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    Canonfire :: View topic - Vecna in Planescape: Torment
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    Vecna in Planescape: Torment
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    GreySage

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    Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:07 pm  
    Vecna in Planescape: Torment

    I just noticed this excerpt from the Planescape: Torment computer game:



    Noncanonical, definitely, but interesting.
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    Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:41 pm  

    Damn that Eye really gets around. It gives a minus to wisdom and intelligence?! Geez why would Vecna want that back?
    GreySage

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    Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:46 pm  

    I think that's supposed to represent, within the limited confines of the computer game, the way Vecna's organs drain the will and personality of their posessors, replacing them with something of Vecna's will and Vecna's personality. Presumedly Vecna himself wouldn't notice, as he already has all that.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:13 am  

    Pretty good entry on a Vecna artifact. The second to the last paragraph contains some added material, but the rest is pretty much canonical. So far as the Vecna legend goes, there is room for a bit of artistic liscence- legends need not always be exact recountings of the actual events.

    This is just another reason why I enjoy RPG computer games. The developers really put quite a bit of time and effort into the background of things.
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    GreySage

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    Sat Sep 23, 2006 12:31 pm  

    I decided to add the noncanonical exploits of the Eye to the gaps in Samwise's timeline:

    -162 CY: Yaheetes crushed by the forces of Malv II. The Hand and Eye are secreted in the Silent Tower in the Dreadwood.
    -137 CY: One of the sages of the Silent Tower succumbs to the Eye and Hand of Vecna, stealing them and vanishing to another plane.
    -130 CY: The rogue Silent One is next reported having infiltrated the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea on the oceanic, magically advanced world of Malhatai. The Eye of Vecna is grafted in his left eye socket, but his left hand is missing and has no replacement. He convinces half of the Conclave to aid him in the conquest of the planet; the other half he attempts to execute on the spot, though one is resurrected due to a Clone spell. Over the next three cycles, Malhatai is destroyed in a war that uses magic not seen since the Twin Cataclysms of Oerth.
    -127 CY: On what is now a dead world, the rogue Silent One is finally killed by the last (cloned) member of the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea, who elects to search the multiverse until he finds a way to destroy the artifact.
    -120 CY: The Last of the Conclave dies on the ashen Plane of Ghalentir, his quest incomplete. Ghalentir was a barren demiplane whose inhabitants had been Flan villagers banished there by Vecna himself in a fit of ingenious wrath over 300 years ago. The man who was with him in his final hours, a gentle healer whose wife has recently borne a child with rose-colored eyes and wings, finds the eye among the man's belongings and is posessed by it. That night, he murders his son, who would have otherwise grown to lead his people from the benighted plane. The humans of Ghalentir die out in a generation.
    -90 CY: A planar traveller, already possessed by the Hand of Vecna after discovering it in an unknown plane, arrives on the now uninhabited Plane of Ghalentir, urged by the Hand to find its companion. With both artifacts in his posession, what he must do becomes clear: he returns them to their world of origin.
    -85 CY: The traveller arrives on Oerth in the city of Tyrus in the Suenha Hills, where he begins calling himself Vecna II.
    -63. Vecna II is overthrown; one of his servants makes off with his hand, and another one with his eye. The eye is sold to a wizard of House Maure in Urnst, while the hand is used to create a petty bandit kingdom in the Abbor-Alz.
    2 CY: Extermination of the Nyrondese House of Hyeric. A Nyrondese noble of the House of Rax-Nyrond, his own eye lost in a long-ago battle, gains posession of Vecna's eye by gouging it out of a captured warlock whose villainy had been causing trouble in the western provinces. Carefully and secretly he has every man, woman, and child of the rival House Hyeric murdered. His son discovers the man's curse and kills his father in a magical duel; his body is hidden away. Rax-Nyrond, which had briefly lost its dominance to House Hyeric, once again controls much of Western Aerdy, the shameful causes of this ascension carefully covered up.
    89 CY: A gnomish shadowdancer discovers the Hand of Vecna in a crypt in the Abbor-Alz; a follower of Vecna II, who ruled briefly as a bandit lord among the hillman tribes. After feeling a compulsion to graft the (for him) oversized hand on to his own arm, the Hand - for reasons of its own, evidently - leads the gnome to the location of the hidden tomb of the treacherous Rax noble, which he breaks into and desecrates, carrying off the Eye as well.
    GreySage

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    Tue Jul 12, 2011 5:18 pm  

    Here's a heavily revised timeline of the Hand and Eye, incorporating sources that came to light in this thread. Otherwise some of this is word-for-word from Sam's article.

    -350 CY: Vecna falls at the hands of his servant Kas. The Hand and Eye pass into the ownership of House Neheli, who give them to the Silent Ones for safekeeping.

    -340 CY: House Malhel attacks the Lonely Tower of the Silent Ones, carrying off the Hand and Eye with them to their stronghold of Valadis.

    -301 CY: House Malhel destroys itself. Its survivors are spread to the winds.

    -277 CY: Asberdies Malhel proclaims himself master of the lands what will one day be known as the Yeomanry. He has the Hand and Eye with him.

    -225 CY: Asberdies is overthrown.

    -224 CY: The Hand and Eye appear among the Yaheetes, brought there by a lieutenant of Asberdies.

    -214 CY: The Insurrection of the Yaheetes (2e DMG, 91). The Hand and Eye of Vecna disappear after the overthrow of Paddin the Vain. Paddin's consort carved the eye and hand from his body while he slept and cast them into the sea, where they fell into the posession of the undersea races.

