#Kas Greyhawk

[thyeternalhunger]

old days

[artaxlivs]

Eddie dies.

There's nothing.

Then…there's something.

He isn’t alive but he isn’t dead either.

There's a voice echoing in his head. It's raspy, chilling. Promising him everything. Life. Power. Strength. The ability to destroy everyone who ever hurt him. To kill the town that chased him to his death.

All he has to do is accept the offer.

Be his champion.

Yes.

He feels the promise in his new fangs, tastes his own blood on his lips. Feels the life rushing to his fingertips as they sharpen into claws. Feels the power in every muscle in his once weak body as he stands to take his place next to Vecna.

But as he dons the mantle of Kas, lets himself become Vecna’s champion, the place where his heart used to beat fills with noise. Other voices clamoring for a hold on him.

Never tell me the odds.

My name is Lady AppleJack.

I’m not sure if I love the idea of you driving.

Don’t try to be heroes.

Never change Henderson.

Wasn’t planning on it.

I didn’t run away this time, right?

No, no, you didn’t run.

Take care of the sheep for me.

No, you’re gonna do that yourself.

Say you’re gonna look after them.

I’m gonna look after them.

I think it’s finally my year.

I love you, man.

I love you, too.

Eddie?

Eddie?

No. Come on!

Ed—

Eddie!!

The last voice anchors something in his chest, chains itself to the last dregs of his humanity. Henderson. He hides it away from the prying mind of the Lich. Keeps it safe.

Keeps it secret.

It waits.

To be heard.

To be needed.

To be the voice, the anchor, that binds Eddie to the family he found along the way.

To be a sword when the final die is rolled.

I love you, man.

I love you, too.

[averyangrytissuebox]

The issues with Vecna: Eye of Ruin are foundational because they got Vecna himself wrong

If you either didn't know about this book or only vaguely looked at it because it is part of the content run that Wotc is pumping out before dnd 6e comes out soon, I can't blame you. A brief scan of *shudders* reddit shows that the it wasn't very well recieved by the die hard fans of r/dndnext and I've seen very little buzz about it in the general dnd zeitgheist. While I have lots to say about why this is probably due to lack of trust in Wotc after the OGL, official adventures being underwhelming and the community being fractured as all fuck, but I want to focus on one very specific thing to show what is wrong with the adventure: Vecna's statblock himself.

Here it is. If you downloaded the Vecna dossier a couple of years back, this will look very familiar and it isn't abundantly obvious where this goes wrong so I want to break it down.

The first is a flavour fail. Vecna in the lore is the archlich supreme, formerly a king and lich who ascended to godhood. Once considered one of the strongest liches to dwell in the Greyhawks setting, he has grown to be a scourge of the whole multiverse. An unmatched sorcerer and epic BBEG worthy foe (just ask Matt Mercer). Iconic to his appearance are four things: His eye and hand which were all that is left after he was betrayed by Kas, his right hand man. Just as synonymous to his appearance is the sword of Kas itself, the only blade capable of permanently destroying the hand and eye. Finally, Vecna created the most profane tome of them all, the book of Vile Darkness.

With all that established, there are some immediate flavour issues with this. Firstly, Vecna is not particularly intelligent as far as high level villains go. At 22, he is dumber than Auril (24), Zariel (26), Acererak (27), the demon lords and Manshoon (23), the guy who is well known for being paranoid enough that he created clones that turned on him. Notable wise guy. He isn't even the most intelligent character in his own book because Kas and Tasha are intelligence 23. Truly a bizarre decision for one of the greatest liches of all time.

Secondly, he isn't actually that good of a spellcaster. He is an innate caster and not a wizard for ease of use I assume but as far as spellcasters concern, he is lacking a lot of fire power that a CR 26 god should have. He doesn't have any 9th level spells, making him an inferior wizard to both Acererak and the humble CR 12 archmage. He doesn't have counterspell, instead having a non spell version (But I will come back to this later) and he doesn't have shield. He is not so sturdy that he shouldn't have it and there is no in lore reason why he doesn't have basic spell casting.

