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1: The Arch Lich and Outdated Memes · Dungeonpedia

0:00
SPEAKER_00: You the adventurer?
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Do you desire knowledge of immense worlds and arcane power?
0:07
SPEAKER_00: A codex of untold stories and lore?
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps simply easy listening for your daily commute?
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Then feast your eyes, or more accurately, yes, upon Dungeon Pedia.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Shit's about to get nerdy in here.
0:47
SPEAKER_03: Taylor Stanfield.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: And I'm Travis Peasley.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: Each week we'll take a piece of lore from Dungeons and Dragons and discuss it.
0:52
SPEAKER_03: From mimics to gods, specialized classes, and even dragons.
0:55
SPEAKER_03: We'll talk about lore from the entire history of DD across all editions.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: So before we jump straight into it, I think it should be important to note that we all actually do play Dungeons and Dragons.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: We're major nerds.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: We are major nerds, and we have been running the same campaign for almost two years now.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: So we are actually very into what we're doing.
1:17
SPEAKER_04: That said, we are all relatively new to the world of DD.
1:21
SPEAKER_04: So we have been pouring into the lore of past editions and current to try and absorb as much information as possible because it's just such a big history to go through and pour through.
1:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it uh, you know, with all the different editions, there's a lot of like, oh, this older edition had this rule, or you know, these changes that were made.
1:43
SPEAKER_03: So like even the same like topics, there's still like a lot of a lot of variation in in what you can find, I feel like.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just the little bit that I have sifted through for this episode, I've noticed there's just so much difference between like first edition to 5e now that it's insane how much they can change.
2:04
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: I just it's incredible.
2:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and I feel like before like we first started playing DD, because we also played DD um in a campaign that another friend of ours uh DMs, like before I started doing that, I felt like it was something that from listening to various other DD media and like knowing some stuff about it, because it's the quintessential like nerd nerd, like super nerdy thing you can do.
2:28
SPEAKER_03: Um, like it was something I was always interested in, but it felt like there was so much, so many rules and so much lore and so many different like opportunities you had that like I felt like there was too much information for me to like really it was overwhelming.
2:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, to like really get into it beyond the fact that also like I would have to have friends who could all like get together at a specific time.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: That's part of it too.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: That's actually probably the biggest issue that I'm sure a lot of people have is trying to get this group of people to meet for extended periods of time to do this one thing.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, on a somewhat regular side.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: So I'm sure you're not the only one that has felt that way.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: Um I know I'm not.
3:06
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like the number one thing I've ever heard is like Dungeons and Dragons is an un unrealistic, the unrealistic part is getting everyone together to play Dungeons and Dragons.
3:15
SPEAKER_03: Forget like wizards and magic and dragons and stuff.
3:17
SPEAKER_03: It's just like having compatible schedules.
3:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, having compatible schedules with your well, I say adult friends, but you know.
3:23
SPEAKER_03: Any friends really.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: Any friends, really.
3:25
SPEAKER_04: But being adults makes it a little bit harder because work and yeah, most of the time kids have a set schedule with some variation.
3:33
SPEAKER_03: Like they could play on weekends maybe, but you know instead we have to work and try to plan it around that.
3:39
SPEAKER_04: But it has become kind of a sorry, still recovering from a cold.
3:45
SPEAKER_04: It has become kind of a big fun thing to just open up a book of an older edition and just like look at all the old lore and hunt for something exciting.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: It really has.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have come across four different like older PDF files that I was able to get a hold of to look through.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: It's I it's crazy.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand half the stuff going on in like the older editions because we're used to 5e and Pathfinder, but there's so much.
4:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, them good will find.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: It's it's just so incredibly overwhelming sometimes, but which is why we decided to make a podcast about it.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of people probably don't spend the time to sit there and go back into the older editions and just research some of this stuff, and I find that kind of interesting.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean so if someone doesn't want to do that, they can listen to this and get a little bit of information.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean, clearly we're not going to cover everything there is to know about Yeah, this isn't completely comprehensive.
4:47
SPEAKER_04: But maybe you'll just listen to it and find something entertaining or just something really cool you'd never heard about in a previous edition, or even 5e.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so every week one of us will be doing the research.
5:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh one of the other ones will have a little bit of information about it more than likely, and then the other one we're gonna keep in the dark completely, provided that they are don't already know about it.
5:09
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
5:09
SPEAKER_04: This week Lewin is our audience dummy.
5:11
SPEAKER_04: Yay!
5:12
SPEAKER_02: Yep, she knows nothing about what we're gonna talk about today.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh Taylor does know a little bit about it.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: I have sent her some of the information to keep her a little bit up informed and she could form some of her own inquiries and stuff about it.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: And I have most of the information because this particular subject intrigued me way too much when we were discussing the idea of the podcast.
5:34
SPEAKER_04: Travis has been looking at notes on this per this particular subject for I want to say three weeks now.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
5:42
SPEAKER_04: About three weeks.
5:44
SPEAKER_04: It it's just it's impressive.
5:46
SPEAKER_04: I feel like every time I've talked to him over the past few weeks, it's been, did you know that this?
5:52
SPEAKER_02: I might have gone a little crazy with it.
5:55
SPEAKER_04: It's just very exciting.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: It is.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh, given that, do we just kind of want to delve into it and see what we're talking about this week?
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Let's go ahead and get started.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: All right.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: So, for the first time ever, our first thing that we're gonna talk about is Vecna.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: Most people might have heard the name Vecna, some might not have.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: I before before we originally talked about this idea, like, even just for like we should do a podcast about Dungeons and Dragons, I had not heard I had not even heard the name Vecna.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: I know very I know like one or two things, but I had not until like three weeks ago even heard the name Vecna.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: So And that's a good thing, because good God does this person have a history.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, first off, he was originally from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: That was one of the earliest campaign settings written.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: I believe it was either first or early second edition that he was first written about.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: So we're going back quite a bit here.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: Um the 70s or the 80s.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh actually, I believe he was first mentioned in one of the Dungeon Master's Guide from 1979.
7:06
SPEAKER_04: Oh my gosh.
7:07
SPEAKER_02: Is when he was written about, as far as like in a Dungeon Master's Guide.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: He has had four campaign settings.
7:14
SPEAKER_02: I've got that a little further in the notes, I'm sure I'll get to it, but he's had several campaign settings written strictly about him.
7:20
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh he is now a god, but was not when we first started back when he first started.
7:28
SPEAKER_04: Uh so we talk in a zero to hero story here, or uh No, yeah, kind of as well, I wouldn't say zero to hero.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: So more zero to villain?
7:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so to give you a little uh demonstration of that, the domains that he is over are evil, knowledge, and magic.
7:51
SPEAKER_03: I mean, those sound pretty cool and good though.
7:54
SPEAKER_04: Like, not good, but I would say evil is diametrically opposed to good.
7:59
SPEAKER_04: Okay, but like cool.
8:00
SPEAKER_04: Yes, cool.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting for sure.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: Um he has several titles.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna go through all of them because there are quite a few.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: Oh uh one of them is the whispered one.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: Oh the dying king.
8:14
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's not very good.
8:15
SPEAKER_03: The archlich.
8:16
SPEAKER_03: That's very good.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: That's actually really cool.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: I I personally am a fan of the archlich.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: That one was.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: I would like to be called that.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: If I was litch?
8:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, if I was like a Dungeons and Dragons like staple character, I would like to be called the Archlitch.
8:30
SPEAKER_03: If I ever add you into the campaign, I'll I'll make you an Archlitch.
8:34
SPEAKER_03: Please don't do that, actually.
8:35
SPEAKER_04: That would be you don't want to fight yourself?
8:37
SPEAKER_03: No, I do want to fight myself, but it would just also make me uncomfortable.
8:41
SPEAKER_03: Maybe.
8:42
SPEAKER_03: Um No, it would definitely make me uncomfortable.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, then wouldn't that give me more reason to do it?
8:47
SPEAKER_03: That's fair.
8:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so you're just I don't appreciate that attitude, but that's giving me ammo here.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: Like.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: So, Vecna, we'll talk about his depiction in the current state.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: He is usually depicted as like a powerful wizard or a magician.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm assuming probably like dark black tattered robes.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't necessarily specific.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Um, but he also resembles that desiccated corpse.
9:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was gonna say the lich, the lich thing and the dying thing, he might look a little a little rotted.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh he is always depicted as missing his left eye and his left hand, and there's a very interesting story as to the reason for that.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: I've got that locked down, because it's insane.
9:32
SPEAKER_03: Locked down?
9:33
SPEAKER_03: Like locked down as in you're not gonna tell me, or like locked down, like lockdown is on lockdown.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: I've got it on lockdown, I've got it in my notes.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm definitely gonna cover it because damn.
9:43
SPEAKER_04: And also locked down, as then he's not gonna tell you until he wants to tell you.