    -209 CY: Hyeric, the younger brother of King Ęthel of Nehron, slays a sahuagin warlord bearing the Eye of Vecna. He carves it from the creature's skull and brings it back with him to Castle Star Haunt, from which he rules the eastern Celadon Forest in the name of Nehron. He becomes obsessive and strange, founding a heretical cult of Celestian and experimenting with space-warping magics.

    -194 CY: After the death of his brother by natural causes, Hyeric travels to Rel Mord to reign as Lord Regent until his brother's young son comes of age.

    -190 CY: The prince of Nehron dies in his sleep of unknown causes.

    -180 CY: During the reign of Hamoch of Tyrus, the Hand of Vecna is discovered by the fisherman Gisel and kept by the fisherman as a curiosity.

    -163 CY: Gisel's brother steals the Hand of Vecna. He is waylaid en route to Tyrus and the Hand of Vecna falls into the possession of the outlaw Mace. Mace attaches the Hand to the stub of his own missing arm and soon conquers the city of Tyrus, creating a plague that annihilated the house of Hamoch. Mace slaughters his former followers to appease the shade of Vecna, who appears to him in a dream.

    -159 CY: King Hyeric and his family are driven from the throne in Rel Mord when their warped experiments come to light. They escape to Star Haunt, where their magics ultimately destroy them. The throne of Nyrond passes to Hyeric's cousin Eadrig.

    -137 CY: One of the wizards of House Maure unearths the Eye of Vecna from Star Haunt and vanishes with it to another plane.

    -130 CY: The Maure wizard is next reported having infiltrated the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea on the oceanic, magically advanced world of Malhatai. The Eye of Vecna is grafted in his left eye socket, but his left hand is missing and has no replacement. He convinces half of the Conclave to aid him in the conquest of the planet; the other half he attempts to execute on the spot, though one is resurrected due to a Clone spell. Over the next three cycles, Malhatai is destroyed in a war that uses magic not seen since the Twin Cataclysms of Oerth.

    -127 CY: On what is now a dead world, the Maure wizard is finally killed by the last (cloned) member of the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea, who elects to search the multiverse until he finds a way to destroy the artifact.

    -120 CY: The Last of the Conclave dies on the ashen Plane of Ghalentir, his quest incomplete. Ghalentir was a barren demiplane whose inhabitants had been Flan villagers banished there by Vecna himself in a fit of innovative wrath over 300 years ago. The man who was with him in his final hours, a gentle healer whose wife has recently borne a child with rose-colored eyes and wings, finds the eye among the man's belongings and is posessed by it. That night, he murders his son, who would have otherwise grown to lead his people from the benighted plane. The humans of Ghalentir die out in a generation.

    -109 CY: The Battle of a Fortnight's Length. Nyrond is conquered by the Kingdom of Aerdy.

    -90 CY: The dracolich Ampathzeredes arrives on the Plane of Ghalentir and claims the Eye of Vecna for his own, grafting it to his own empty eye socket. With the Eye of Vecna as his guide, he travels to Vecna's homeworld to set himself up as the lich's heir in the Dark Cathedral near Diamond Lake.

    -72 CY: Lanchaster II of Rhola is assassinated as Mace, now calling himself Vecna the Second, reveals his rule of Tyrus.

    -63 CY: Senestal II of Neheli dies while attempting to take Tyrus. Vecna II is struck down by the half-demon Tsojcanth (disguised as an assassin from Yemish) when the power of the Hand of Vecna inexplicably fails him. The hand of Vecna II eventually finds its way to the possession of the dracolich Ampathzeredes, although he is unable to use it himself.

    -13 CY: The dracolich Ampathzeredes is destroyed by the adventuring party known as the Six from Shadow.

    89 CY: A gnomish explorer of the Blemu Hills claims the Hand and the Eye while exploring the Dark Cathedral and returns home with his prizes.

    91 CY: The gnome consolidates his rule over the demi-humans of the Blemu Hills, and takes the title of Gnomelord.

    98 CY: As his villainy grows, the Gnomelord threatens the trade routes of the Great Kingdom, attracting the attention of the Overking Manshen.

    101 CY: The Gnomelord is destroyed by armies of Aerdy and the Pholtan Holy Censor of Medegia is entrusted with the Hand and Eye. They are taken and locked away to prevent them from doing anymore damage. However, the destruction of the demihuman enclaves and the subsequent settlement of the Bone March leads to increased barbarian raids from the north and results in the Battle of the Shamblefields.

    252 CY: The Pholtans are stripped of the position of Holy Censor and the See of Medegia is reassigned to the church of Zilchus. The deposed Holy Censor takes the reliquary containing the Hand and Eye when he leaves his post.

    263 CY: The deposed Holy Censor dies and a Paladin of Pholtus discovers the Hand and Eye among his effects and claims them.

    264 CY: The charismatic paladin declares he will lead one of the many parties of the most faithful who are escaping to new lands. There they believe they will be free of the oppression gripping the Great Kingdom (many Pholtans have been emigrating to the northern verges of the Viceroyalty of Nyrond at his time).

    270 CY: The Holy City of Miro is built in the far north.

    279 CY: Prelate Verlamis of Miro, a paladin of Pholtus and leader of the Lords of the Gloaming, discovers the Hand of Vecna and a prophecy that the lich can only be destroyed using the Sword of Kas wielded by the Hand of Vecna. He travels to Citadel Cavitius with some of his fellow knights to retrieve the Sword of Kas. He fully intends to sever his own left hand and attach the Hand of Vecna to his wrist, but Vecna's forces slay all of his troops except for himself and his squire. Verlamis sends his squire back to Oerth with the Hand while he himself presses on in search of the Sword, which he fails to find. The squire foolishly attaches the Hand of Vecna to his own hand, only to discover too late that he couldn't remove it.