Finally, there is no mention of his eye or hand in the campaign itself. The blade of Kas gets an honorary "However, if the characters wish to find it and use it against the warlord, you might place the artifact somewhere in this adventure for them to find" in the introduction and can be acquired at the very end on an extremely high roll. The book of Vile Darkness is buried in his chest which is very cool though, I will admit.

The second and arguably bigger issue with the statblock is that it is bad to fight and lies to the DM because it is the wrong CR. Actual CR is calculated by averaging defensive CR (which is effective hit points and armour class) and offensive CR (damage dealt per round). So lets fact check those CRs to confirm the maths. [A quick side note before we continue, the closest approximation of Flight of the Damned is a dragon's breath weapon which assumes it hits two targets for offensive CR].

Offensive CR = 2(7+9+9) [From two attacks with afterthought] + 96 [Rotten Fate] + 10 + 10 + 10 [For all three reactions] + 10 [Vile teleport used offensively] = 186 dpr.

A very impressive but decidedly not CR 26. In fact, his offensive CR is only 23. Vecna's attack bonuses are higher than average which can increase CR by 1 but not that much. Also he never wants to cast a spell unless he has to because it is a massive damage loss on Vecna

Calculating Defensive CR is trickier. Effective health is calculated by taking his actual health 272 and multiplying it by 1.25 because he has immunities to poison and non magical bludgeoning piercing and slashing damage. Then we add 30 to that total for each legendary resistence. (272 x 1.25) + 150 = 490 which is CR 22. Averaging both of them gives you 22.5

The issue with this is twofold: It means the DM doesn't actually know how strong Vecna is and if they take it at face value, they might nerf them or pull punches when they shouldn't making the fight feel cheap. The second and much bigger one is that Vecna's defensive tools allow him to dispatch a party of spellcasters with ease because of 5 legendary resistance, impressive saves and dread counterspell which cannot be countered but he gets easily overwhelmed by any martial. This is further compounded by the fact that players win the encounter by reducing him to 50hp or less so two fairly optimised martials (e.g. took the relevant combat feat and have maxed out their main stat) can kill him on the first turn, ignoring magical weapons which this adventure has a lot of. This makes the fight swingy and not fun because the martials get to party like there is no tomorrow but if you are a full caster, you do not get to participate.

Overall, the stat block is a failure of flavour and balance, feeling like it was thrown together after the fact because they needed Vecna here. Ultimately, Vecna: Eye of Ruin is less about Vecna and more about going through the most iconic places in d&d's history to get the rod of seven parts, which is perfectly fine but then why put Vecna on the cover when he isn't even the main villain. It feels like they shoved Vecna into this book because recognisability from stranger things and Vox Machina rather than him being an integral part of the adventure and that is reflected in the stat block.

I have a lot more to say about d&d balance, official adventure design and homebrew fixes including how to make a Vecna that doesn't suck but this post is long enough as is so maybe another time

[queerlyglittering]

Ok so we're all familiar with the theory that Eddie Munson will come back in the Upside Down as a pawn/right-hand-man of Vecna, like the character Kas in their D&D campaign

And I just read a screenrant article based off a quote from Jamie Campbell Bower saying that he wanted to see Will be the one to square off with Vecna in season 2. The author expanded on that quote by saying that there should be more of a D&D tie-in to the climax of season 5, since that's one of Will's strengths/special interests that holds a lot of happy memories for him (memories being one of the keys, like music, for breaking the mental hold of Vecna/the Mind Flayer/the Upside Down)

And I've been bemoaning for months that Will never got the chance to meet Eddie, who would have been a fantastic role model for him in many ways, like the Steve to his Dustin 😭

...

Now I really need season 5 to culminate in Eddie, coming back as Kas (as foreshadowed in s4), basically masterminding and manipulating Vecna/Henry/One's whole plan to parallel the plot of the D&D campaign - as a subconscious nod to his friends, to give them a chance and let them know he's still in there and secretly on their side or whatever - and I need Will to be the one to catch on. Maybe with the help of Dustin/Mike/Lucas, who were actually part of Eddie's campaig specifically, but iirc they were playing a variation on a published campaign (Greyhawk I think?) that was part of like one of the official D&D rulebooks/guides at the time, so it was commonly accessible knowledge that Will could easily have been familiar with as well. And he'd be more likely to notice since D&D is more significant to him than to the others. I need him to have a Ron-Weasley-wizard's-chess type moment where he sees the plan, sees the opening in it that Kas!Eddie has left for them, and they just have to trust his knowledge and instincts about it and it pays off. (Could do without the self-sacrifice part, unless it's necessary. Which I could see them setting things up to where each member of the group gets separated/sacrificed basically one at a time in order to get Eleven to the final confrontation with Vecna, though I'd like to see someone else take him on for a change, or at least her not have to do it alone. And Will does have an axe to grind against the Mind Flayer and subsequently Vecna.)