9:47
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh he is also considered the god of evil secrets.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
9:52
SPEAKER_04: That's intriguing.
9:53
SPEAKER_04: That's that's specifically evil secrets.
9:56
SPEAKER_03: Not not good secrets.
9:58
SPEAKER_04: Or neutral secrets.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: What's a neutral secret?
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Because like it's a secret that's neither harmful nor helpful.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: Helpful?
10:06
SPEAKER_03: But are there any secrets that are like that?
10:08
SPEAKER_03: Because I feel like in it, you know, in the essence of keeping it a secret, you keep it a secret because it would be helpful or harmful.
10:15
SPEAKER_03: So are there really any neutral secrets?
10:17
SPEAKER_03: You know, that's fair.
10:18
SPEAKER_03: I never actually thought about that.
10:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because it's either like, oh, don't tell my friend that I hate her haircut, which is evil.
10:26
SPEAKER_03: That's not about you, Taylor, or you, Travis, because you just got your haircut.
10:29
SPEAKER_03: Um, but then there's also like, oh, we don't need our enemy getting this like military intelligence because it would be helpful to them.
10:37
SPEAKER_03: Are there any neutral secrets?
10:39
SPEAKER_03: Discuss.
10:41
SPEAKER_03: Or maybe we can just go back to discussing fact.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: No, you're you're right.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: That might be a discussion for later.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: Maybe off the podcast.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: That's for our other that's for our other philosophy podcast that doesn't exist.
10:54
SPEAKER_03: That we don't have because we don't we we don't know enough about philosophy.
10:59
SPEAKER_04: This person is not smart.
11:01
SPEAKER_04: Right.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: So, uh back to Vecna.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: Back to Vecna, sorry.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh his home is of the primal plane.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: Huh.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: And he was originally written in a campaign setting that it takes place in the world of, and I'm still not sure how exactly this is supposed to be pronounced.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: It's either straight up Earth or OEarth, or maybe Oarth, because it's O-E-R-T-H.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure which way they were going for the pronunciation there.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: But this world was meant to be a resemblance of actual Earth, like our Earth.
11:37
SPEAKER_03: Just in the fantasy, I guess to keep it grounded kind of with the fact that it's like, oh, it's like Earth, but there's elves and dragons and magic and probably some geographical differences, but it's still similar enough.
11:50
SPEAKER_04: So kind of like how most early fantasy tends to do it.
11:54
SPEAKER_04: It's Earth, but a little different.
11:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:56
SPEAKER_03: It's like there's still the same sort of biomes and things that you would find.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: And again, it was kind of the one of the first campaign settings.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: I think it was only bypassed by one setting that was released prior to it.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: So this is like the second campaign setting that was ever written for DD.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: Dang.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: And that's old fucker.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so he I'm fairly certain Gary Gygax had a hand in writing it as well.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: I I'm not positive on that because I didn't write that down.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Gary Gygax.
12:23
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
12:23
SPEAKER_03: But but that's like directly really from the uh the source.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: The source.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: Um now, whenever he was first mentioned in the Dungeon Masters Guide from 1979, he was only regarded as a long-destroyed legendary lich.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Like there was no like further explanation as to why or how or where he came from.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: That was introduced later on, I think, when either someone said, Hey, I want more information on this guy, or someone was just like, Yeah, I'm gonna write what happened to this guy and make it a canon thing.
12:54
SPEAKER_04: So he was initially kind of like a throw-off character, like a just a little bit.
12:58
SPEAKER_02: He was kind of just like written, probably for DMs to be like, you know what, that sounds like an interesting thing to go off of, uh old legendary lich.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: Sure, I'll make a campaign from that.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: That sounds like very much like what would be not to I mean not to knock him, but like, you know, evil Lich King is very much it very much feels like campaign final boss.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, exactly.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's kind of what he's supposed to be, is like a final boss, because he has tried to destroy the world more than once.
13:27
SPEAKER_04: So there might have been a lot of DMs that were really mad when an actual canonical history came out for this guy.
13:34
SPEAKER_04: It's possible.
13:35
SPEAKER_04: Like they may have like poured their heart and soul into coming up with something about this guy, and then oh, this is what actually happened.
13:43
unknown: Fuck.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: And then suddenly their stuff isn't actually true because it's there's an actual canon thing.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: That being said, I'm not gonna sit here and say the DM stuff is not true because it's whatever the hell you want it to be.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: I have made up so much crap from our campaign.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: We don't follow hardly anything at this point.
14:02
SPEAKER_03: It's almost like it's a bunch of friends getting together and like playing make-believe.
14:06
SPEAKER_03: So, like, I mean, yeah, you know.
14:08
SPEAKER_03: Kinda.
14:09
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, DMs are there are no rules, except for there are some rules.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: Now, uh, the only way he was threatening at the beginning was through his left eye and his left hand, because those are actually artifacts that were left behind by him.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: Not purposely.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: Again, a little bit more later.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: Let's go into his early life first.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: Let's build this up a little bit.
14:30
SPEAKER_03: No, let's talk about that left eye and that left arm, Travis.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: Nope, we are building this up to get to that.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: So he was born a human, and he was born as a member of this untouchable cast in the the city of Fleeth.
14:45
SPEAKER_04: Untouchable as in good or bad?
14:48
SPEAKER_02: Like, kind of untouchable in the sense that no one could really like persecute these people.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: They were a little like outside of society?
14:59
SPEAKER_02: Kind of.
14:59
SPEAKER_03: Like they were off doing their own thing.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: They lived in the city of Fleeth and everything, but they were kind of like of their own accord where no one really messed with them.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: They were untouchable, maybe they were money, it didn't necessarily say.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Given what I know, I'm gonna say it was probably because they had money at first.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: Like this whole cast that he was born into had money.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: And so he was untouchable in that sense.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, stuff like that ends at some point.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: So uh the story about how he became what he is, he was trained by his mom, uh, by the name of Mazel in the Arts of Magic.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one day the princess of Fleith became ill and went to her for medicine to help get rid of whatever sickness was ailing her.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's not said whether this was intentional or not, but whatever Mazel gave her wound up killing her.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: Whether it was that that killed her, the sickness that killed her, or Mazel purposely did that for her own gain, who knows?
16:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh, she was then tragically executed by the government of Fleeth.
16:13
SPEAKER_04: Oh.
16:13
SPEAKER_04: So, regardless of whether or not there was intent, they decided that it doesn't matter.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: It didn't matter.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: The princess was dead because this was the last person that gave her something and interacted with her, so clearly it was her fault.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh the way she was executed was for practicing witchcraft, because apparently that was illegal at that point, even though I'm sure they had been doing it for a while.
16:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
16:36
SPEAKER_04: It was one of those things where they like turned a blind eye, but now they suddenly had a reason.
16:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, until it was convenient.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: She was taken to the town square and burned.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: Oh, as witches are.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: As witches are.
16:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, after this, Vecna vowed his revenge on the government officials and the whole city of Fleith.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: And he wound up fleeing the town before anyone decided to come after him.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: Little is known about like what exactly happened in between like when he left to when he resurfaced, because there are no witnesses.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: There was he didn't sit there and write about his probably kept to himself.
17:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:19
SPEAKER_03: Did it give any information like how old he was when that happened?
17:22
SPEAKER_04: It did not.
17:23
SPEAKER_04: Um My guess would be like early teens at the early like teens at the earliest.
17:29
SPEAKER_02: I would probably honestly say maybe like early teens, late teens at the latest.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: Like kind of young adult.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: Because like at this point, he had been trained by his mom for quite a while.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: And was probably fairly adept at magic.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
17:42
SPEAKER_03: But he wasn't, you know, the master.
17:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:46
SPEAKER_02: At some point, I don't know if this was something that Vecna started and said himself, or this was something that people just kind of assumed.
17:55
SPEAKER_02: But he became one of the most powerful wizards ever, and it was said because he was directly taught by Moxlick the serpent.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: Uh Moxlick was believed to be the straight personification of arcane magic itself.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: Being taught by the personification of arcane magic was probably pretty helpful.
18:17
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
18:18
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
18:19
SPEAKER_04: Maybe.
18:19
SPEAKER_04: You you learn some shit uh talking to the personification of arcane magic.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just you know, that's probably the best way to learn.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: Probably.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: I would say.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: Sometime during like all of his studies, he wound up becoming one of the most powerful liches.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Like he ditched his mortal body at some point, or at least his physical body, and became a lich.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: And he's kind of noted as one of the first liches ever.
18:48
SPEAKER_03: Huh.
18:49
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: So whatever he managed to do worked.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm just imagining this is like a uh like there's a Wikipedia article about him, and it's like, you know, uh early life, uh uh fleeing the city of Fleeth, and then under that is like, you know, learning learn magic tutelage, and then under that is like litification.
19:11
SPEAKER_03: Right.