    289 CY: Verlamis's squire, now a paladin in his own right, conquers the city of Miro and declares himself its king.

    299 CY: The rule of the Paladin-King becomes increasingly harsh and evil, many Flan are enslaved. Nonetheless migrations of Pholtans from the Great Kingdom accelerate and other towns and settlements are founded.

    319 CY: The Council of Prelates organized by St Ceril realizes the Paladin-King is possessed by the Hand and Eye, they depose him, and burn Miro to the ground and swear to purge its existence from all records over the ensuing years. The Hand and the Eye are rumored to be later taken by followers of the Paladin-King to Dimre as holy relics of their Evil version of the faith of Pholtus.

    342 CY: While the first Theocrat is chosen in Old Wintershiven, the Hand and the Eye are taken from Dimre during a bandit raid. They will be passed from raider to raider, none realizing their significance for many years.

    430 CY: The bandit kinglet Halmadar comes into possession of the Hand and Eye, realizing what they are, he immediately claims them.

    432 CY: Halmadar begins conquering the surrounding bandit holds, but his malice is not yet suspected.

    443 CY: Halmadar has conquered four of his neighbors, he begins construction of a capital on the site that will one day be Molag. He draws the attention of Furyondy and the Shield Lands.

    465 CY: Halmadar has conquered nearly a dozen of the small bandit holds but has become increasingly unstable due to the influence of the Hand and Eye, his followers rebel, drugging him, then entombing him in a secret location south of the Nyr Dyv, following his disappearance, the lands around are easy pickings when Iuz arises in less than a generation.

    571 CY: Rumors suggest that the demigod Vecna escapes the confines of Castle Greyhawk and plots his rise to prominence once more.

    579 CY: Halmadar is freed by the Circle of Eight, Vecna attempts a supreme apotheosis at Tovag Baragu and fails, partly due to the interference of Iuz.
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Wed Jul 13, 2011 9:13 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    319 CY: The Council of Prelates organized by St Ceril realizes the Paladin-King is possessed by the Hand and Eye, they depose him, and burn Miro to the ground and swear to purge its existence from all records over the ensuing years. The Hand and the Eye are rumored to be later taken by followers of the Paladin-King to Dimre as holy relics of their Evil version of the faith of Pholtus.


    While interesting, I thought it had been resolved in other threads that there is 0 canonical evidence, role-playing or rules based, that Dimre's leaders were ever evil worshippers of Pholtus. For those intent on the idea that the Dimrites are really evil Vecnans who may or may not realize that they are Vecnans, this entry may make sense but, again, that is not the position that the Living Greyhawk campaign took with Dimre.

    The rest of the write up is excellent.
    GreySage

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    Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:58 pm  

    aurdraco wrote:
    I thought it had been resolved in other threads...


    I just copypasted that part from Sam's timeline.

    But I would have put it in there anyway, because it's awesome.
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    Thu Jul 14, 2011 2:03 am  

    Actually it's a strongly Lawful Neutral version of Pholtus' religion (Pholtus himself is LG(LN) I think). Still, we mustn't forget that Vecna was an arch lich, not a deity (that came later). There is no reason why the Dimrite worshippers couldn't have considered Vecna's relics as tools of Pholtus which could have led to the ultimate corruption of the leaders of the sect.
    GreySage

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    Thu Jul 14, 2011 2:14 am  

    The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer doesn't specify, but the authorial intent seems to have been for the Dimrean faith to be evil.
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    Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:25 am  

    I've read the Dimre adventures - the Ebongleam religion is LN but has no qualms walking hand in hand with evil. There are evil sub-cults within the sect. Here are some extracts from the modules:

    BKA4-01, BK5-05 – Dimre
    This is obvious when one considers the nonaggression pact between the Grand Theocracy of Dimre (dim-RAY) and the Empire of Iuz. After a humiliating defeat at the hands of the zealous priests of Pholtus, Iuz’s
    envoy was strong-armed into an embarrassing agreement granting Dimre sovereignty and recognition by the Empire. Needless to say, the Old One’s wrath against the envoy was swift and brutal upon his return to Dorakaa. But the evil that is currently established within the Masak (the main temple to Pholtus in Falschheit, the Dimre capital) is of a more insidious variety. While Iuz’s dogma of treachery and destruction are commonly known, this evil is more subtle in its malevolence. An evil
    cult devoted to an entity known as “Azruphael” (AZ-roofayl) has woven itself into the priesthood of Dimre.
    When the canons discovered it, they decided that cooperating with the cult would be the penultimate fulfillment of the doctrine of the Ebongleam. They agreed to aid in keeping the group’s presence a secret to all but the highest ranking clerics, and the cult agreed not to find converts unless they were approved by the Szek. Thus, while the cult follows the letter of the agreement with Dimre, they surreptitiously draw Ebongleam priests closer to the worship of the Lord of Hell. Such is the danger of appeasing such an evil.

    Gresson Klavius was raised as a cleric of Pholtus in the tradition of the Ebongleam by the Grand Theocracy of Dimre. He therefore had no objection to walking handin-hand with the forces of darkness. To him it was only a natural part of understanding the power of the light.
    He served in this capacity as a treasury advisor for General Pernevi (the former ruler of Rookroost). After a coup d’etat in CY 586, Lord Mortoth saw fit to “purge” the administration of Rookroost, forcing Gresson to
    flee. He ran back to Dimre where he died mysteriously shortly after his arrival.

