact wielders.

Those possessing the Hand and Eye want to get both of the artifacts of Vecna and at the same time they want to destroy the Sword of Kas. An extra element and twist for the campaign would be Vecna showing up as the final boss. The conflict between the artifact rivals and releasing of magical energies draws Vecna through time and space towards these powerful artifacts.

The Vecna Dossier offers up some interesting possibilities for a D&D campaign. If this is a campaign world without the god Vecna this would be a great way to introduce the deity into your world. The defeat of the almost mortal form of the archlich Vecna might draw the eye of the divine being that is Vecna.

Alternatively you could have the archlich Vecna appear in your world as the avatar of the god for clerics or any other characters with an interest in theology or connection to divine and otherworldly entities. This can be a physical manifestation with whom the characters can interact. A sorcerer might owe their Sorcerous Origin to Vecna. A Necromancer wizard could fit in with this group too. A College of Spirits bard might also have a connection to Vecna as well. Perhaps a Path of the Ancestral Guardian barbarian might owe their connection to the spirits of their ancestors.

Why would Vecna assemble such a group? Will they stay true to this being’s intentions or will they rebel against their former master? Has this group been assembled to face a threat even worse than the ancient archlich? After the greater threat is dealt with will Vecna turn on the team he assembled?

From Ted’s Head

Vecna is a villain who  should need no introduction. Vecna has been a part of the game for a long time. On our Monday Live Chat Nerditor Doug and I had a really great discussion about him and I really like some of the ideas. As a bit of a foundation, if you do not know enough about me, I have been gaming about 30 years. Three decades of regular play and yet neither as a player nor as a DM have I encountered or used Vecna. Talking about Vecna for an hour without it just being about the awesome items he is affiliated with meant I had to bust out my creativity.

I really enjoyed one of the ideas I came up with and I want to explore it more.

It is easy to take a powerful NPC and give it minions but it can be difficult to come up with an idea for high level campaigns. Here is the core concept for such an endeavor. Vecna has the ability to create undead, being a god of undeath and all. He has traveled the multiverse and time. What if Vecna’s power is actually derived from the worship and presence of undeath in the multiverse?

The campaign starts with the adventure to fight and kill Vecna. Once he is defeated the characters learn of Vecna’s powerbase in the multiverse. The goal is to travel to this other plane of existence and rid it of all of the undead. Here is the kicker — the entire plane of existence is devoid of life. The characters must rely on each other and their amazing high level abilities to secure land, destroy all the undead and begin purifying the plane. All of this before Vecna can return and fight them again or bring in more and more evil minions to set against them.

The characters would have to find unique situations. Can they find a way to hide themselves from the undead presence all around them? Is it via magic items or spells? Is it a spell or a ritual allowing them to purify the land? How do greater undead remain in their undead state? Do they summon creatures from other planes to feed on or do creatures like liches, dracoliches and vampires devolve into a wild state and become starved for the presence of life? Are there even greater states of undeath ruling this bleak land?

From the Nerditor’s Desk

The discussion between me and Nerdarchist Ted during our Live Chat about Vecna turned out much more fruitful than I anticipated. My experience with the iconic archlich spans the decades and editions of D&D while Ted came in knowing the basics. But over the course of the hour long conversation we hit upon two broad themes.

Looking at D&D through the lens of Vecna offers a couple of terrific perspectives on running high level adventures. Both the scale and scope of tier four activities expands far beyond what you’ll find in a stat block or within the borders of your imagination.

As regards the first point something I always aim to establish for any D&D discussion is the baseline. A lot of players looked over the stat block presented in the Vecna Dossier and felt it is underwhelming. The thing to remember is for every party of highly tuned precision adventurers there’s legions of characters whose players aren’t calculating the maximum damage potential and squeezing the most possible juice from the action economy. The latter are those for whom the design team creates material.

Does this mean a DM whose players strive for utmost power from their characters needs to do some extra work creating challenging encounters? Absolutely. That’s part of the fun though, right? Ted and I got a real kick out of coming up with additional features for Vecna’s stat block for greater challenge. I daresay it was the iconic archlich’s presence across all of D&D making it even easier for us to pitch some extremely powerful stuff.

When it comes to the second point we quickly determined all bets were off. At the capstone of their adventuring careers D&D characters are a far cry from rescuing kidnapped villagers and clearing out giant vermin in basements. Think about it. Even in the official published campaigns where characters throw down with Aspects of Tiamat, Dukes of Hell and the like they’re only around 13th level. Where do the threats go from there?!

Vecna’s status is a creature beyond both time and space. The most powerful liches can only hope to achieve a portion of Vecna’s power (dude doesn’t even need a phylactery!). Taking a cue from the Marvel Cinematic Universe these tier four adventures ought to be dealing with threats to the entire multiverse, all of existence or life on an unfathomable scale. Ted gets into this more in his editorial but I want to highlight a concept I proposed during the chat.

In Marvel comics the time traveling supervillain Kang devised a Council of Kangs dedicated to eliminating all divergent Kangs in the Multiverse. What if Vecna did the same in your multiverse? If you don’t fancy modifying the stat block just use multiple Vecnas for your climactic battle. You could start throwing Vecna at the adventurers and after a few encounters they may begin to suspect it’s not even the same Vecna confronting them each time. Where does this Council of Vecnas convene? Does the adventuring party have the chutzpah to travel there and put a stop to their plans? How will they accomplish such a deed?

*Featured image — Bear witness to the archlich Vecna’s necromantic magic with the Vecna Dossier available at no cost with your D&D Beyond account. Learn more about it here. [Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

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