It would be super cool if they could also figure out how to break Kas!Eddie free of Vecna's mind control, especially if it involves D&D memories (and/or more Metallica lmao), and super especially if they can bring him back home to Hawkins. But that might be asking for too much. I just really need Eddie to pull enough strings to get the D&D plot to happen and the boys, especially Will, to catch on.

[superglorfindel]

two sessions into a new dnd campaign and i am already Extremely Cursed :)

[lustyargonianmaid]

time for some dnd heavy theorizing about our beloved eddie, the banished

as we all know, we saw eddie die in the upside down, where his body was left. assuming this since there has been no proof of his death or whereabouts in the public eye. but what if there was a way he could be brought back? what if there was a way vecna brought him back?

there is a character in DnD named kas the bloody handed. he was once a human turned vampire during a battle against vecna, as his former first lieutenant turned betrayer. while i understand its not likely we will see eddie roaming hawkin’s as a vampire - this means that kas was at one point vecna’s puppet. all of the creatures in stranger things have their DnD counterpart who don’t LITERALLY have all the attributes of said counterpart. before eddie is killed by bats (a link to kas’ vampirism in DnD) he plays master of puppets by metallica. which you would think has no literal bearing on the story at hand... unless that is foreshadowing eddie’s fate in the upside down after death. eddie has bats tattooed on his arm, along with the master of puppets himself.

and not only that but while eddie is fighting and is eventually slain in the upside down, hopper picks up a sword which has a striking resemblance to the sword of kas. and imo there was a lot of emphasis on it as hopper picked it up off the ground... based on the prior fights that had happened in the pit there literally could have been anything there, an axe or WHATEVER. (there was actually nothing in the pit when joyce and hopper got down there so it almost seemed like it appeared in front of him, but that could be an oversight on the show productions part.) but THIS sword is what hopper picks up from the ground, as eddie is in the upside down keeping the bats off to the best of his ability.

A BIT OF A RESEMBLANCE, NO? i’m going share some stuff from the kas section of the greyhawk wiki.

“Kas is perhaps best known for the infamous artifact that bears his name, the Sword of Kas. The Sword of Kas first appeared in the Original D&D supplement, Eldritch Wizardry.  It was one of the first artifacts detailed for the Dungeons & Dragons game. The sword has been updated many times and has even been the object of quests as in the adventure Vecna Lives. The sword, variously described as a short sword, longsword, or greatsword, was crafted by Vecna. The blade is said to have been magically honed to a razor's edge, enhanced the wielder's strength, and could be used to call down lightning bolts from any storm clouds that might be overhead. The sword itself is intelligent, possessing a vile and murderous spirit. “

“After years of loyal service to Vecna, Kas eventually turned betrayer. It is said that the sword itself whispered to Kas, convincing him to slay his master and usurp his power. The battle destroyed Vecna's Rotting Tower, cost the lich his left hand and eye, and Kas himself was flung across the multiverse to Vecna's Citadel Cavitius on the Quasielemental Plane of Ash. The time he spent so close to the Negative Energy Plane changed him into a vampire, and he decided he would be called "Kas the Destroyer." “

eddie, the banished → eddie, the bloody handed → eddie, the destroyer

“When Vecna was defeated during his bid for control of Oerth, Kas was freed from his centuries of imprisonment, only to find himself facing a shapeless wall of mist. When it cleared, he was master of the domain of Tovag, across the Burning Peaks from Vecna's domain of Cavitius. Kas waged an endless war of attrition with Vecna's forces in the hopes of retrieving the Sword of Kas from Vecna's citadel, where he erroneously believed Vecna held it.”