    Iron Faith (Village): Conventional; AL LN;
    200 gp limit; Assets 4710 gp; Population
    471; Isolated (human 452, dwarf 9, halfling
    5, elf 5).
    Authority Figures: Canon Prometheus
    (LN male human (F) Clr5 of Pholtus),
    Constable Rutheras (NG male human (O)
    Ftr4), Zedekiah (LN male human War2,
    captain of the watch).
    Important Characters: Krunkle (N male
    human Com4, proprietor of the Sun’s
    Down Inn), Pira (CN female human Com1,
    a refugee from Rookroost).
    GreySage

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    Thu Jul 14, 2011 1:33 pm  

    That's pretty interesting, Paul. I like that take.
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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 12:28 am  

    I'm trying to go through all the LG mods and extract fluff that can be used as general background for a Greyhawk campaign so I'm working with Anna to help add any locations I come across onto her maps with an eventual view to making the information more widely available - maybe on the Greyhawk Wiki - or perhaps different information for a players' wiki and more restricted access DMs' wiki?

    As time has gone on it's becoming clear that I need to make it non-edition specific (I started in 2e) and that avoiding copyright issues is probably an impossibility. One I've collected the basic raw data it might be helpful to draft together a team of editors to boil the information down and re-edit it where possible. A programmer who knows how to set up a search engine would be a godsend - it would be cool to be able to enter the Javan River and have the search call up information on the river as well as all the settlements that lie along the river in the various nations and regions.

    There is a lot of interesting information out there!
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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:37 am  

    That was Theo's take on Dimre. After those mods, the cults were never mentioned again, iirc (they were eradicated during BDK5-05 The Art of Deception by the NPC who eventually becomes the next Szek of Dimre). These cults were never meant to be all-Dimre-encompassing or eternal, they were just a cult that had sprung up, some Dimre clergy were (foolishly) working with them, then they were eradicated. I'm okay with this because it does not contradict canon rules (there are no LE clerics of Pholtus) nor does it contradict the LGG (Dimre walks hand in hand with darkness).

    Theo did do a great job of fleshing out a tiny fiefdom with some much needed towns. I believe that you can find them on my modified version of the Eric Anondson map. I have made this map available to Anna.

    Casey
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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:48 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer doesn't specify, but the authorial intent seems to have been for the Dimrean faith to be evil.


    Prove it. Imo, nothing in the LGG shows an authorial intent for Dimrites to have been evil. Not very good Pholtans (in the traditional sense)? Yes. Evil? No. The goal of Dimrite Pholtans is still to "understand the glory of Light".

    From the LGG:
    "Dimre’s clergy preaches that
    to understand the glory of Light, one must first walk
    hand-in-hand with Darkness. Its army keeps watch
    on all borders, allowing none but the faithful to pass
    into their sacred land."

    You are extrapolating far too much from those two simple sentences. Heck, I could argue that the word "sacred" means they were not evil. If they were evil, the word should have been "profane", at least by 3.X standards.
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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 8:21 am  

    It just occurred to me that I should share some of the BK material on Dimre while we are on this topic. This link leads to Dimre's write-up in the official LG Bandit Kingdoms Metacampaign Guidebook (BKMG). I'm not sure who wrote this entry: it was either Michael Garis (BK Triad - Meta at the time the first BKMGs were created in 2003/2004), Don Wolf (LG player, initial Dimre meta-org coordinator), or Theo (LG player, botherer of Gygax about Stoink, Dimre coordinator after Don, mod author then BK Triad member), although why Theo would write the entry and Don would coordinate the org, I don't know. My guess is that Don wrote it and Michael edited it based on the fact that I wrote a similar entry for another org (Fanlareshen Elves) at that time for Michael.

    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4EUZ0h7JMVSOWIyMTlmN2QtODExYi00YzZmLTk1ZWEtNzlmZjU1OWVjYmRk&hl=en_US

    For fun, I'm also linking the 4 Dimrite meta-org Adventure Records. These contain the rules items necessary for a LG PC to have risen up the Dimrite ranks. They may gave further insight into how we viewed Dimre.

    Dimre army:
    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4EUZ0h7JMVSZDFkZjY2MjgtMTA2OC00ZjQ2LWEzNzYtNzJmNzFjNWVkNjM3&hl=en_US

    Dimre citizen:
    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4EUZ0h7JMVSYzBhNWQxYzUtOGIwNC00MWY5LThlYjEtOTMzMmY3ZTgzOGUw&hl=en_US

    Dimre clergy:
    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4EUZ0h7JMVSOThlYTA4OTQtMzZjYS00ZDM1LTlhZmItMmI3YTA3NmY2Y2Y0&hl=en_US

    Dimre secret police:
    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4EUZ0h7JMVSMzg0ZmQ1ZmMtMGM0Zi00OTNhLTk1YWEtMjRlOTA3OTlmOWMx&hl=en_US
    GreySage

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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 9:57 am  

    aurdraco wrote:
    Prove it.


    Haha, you can ask Gary yourself during Thursday night chats. If I recall correctly, though, he blamed Erik Mona for the "Dimreans are evil" idea.

    Quote:
    Imo, nothing in the LGG shows an authorial intent for Dimrites to have been evil.


    Perhaps, perhaps not. But there are more straightforward means of finding out what the authors meant: asking them.

    Quote:

    You are extrapolating far too much from those two simple sentences.


    No, I'm extrapolating from what I was told. It wasn't my idea that the Dimrean faith was evil.

    I'm not saying, "It's iron-clad canon that the Dimrean branch of the Pholtan faith is evil." I'm just saying that this seems to have been the authors' intent.

    I must say though, I really do like the interpretation "They believe that light must walk hand-in-hand with darkness, which makes them very susceptible to further corruption by the forces of evil" illustrated in Theo's adventure plot.


