Dungeons and Dragons, "Legions of the Undead"

Standard Introduction

            I have been writing about Dungeons and Dragons semi-regularly this year and in the course of writing those I found a 30-day blog challenge.  As I have done those a couple times before it seemed remiss not to jump on this one.

            If you want here is a link to my 30-day challenge on Disney Movies, here is a link to my 30-day challenge on Video Games, and here is a comically out of date 30-day challenge on Movies (it is old and the writing is rubbish).

Day 19- Favorite Undead

            There are 10,000 monsters in this gods damned game.  Today is Undead, my favorite type of monster.  Look to my blog about Vecna (and undead god) for a little more, but generally it can be summed up with, “Undead encapsulate a good metaphor for Dungeons and Dragons.  Exploring the ruins of the old world, plumbing for their secrets, and facing the horrible monsters they left behind”.

            Let’s go.

#7 Morhg/Ghoul

            I think these two are closer to one another than their appearances might lead you to believe.  One is a skeleton that has purple flesh running thru it and causes paralysis with its tongue.  The other is a gaunt purple skinned creature that causes paralysis with its claws.  They have the same sort of role in a combat encounter, stop the movement of characters with weak Constitutions.

            I’ve never used these guys for anything but goons, they are not exactly thinker types and I would say that they are probably not the first choice on the Necromancer’s “To-Make” list.  They are a good monster to sprinkle into an encounter to make things more dangerous, but not more dynamic, they literally slow things down.

#6 Bone Claw

            These guys look so cool, and their use of the reach rules makes them strong encounters in any situation in which closing ground is difficult, a narrow bridge, an elevated area, that sort of thing.

            I haven’t used these to great effect, but have had them used to great effect against me back when they first came out in 3^rd edition.

#5: Devourer

            Another awesome looking monster with a cool concept.  They slowly burn a trapped soul within their chest to grant them power.  I can’t even think of a way to make that better.  4^th edition did by providing 3 types which took the concept and cranked up the extremeness of it.  Kudos to 4^th edition.

#4: Vampire

            Quintessential bad guys of literature and screen.  They have been translated everywhere and are almost always great.  They are kind of the best monsters in fiction for all that has and can be done with them, but are not necessarily the best in Dungeons and Dragons.

            I actually think these guys were interpreted too faithfully in 3^rd edition.  The number of weaknesses and abilities got to be cumbersome, so much so that I just never bothered.

            Even the best movies and books about Vampires tend to leave some of the mythology at the door so that they do not have to comment on running water; holy water; holy symbols; sunlight; silver; garlic; OCD; blood of virgins; the ability to talk to wolves, bats, insects; the ability to shapeshift into creatures of the night; the ability to transform into monsters; the ability to turn into mist; the need for soil of their homeland; the need for a coffin; vulnerability to fire; vulnerability to falling in love with bland women who consider “clumsy” to be a personality trait; the need for torpor; blood potency; spellcasting ability; the nature of the soul; transformations of one’s face in order to feed; strength level; flight; drinking blood; hypnosis; rivalry with werewolves; and jiminy cricket this list could go on forever.

            I think that a “Make your own vampire” feature might have been cool.  Pick two weaknesses of varying strength, pick three abilities of various strength and get an approximate challenge rating for facing your players.

            Oops, thought of another one, Lack of Reflection.

#3: Wight

            I had a really good use for these guys in a 3^rd edition campaign in which a magical plague transformed hundreds of people into wights to be used as somewhat intelligent slave labor in the excavation of a section of underground city.

            When the players found the whole thing while looking for missing people, all of the wights had been left in holding pens and cages, they then began crying out for help in low moaning voices, “Save me,” “Save us,” “Where am I,” “Please help me,” and I do lots of voices so it was pretty creepy.  I managed to pull off some rather haunting images of pale clawed hands reaching out from between bars not to strike but to beg for mercy.

#2: Mummy

            Mummies, much like Rats from my entry on “Favorite Animals” have access to disease as a secondary rules benefit.  Beyond that, they have a lot of pop culture recognition, obvious exploitable weaknesses, and plenty of significance as a cultural marker in certain settings (Egyptian theme being the most obvious).

            Magic the Gathering just did an Egypt themed setting and the clever thing they did was take Zombies and Mummies, undead creatures associated with Black Magic, and making them more associated with the veneration and societal order of White Magic.  This is a subversion and I like it a great deal.  I think this sort of twist on what is expected can be applied to mummies in DnD and I think I will attempt something like it in the future.