“According to Dragon #341, when Vecna escaped from Cavitius, both realms were destroyed (explaining, in-fiction, their absence from 3rd edition Ravenloft). Kas was caught up in the destruction and very nearly obliterated; he survives only as a vestige, a soul outside time and space whose powers can be used by users of magic known as binders.”

i think there is a very high possibility we will see eddie munson, albeit changed, in season 5. there is also an additional theory linked to peter gabriel’s cover of “heroes” which plays in season one when it is believed that will has passed after his decoy body was found in the lake. this song also played after hopper “died” in season 3.. this song is also apparently heard after eddie has passed in the upside down. i’m not sure if this is confirmed because i was literally bawling my eyes out after and could have missed it so if anyone has an answer to this, please let me know!!

anyways with all of this symbolism it would be honestly pretty bonkers if it’s not true. this would give eddie a chance to fight in hawkin’s against vecna, in front of everyone, finally proving who he really was in life. even if at the end of it he is also destroyed. i know we all miss our boy and i just think this would be such a cool way to finish his arc as a true and known hero. which is what he DESERVES!

[ladylannisterxo]

So I've done some research about Vecna and Kas The Bloody Handed characters from D&D games.. Since you aren't the first person I seen whose said this theory. Obviously you could research more on this game, these characters, everything from D&D on any useful site. So I won't send two many links. Link 1: (youtube. com /watch?v=06V5XKSrUB8). Link 2: (vexmoor. com/ kas-the-bloody-handed/). Link 3: (greyhawk. fandom. com/wiki/Kas). Link 4: (criticalrole. fandom. com/wiki/Kas_the_Bloody-Handed).

Oooooo!! Thanks for sending these links! I'll link them directly below for anyone else who may be interested! Also, the theory was presented by @ahoymayfield and the tiktoks she has watched so credit where credit is due!!

Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3 | Link 4

O K A Y so this is a lot of information but there are specific things that have stuck out to me as I went through all of this. In the first link, it is mentioned that when Kas went up against Vecna and they had their bloody battle, Kas's body was never found and was presumed dead although "it was discovered later that he was banished" and while banished, Kas was transformed into a vampire. SO, a couple of things with that: throughout the entirety of S4, Eddie is referred to as "Eddie the Banished" annnnnd Steve made the comment about whether or not Vecna was a vampire and it was theorized for a hot second that when Steve was attacked by the demobats, that maybe something vampiric would happen - so maybe something is happening to Eddie. It does sound awfully familiar because they left Eddie's body in the Upside Down - we don't know what's currently happening to it.

Another thing the first link mentions is that Vecna is depicted as the "ultimate villain" and in the DMG, it was encouraged that Dungeon Master's get over their fear of killing off characters because Vecna is that strong and too powerful for characters to fully attack. So, with that in mind, I'm imagining a lot of death in S5 - assuming the Duffers actually get ballsy with it.

I'll admit I know next to nothing about D&D so this was fun, getting to see a little insight into the lore of the game! Thanks again for sending this over!

[spellboundmayfield]

Hell’s Master

https://www.reddit.com/r/StrangerThings/comments/u28pzq/for_fun_i_decided_to_see_whats_behind_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

A user on Reddit pointed out that the time stamps when overlayed on the scenes spells out “I am hell’s master”. The shot looks like the birth of worlds, or holes in time considering they literally are short cuts pointing to different moments in the trailer. Maybe this is in reference to the master of these dimensions, we know the Mindflayer endlessly wanders and conquers dimensions, at least in D&D lore. Or the master of time itself, placing time as some greater power as it produces an endless cycle of suffering. In which these portals are there own private hell’s, whether that be represented by Max’s complicated feeling of grief and depression or El being seen in a set of the Snowball (tainting one of her happiest moments). But Vecna is trapped himself, that’s why the dial on the Creel clock bursts, because he wants to put time in a blender, to destroy the inescapability of time that only leads to suffering. Even when Max admits that the Party keeps pushing for a happiness and peace they can’t obtain.