    Last edited by rasgon on Fri Jul 15, 2011 10:05 am; edited 1 time in total
    GreySage

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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 10:01 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    I'm just saying that this seems to have been the authors' intent.


    In the end, that's all that counts. "It" is the author's creation and no one can tell the author what he/she did or did not mean. So, the author's word is good enough for me. Wink
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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 11:23 am  

    I can't remember if I've posted this before, but here's my take on why Dimrites were made to be unusual Pholtans. In an early Greyhawk supplement, Dimre's shield was shown. Its design is clearly a reflection of Pholtus holy symbol.

    When Mona and crew were trying to reconcile years of often confusing canon, they got to Dimre's shield and possibly wondered, "Why in the heck is Dimre's shield a holy symbol of Pholtus? All we know from canon about Dimre is that Dimre's leader is a cleric (of an unknown god) named Szek Winvid or Szek Winuid, depending on how you interpret the 4th character in the name. Ah well, we should reconcile the two and now Szek Winvid is a cleric of Pholtus."

    To reconcile Dimre, which is right next to The Pale, worshipping Pholtus yet being a different entity than The Pale, I believe that they concocted a backstory of:
    "Founded prior to the Great Council
    of Rel Mord by the charismatic canon of a heretical
    apostate cult of Pholtus, Dimre is greatly reviled
    in the Pale."

    (Now, as Britt pointed out on a greychat months ago, the phrase "heretical apostate cult" actually makes no sense: one is either heretical or an apostate, if I remember his points correctly)

    Ok, great, so Dimrites are a different kind of Pholtan from those found in The Pale. Now, since clerics of Pholtus in earlier editions of the game could only be LG or LN in alignment (and yes, worshipers could be LE), and since The Palish Pholtans are LN, per canon, how do you set Dimrites apart? I guess it's by having a LN clergy ruling over LN/LE people. After all, per canon sources, most of the BK is CN/CE. Dimrites beat the chaos out of people, leaving behind only those willing to follow orders. The clergy aren't evil, just very very strict and willing to get their hands dirty if it means "understanding the glory of the light".

    And as for author intent, I'm sorry, but that is not canon. What about Gygax's intent? He may have meant for the Dimrites to be Trithereonites or not overly religious at all, just led by a cleric.

    Is Dimre mentioned at all in the Gord books? I don't think it is. Shame because it's so close to Stoink.
    GreySage

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    Fri Jul 15, 2011 1:11 pm  

    aurdraco wrote:
    And as for author intent, I'm sorry, but that is not canon.


    Er, I already said that, yes. See above. Reading is power.
    Quote:
    What about Gygax's intent?


    If I knew Gygax's intent, I would have mentioned it.

    I think one of the best things about pen-and-paper RPGs is that each group gets to determine for themselves what canon is. But the intent of the designers seems interesting enough to mention. As for the rest of your post, your reasoning seems fair enough, but not more persuasive than the alternatives. In the end, the idea of plain ol' lawful neutral priests is just kind of boring to me.

    Now, the idea that light walking hand-in-hand with darkness meaning that the priests regularly consort with beings of Hell, as in Theo's adventure idea above? Even if (or perhaps especially if) many of them remain uncorrupted, that's much more intriguing to me.
    Adept Greytalker

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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:11 am  

    Nice, Rip. As always, you challenge the rest of us to do our best. Here are my thoughts, based on my research:

    rasgon wrote:
    Here's a heavily revised timeline of the Hand and Eye, incorporating sources that came to light in this thread. Otherwise some of this is word-for-word from Sam's article.

    -350 CY: Vecna falls at the hands of his servant Kas. The Hand and Eye pass into the ownership of House Neheli, who give them to the Silent Ones for safekeeping.


    I would place this at c. -358 CY, given the fact that the LGG implies this event took place near the founding of Niole Dra that same year (p. 64). The relevant passage states that Niole Dra was founded “within ten years of Gradsul’s creation” in -368 CY, and that “the next few seasons brought many changes to the land, as the Oeridian tribes entered the Sheldomar Valley from the north after a great upheaval appeared to bring down the Empire of Vecna from within.”

    Quote:
    -340 CY: House Malhel attacks the Lonely Tower of the Silent Ones, carrying off the Hand and Eye with them to their stronghold of Valadis.

    -301 CY: House Malhel destroys itself. Its survivors are spread to the winds.

    -277 CY: Asberdies Malhel proclaims himself master of the lands what will one day be known as the Yeomanry. He has the Hand and Eye with him.


    In this scenario, I would assume that Asberdies never actually grafted theEye and Hand to himself, as the two have been "brought together" (I'm assuming this to mean "grafted to the same wielder") "no more than twice in the entire history of the two artifacts" (Vecna Lives, 70). One of these times, without question, was Halmadar the Cruel. The other, most likely, was the unnamed, one-handed, one-eyed elf in Citadel Cavitius described as “an earlier victim” of the two artifacts (VL, 65).

    Quote:
    -225 CY: Asberdies is overthrown.


    The GreyChrondex places this event between the -290s & -270s, most likely because the LGG states the the Yeomanry was founded in the aftermath, and that "almost two centuries later, in -96 CY, the leaders of the Yeomanry met with representatives of the expanding kingdom of Keoland to discuss their
    annexation into the latter" (p. 135).

    Quote:
    -224 CY: The Hand and Eye appear among the Yaheetes, brought there by a lieutenant of Asberdies.

    -214 CY: The Insurrection of the Yaheetes (2e DMG, 91). The Hand and Eye of Vecna disappear after the overthrow of Paddin the Vain. Paddin's consort carved the eye and hand from his body while he slept and cast them into the sea, where they fell into the posession of the undersea races.


