Vecna (vek-nuh)
The Maimed Lord, The Lich-King, The Whispered One
Veccna, deity of secrets and necromancy, was once a mortal wizard who became a lich and then ascended to godhood. He usually appears as a lich who is missing his left hand and left eye. He lost his hand and eye in a fight during his bid to gain power and become a powerful god.
Seldom is the name of Vecna spoken except in a hushed voice. Vecna was, in his time, one of the mightiest of all wizards. Through dark magic and conquest, he forged a terrible empire and became the ruler of the Empire of Vaszkysa. But for all his power, Vecna couldn't escape his own mortality. He began to fear death and take steps to prevent his end from ever coming about.
Orcus, the demon prince of undeath, taught Vecna a ritual that would allow him to live on as a lich. Beyond death, he became the greatest of all liches. Even though his body gradually withered and decayed, Vecna continued to expand his evil dominion. So formidable and hideous was his temper that his subjects feared to speak his name. He was the Whispered One, the Maimed God, the Undying King, and the Lord of the Rotted Tower.
While he was an earthly, yet very powerful and immortal lich (he was once the god-emperor of Vaszkysa), he sought to ascend to godhood and become as powerful as Primus by draining the long inert essence of several of The Great Old Ones. Had his plan succeeded he would have unknowingly wiped out all of the Natural World (much to the delight of his demonic allies.) He did manage to destroy and absorb the essences of two gods of The Twelve: Mystraand Ketsimus to attain godhood. Vecna was met with defeat in a battle with Saint Cuthbert, where he lost his left hand and eye. He is now a lesser deity, the god of secrets, treachery, and necromancy. He was imprsoned on the plane of Nethermire by Primus and rules that which is not meant to be known and that which people wish to keep secret.
Divine Domains
Note: While classified as a minor diety (there are only four major deties, knows as the forces of creation; Naussica, Nocturna, Primus, and Silvanus, Vecna has access to two divine domains from which to draw power to give to his followers. It is presumed so because he assassinated two minor deties and abosrbed their divinty. While this was not enough to elevate him to the status of major deity (or force of creation), he does have the divine power to access two domains.
Artifacts
The Eye and Hand of Vecna-The Hand of Vecna is a withered, blackened, mummified human hand. It is usually described as a left hand, with long, claw-like nails. It is cold to the touch. The Eye of Vecna is a preserved human eye, variously encountered as a bloodshot human eye, or a hard, shrivelled red or black clump. When placed in an empty human eye socket, it becomes a golden eye with a slit pupil like that of a cat, and glows red or green in the darkness.
In his final battle with the gods of The Twelve, Vecna lost his hand and eye to the canonized once mortal, Saint Cuthbert. These now mummified body parts are said to possess a part of the evil, divine essence that is Vecna-former arch-lich, now minor god. His cultists seek the artifacts in an effort to gain more power to better rule through fear, and to better aid their dark god.
The left hand and eye of Vecna's original "mortal" lich form, which have never been replaced in his later more powerful incarnations, are now high-valued and very dangerous magical artifacts. To use the powers of the Hand of Vecna or the Eye of Vecna one is required to cut off one's own corresponding body part and affix Vecna's in its place. The new bearer of the Eye or Hand (or both) will gain access to powerful spell-like abilities, but the items will slowly corrupt them, turning them evil over time.
Holy Books & Codes
- The Book of Secrets:
A ledger where every Cult of Vecna cell keeps track of every known secret of people who live in that cell's territory. Whispers in the dark tell of an evil moot that happens on the night of the sixth day of the sixth month of every sixth year, where the leaders of each cell of a Vecna cult gather in a secret, unholy place. There they amalgate secrets from other spells books since the last gathering of cultists.
- The Book Of Vile Darkness:
The contents of this foul manuscript of ineffable wickedness are the meat and drink of those in evil’s thrall. It is bound in human flesh and inked in blood. No mortal was meant to know the secrets it contains, knowledge so horrid that to even glimpse the scrawled pages invites madness.
Most believe the lich-god Vecna authored the Book of Vile Darkness. He recorded in its pages every diseased idea, every unhinged thought, and every example of blackest magic he came across or devised. Vecna covered every vile topic he could, making the book a gruesome catalog of all mortal wrongs.
Other practitioners of evil have held the book and added their own input to its catalog of vile knowledge. Their additions are clear, for the writers of later works stitched whatever they were writing into the tome or, in some cases, made notations and additions to existing text. There are places where pages are missing, torn, or covered so completely with ink, blood, and scratches that the original text can’t be divined.
Legends and sages tells of some of the rumored content and evil, black secrets of the book. Whether or not these are some of the true contents remains to be confirmed, as most mortal minds are driven mad upon reading the vile pages. These rumored texts are:
- The Path To Lichdom- One of the key components of becoming a lich is summon the demon prince of the undead, Orcus, and make with him a pact. Servitude for the ingredients to brew the Elixir of Defiling. Vecna supposedly secreted away the ingredients and the formula for the elixir, as he did not like bargaining away his freedom and power to Orcus, much to the demon prince's chagrin. The Path also contains the instructions for the two rituals said to be necessary and performed correctly to conitune on the path to lichdom; The Ceremony of Evernight and The Ritual of Whithering.
- A comprehinsive encyclopedia of the devils and known demons that exist in the lower planes.How to summon each one and control or bargain with it in the Natural World.
- Other pages written about vile rituals involving human sacrifice, black sorcery, and horrid eldritch incantations.
- And finally, and possibly the most terrifying, the actual spell that imprisoned the Great Old Ones to a far corner of the Abyss and how to reverse it.
Nature can’t abide the book’s presence. Ordinary plants wither in its presence, animals are unwilling to approach it, and the book gradually destroys whatever it touches. Even stone cracks and turns to powder if the book rests on it long enough.
Divine Symbols & Sigils
Tenets of Faith
Divine Goals & Aspirations
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