> [!infobox]+ Vecna > > <div class="infobox-coat-of-arms"> > <div style="text-align: center; padding: 5px;"> > <div class="character-name-container"><div class="character-main-name">Vecna</div><div class="character-epithet">the Whispered One</div></div> > </div> > </div> > <div style="text-align: center; padding: 0.2em;"> > <img src="VecnaSymbol.png" alt="Vecna" style="max-width: 250px; height: auto;" class="internal-image"> > </div> > <table class="infobox-table"> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Province</td><td class="infobox-data">God of Necromancy, Undeath and Secrets</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Alignment</td><td class="infobox-data">Neutral Evil</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Symbol</td><td class="infobox-data">A desiccated hand with an eye in its palm</td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Holy Day</td><td class="infobox-data"><em>None</em></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Type</td><td class="infobox-data">Greater <a href="Deities.md" class="internal-link">Deity</a></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Home Plane</td><td class="infobox-data">Adrift in the <a href="Astral Sea.md" class="internal-link">Astral Sea</a>, condemned to wander in isolation, since his banishment at <a href="Thar Amphala.md" class="internal-link">Thar Amphala</a> at the end of the <a href="Dawn-War.md" class="internal-link">Dawn-War</a></td></tr> > <tr><td class="infobox-label">Divine Champion</td><td class="infobox-data"><em>Not Known</em></td></tr> > </table> ### About Vecna, the Whispered One, is the greater god of necromancy, undeath and secrets, and the youngest of the [[Betrayer Gods]]. Unlike every other god of the Pantheon save the [[Raven Queen]], he was born a mortal. A dangerously brilliant archmage of the [[Age of Arcanum]], his hunger for immortality and dominion over all mysteries led him to open a gate to the elder deity [[Harkon]], to bargain with the demon lord [[Orcus]] for the secrets of lichdom, and at last to craft rites of ascension of his own and force his way into the Pantheon during the [[Dawn-War]]. He is counted among the [[Betrayer Gods]] only because he fought on their side of the war, and none of them were glad to see a mortal become their equal. Since his defeat at [[Thar Amphala]], he has been cast adrift in the [[Astral Sea]], condemned to wander in isolation, quietly ruling over that which is not meant to be known. ### Depiction Those who claim to have looked upon Vecna's form speak of a tall, skeletal lich swathed in tattered robes and enchanted jewels, missing both his left hand and his left eye, both taken from him by his own general in his final battle. It is from these wounds that his holy symbol is drawn, a desiccated hand with an eye set in its palm. ### Divine Domains Vecna's clerics are most often granted powers of Arcana, Death or Knowledge. ### Holy Day Vecna has no holy day. His followers keep their worship hidden, and no record of a day in his honour has ever been found. ### Commandments of Vecna - Learn all you can, and keep hidden that which you know. Reveal what pieces you must, but never the whole. - Express and cultivate the evil within yourself, and in doing so, recognise it in others to exploit them for your own benefit. - Seed the ruin of all who worship other deities, until only those who kneel before Vecna remain. ### Enemies of Vecna Vecna loathes all other gods and wishes to destroy them, so that he alone might hold divine power across the planes. He holds a particular hatred for [[Ioun]], who seeks to share with the world the very secrets he guards for himself. The [[Raven Queen]] despises him in turn, seeing in the undying god a mighty affront to her purpose, and he has never forgiven [[Pelor]], who cast him out of his own city. Nor is the Whispered One welcome among the [[Betrayer Gods]]. He fought on their side of the [[Dawn-War]], but none of them were pleased to see a mortal raise himself to stand as their equal. ### History - #### The Age of Arcanum Vecna was born a mortal in the [[Age of Arcanum]], and rose to become one of the most powerful archmages of the age. His true name has been lost to history. When the [[Raven Queen]] ascended to godhood in 2496 BD, [[Ioun]] and [[Corellon]] wiped the knowledge of her rite of ascension from mortal memory and hid it in [[Ioun|Ioun's]] Endless Athenaeum, Hundreds of mages tried to copy her ascension regardless, and nearly all were destroyed, by the gods they challenged or by their own magic. Vecna alone would succeed. Some scholars theorise that he knew the mage who became the [[Raven Queen]], as her student, her partner or her lover, but all knowledge of who she was vanished the moment she ascended, and the truth is unknown. In his search for immortality, Vecna sought knowledge from many otherworldly beings, among them the elder deity [[Harkon]], who promised him whatever he desired if he would open a gate to the [[Material Plane]]. In 2257 BD, from a castle he had seized on the [[Crescent Isles]], Vecna tore open that gate. [[Pelor]] rallied the [[Prime Deities]], and together they sealed it in less than a day, but not before the first [[Vampires]] had poured through. Vecna escaped to the [[Shadowfell]], and the vampires kept his castle, which would one day become the seat of the vampire lord [[Jairus]], until his death at the hands of [[Group 8274]] in 3032 PD. Not long after his failure, still in pursuit of immortality, Vecna obtained the rites of lichdom from the demon lord [[Orcus]]. How he persuaded the Prince of Blood to share them is unknown. In 2216 BD he died and returned as an archlich, more powerful than ever, and in the years that followed he harvested souls and built a realm of his own in the [[Shadowfell]], the dark city of [[Thar Amphala]]. - #### The Dawn-War During the [[Crusades of Dawn|Second Crusade of Dawn]], using rites of his own, which tore an opening in the Pantheon for him rather than displacing another god, Vecna ascended to godhood. Among those who served him was [[Kas]], one of the most powerful of the vampires who had come through [[Harkon|Harkon's]] gate, alongside [[Jairus]] and [[Balthazar]], who had chosen to serve Vecna for the opportunity he saw in him. Though still wounded from [[Zur-Irqaz]], [[Pelor]] answered Vecna's rise. With his Champion, First Sword [[Duana]] of Hope, the Flame of Morning, he led the [[Pelor's Swords|Swords]] into the [[Shadowfell]] and stormed [[Thar Amphala]], with the [[Raven Queen]] and [[Kord]] fighting alongside him. [[Ioun]], still gravely wounded from her battle with [[Tharizdun]], longed to join them, but could not. At the peak of Entropis, [[Pelor]] and [[Duana]] battled the newly ascended god and his vampiric general, [[Kas]]. [[Duana]] fell, slain by Vecna, and was forever after remembered as the Dawnmartyr. In his arrogance, Vecna turned to taunt [[Pelor]], and in that moment Kas betrayed his master, striking him with his cursed blade, cutting off his left hand and cutting out his left eye. Vecna slew Kas in turn, but the wounds left him weakened, and [[Pelor]] struck him down, casting him adrift in the [[Astral Sea]], condemned to wander in isolation. - #### Post Dawn-War Vecna has wandered the [[Astral Sea]] since his banishment, in search of powerful artifacts and secrets to further his unknowable plots. ### Modern Worship of Vecna The worship of Vecna is outlawed throughout [[Aeborhia]], and it survives only in secret. His followers are necromancers, ambitious mages and seekers of forbidden knowledge, drawn to the god who was once one of them, and to the promise that mortal power can be raised high enough to stand among the gods. ### Known Worshippers of Vecna #### Champions *Not Known* #### Other Worshippers *Not Known*