    The 2E DMG has this event taking place "136 years after the passing of Vecna." This date differs from my date of c. -222 because you have Vecna's betrayal set at later date.

    As for Paddin the Vain, I believe he is the same person as the unnamed elf from VL (p. 65).

    More to come. . . .
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:52 am  

    rasgon wrote:

    -209 CY: Hyeric, the younger brother of King Ęthel of Nehron, slays a sahuagin warlord bearing the Eye of Vecna. He carves it from the creature's skull and brings it back with him to Castle Star Haunt, from which he rules the eastern Celadon Forest in the name of Nehron. He becomes obsessive and strange, founding a heretical cult of Celestian and experimenting with space-warping magics.


    I do like the idea of a sahuagin warlord having the Eye. This provides a great explanation as to how it was able to travel so far, and also corresponds to the implied discovery of the Hand in a fisherman's net (2EDMG, 91).

    Quote:
    -194 CY: After the death of his brother by natural causes, Hyeric travels to Rel Mord to reign as Lord Regent until his brother's young son comes of age.

    -190 CY: The prince of Nehron dies in his sleep of unknown causes.

    -180 CY: During the reign of Hamoch of Tyrus, the Hand of Vecna is discovered by the fisherman Gisel and kept by the fisherman as a curiosity.

    -163 CY: Gisel's brother steals the Hand of Vecna. He is waylaid en route to Tyrus and the Hand of Vecna falls into the possession of the outlaw Mace. Mace attaches the Hand to the stub of his own missing arm and soon conquers the city of Tyrus, creating a plague that annihilated the house of Hamoch. Mace slaughters his former followers to appease the shade of Vecna, who appears to him in a dream.


    I would put more years between these last two events. Note that the 2E DMG states that Gisel kept the hand “as a curiosity” for “several decades” (p. 91). Seventeen years is not even two decades.

    I would place Tyrus somewhere along the northern coast of the Pomarj (see VL, 22), which would be part of the western coast of the Sea of Gearnat. Tyrus would later be known as the Slaughterhouse of the Western Shore (2E DMG, 91).

    Quote:

    -159 CY: King Hyeric and his family are driven from the throne in Rel Mord when their warped experiments come to light. They escape to Star Haunt, where their magics ultimately destroy them. The throne of Nyrond passes to Hyeric's cousin Eadrig.

    -137 CY: One of the wizards of House Maure unearths the Eye of Vecna from Star Haunt and vanishes with it to another plane.

    -130 CY: The Maure wizard is next reported having infiltrated the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea on the oceanic, magically advanced world of Malhatai. The Eye of Vecna is grafted in his left eye socket, but his left hand is missing and has no replacement. He convinces half of the Conclave to aid him in the conquest of the planet; the other half he attempts to execute on the spot, though one is resurrected due to a Clone spell. Over the next three cycles, Malhatai is destroyed in a war that uses magic not seen since the Twin Cataclysms of Oerth.

    -127 CY: On what is now a dead world, the Maure wizard is finally killed by the last (cloned) member of the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea, who elects to search the multiverse until he finds a way to destroy the artifact.

    -120 CY: The Last of the Conclave dies on the ashen Plane of Ghalentir, his quest incomplete. Ghalentir was a barren demiplane whose inhabitants had been Flan villagers banished there by Vecna himself in a fit of innovative wrath over 300 years ago. The man who was with him in his final hours, a gentle healer whose wife has recently borne a child with rose-colored eyes and wings, finds the eye among the man's belongings and is posessed by it. That night, he murders his son, who would have otherwise grown to lead his people from the benighted plane. The humans of Ghalentir die out in a generation.


    I'm not sure if Ghalentir, Malhatai, or the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea are references outside of PST, but you seem to have made a good fit. Weaving in the Maure was a nice touch.

    Also, from the original post, I'm inclined to work in the Abyss, given the reference to the Gates of Paradise (ie, the Gates of Heaven, the 77th layer).

    Quote:

    -109 CY: The Battle of a Fortnight's Length. Nyrond is conquered by the Kingdom of Aerdy.


    This event occurred in 535 OR, which actuallyconverts to -110 CY. The date of -109 CY given in the LGG is miscalculated.

    Quote:

    -90 CY: The dracolich Ampathzeredes arrives on the Plane of Ghalentir and claims the Eye of Vecna for his own, grafting it to his own empty eye socket. With the Eye of Vecna as his guide, he travels to Vecna's homeworld to set himself up as the lich's heir in the Dark Cathedral near Diamond Lake.


    Nice. IIRC, the only reference to Ampathzeredes is one sentence in Complete Champion. I also like how you worked in the Dark Cathedral from AoW.

    Still more to come, but breakfast first. . . .
    Adept Greytalker

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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:13 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    -72 CY: Lanchaster II of Rhola is assassinated as Mace, now calling himself Vecna the Second, reveals his rule of Tyrus.

    -63 CY: Senestal II of Neheli dies while attempting to take Tyrus. Vecna II is struck down by the half-demon Tsojcanth (disguised as an assassin from Yemish) when the power of the Hand of Vecna inexplicably fails him. The hand of Vecna II eventually finds its way to the possession of the dracolich Ampathzeredes, although he is unable to use it himself.


    If you've placed Tyrus on the northern coast of the Pomarj, as I have, I'm not sure if the Keoish crown would consider it important enough, despite the name of Vecna, for the king to personally lead a attack on the city. Given Aerdy's westward expansion at the time (Nyrond, Onnwal), I think they would have a more vested interest in putting down a tyrant on the Gearnat than Keoland, which at the time was likely more concerned with events closer to home (annexation of the Yeomanry, the reign of Count Cartair of Ulek).