19:12
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, whoa.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: Mile I guess is they probably intentionally left his whole like in-between of how he became it to like maybe DM's discretion.
19:23
SPEAKER_02: They could make their own story as to what he went through to become it.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: That would be a pretty cool thing to do, because then the DMs could literally be like, Nope, this is what he did in my campaign.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: This is how he became a Lich.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: The most powerful Lich ever.
19:38
SPEAKER_04: This explains like the history behind the setting that this campaign is in.
19:42
SPEAKER_04: Like he could influence other things within the setting.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: And he also wound up becoming the I almost said lieutenant.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: It's not lieutenant.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: He actually became the ruler of his own city?
19:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh well, Empire, actually.
19:57
SPEAKER_04: Oh.
19:58
SPEAKER_04: That's a lot more impressive.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was thinking like city-state kind of setup, but I didn't look up any more information about this because I figured that would put me down a whole new rabbit hole that I didn't want to go down.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: But the Empire was in was known as the Sheldomore Valley.
20:13
unknown: Hmm.
20:13
SPEAKER_04: Sheldomore actually sounds familiar to me, but it might just be in that sense that like almost every fantasy name at this point is starting to get a little bit.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that could be.
20:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh he managed over time to amass an army, naturally.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: As you do.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: And the army was mostly consistent of undead and war wizards.
20:32
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that makes sense.
20:34
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it makes sense for him, but also that's bad.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: Uh very bad.
20:39
SPEAKER_04: I think you mean great.
20:41
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: I want an army of undead soldiers and war wizards.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: That's the last thing you need is an army of undead.
20:48
SPEAKER_03: I didn't say need, I said want.
20:50
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's the last thing you need anyway.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: So, and the this this next little bit is what gets me, because this is probably like the peak of his evilness.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: Evilness?
21:04
SPEAKER_02: So, because he became a Lich, he wasn't tied to his mortal bounds of aging.
21:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:10
SPEAKER_02: So, and I'm sure that Lou's gonna love this.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh, he finally decided to lay siege against Fleith.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh, finally, took him long enough.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: A thousand years after the events that happened.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: Took you long enough.
21:25
SPEAKER_04: So, so right.
21:27
SPEAKER_04: Let me get this straight.
21:28
SPEAKER_04: There's so many generations.
21:32
SPEAKER_04: I don't even know.
21:32
SPEAKER_04: I can't even count how many generations are removed between a thousand years since his mother was killed by the city.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh fantasy like ages, probably maybe about ten to fifteen.
21:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, ten to fifteen, because it's like, you know, a hundred years is kind of.
21:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, roughly.
21:54
SPEAKER_04: So a hundred gener a hundred years.
21:58
SPEAKER_04: Whoa.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: Whoa, no, not a hundred years.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Years.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Fuck.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: That would be ridiculous, though.
22:02
SPEAKER_04: Ten generations.
22:04
SPEAKER_04: Ten generations.
22:04
SPEAKER_04: Completely different people.
22:06
SPEAKER_04: Completely different people.
22:07
SPEAKER_04: Probably have no clue, even their great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather that did that.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
22:15
SPEAKER_02: Like these people probably had no idea and not even anything to do with it.
22:21
SPEAKER_04: The purest, simplest definition of the word an innocent.
22:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because they would have had they had no knowledge of it.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: Is it sort of like don't get me wrong, like what happened to him and his mother was like absolutely very tragic, you know, the fact that they just decided that she obviously had to have been responsible for that, so they just executed her.
22:49
SPEAKER_03: Right.
22:49
SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure this wasn't necessarily expanded on, but probably without like a fair, a fair chance.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: Right.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: You know.
22:57
SPEAKER_02: They basically hunted her down as soon as that there was no trial.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: It actually did say that they drug her to the town square and executed her.
23:05
SPEAKER_03: You know, like that's obviously really tragic, but sometimes like at a certain point you've got to wonder how much realistically someone at that point would be motivated by like their emotions and like the terrible things that happened to them, and how much of it is just kind of like them sort of wanting to exert their own like power and their own forces.
23:25
SPEAKER_03: Because obviously there would be no reason, like you know, it's not revenge at that point a thousand years later.
23:31
SPEAKER_03: It's a combination of power grab and bloodlust at that point.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and there was no mention of his father anywhere in the lore that I could find.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's dead beat.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: It's also probably having to deal with the fact that he was probably very close to his mother since I guess his father wasn't in the picture.
23:49
SPEAKER_04: Dead beat.
23:50
SPEAKER_04: Who knows if that means his dad died, his dad wasn't even known.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: But still, a thousand years later, these people had nothing to do with it, and he was like, Nope, this is the time to do it.
24:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:01
SPEAKER_03: So now, well, I mean, it would be the time to do it if it's like then you have an army.
24:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: And he had one, a very powerful one.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, shit.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: So he attacks it, he's this great powerful lich.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: Um, he does slightly underestimate them just a little bit.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh boy.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, in the battle, and I don't even know how long the battle lasted, um, he was almost destroyed by the city's clerics because they all got together and started channeling the power of Fultus, the god of light.
24:34
SPEAKER_02: They released like this huge burst of light onto him and hid Vecna and almost killed him.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: He was rescued by one of his generals, one of the wizards, uh, name of Asarak.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: That's no, but that does that actually sound really familiar to me, and not just in the way that generic fantasy names sound.
24:56
SPEAKER_03: Like, I feel like I've heard that name.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, again, I decided not to delve too far into who that was because I would go down a whole other rabbit hole and just way too much information.
25:06
SPEAKER_03: This person now.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: Um, he did eventually recover.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm assuming being a powerful itch, it probably didn't take him long.
25:13
SPEAKER_02: Probably.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: Probably.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: So he recovered and continued to lay like siege to this freaking city, just demolishing it as if he can.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: And so eventually, the officials of the city came before him to beg for mercy.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: Because they didn't know what was going on, they just knew that they were being attacked, and they wanted it to stop.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: Right.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: Naturally.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, who wouldn't?
25:40
SPEAKER_02: So they offered up the entire city, whatever riches were left in it, as long as Vecna would like spare the citizens of this town or city or whatever it was considered at this point.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: City state, yeah, city state, what have you.
25:54
SPEAKER_02: Vecna pretty much unamused and was very unsatisfied with this.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: And he's told them that he would see their heads stacked before him.
26:07
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's very threatening.
26:09
SPEAKER_03: I like that.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so hearing this, the officials were like, mmm, okay.
26:14
SPEAKER_02: How about this?
26:14
SPEAKER_02: We'll give you the city, we'll give you its riches, and we'll give you our lives if you spare the rest of the citizens of our city.
26:24
SPEAKER_04: That's an impressive uh like that's impressive trophy.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like they they were so willing to give their lives just to save their these innocent citizens.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: And Fecno was a little amused by this.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: Right.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: So he said, Alright, um, he took one of the members of the council or the officials by the name of Goodman Artal and his entire family, including his kids, and gave them to his closest lieutenant by the name of Cass the Bloody Handed.
26:58
SPEAKER_04: Oh nice name.
27:00
SPEAKER_04: Yes, this sounds like the kind of guy you want to marry your daughter.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: Right?
27:05
SPEAKER_02: Gives a great, like, yeah picture in your mind.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: So Cass took them, spent the entire day torturing and killing this family in front of the other council members.
27:18
SPEAKER_03: Oh boy.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: So, like, not only did they know that one of theirs was gonna die, they got to watch it.
27:25
SPEAKER_03: Very painfully drawn out.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: Holy crap.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, important to note for Cass the Bloody Handed, he was actually the closest friend of Vecna.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh Vecna.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: And Vecna actually made the sword for him.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was a plain-looking sword, but the sword could like bite into any metal.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: It never doled.
27:52
SPEAKER_02: It was like one of the most powerful things that like Vecna ever made other than himself.
27:58
SPEAKER_03: That reminds me of that meme where like the the one person is like prostrating themselves in front of the demon lord, like holding up the screen.
28:05
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
28:06
SPEAKER_03: This was this was recorded in February 2019.
28:08
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know if this meme is gonna still be relevant when you're listening.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: That meme is not even relevant now.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: No, it's good.
28:15
SPEAKER_04: I like it.
28:17
SPEAKER_04: It's a good meme.
28:18
SPEAKER_04: It's a good meme.
28:19
SPEAKER_04: It's just not relevant.
28:20
SPEAKER_03: I think it's still pretty relevant.
28:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
28:22
SPEAKER_03: No, okay.
28:23
SPEAKER_03: I think I see a lot of people like who I see a lot of like of that meme that's like related to DD.
28:31
SPEAKER_03: Because I think it appeals to D people more because it's like sword, big giant demon guy.
28:38
SPEAKER_03: Anyway.
28:38
SPEAKER_03: I could see.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: Well we can get back on topic while Taylor and Travis stop criticizing my memes.
28:44
SPEAKER_03: I didn't criticize.