In the trailer Vecna is essentially saying it’s time for the suffering to end, it’s almost the end, the end of time = end of suffering

“Rather than achieving victory through brute force, Vecna opted to corrupt and manipulate the other Immortals. In the end, he succeeded by playing his former peers against one another, throwing the erstwhile alliance into turmoil.”

Vecna’s strategy to isolate Max is placing her in this hell, her own cell. Feeding off of her grief as it eats away at her relationship with Lucas, the person who really gets her. Just as Hopper’s locked up in sub-zero Russia, coincidentally a very Upside Down-ish environment. And El’s isolation conveyed as she’s pulled away from Mike, returned to the confinement of a cell. Vecna was a born mortal but after ascending into god-hood became immortal, escaping death. Yet Vecna is so unmistakably human, visually being chained up despite his illusion of control.

“Both the hand and eye were – it was later established – severed from Vecna in an epic battle with his traitorous lieutenant Kas the Bloody Handed, which saw them both banished from the world of Greyhawk, imprisoned and bound to do battle for all time in the Domains of Dread.”

“They [Domains of Dread] regularly inflicted despair on the residents of the demiplane by simultaneously granting them boons and inflicting curses. Each curse was tailored to the individual and inflicted the greatest amount of emotional harm or distress upon them.”

I mean just look how the light flows in, illuminating a more human looking arm, a sliver of some humanity. Vecna is magnificently and horribly corrupt with a curse, and that being his unwavering desire and belief that he has power and control.

Notice when Dustin narrates about this curse in the trailer, it’s El’s terrifyingly extraordinary abilities front and center radiating chaos in the lab that is supposed to be such an artificial and controlled environment created by a scientist trying to play god.

[wiinevelvet]

A really long thought about Vecna's curse

Hi there,

Since we don’t have a lot of news concerning season 4, I try to entertain myself by making theories or character’s studies, and as always, I like to share it here.

Just a little disclaimer concerning this post: I don’t play d&d and don’t really know how the game works nor did I read any of the leaks concerning season 4, so view this as pure entertainment. (also if someone has already said something similar to this, I’m sorry I didn’t know.)

-

Not so long ago, I rethought about the Vecna’s curse episode and the fact that Vecna was once considered as one of the most powerful wizard in the d&d lore.

And probably like a lot of people, I immediately thought about Will and how he could have something to do with Vecna’s curse. Therefore, I ended up making some research and writing about it.

In order to fully comprehend all the things that I’m going to say, I’ll set up a brief reminder of who Vecna is and what’s important to know about him in d&d.

As you may know, Vecna was described as a powerful human wizard who became lich in the World of Greyhawk. However, his right hand man Kas betrayed him, which lead Vecna to end up destroyed where only his left hand and eye remained.

Both hand and eye becoming two powerful artifacts that can so be used by players in the game.

Both artifacts are very important and central to this theory, yet we’ll talk about them later.

First thing first, it’s interesting to clearly know what a lich is in fantasy.

“The Lich is, in literature and fantasy games, an imaginary creature, a dead wizard who maintains himself in a state of living dead thanks to his magical powers.”

“A living deadis, in popular culture, a being who’s dead but continues to come to life, whether under the influence of his own will or not. There are two main categories of living dead, the reanimated corpses and the spirits of dead people who manifest.”

[sources come from Wikipedia → it’s originally in French, and I’ve translated it.]

Now you’re probably wondering why did I put the definition of living-dead in this.

I’ll answer that I decided to put it in my post to underline the “reanimated corpses” part, which I think can bound Will to Vecna and bring a tiny parallel between the two.

In season one, Will is believed dead by the majority of the people of Hawkins (except for Joyce and Mike, and afterward the whole Party). He even had a funeral, which really points out to the fact that: Will is dead.

Although, at the end of the season he was rescued and therefore “came back to life” for all the people know. (those who weren’t concerned by the recent events)

We can then considered Will like a lich, since his d&d character is a wizard. This fact is important to support what I’m saying.(Consequently, the nickname ZombieBoy makes even more sens if we have all of that in mind).

Still, I’m not saying that Will can be seen as Vecna.

I believe that Will is under Vecna’s curse. And that he was always meant to have a strong link with the Upside Down.

Now, if we focus primarily on the two artifacts that once belonged to Vecna, we can potentially expect Will to clearly have powers in Season 4.