            I have used Mummies before, in 3e and 4e, both times to good effect.  They make good slow moving goons that deal a lot of damage and leave an impact on play in the form of Mummy rot.  They are good monsters.

#1: Lich

            They are the best bad guys.  HARD STOP.

            I don’t know what else to add.  They are a threat up close, at range, they are capable of plans, their weaknesses are not debilitating but still exploitable.  They are the best bad guys.

            I already talked about the king of the liches, Vecna in my “Favorite Deity” entry.  They are the best.

A Special Mention: Zombies

            As I write this I have learned that George Romero died just this past Sunday.  If you don’t know, he invented the modern idea of what a zombie is with the movie “Night of the Living Dead”.  I would like to point out that do to a strange error when securing the Copyright, the movie entered the public domain almost immediately, meaning George made only a tiny fraction of the money he should have for all the times the movie has appeared or been shown.  The converse of that is the movie ended up appearing everywhere and on everything which led to it being so iconic and influential.

            The reason I want to point that out is it illustrates everything wrong with copyright law, the law does not protect creators, it protects people who know how to fill out paperwork.  It also shows how valuable and powerful the Public Domain is.  The ability for things in the public domain to be used by a wide audience allows those bits of media to quickly transcend what might have only been a cult status and change the way people look at fiction.

            I wish there had been a compromise on this.  That Romero had been able to make money off of his insanely influential movie, and the movie to be diffused into the public consciousness without needing a marketing machine like Disney or Warner Bros behind it.

            I wish more things, after having made back a healthy profit, could be released to the public domain so as to be seen as part of media culture.  So as to benefit the creators and the creative community.  Kind of like how Dungeons and Dragons provides rules and materials to help people be more creative, but at the same time is a brand that sells books and materials.  It is a business, but it is a business that serves as a powerful tool to educate people about their own creativity.

            George Romero leaves behind a potent legacy.  He was vastly more influential than I think he ever pictured himself being and added to the world.  The world is a better and more interesting place for him having been in it.  We should all be so lucky to live as long and be as positive an influence as George was.

Coming Tomorrow

            Tomorrow I am going to talk about my least favorite monster.

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            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Dungeons and Dragons, "My Favorite Deity"

Standard Introduction

            I have been writing about Dungeons and Dragons semi-regularly this year and in the course of writing those I found a 30-day blog challenge.  As I have done those a couple times before it seemed remiss not to jump on this one.

            If you want here is a link to my 30-day challenge on Disney Movies, here is a link to my 30-day challenge on Video Games, and here is a comically out of date 30-day challenge on Movies (it is old and the writing is rubbish).

Day 4- Favorite Deity

            Back in June of 2010 and then again in May of 2011 I wrote about my favorite villain in the DnD franchise up to that point.  I had been playing the game for 10 years at that point and was looking for something to write.  Here is a link to that 2011 edition of that blog entry, feel free to not follow it as I am now going to do an upgraded version of that upgraded version.

             Also, I realize picking an evil guy for this entry on favorite deity might reflect poorly on me.  This is favorite for storytelling purposes.

            “I am not, nor have I been, a cultist of the god of secrets,” *wink*

            “Did you just wink?”

            “No,” *wink*

            “You did it again.”

            “I don’t know what you are talking about,” *wink*

            “Stop it.”

My Favorite Deity: Vecna Undead Lord of Secrets

            If you are reading this, it is likely you have some idea who Vecna is.  The general public, not so much, and it is unlikely that they ever will.  Dungeons and Dragons is not a topic that has adapted well to live action or animated presentations of its material.  For some reason the concepts within Dungeons and Dragons only work well when not under their official banner (e.g. "Lord of the Rings", "The 13th Warrior", "Conan: The Barbarian", etc.), so a good chunk of that lore will perhaps never see the glow of a TV screen.  Which is just the way Vecna likes it.

            In ages past a great and terrible user and creator of the darkest and most evil of all magic ruled nearly the whole of the mortal world.  Crushing nations under the heels of his vaste armies.  His only enemy it seemed was time, he was mortal then and doomed to befall the natural course of life.  He would eventually die.

            He decided that would be inconvenient.  To combat this eventuality Vecna encaged his soul into a magical container called the Heart of Vecna, and in doing so he animated himself as living death, a Lich.  Some claim that he is the originator of this process and the first recorded Lich, his genius allowing him to concoct a perfect means to transform and all subsequent iterations are poor imitations, flawed and imperfect.  Or maybe not?