28:45
SPEAKER_02: So I can only assume that this torturing session probably included the sword of s like some degree, right?
28:54
SPEAKER_02: Probably, yeah.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it would have it would have probably like a good sword.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: Sounds like a good sword.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: So once this was done, the remaining council members pleaded and was like, okay, you got him, we don't want to be a part of this.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Let us take our leave.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: You agreed to that.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: And Vecna kind of turned to all of his barons at the time and asked them what he should do.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: Like he was like, should I accept uh their plea?
29:21
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, or all the barons agreed.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: They were like, Yeah, you know what?
29:25
SPEAKER_02: You did that.
29:26
SPEAKER_02: You should accept their terms and take the city and be done.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: What happens next may surprise you.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it'll surprise me though.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: Probably not at all.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: Vecna ignored them.
29:34
SPEAKER_03: Yep, yep.
29:35
SPEAKER_03: Completely.
29:35
SPEAKER_03: Good thought.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh he sent his army back to Fleeth and started attacking the walls again.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: And the this particular assault lasted for about five hours.
29:45
SPEAKER_03: Oh god.
29:46
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I don't know why my reaction to that was.
29:49
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I feel like that's very long or very short.
29:51
SPEAKER_03: It's probably very short.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: I would say it's very short.
29:53
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, five hours is pretty short.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I'm assuming Vecna got tired of it because after about the five-hour mark, he kind of went up to the wall and just waved his hand and destroyed it.
30:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: Like he just waved his hand and the wall fell.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: Why do you even have an army at that point?
30:09
SPEAKER_02: You don't need one.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: To show power?
30:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, that's I mean, that's true, but.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: This dude is obviously a show-off of some sort, right?
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I would say.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: So he destroys it, his army floods into the town, kills everyone.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: I should do.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh by the dawn of the next day, the heads of all the citizens were stacked before this council.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
30:36
SPEAKER_02: With the council's family members at the foremost staring at them.
30:41
SPEAKER_03: Oh boy.
30:42
SPEAKER_03: That's sick.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: Wives, children of these council members just all up front so they could see prominently that that was their family.
30:52
SPEAKER_04: Damn.
30:53
SPEAKER_04: This guy is well, crazy, but Yeah.
30:57
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he's twisted.
30:59
SPEAKER_04: He is very twisted.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: It's just one thing to just like rush in and just kill everybody, but and you know, while that was twisted, I feel like this might be one of the worst parts.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: Oh no.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: After this happened, as his final act of cruelty, he looked at the remaining council members and went, okay, you can leave.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh and he promised his protection for the rest of their lives.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: So they had to live with that.
31:24
SPEAKER_02: With all of this that happened.
31:27
SPEAKER_04: And I guarantee you that means like, oh, you're gonna go try and uh end your suffering.
31:32
SPEAKER_04: Nope, I'm here to save you.
31:34
SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:35
SPEAKER_03: Shit.
31:36
SPEAKER_04: Uh oh, buddy, there's a little bit of poison on that drink.
31:40
SPEAKER_04: Let me uh slip you the same.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Here's the antidote here.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Let me shove the antidote in your mouth.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, being a powerful lich, you could probably keep track of them with like a scrying spell or something without a freaking problem.
31:51
SPEAKER_03: Well, still, it's kind of like, you know.
31:54
SPEAKER_04: He's definitely torturing them for his own amusement as well.
31:58
SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, not only like he's not only delving into physical torture, he's delving into like emotional mental emotional.
32:05
SPEAKER_02: Emotional, mental, like that probably screwed them up at that point.
32:09
SPEAKER_04: He probably kept them as long alive as long as humanly possible.
32:13
SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
32:14
SPEAKER_03: Oh, you get you've got the the fantasy clap.
32:17
SPEAKER_03: Well, I'll just heal it.
32:18
SPEAKER_03: Heal it.
32:20
SPEAKER_02: Damn.
32:20
SPEAKER_03: I learned healing magic for a reason.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: Bam.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: So this marked the end of his revenge because he destroyed the city, killed everybody in it.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: So I mentioned that he was a god at the beginning of the instant.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: So what happened to him next was pretty intense as well.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: Uh during his reign, he was virtually untouchable.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: It didn't specify how long his reign was.
32:46
SPEAKER_02: That was gonna be my next question.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it didn't specify how long he actually wound up reigning.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: Again, maybe that was up to DM discretion, or maybe that was just a piece that I just couldn't find.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Because this is some old lore.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: Finding it on the internet is a little difficult.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: I don't have all the physical books, I don't have the money to buy them, so I went with what I could dig up from the internet.
33:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
33:08
SPEAKER_04: And he's a live, so it could be six years like a normal reign.
33:13
SPEAKER_04: It could be six hundred years, we don't know.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he had and he had already been active for like a thousand years.
33:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: And at some point, uh Cass wound up becoming a vampire during his reign as well.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, I that's not terribly relevant, but just to show that you had a lich ruler and the closest lieutenant was a fucking vampire.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what kind of hell did the did this like rain down upon everybody that tried to oppose him or that just lived?
33:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, who knows?
33:47
SPEAKER_04: But it sounds like a young adult fiction uh just waiting to happen.
33:52
SPEAKER_04: The Lich and the vampire fall in love.
33:54
SPEAKER_03: The Lich King and the Oh my god, the Lich King and the Vampire.
33:56
SPEAKER_02: Spoiler alert, they don't fall in love.
33:58
SPEAKER_03: Oh, dang it.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: And Taylor, this part is gonna appease to you a little bit more.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: I didn't give you this information.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh no boy.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: So unknown to Vecna, the sword that he created was sentient.
34:13
SPEAKER_04: Oh my god, that's great.
34:15
SPEAKER_04: Wait, how okay.
34:16
SPEAKER_04: How does he not know that the sword he created is sentient?
34:20
SPEAKER_02: How does that happen?
34:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: I I'm assuming he never tried to talk to it.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: He probably made it and s just presented it to Cass and was like, here, I made this for you.
34:31
SPEAKER_04: All of the meat.
34:31
SPEAKER_04: That's awesome.
34:32
SPEAKER_04: Um yes, it does appeal to me.
34:35
SPEAKER_04: Uh to those listening at home.
34:38
SPEAKER_04: Uh, the uh reason that appeals to me very much is because Travis made a sword in our campaign that uh that my character has found that is also sentient and also an asshole.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Well, see I love him.
34:54
SPEAKER_03: For that reason, though, I was not necessarily sure if that would actually appeal to you or if it would like really, really turn you off.
35:01
SPEAKER_04: That sounds like a way to put that, but well, talking swords are not in my list of turn-ons, but that's besides the point.
35:09
SPEAKER_04: But um yeah, a fucking talking sword is um pretty good.
35:14
SPEAKER_04: Pretty impressive.
35:16
SPEAKER_04: Cool.
35:16
SPEAKER_04: And what'd he do with it?
35:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, see, the sword actually had a great name.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: It was the sword of cass.
35:22
SPEAKER_04: Oh that's not a great name.
35:25
SPEAKER_03: I know I feel like he like had his own name that like was his, like that but that was lost to the annals of history because no one gave a shit.
35:33
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I like that.
35:34
SPEAKER_03: About the the poor sword guy.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: People just kind of the sword of cass, because that's who owned it.
35:41
SPEAKER_03: He's like, well, actually, my name is Tom, but okay.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: Okay, whatever.
35:45
SPEAKER_03: I guess it doesn't matter.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm just a sword.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: Just a sword.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: I just kill people.
35:49
SPEAKER_04: I'm just Tom, whatever.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: So over the years No one ever says the human of Tom.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: The sentient weapons world might.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: This is true.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, maybe.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
36:05
SPEAKER_02: So over the years, this sword spoke to Vecna or not Vecna.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: Cass.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: Cass.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: And over the years it kept telling him that he was better than his master.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: He should be the one ruling over everything, not Vecna.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: Oh man.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: It took years, and finally, Cass listened.
36:26
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: So, Cass, sword in hand, and heeding the words of his most favored weapon, took to Vecna and struck at him.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: Um there were either no survivors or there were just no witnesses around.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: But the only thing that was ever written after this battle was the tower Vecna was in crumbled into dust.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: Oh boy.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: The body of Cass was never found.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: And Vecna's Lich body was destroyed.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: But his left eye and his left hand remained from this battle, and the sword of Cass remained because it was virtually undestructible.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: Indestructible.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: Indestructible.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: Indestructible.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: Undestructible.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
37:08
SPEAKER_03: Undestructible.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: I wasn't gonna say anything, but.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: I I caught it.
37:12
SPEAKER_02: So the sword, the eye, and the hand appeared throughout history for centuries after that.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: Quick question.
37:18
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
37:19
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if this was something that they just maybe didn't mention, or if this was something that maybe did not apply back in these really early editions, but was it ever like specified that Vecna had some kind of phylactery?