    I see you have interpreted Yemish as a place (the 2E DMG mentions "Yemishite assassin"). Have you conceived any additional details?

    Also, I disagree with the Hand and Eye being reunited at such an early stage, given VL's statement implying that only two people had wielded both (Halmadar the Cruel & possibly Paddin the Vain--see previous posts).

    Quote:
    -13 CY: The dracolich Ampathzeredes is destroyed by the adventuring party known as the Six from Shadow.

    89 CY: A gnomish explorer of the Blemu Hills claims the Hand and the Eye while exploring the Dark Cathedral and returns home with his prizes.

    91 CY: The gnome consolidates his rule over the demi-humans of the Blemu Hills, and takes the title of Gnomelord.

    98 CY: As his villainy grows, the Gnomelord threatens the trade routes of the Great Kingdom, attracting the attention of the Overking Manshen.

    101 CY: The Gnomelord is destroyed by armies of Aerdy and the Pholtan Holy Censor of Medegia is entrusted with the Hand and Eye. They are taken and locked away to prevent them from doing anymore damage. However, the destruction of the demihuman enclaves and the subsequent settlement of the Bone March leads to increased barbarian raids from the north and results in the Battle of the Shamblefields.

    252 CY: The Pholtans are stripped of the position of Holy Censor and the See of Medegia is reassigned to the church of Zilchus. The deposed Holy Censor takes the reliquary containing the Hand and Eye when he leaves his post.

    263 CY: The deposed Holy Censor dies and a Paladin of Pholtus discovers the Hand and Eye among his effects and claims them.

    264 CY: The charismatic paladin declares he will lead one of the many parties of the most faithful who are escaping to new lands. There they believe they will be free of the oppression gripping the Great Kingdom (many Pholtans have been emigrating to the northern verges of the Viceroyalty of Nyrond at his time).


    Though I love Sam's idea of how the Pholtans, & thus the Paladin-King, got the Hand (and he definitely held the Hand) via the Gnomelord, this is thrown in disarray if the Gnomelord possessed only the Eye.

    Of the four possessors of Vecna artifacts mentioned in the Dragon Scale Tome--Paddin the Vain (later identified by name in the Book of Artifacts), Vecna II, the Gnomelord, & the Paladin-King--only the Gnomelord does not appear in the other two 2E Vecnan artifacts sources by David Cook (BoA & the 2E DMG). Since one of those, the DMG, only covers the Hand, this leads me to believe that the Gnomelord held only the Eye.

    Perhaps the Gnomelord found the Hand but did not have a chance to attach it? If so, then why did the PK not also use the Eye? Perhaps the body of the Gnomelord was never found by the Pholtans, or one of his servants (or a rogue Pholtan) pried it out before it could be recovered? Or perhaps the Hand was recovered earlier, by the Yemishite assassin hired by the Aerdy crown?

    Quote:
    270 CY: The Holy City of Miro is built in the far north.

    279 CY: Prelate Verlamis of Miro, a paladin of Pholtus and leader of the Lords of the Gloaming, discovers the Hand of Vecna and a prophecy that the lich can only be destroyed using the Sword of Kas wielded by the Hand of Vecna. He travels to Citadel Cavitius with some of his fellow knights to retrieve the Sword of Kas. He fully intends to sever his own left hand and attach the Hand of Vecna to his wrist, but Vecna's forces slay all of his troops except for himself and his squire. Verlamis sends his squire back to Oerth with the Hand while he himself presses on in search of the Sword, which he fails to find. The squire foolishly attaches the Hand of Vecna to his own hand, only to discover too late that he couldn't remove it.


    Verlamis was not the name of the radiant spirit of the paladin (the "radiant paladin") encountered in Die Vecna Die!. The text states that he was sent by Verlamis to destroy Vecna.

    Quote:
    289 CY: Verlamis's squire, now a paladin in his own right, conquers the city of Miro and declares himself its king.

    299 CY: The rule of the Paladin-King becomes increasingly harsh and evil, many Flan are enslaved. Nonetheless migrations of Pholtans from the Great Kingdom accelerate and other towns and settlements are founded.

    319 CY: The Council of Prelates organized by St Ceril realizes the Paladin-King is possessed by the Hand and Eye, they depose him, and burn Miro to the ground and swear to purge its existence from all records over the ensuing years. The Hand and the Eye are rumored to be later taken by followers of the Paladin-King to Dimre as holy relics of their Evil version of the faith of Pholtus.

    342 CY: While the first Theocrat is chosen in Old Wintershiven, the Hand and the Eye are taken from Dimre during a bandit raid. They will be passed from raider to raider, none realizing their significance for many years.

    430 CY: The bandit kinglet Halmadar comes into possession of the Hand and Eye, realizing what they are, he immediately claims them.

    432 CY: Halmadar begins conquering the surrounding bandit holds, but his malice is not yet suspected.

    443 CY: Halmadar has conquered four of his neighbors, he begins construction of a capital on the site that will one day be Molag. He draws the attention of Furyondy and the Shield Lands.

    465 CY: Halmadar has conquered nearly a dozen of the small bandit holds but has become increasingly unstable due to the influence of the Hand and Eye, his followers rebel, drugging him, then entombing him in a secret location south of the Nyr Dyv, following his disappearance, the lands around are easy pickings when Iuz arises in less than a generation.


    I think it unlikely that Halmadar found Hand and Eye at the same time. Perhaps he had an ancestor who was a rogue Pholtan?

    Also, the LGG states that Halmadar terrorized the Shield Lands from 420-445 CY (p. 104). Perhaps he only had the Eye in 420, and was not viewed as a significant threat (&/or had not mastered its use) until a decade later, upon gaining the Hand?