Among the two artifacts which hold some of the remain of Vecna’s powers: there’s the Hand which increases to 19 the strength of the player who uses it and immunizes him against magic projectiles. Then there’s the Eye, which provides the power of “true sight” [all of the names are literally translated from their French counterpart, because I’m French and a bit lazy sorry]

Concerning Will, the Eye will be the artifact that I’ll mainly talk about.

The Eye of Vecna is a sort of blackish or reddish stone which, in order to be used, must be placed in an empty eye socket of a humanoid creature. Its powers can thereby be controlled if the player knows how to use them, but they’ll still "slyly influence the holder". We speak of “domination”.

I’ve mentioned the color of the stone because as we know, the Mind Flayer is very often illustrated with reddish and blackish colors. Also, being in the form of a shadow it can easily be sheltered by a body (it can be paralleled to a soul), as an eye can be sheltered by an eye socket.

In the “constant powers” (the powers which doesn’t need to be invoked to be used by the player) of the Eye there’s “true sight” and “foreboding” → and this is practically the same powers granted to Will when he’s being possessed by the Mind Flayer.

Now, we could almost imagined that the Mind Flayer represents the Eye of Vecna. Thus when he possesses Will, then Will becomes his "holder" and is therefore in the grip of Vecna’s Curse (using those artifacts curses the player). The Eye, here known as the Mind Flayer, grants Will the powers of “true sight” and “foreboding” → explaining the “now-memories” he shares with the monster. - However, he ends up dominated by it and becomes a spy leading him to be seen as a "threat" (→ the use of the Eye and Hand being considered threatening only for players who dare to use it) -

What's interesting then, is that once the Eye is in possession of a "holder", certain powers can manifest on their own when needed. And knowing that Will was still able to sense the Mind Flayer in Season 3, then it's as if he continues to be in the grip of Vecna's curse. This could mean that Will would have powers that manifest on their own in season 4, if he feels threatened (and considering what we saw on the teaser 004, we can expect that Will will be threatened at some point lmao).

/!\ I’m about to do a HUGE SPECULATION, mainly for entertaining purposes. Which bases itself on what I said prior. Yet, don’t take it too seriously please. /!\

Since I brought the possibility of Will being under Vecna’s curse and so having being possessed by what could be understood as the Eye of Vecna, I’d like to focus furthermore on the Hand.

“Each of its powers can now be used, which is much easier than for the Eye of Vecna. Indeed, the powers invoked of the Hand are important by movements and positions of certain fingers, and will be so even if these movements are carried out without the intention of using them. Each thoughtless movement, even natural, of the Hand can then become an instrument of death.” [sources come from a french forum about mmorpg] This artifact, in contrary to the Eye, is more offensive. It provides its "holder" with strength and power which can aim for fight. Generally, the "holder" cannot discard the artifact once used, yet it can be teared out of them. I'm saying all of that, because, what if Eleven could be in possession of the Hand while Will would be of the Eye? Obviously, El can use her powers without lifting up her hand every time. Still, they decided to show her using it this way. (Also what I’d like to remind is that El lost her powers when one of the Mind Flayer “part” left her leg. Therefore, it’s as if her powers had been teared out of her). Now, you have to know that both artifact can be used together. In the game when combined, the Hand and Eye grant: "Magic Detection/ Understanding of Languages/ Non-Detection/ Protection Against Good”. Obviously, I’m not saying that Will & El would be able to be in possession of these kinds of powers. Nonetheless, what if Will & El would be the keys to defeat once and for all everything that is linked to the Upside Down? Like what if, in order to stop all this, El had to definitely lost her powers and Will to completely get rid of his connection with the Upside Down and the Mind Flayer? (since to end Vecna’s curse, you have to make the holder of both artifacts get rid of it). I don’t really have an answer, nor do I honestly think that’s what would happen. I just wanted to bring up theses possibilities, because I thought it was interesting. I’m not even sure if this is accurate with whatsoever the leaks are about. I talk so f*cking much sorry lmao, this is literally an essay at this point. (i hope all of my sentences make sense) Hope you liked it anyway! Take care of yourselves and happy new year btw. clara 🦔