37:32
SPEAKER_02: It was not.
37:33
SPEAKER_03: Or is it implied that maybe the eye or the arm were like phylacteries?
37:38
SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't really implied that either.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: I thought about that because I know that Liches are supposed to have phylacteries, but given that he was like one of the first liches ever, maybe those there might not have been a phylactery, or if there was, it was probably in the tower.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Which was destroyed anyways.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and was never written about, but I could see it being in the sense that like he was so powerful, and since he became the first lich, there just wasn't a phylactery.
38:04
SPEAKER_03: I'm so cool, I don't need a phylactery.
38:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
38:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: Because that was never mentioned.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: I tried because I knew the little bit about Liches was a phylactery had to exist for you to destroy them.
38:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that's what you you would destroy the phylactery in lieu of actually physically destroying a lichy.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: But apparently he could actually be physically harmed.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the beam of light from the clerics hit him.
38:27
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: The sword was able to strike him, so he might just not have had a phylactery.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that was also a downfall of his that he didn't have that.
38:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that he was he was vulnerable in that way.
38:37
SPEAKER_03: He just had another physical body was vulnerable.
38:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he just had the other lich stuff going for him, like not being able to age, you know, not aging, I guess you would phrase that as an advantage, and you know, maybe like he was more powerful, yada yada.
38:52
SPEAKER_04: Probably had better evasion.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: But he just didn't have a phylactery, so he could physically be harmed.
38:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure either way, but that would be what I would think.
39:02
SPEAKER_04: In these re resurgences of the sword, is the sword still sentient?
39:07
SPEAKER_04: Um, it's never talked about.
39:09
SPEAKER_04: That's strange.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so did the sentience die with Vecna?
39:14
SPEAKER_02: And Cass?
39:15
SPEAKER_02: Or did it die with Cass?
39:18
SPEAKER_02: Was the sword actually sentient, or was it just Cass's mind talking to him?
39:22
SPEAKER_04: There are a lot of uh potential interpretations there.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: There are.
39:25
SPEAKER_03: Or, I don't know, maybe the sword had some like it just maybe didn't.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: Maybe the sword wanted to destroy all of it.
39:32
SPEAKER_03: He just didn't want to speak after that.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he didn't even know he did what he wanted and that was it?
39:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: But like over the centuries, they would surface, they would fucking wreak havoc on anyone that like grabbed them and they would use it, it would just wreak havoc and then someone would stop them and they would disappear again.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: Right.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's not totally sure.
39:57
SPEAKER_02: But everyone knows that even the most evil of creatures gather followers at some point.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: Right.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: So eventually even in real life.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, even in real life.
40:09
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean you're right.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: Um eventually, secret little cults of Vecna started appearing throughout the world.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: And over a long time, probably again another several centuries, his power grew enough that he was able to or that he was accepted into like the minor like demigod by the legions of evil.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: The cult managed to bring him enough power that he was able to talk to them from whatever plane he was in after being destroyed.
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Huh.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: And he became powerful enough that the Legions of Evil accepted him as a very minor demigod.
40:51
SPEAKER_04: So, um, what um maybe you don't have this in your notes, but what edition is the Legions of Evil from?
40:58
SPEAKER_02: Um guessing first edition or second edition, it doesn't say.
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: That might have just been part of their story plot, and maybe the Legions of Evil weren't like written about exclusively.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe the Legions of Evil is literally just all of the like evil gods that's their legion, and they were just like, sure, you can be a minor demigod to us.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like which is funny that this this guy who was this incredibly powerful Lich wizard who like very cruelly, in a very messed up way, laid siege to the city thousands of years, well, a thousand years after his revenge plot would have actually been impactful, and they're like, eh, you're a minor guy, I guess.
41:40
SPEAKER_03: Like, oh yeah.
41:41
SPEAKER_03: How much, like, what do you have to do to be like to be like a really important figure?
41:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, since you mentioned that.
41:46
SPEAKER_03: Oh, oh, alright.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: That's not where that ends for Vecna.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it's not.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: That was clearly not enough for him.
41:52
SPEAKER_02: He wanted to be more than a demigod, a minor demigod.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: That wasn't.
41:56
SPEAKER_03: A minor demigod, excuse you, excuse me, Ela.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: Before we continue, going on with uh his lovely rise to godhood, we'll take an ad break.
42:08
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42:13
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42:28
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43:51
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44:00
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44:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
44:02
SPEAKER_04: Thank you again, and back to our Vecna discussion.
44:05
SPEAKER_04: Vecna.
44:06
unknown: Vecna.
44:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
44:08
SPEAKER_02: So, Vecna and becoming an actual god now.
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Great.
44:12
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, minor demigod is nothing.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: Evil, evil, you know, vengeance-driven Lich King and Minor Demigodna.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: Nah.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: Nah.
44:23
SPEAKER_03: It's not good enough for Vecna.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: So.
44:26
SPEAKER_02: Over the centuries and him talking to his cult members, he managed to devise up a plan to help him gain some power, and ultimately his goal was to basically create this magical web that would span across all of uh Earth.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: Earth.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh Earth.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: Earth.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
44:49
SPEAKER_02: And this magical web would cut off the communication between everyone and all of the other gods except for him.
44:58
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: So basically he was trying to become the one and only god.
45:03
SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
45:03
SPEAKER_03: Monotheism.
45:04
SPEAKER_03: Cool.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: So he found over time seven magical items.
45:11
SPEAKER_02: Of course it was seven.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: Um again, it wasn't specified what the items were, except for two of them.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: His left eye and his left hand were part of it.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: Right.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: But the other ones, I'm again guessing, DM discretion, you create these magical items.
45:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like, you know, I would I'm imagining like, you know, like a party might find them and like maybe accidentally bring them back together.
45:36
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
45:37
SPEAKER_02: Right.
45:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, his plan was he hid them in like all these secret places, but they were specific places that would be like the most opportune place for them to be activated to cast this magical web.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: And his cult was supposed to do the ritual and help him do this.
45:57
SPEAKER_04: And some full metal alchemist shit there, right there.
45:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like I'm just imagining like all these locations dotted, like, would form like a pattern or something.
46:06
SPEAKER_03: Right.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: Now, his plan would have worked.
46:09
SPEAKER_02: Except for, and this is where it gets kind of up to interpretation.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: Uh, his plan was stopped by a group of adventurers.
46:17
SPEAKER_02: So this was part of a campaign setting where where like your group of adventurers would be.
46:24
SPEAKER_02: The ones who stopped it.
46:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, after they were to stop this, he was imprisoned in a demiplane known as Ravenloft.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: This opened up a whole other campaign setting.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: The web goes deeper.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: So he got trapped in the Ravenloft campaign, basically.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh that's a whole other story, a whole other campaign setting.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: And again, it revolved around him and his cult.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: Except this time, if I remember correctly, it wasn't about magical items.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: It was basically about him being reborn as like from a person.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: Basically, like he would be like someone would get pregnant, this ritual would happen, he would take basically the essence of this baby and be reborn into the world.
47:14
SPEAKER_04: Oh my god.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: As this baby.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: That's serious.
47:18
SPEAKER_03: That's that's great.
47:19
SPEAKER_03: That's like really messed up.
47:21
SPEAKER_04: That is really messed up.
47:22
SPEAKER_04: That's awesome.
47:23
SPEAKER_03: That's like five different movies I can think of.
47:25
SPEAKER_03: Like right?
47:26
SPEAKER_03: Or like not movies, but like one movie and then like two books, yeah.
47:32
SPEAKER_03: That's great.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: And maybe at some point, if we decide to do another episode over like just campaign settings, I'll talk more about that particular one because it's a little fucked up.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: That's very interesting though.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: But basically, that would determine whether or not he was reborn if the group of adventurers were to stop it or not.
47:49
SPEAKER_03: If the group of adventurers were to kill a baby.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, it was more killing.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: It was more killing the people doing their ritual.
47:57
SPEAKER_04: Wow, Louen immediately goes to make them kill the baby.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: No, that's like like maybe the whole campaign.
48:05
SPEAKER_03: Well, I feel like that could happen though.
48:07
SPEAKER_03: Like the whole campaign could be the party is not successful in stopping the ritual.
48:11
SPEAKER_03: So then they have to kill the baby.
48:12
SPEAKER_03: At the very end, they're faced with the moral quandary of like, can we kill a baby or not?
48:17
SPEAKER_03: And then you might have more like local good people in the party that are like, no, absolutely not.
48:22
SPEAKER_03: But then you might have m people who lean to diff towards different alignments be like.
48:26
SPEAKER_04: I I get what you're saying, but also I just want to I i it still is stuck in my head that Louin's first thought is kill the baby.
48:33
SPEAKER_04: Kill the baby.
48:34
SPEAKER_03: No, that's not my first thought.
48:36
SPEAKER_03: My first thought is that a DM would make their party decide if they had to kill a baby or not.