            However when confronted with the limitless time and resources he had as the undying king of the world he decided to set to work making himself even more powerful.  He was not one to rest on past accomplishments, so he sought out the only promotion available to him at that point, Godhood.

            Vecna turned over the administration of his kingdom to his lieutenant, the Vampire Lord Kas.  So great was Vecna’s trust in Kas that he gifted him a weapon.  The Sword of Kas was made to be the greatest and most powerful handheld weapon ever, and possessed a piece of Vecna’s own mind.  Some say the piece was Vecna’s mad ambition, whispering to Kas, some say it was his sense of decency (so he could finally be rid of it), maybe it was Vecna’s own Thanatos (his death instinct, the aspect within us all that drives us to dangerous and risky behavior), and others say it wasn’t meant to be any of these things, that the intellect guiding the blade was a flaw, the first of Vecna’s long existence.

            Vecna went to work becoming a God.

            At the cusp of Divinity, Kas, once the most trusted of Vecna’s whole world, betrayed the Lich Lord and attempted to take his place in the position of Godhood.  This is the source of the conflicting accounts of the intellect in Kas’ blade was it imbued with all of Vecna's own personal Thanatos, and it wanted to kill him?  Was the blade filled with Vecna’s ambition and it wanted to usurp him?  Regardless of the motivation, Kas cut off Vecna's hand and smote out one of his eyes, but failed to stop Lich's ascension.

            Kas was either banished from reality entirely, transformed into an abstract concept (becoming part of the collective Thanatos aspect of the living world), or Kas escaped to rule over his own domain in the world of shadows.  Whatever happened to Kas, Vecna became the God of secrets and living death.  Vecna's hand and eye, touched by the power of divine accession became magical talismans sought by those who would emulate the Dark Lord's success.

Vecna as Metaphor

            Dungeons and Dragons is a high fantasy setting more often than not, and Vecna represents the penultimate villain in such a world.  He is the lingering past that has been deified by the ill deeds he committed back before anyone living walked the Earth.  He is what most would prefer to be forgotten, a world ruled by darkness and despair unending.

            At the same time he embodies exactly what adventurers in Dungeons and Dragons wish to delve into.  The secrets of the old world buried in Dungeons, tombs, tomes, and relics.  Vecna is the creator of and holder of wonders and secrets that sit in ruins and broken shells of a once great and now dead civilization.

            Vecna’s powers were misused but could have been an instrument of great justice and prosperity.  Vecna is a perfect metaphor for the lingering threats of the fantasy kingdoms that are gone but are paradoxically envied and pillaged while at the same time being feared and frequently inhabited by dangerous monsters.

 

Boy, this card is sort of perfect right here.
The Flavor text even has "Vec" written on it.

Vecna Permutations and Alterations

            The Lich God is my favorite antagonist to envision in various permutations.  Sometimes I make Kas his spurned best friend who didn't want to betray the Lich King, he just didn't want to be left behind.  Or even that Kas and Vecna were husbands and that Kas was supposed to be the god of hunger and darkness but something went wrong with the ritual (or Vecna betrayed him because of a disagreement over how to raise their children).  Sometimes I have it that Vecna cut out his own hand and eye to fashion weapons from them for his own use or the use of his followers.

            A cute permutation that had less to do with motivation was when I said that “Vecna” was never his name.  It was a word that meant “secret” or “arcane” and that when “Vecna” became god of secrets he magically redacted his real name from all of history.  So every time you see the word “Vecna” it would be the equivalent of reading an intelligence briefing in a spy movie and seeing a blacked-out name with the word “CLASSIFIED” stamped on the page.  I have even taken it a step further, that all of the instances of the language his people spoke in life has been erased and jumbled like Yahweh and the builders of the Tower of Babel.  The original language “Vecnese” or “Arcana” has been all but lost.

            I have also made Vecna an anti-hero, out to keep secrets from those who would use dark knowledge improperly to destroy the world, as he regretfully nearly did (you don’t see his kingdom around do you?  Maybe his being a god was accidental and killed so many that he became warped by the experience).  Maybe he fosters his dark image to serve as part cautionary tale, part fear mongering propaganda campaign, all to keep people from repeating his mistakes, or just to keep them from challenging him for his dreary and lonely position as undying keeper of the world's secrets.