[thyeternalhunger]

Happy pride everyone

[sonneillonv]

The Sword of Kas, per the Greyhawk Wiki

The sword of Conan the Barbarian (yes that was the actual prop from the actual Ahnold movie)

I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but aside from being the same TYPE of sword, they’re not actually very much alike 😅

I can’t seem to remember, where do the sword Hopper used come from? Did one of the guards have it? Was it in the stack of weapons? It just seems like a really strange thing to have at hand, like, who has swords in the 20th century?! Seems a bit Kas like to me…👀

He has the sword from the cabinet of weapons in the arena BUT I read somewhere that it actually looks like Kas' sword! I can't remember where I read that though, else I'd share the link 😅

[wazafam]

WizKids is releasing a macabre collectible based on a powerful set of items from Dungeons & Dragons, as tabletop RPG fans will soon be able to purchase replicas of the Eye and Hand of Vecna. The vast majority of the powerful magic items in D&D require the player to simply wield them in battle, but the Vecna artifacts actually require the player to dismember themselves.

In the lore of Greyhawk setting of D&D, Vecna was a powerful evil wizard. The villain was betrayed by his lieutenant, Kas, who severed Vecna's hand and cut out his eye. Kas' sword was also an incredibly powerful item, which is why it was capable of this feat. Vecna would later rise to godhood, while his body parts remained in the land of Oerth. If an adventurer finds the Eye or Hand of Vecna, then they can remove their corresponding limb and attach Vecna's body part in its place, which will bond to their body. The new bearer of the Eye or Hand (or both) will gain access to powerful spell-like abilities, but the items will slowly corrupt them, turning them evil over time.

Related: Candlekeep Mysteries Is The Latest D&D Adventure Anthology

The Eye and Hand of Vecna are some of the most iconic magic items in all of D&D, and there have even been rumors that the upcoming D&D movie will involve them. The two body parts of Vecna are so famous that WizKids is making a collectible display item that contains the Eye and Hand of Vecna, along with a stand, a cover, and a cloth to keep them on. The set will cost $129.99 and it's expected to be dispatched in February. The set can be ordered from the WizKids website.

The people who are eying up space on their shelf should know that the Eye of Vecna measures 1.5” and can fit within the fingers of the Hand. The Hand on its own measures 7.5” and can sit on the cloth in the stand, which covers the actual prong that is holding it up. The covered case measures about 10.5” in height, so fans who are interested in owning a mummified set of body parts should keep that in mind.

D&D players are usually easy to buy gifts for, as a new rulebook or cool-looking set of dice will generally bring a smile to their face. The Eye and Hand of Vecna is definitely an acquired taste, and it's best to know someone really well before shelling out a lot of cash on such freaky items for a Dungeons & Dragons player's birthday.

Next: Dungeons & Dragons: What Candlekeep Is In D&D, Explained

The Eye and Hand of Vecna will be released in February.

Source: WizKids

Dungeons & Dragons Gets Macabre New Severed Hand & Eye Collectible from https://ift.tt/3oMLqfp

[thyeternalhunger]

Kas

[thyeternalhunger]

High Magus is resting now go disturb him

[thyeternalhunger]

Commision I got from @S-L for my Kas/Vecna fic

The Accolade

"He awaits. Dubbed a black sword on his shoulder. Upon the unsheathing moment, he even heard the thunderous crash of a shooting star and the laughter that stirs his thirst. In the names of the Undying King, Lord of the Rotted Tower, Master of the Spider Throne and the Occluded Empire, Emperor Vecna proclaimed Kas of Tycheron as the Regent, commanding his General to bow and receive the bestowed black sword with both hands. And within his mind, his unholiness whispered:

      Henceforth, you too are Vecna."

(“他等来了一把点在他肩头的黑剑，出鞘的那一刻他甚至听到了流星坠落人间的巨响与牵动他渴盼的晒笑。以不朽之王、腐塔之主、隐秘帝国与蜘蛛王座的主人之名，不洁的维克那皇帝陛下宣布提雪龙的卡斯代为摄政，令将军俯首，以双手受赐黑剑。并在脑内告诉他：

      从今往后，你也是维克那。”）

[thyeternalhunger]