48:41
SPEAKER_03: DMs are assholes.
48:43
SPEAKER_03: And this is why I'm this is why I'm not a dungeon master.
48:46
SPEAKER_03: Except for that one time when I was.
48:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is why Travis is the dungeon master.
48:49
SPEAKER_03: This is what Travis is the dungeon master.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: So let's uh span off of that real quick though.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: If you guys were in that campaign setting and that was the situation, would you kill the child?
48:58
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
48:58
SPEAKER_03: Are you asking Lewin or are you asking Lewin's two Dungeons and Dragons characters?
49:03
SPEAKER_02: Like, if you were a Dungeons and Dragons, if it was your campaign that we were running, say it was our campaign and that ended up being the final thing.
49:11
SPEAKER_02: Do you kill this child?
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
49:13
SPEAKER_02: Or do you let it live and try to find some way to stop this Vecna child from rising?
49:18
SPEAKER_03: The three different headspace kind of things I have going on here, which is me and my two characters, there's two no's and one yes.
49:26
SPEAKER_03: Guess, guess who's who's same?
49:29
SPEAKER_04: Two no's and one yes.
49:30
SPEAKER_04: Two no's and one yes.
49:31
SPEAKER_04: Because I can see, like, me personally knowing everything that you have told me about Vecna, I want to fucking kill him.
49:38
SPEAKER_04: Because the baby I'm gonna assume that the baby's soul is not in there anymore.
49:41
SPEAKER_04: I can kill that baby without without any kind of conscience.
49:46
SPEAKER_04: The baby's soul is already destroyed or moved on to another plane.
49:49
SPEAKER_04: Um but some of the I can see the um the way that like other characters, some of my own, uh, would have issues with that and would want to find any other option than killing an innocent or a perceived innocent.
50:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay, I think we might actually have a no, a yes, and uh, I'm gonna try to raise the evil baby.
50:12
SPEAKER_03: Oh god.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh lord.
50:15
SPEAKER_02: After everything I've told you about Vecna, would that be a good idea to raise this child?
50:19
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
50:19
SPEAKER_04: Are you gonna give him a new mommy who loves him?
50:22
SPEAKER_04: That would solve everything.
50:23
SPEAKER_04: That would be that would solve everything.
50:27
SPEAKER_02: I don't think it would, though, because he's still the Vecna from this other plane where he's already gone through all of this.
50:34
SPEAKER_03: That doesn't mean he doesn't that doesn't mean the root of it isn't mommy issues, Travis.
50:38
SPEAKER_03: It's always mommy issues.
50:39
SPEAKER_03: It's always except when it's daddy issues.
50:41
SPEAKER_03: Also, true.
50:42
SPEAKER_03: Or dead dead spouse issues, dead kid issues sometimes.
50:47
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
50:48
SPEAKER_03: Alright, well.
50:49
SPEAKER_03: Dead planet issues.
50:50
SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, that'll do it.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: Interesting stories about that one too.
50:54
unknown: Oh.
50:54
SPEAKER_03: Uh oh boy.
50:55
SPEAKER_02: Let's go ahead and get back on track then.
50:56
SPEAKER_02: I was just kind of curious.
50:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna throw that quandary into our campaign.
51:01
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry I went straight to dead babies, guys.
51:04
SPEAKER_02: So basically, the campaign of Ravenloft, it actually I actually read a little bit into it.
51:11
SPEAKER_02: It did have a synopsis basically of if they succeeded and if they didn't.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: Either way, whether they succeeded or not, at some point, like if they succeeded, later on down the line, Vecna finds another way to escape.
51:25
SPEAKER_02: Like, this he does not fucking stop.
51:28
SPEAKER_04: Of course he does.
51:28
SPEAKER_04: No, of course not.
51:29
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
51:30
SPEAKER_02: So eventually he escapes by absorbing the power of Eas, who is or was in this case, the demigod of descent, pain, oppression, and evil.
51:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's some good good buzzwords.
51:45
SPEAKER_02: So absorbing the power of a demigod on top of the power he already had granted him the power of a greater god.
51:53
SPEAKER_04: Oh.
51:54
SPEAKER_04: So like I'm guessing like that's kind of like the major like gods of worship for like people you would pick for your like dome games and stuff.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: Kind of.
52:03
SPEAKER_02: So here's the funny part is he attacks a city when he gains his power of sigil.
52:09
SPEAKER_02: I don't know much about it, didn't look into it.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: Again, rabbit hole, staying out of that.
52:14
SPEAKER_02: Um by doing so, and with the powers he had, he virtually rearranged rearranged all existence.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: Like he could rearrange it all to his whim if he wanted to.
52:27
SPEAKER_02: So he has this power, and he can basically shatter, he pretty much shattered the multiverse.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: Not basically, he pretty much shattered this multiverse.
52:37
SPEAKER_02: And that is actually what is used to explain the differences between second edition and third edition.
52:42
SPEAKER_02: Ah, Vecna's meddling with the existence.
52:46
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's like meta I love.
52:48
SPEAKER_02: A little plot summary from one of the uh from like the closing paragraph of the Die Vecna Die campaign.
52:57
SPEAKER_02: It says, Though the Lady of Pain attempts to heal the damage, the turmoil spawned by Vecna's time and sigil cannot be entirely erased.
53:05
SPEAKER_02: Some outer planes drift off and are forever lost.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: Others collide and merge together, while at least one inner plane runs aground on a distant world of the prime.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't know what the prime is, but it's uh material plane.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so at least one other like inner plane just basically ran aground on the prime plane.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh the very nature of the prime material plane itself is altered.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: So Vecna fucked shit up.
53:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
53:40
SPEAKER_04: That's not good.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: Completely fucked this shit up.
53:44
SPEAKER_04: So they turned this one-off character into basically an explanation for the variation between two versions of DD.
53:54
SPEAKER_04: Two versions of DD.
53:55
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
53:56
SPEAKER_03: Just a one-off, like, you know, uh Lich King final boss type guide to like almost like he's he's working with the meta-narrative kind of.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: So the Die Vec and Die campaign, and I think the campaign of Ravenloft, one or the other, or both, either way, he was ejected from Sigil by another party of of adventurers, f from the Planescape campaign, and then was we returned to Orth.
54:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna pronounce it as Orth at this point.
54:31
SPEAKER_02: He had reduced power, but he still had the power of a lesser god.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: He was officially written in as a god in third edition, and is actually detailed in the book Deities and Demigods.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: So from first edition to third edition, he goes from human to lich to minor demigod to major god, and then back to a lesser god in third edition until he is finally accepted as a deity that people can choose to worship in third edition.
55:04
SPEAKER_04: That's crazy.
55:05
SPEAKER_04: So people coming in third edition could have been like turning in like they had no clue about all this stuff in first edition and like come in like, oh no, the the god I picked for my character was awful.
55:17
SPEAKER_04: Right.
55:18
SPEAKER_04: I well they probably knew.
55:20
SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, I just ruined your perception of your god, but at the same time, if you're picking this as your god, clearly you're playing an evil character.
55:27
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like Phil, I feel like maybe you had some more context.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, you got more context to it now.
55:33
SPEAKER_02: So I do have a little bit of information about the eye and the hand.
55:37
SPEAKER_03: Okay, thank you.
55:38
SPEAKER_03: I said I was gonna get to- I've been wondering.
55:40
SPEAKER_02: So the eye, the left eye, and the left hand of Vecna have become artifacts.
55:46
SPEAKER_02: They're one of the or they're the only two physical remnants of Vecna, and the eye of Vecna, this is a direct quote from the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons second edition Dungeon Master's Guide, is said to glow in the same manner as that of a feral creature.
56:03
SPEAKER_03: Ooh.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: It appears to be an agate until it is pressed into the empty eye socket of a living character.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: In order to use this artifact, you have to cut out your own left eye and put it in its place.
56:16
SPEAKER_03: What if never mind, I was about to just say something really stupid.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: The minute you do this, it is instantly and irrevocably grafted to your head.
56:26
SPEAKER_02: Cool.
56:27
SPEAKER_02: It can never be removed or even harmed without killing the creature that it's in.
56:33
SPEAKER_02: Cool.
56:34
SPEAKER_02: So you put this eye in your head, that's it.
56:37
SPEAKER_02: Until you die, people can't take it away from you.
56:39
SPEAKER_03: I feel like you're committed at that point, though.
56:41
SPEAKER_03: Like you've already cut out your eye.
56:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you've already gouged out your own eye.
56:45
SPEAKER_03: So I feel like it like you're sitting there with your bleeding eye socket, but then you decide that the fact that you couldn't take it out of your empty eye socket is your problem.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: I don't think Yeah, like I don't think you're gonna want to remove it at that point, especially because of the some of the stuff it gives you.
57:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh your alignment instantly changes from whatever it was to neutral evil.