            Then there is the best Vecna, the one who likes the multiple-choice origin story and inscrutable motives.  Easier to keep your true goals in the shadows that way.

 

I didn't even mention two of his bigger parts in the Lore.
Once, he tried to rewrite reality with him as the only God.
He is also a noted editor and contributor to the Book of Vile Darkness.

Coming Tomorrow

            Tomorrow I am going to talk about my favorite playable race.

______________________________

            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Intro to Dungeons and Dragons: Vecna (Upgrade)

(This was originally published in June 2010 on my facebook page but I have made some edits.  The characters discussed are owned by Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro games)

           Know who Vecna is?  Well it is unlikely that you ever will, Dungeons and Dragons is not a topic that has adapted well to live action or animated presentations of its material.  For some reason the concepts within Dungeons and Dragons only work well when not under their official banner (e.g. "Lord of the Rings", "The 13th Warrior", "Conan: The Barbarian").  However I feel that more people should indulge in the hobby, and it is because of characters like Vecna.

He's not that popular within his own universe, being a monster and all.

            In ages past a great and terrible user and creator of the darkest and most evil of all magic ruled nearly the whole of the mortal world, crushing under his heel nations.  His only enemy it seemed was time, he was mortal at that time, and to combat this he encaged his soul into a magical container called the Heart of Vecna, and in doing so he animated himself as living death, a Lich.

The book in his right hand is his revised edition of "The Book of Vile Darkness" to which he added a few chapters.

            However when confronted with the limitless time and resources he had as undead immortal king of the world he decided to set to work making himself even more powerful, he sought out Godhood.  He turned over a lot of the administration function of his kingdom to his lieutenant, the Vampire Lord Kas (holder of a Sword forged by Vecna to be the greatest and most powerful weapon ever held), and then Vecna set to work ascending.

This is Kas, who takes fashion tips from Clancy Brown's Kurgan from "Highlander"

            At the cusp of godhood Kas betrayed Vecna and attempted to take his place in the position of Godhood, it turns out that the sword Kas carried was imbued with all of Vecna's own personal Thanatos (that means death instinct, the side of the human mind that drives a person to self destructive risky decision making).  Kas cut off Vecna's hand and smote out one of his eyes, but failed to stop Lich's ascension.

"Gods are allowed to walk around barefoot.  What?  It's my lair, so I choose not to wear shoes, it's my choice."

            Kas was either banished from reality entirely becoming part of the collective Thanatos aspect of the living world, or Kas escaped to rule over his own night-world in the world of shadows.  Whatever happened to Kas, Vecna became the God of secrets and living death.  Vecna's hand and eye, touched by the power of divine accession became magical talisman's sought by those who would emulate Vecna's success.

He's also somewhat handi-capable in that his new deformities became his holy symbols.  In no way combining the copy righted images of Sauron's red eye and Saruman's white hand... Total coincidence.

            Dungeons and Dragons is a high fantasy setting more often than not, and Vecna represents the penultimate villain in such a world.  He is the lingering of a past that most would prefer forgotten, a world ruled by darkness and despair unending.  At the same time he embodies exactly what adventurers in Dungeons and Dragons wish to delve into, the secrets of the old world forgotten in tomes, secrets that created the wonders that sit in broken shells, ruins of a great civilization, that had been misused but could have been an instrument of great justice.  Vecna is a good metaphor for the lingering threats of the fantasy kingdoms that are gone and are paradoxically envied and pillaged while at the same time despised and feared.

"I don't care if the place is lousy with undead, orcs, hippies, or pedophiles.  There is loot and damned if I'm not going in there to get it."

            Vecna is my favorite antagonist to envision in various permutations.  Sometimes I make Kas his spurned best friend (or even butt buddy), who didn't betray him, he just didn't want to be left behind.  Sometimes I have it that Vecna cut out his own hand and eye to fashion weapons from them for his own use.  I have also made Vecna an anti-hero, out to keep secrets from those who would use them improperly to destroy the world, as he regretfully nearly did, and that he fosters his dark image to serve as part cautionary tale, part fear mongering propaganda campaign to keep people from challenging him for his dreary and lonely position as undying keeper of the world's secrets.  Then there is the best Vecna, the one who likes the multiple choice origin and motives, easier to keep his true goals in the shadows that way.

He has a lot of cool art associated with him if you haven't figured that out yet.