57:06
SPEAKER_02: They don't put you at chaotic evil, just neutral evil.
57:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can never change your alignment after that.
57:12
SPEAKER_02: No matter what you do, it will stay a neutral evil.
57:16
SPEAKER_04: So any like outside like spells or effects will have no effect.
57:20
SPEAKER_02: Right.
57:20
SPEAKER_02: They have no effect on you at all.
57:23
SPEAKER_02: Uh the eye itself will grant you uh infravision and ultravision.
57:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
57:30
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
57:31
SPEAKER_04: What is ultravision?
57:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm honestly not sure.
57:35
SPEAKER_02: I the it didn't explain what ultravision is.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: It probably does somewhere in the actual dungeon master's guide, but I didn't read through it enough to try to find it.
57:45
SPEAKER_04: And intravision, you said?
57:47
SPEAKER_02: Uh infra vision.
57:48
SPEAKER_02: So infrared vision, basically.
57:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I actually was curious and yes, so you guys are able to look this up probably a little bit quicker than I can.
57:58
SPEAKER_04: Well, we have a gap of silence in here.
58:00
SPEAKER_04: Infravision was uh essentially a precursor to dark vision.
58:05
SPEAKER_04: Um but uh they actually replaced it with dark vision uh because infravision implied that a creature detected the infrared spectrum.
58:15
SPEAKER_03: Oh, so it's it's infrared and ultraviolet, basically.
58:18
SPEAKER_03: Is what this thing is telling me.
58:20
SPEAKER_02: So it gave you infrared vision and ultraviolet vision.
58:24
SPEAKER_03: However, there is apparently a further form of this called supra vision.
58:28
SPEAKER_03: Oh.
58:29
SPEAKER_03: Supra vision, not supervision.
58:31
SPEAKER_03: I did not enunciate that very well.
58:33
SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, still not as good as it could be.
58:35
SPEAKER_02: Like Vecna really needs to step it up a little bit.
58:38
SPEAKER_02: But see, here's the thing.
58:40
SPEAKER_02: Other than that, it granted you these additional powers and effects.
58:44
SPEAKER_02: Now, in the Dungeon Masters Guide, it had several blank spots for it.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: So I'm guessing the DM can make up whatever powers it gives you.
58:54
SPEAKER_02: There are minor and major powers, and then there's a primary power.
58:59
SPEAKER_02: Using the minor major powers, it's always safe.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: There's not going to be any sort of like repercussion for it.
59:04
SPEAKER_02: You can just use them.
59:05
SPEAKER_02: However, if you use the primary power, it may cause a malevolent harm to the host.
59:11
SPEAKER_03: Oh no.
59:12
SPEAKER_02: Again, guessing malevolent harm could be whatever the DM decides to do.
59:17
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
59:17
SPEAKER_04: Physical injury could be a hit to your will.
59:21
SPEAKER_04: Could be Segnos, yeah.
59:24
SPEAKER_02: You could lose control of your character for a certain period of time or pass out or something.
59:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like pretty much what you could probably make that to fit whatever your characters play to be detrimental to them.
59:40
SPEAKER_02: So they would only want to use this primary power when they really need it to.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: In a most dire situation.
59:46
SPEAKER_02: Now, the hand of Vecna is interesting as well.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it appears to look like a mummified, blackened, and shriveled up hand.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: Much like the eye, you have to cut off your own hand and attach it to the stump of your forearm, and it will graft itself instantly to the arm.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_03: Sick.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh not much else, like it doesn't grant you like extra strength or anything, but it does also have some minor and major powers.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh the minor power is again not harmful.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: It's fine.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh the major power, however, uh, it awakes the spirit of a great evil.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_02: And again, this is where the DM actually the book states here the DM is supposed to begin an insidious campaign of suggestion and urging towards evil to the character.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_04: Hmm.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_04: So this is like a book saying, hey, DM, in case you didn't know, you're supposed to be a dick to your players.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so when they do this and they awaken this evil, the DM is supposed to constantly try to get this character to perform evil acts.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, you're shopping, the shopkeeper's trying to sell something at a higher price.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_02: Kill him and just take it.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I thought it was just gonna be steal, but you went straight to kill the shopkeeper.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_03: Evil, not evil, not mischievous.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, yeah, that's it.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_02: Or cut his hand off.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_04: Oh.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: Show him what it's like to not have a hand for two minutes.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_02: Show him that he shouldn't be trying to cheat people.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_02: That's stuff that I would do.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and that would be a good one.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, since that came out of the show.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_03: That's stuff that you like have done.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_02: Now, unlike the eye, uh, it doesn't immediately change your alignment.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: But when once the primary power is used, that changes your alignment to the neutral evil.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_04: Um so you could theoretically have this arm attached chief for your whole life if it's left and just never use the primary power.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_02: Right, and your alignment would stay the same.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_02: So you just have a cruel dead hand.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_02: Now, also, unlike the eye, the hand can be removed.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, however, it's a little strange on how it works.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh, at it can be removed at any time before its powers are used with 100% certainty.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: After each major power is used, it subtracts 1% from the probability.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_02: And then a primary power, it subtracts 10% each time.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_02: So if you use your primary power and then you use like five of the major powers, it lowers it down to an 85% chance of success if someone tries to sever the hand.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_03: Or if you just keep using your powers, then you eventually would hit a point where you would not be able to remove it.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: Once all 100% has been used, there's no removing the hand, period.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_02: It's just it's there until you're dead.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_02: Huh.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_02: Now, the greatest part that I actually liked about this was the Dungeon Master's Guide specifically states: nothing short of intervention from the most powerful of gods can alter the effects of Vecna's hand upon its host.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_02: And even the greatest of deities will be loath to attempt to undertake meddling with any host creature.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: So the gods will like if you ask them, they'll be like, Yeah, I really don't want to help you with that.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_02: You did that.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm good.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_04: They don't they don't want to draw Vecna's ire themselves.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_02: Because look at what he did.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, the gods themselves are gonna know, like, I'm I don't wanna anger him.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_02: I'd rather not.
1:03:21
SPEAKER_02: There's a possibility that he is powerful enough to kill the other gods if he really wanted to try.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_04: Dang.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: Now, that being said, that is all I have on Vecna.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_02: That basically ends him as a god.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_03: So there was never there was never any explanation as to how his hand and his eye survived the collapse of the tower.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_03: Nothing specific about that?
1:03:43
SPEAKER_02: Nothing specific about it.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_02: Like basically the tower collapsed and wound up turning to ash, but for whatever reason his left eye and his left hand were left remaining.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_03: The sword I can understand because it's you know, it's an inanimate object, and all well, I say an animate object, not exactly, but you know, it was a it was kind of a separate object that was also like itself very like magically powerful, but just like, oh, just too random of his body part.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_02: Now the thing that might have helped with them like not decaying or being destroyed was there were some reports that when the clerics of Fleith hit him, it hit him primarily on his left side.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_02: So maybe some of that power from the light actually helped to preserve just like the eye and the hand.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_02: And then during the fight they got severed and they just remained.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_04: Vecna seems to be like a like a just a source of like, here's all of the information that's given to you, run with all of the empty space.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like there's there's enough, there's enough there for like a solid foundation and to just like make this really evil asshole.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_04: And you can fill in and you can fill in the blanks.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_04: Even in some of the um some of the books where he's mentioned, um, it even has like hearsay and uh is this true or is this part true?
1:05:04
SPEAKER_04: Like uh it's written in one of them.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_04: Some tales claim he bred entire villages like cattle, simply to keep his foul laboratory supplied with subjects for his experiments.
1:05:16
SPEAKER_04: And this is taken directly from the uh source material.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_02: Experimented with like live people, basically?
1:05:23
SPEAKER_04: Potentially.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_04: It's not clear, like it is written in such a way as to say, like, we don't know.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_04: It's hearsay.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_04: It could be, it might not be.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_04: It could just be someone claiming this, it could be uh someone trying to like I mean it's certainly believable play up how evil he is.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_04: You could take aspects of anything written about Vecna and just say, This is true, this isn't, and there's just it seems like there are just so many empty spaces for you to stick in a campaign and flush out.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_03: Which I'm very I'm very into that like.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_03: Like there's enough of a solid foundation, but there's also like plenty of room to you know add your own, like, you know, flair and and and everything.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_03: And also, like, you know, to include like details that might be more like impactful to your characters, like on a personal level or something like that.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_03: Right.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_03: That's really good.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_03: So they're not like he's not just generic evil bad guy.
1:06:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can basically Lego him into what fits.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_02: He's a Lego.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_04: He's a Lego.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_02: Vecna is Lego.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_02: There's a base, but there are pieces that you can use to build him the way you want.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_02: Or to whatever fits your campaign.
1:06:39
SPEAKER_02: Say you have a campaign that you have like three chaotic evil and one neutral evil, they're probably gonna fit fairly well with him.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_02: And you can form it around that to be like, oh yeah, you guys are gonna be part of the cult that helps bring him back.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_02: And then you have the opposite end of the spectrum where you could make him to the most foulest creature that people just want to destroy as quick as possible.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_03: Or, you know, with a a a mix sort of of characters who may have like qualms about taking certain steps or, you know, whatever.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_04: Like killing babes.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_04: You can even turn some of his like you can play up the sympathetic parts of his story too, so that like it's harder to kill him.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_04: Like he's an awful guy, but you but there's a part of you that feels bad for him.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_04: But his mom.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_02: But his mom got killed.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_04: His mom.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_04: He raises it like that.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_02: His mom.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_02: So you have that.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_02: What else were you able to find?
1:07:41
SPEAKER_02: We find any other useful, interesting tip that you can see.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because you seem surprised added into that.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_03: You seem surprised about the uh like the cattle comment.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_02: Who the fuck raises people for cattle?
1:07:51
SPEAKER_03: Um I mean like cattle.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, yeah.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_02: Like cattle.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh Vegna, maybe.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_04: This I guess would probably kind of describe his siege on um Fleeth.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_04: On Fleet.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_04: Others describe military campaigns where he annihilated entire cities beneath tidal waves of rock and earth.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, his crazy lich powers probably wipe away like entire walls.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_04: I don't think that he could m manipulate the earth itself, but you know, hearsay, some things get played up, and maybe some.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_02: Some things obviously can get played up, especially if, like, say a bard is singing about him.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_02: Or someone's just writing about it, they add their own flair to it, make it more dramatic.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_03: And it's like with with time also, like the further away you get from the lake, the bigger the fish gets kind of thing.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_03: So, you know, maybe after a thousand years it was like, oh yeah, this guy who lived a thousand years ago did all this crazy shit.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_03: Like crumbled a frickin' mountain on top of this town.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_03: Like maybe that's not really what happened.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it was usual siege weaponry.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_04: Tales of his power would be big in any campaign setting with him.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_04: Like he had amassed enough power to confront his own death and imprison it and just completely evade it.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_04: He could be something to aspire to, or in some scenarios, according to others, his pride and arrogance offended the great powers of the outer plains, and they cursed him to forever dwell on the border between life and death.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't seem like much of a curse for him.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_02: It seems like that probably helped him if that was the case.
1:09:25
SPEAKER_03: He was about that.
1:09:26
SPEAKER_04: But it does like it's one of those like, oh, the great gods who protected us did this great thing, but it ended up not being so good.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_02: Actually, it was very they they just opened up a whole new world.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_04: Dang.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_04: And um stand-up guy.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_04: Vecna found the secret magic of life and transformed himself into a lich.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_04: And that is, I would say, it's easier to defend yourself than it is to defend an object.
1:09:53
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_02: So in in that scenario, which honestly, out of the three that you mentioned, seems probably one of the most likely.
1:10:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_02: Is that he discovered the power enough to basically take his life and just transform it entirely to something that didn't exist at the time because he was one of the first liches ever recorded.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_02: He might have been the first.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_04: So the implications kind of like for even characters.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_04: Characters can fear this guy, uh, characters can look up to this guy like, oh, I won't I want to be like him, but better.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_04: I want to chase after uh this eternal life of lich hood, but I I want to be better.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_04: I don't want to be evil, or I I want to be more evil.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_03: Man, I love a good lich.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_04: The tales make it so that this real person is within the realms of Dungeons and Dragons, obviously, not real life.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_04: This real person is someone that someone could aspire to and then absolutely hate.
1:10:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like he started off as a human.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_02: He became a lich.
1:10:59
SPEAKER_02: Why can't I?
1:10:59
SPEAKER_02: I can do it better than him, I betcha.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_03: Well, see, and that adds, I think, a a lot to it too, the fact that he he started off as a human and then like ascended in the various ways he did.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_03: But also the fact that he started off as a human that actually had kind of like a sympathetic like backstory a little bit with like the injustice that happened to his mom is is a little bit, I think, more engaging than just like, oh yeah, this guy's just a grand evil litch just because I need a final boss in my campaign.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_04: He starts off as a fairly sympathetic character, and then he would say, in the best, most accurate sense of the phrase, became a living legend.
1:11:41
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, he pretty much did.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_02: He's half-living legend.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_04: Kind so I did the fake laugh, and then I like I couldn't get through the fake laugh because it was actually genuinely funny.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't that funny.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_03: It was pretty funny.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_03: I didn't like it that much.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_03: I didn't feel good about it after I said it.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_02: And like his tragic, like, beginning kind of makes him like, I don't want to say lovable in a sense, but you love to hate him.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like relatable because like, oh, his mom got killed, and it was never proven if it was justified or not.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_02: I would be kind of mad about that too, but at the same time, look at what the fucker did.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's like reason, not excuse, but the reason why it's clear.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_02: I could see a group of like full evil characters in a campaign following him.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_02: Like his footsteps.
1:12:41
SPEAKER_04: Like, revenge is something like I'm doing these things because I want to protect myself and the ones I care about.
1:12:47
SPEAKER_04: Revenge is totally justified.
1:12:49
SPEAKER_02: It's not, but fine, your twisted mind thinks that.
1:12:55
SPEAKER_04: So that could be really interesting to pursue.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_02: And also, it's definitely not justified because it was a thousand years later.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that wasn't revenge.
1:13:04
SPEAKER_04: That was just bloodthirsty.
1:13:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I feel like that probably started his campaign of trying to take over whatever he could get a hold of.
1:13:13
SPEAKER_04: Basically his descendants to godhood.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which took a while, but centuries even.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_02: Still, he he even went through different like planes and became a god that way.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_04: So, uh, do you have any more uh finer points to put on it?
1:13:32
SPEAKER_02: The only finer point that I have is it has been written that there has been no one since that has reached his level of mastery with the dark arts.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_02: Like he is the only one that has reached that high of a level of understanding.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_02: So he's very powerful.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_02: If anyone comes across him in your campaign, I wouldn't fuck with him.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it's intense.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_04: Of course, that side, it depends on if your character is, you know, that smart.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_02: True.
1:14:01
SPEAKER_02: I did run into a subreddit looking through my research that mentioned that like his this guy was the DM and his characters wanted to prove their worth and decided to fight a god.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:14:13
SPEAKER_02: So he was asking about information about Vecna, and I was like, that's a bad idea.
1:14:17
SPEAKER_04: That's a really bad idea.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_02: Clearly, this guy was like, maybe I could throw Vecna at them, but I don't know much about him, so maybe the internet can help.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_04: Vecna seems like the last god you'd want to throw at him.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_03: I mean, but like fighting a god like anything sounds like a good idea when you're like on the table in the moment.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_03: You're like, yeah, we can kill a god.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_03: It's fine.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_03: We can do that.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_03: We've been there.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_03: And then you're halfway through the night and you're like, oh no.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_03: Is this the TPK?
1:14:46
SPEAKER_03: Oh no.
1:14:47
SPEAKER_04: And then you stress over it for two weeks.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_04: In between sessions.
1:14:51
SPEAKER_04: This may or may not be something that actually happened.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_04: It was.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_03: It happened.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_03: Demi God though, kinda.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_03: They fucked up.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_03: We did good.
1:14:59
SPEAKER_03: We did a good job.
1:15:00
SPEAKER_03: You did beat him, I'll give you that.
1:15:01
SPEAKER_03: You did beat him.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_03: Close.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_03: No, it was fine.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_03: We were fine.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_03: But anyway.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_03: But anyway, that's about our own campaign.
1:15:08
SPEAKER_02: That's about all I have for this particular topic.
1:15:11
SPEAKER_02: Vecna is a very powerful and evil litch slash god.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_02: I have dubbed him the godlich.
1:15:17
SPEAKER_02: The godlich.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_02: The godlitch.
1:15:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's as good as his other titles, no offense.
1:15:21
SPEAKER_02: It's not.
1:15:22
SPEAKER_02: I could not think of anything better.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_04: The godlich is still pretty good, though.
1:15:25
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's still good.
1:15:26
SPEAKER_03: I I like it.
1:15:27
SPEAKER_03: It's it's catchy.
1:15:28
SPEAKER_03: That's a title that I would want to have.
1:15:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I liked it.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_03: Not a godlit the Arch Lich, but the Godlich is good.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_02: The Arch Lich is really good.
1:15:35
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for listening.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_03: Don't forget to follow us on our various social media platforms.
1:15:40
SPEAKER_03: Um, tell any of your friends you might think would be interested.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_03: We really appreciate it.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_04: Uh also if you have anything to suggest that we might be able to cover in a future episode or even just suggestions generally, feel free to email us at dungeonpedia.podcast at gmail.com.
1:15:56
SPEAKER_02: All right, and with that, I thank you all once again for listening.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_02: We will catch you next week here on Dungeon Pedia.