    [/quote]571 CY: Rumors suggest that the demigod Vecna escapes the confines of Castle Greyhawk and plots his rise to prominence once more.

    579 CY: Halmadar is freed by the Circle of Eight, Vecna attempts a supreme apotheosis at Tovag Baragu and fails, partly due to the interference of Iuz.[/quote]

    Halmadar was freed in 581 CY. According to LGJ #0, The Co8's "unprecedented field operation" took place then. Furthermore, it is very likely that Vecna Lives! takes place in autumn, given various references throughout the work, such as the cold, fog, and rain near Verbobonc (p. 39, 41, 42), and the example of an autumn scene provided in the section on setting mood (p. 5).
    GreySage

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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:37 am  

    Robbastard wrote:
    I would place this at c. -358 CY, given the fact that the LGG implies this event took place near the founding of Niole Dra that same year (p. 64). The relevant passage states that Niole Dra was founded “within ten years of Gradsul’s creation” in -368 CY, and that “the next few seasons brought many changes to the land, as the Oeridian tribes entered the Sheldomar Valley from the north after a great upheaval appeared to bring down the Empire of Vecna from within.”


    I think you're right. Niole Dra was founded between -368 CY and -358 CY ("within ten years" - probably this means very close to ten years, or it would've said "within a few years" instead), and Vecna's empire fell within a year or so ("the next few seasons" - this could be the next year rather than the same year).

    Oh, I see the problem. Samwise's Vecna timeline gave the date of -350 CY, but his Sheldomar Timeline corrected it and placed it during the much more reasonable date of -357. I should have done my own research instead of just assuming he got it right the first time.

    Quote:
    In this scenario, I would assume that Asberdies never actually grafted theEye and Hand to himself


    Agreed.

    Quote:
    , as the two have been "brought together" (I'm assuming this to mean "grafted to the same wielder") "no more than twice in the entire history of the two artifacts" (Vecna Lives, 70).


    I was a bit laxer in interpreting that line because the only reference to the Gnomelord (that I was aware of) seemed to imply he had them both. We could also assume the Gnomelord had only one artifact or the other, but it's not clear which one. So I just decided to be generous and give him both of them, and assume that Vecna Lives underestimated the total number of times slightly.

    Quote:
    The GreyChrondex places this event between the -290s & -270s, most likely because the LGG states the the Yeomanry was founded in the aftermath, and that "almost two centuries later, in -96 CY, the leaders of the Yeomanry met with representatives of the expanding kingdom of Keoland to discuss their
    annexation into the latter" (p. 135).


    Asberdies rules "some years" after the destruction of Malhel and then is "eventually cast down after years of domination," so I wanted some breathing room after Malhel's destruction and a fairly long reign (several decades, I'd assume) after that. Malhel must have immolated some time after the fall of Vecna, if those two events are going to be tied together, and they also should have a little time to build their citadel and settle in. So the Malhel should die out no earlier than -357 and probably a decade or so later than that. Asberdies should have a few years to conquer the Yeomanry (so maybe around -345?)... okay, -290 would give him 55 years of rule, which is probably enough.

    So I could see that, sure.

    -358 or -357: Vecna dies.
    -348: Malhel immolates.
    -345: Asberdies begins conquering the Yeomanry.
    -296: Asberdies is cast down by yeoman farmers.

    Sounds okay to me.

    Quote:
    The 2E DMG has this event taking place "136 years after the passing of Vecna." This date differs from my date of c. -222 because you have Vecna's betrayal set at later date.


    Right, I was trying to figure exactly 136 years later. So -222 instead.

    Quote:
    As for Paddin the Vain, I believe he is the same person as the unnamed elf from VL (p. 65).


    I was deliberately leaving that vague. Samwise and several other articles on Canonfire that play off his timeline have the Yaheetes as a Flan group, and I wasn't certain if I wanted to explicitly follow your perfectly reasonable theory that they were elves. Paddin could well be an elf even if the other Yaheetes were Flan, of course, but I thought I'd just be inspecific about the whole thing.

    But yes, your identification of Paddin with the VL elf is perfectly reasonable, and the best match we have in canon.

    One thing I was flirting briefly with was identifing Paddin's lover with Fionna Casilltenirra, a legendary elf who fell in love with a human and tried to turn him into a vampire in The Complete Book of Elves (page 54), but I couldn't make any sense of that at all (since a female elf and male human is the opposite of what I wanted). So his lover went unnamed.

    Quote:
    I would put more years between these last two events. Note that the 2E DMG states that Gisel kept the hand “as a curiosity” for “several decades” (p. 91). Seventeen years is not even two decades.


    Well, if someone found something in 1982 and kept it until 1997, I think we could say they had it for two decades (the 1980s and 1990s), even if it wasn't technically 20 full years. But you're right that "several" means more than two (vague terms like "several" screw me up all the time). So probably at least another decade could be added.

    -180 CY: Gisel finds the Hand of Vecna.
    -150 CY: Gisel's brother steals the Hand and Mace takes it en route to Tyrus.

    Quote:
    I'm not sure if Ghalentir, Malhatai, or the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea are references outside of PST


    They aren't, but working those references into the rest of the timeline was pretty much the entire point of this thread initially. So I tried to do it! Then I was working on revising it once I saw that my earlier version failed to mesh with canon.

    Quote:

    Also, from the original post, I'm inclined to work in the Abyss, given the reference to the Gates of Paradise (ie, the Gates of Heaven, the 77th layer).


    Good call! I hadn't thought of that connection.

    Quote:

    This event occurred in 535 OR, which actuallyconverts to -110 CY. The date of -109 CY given in the LGG is miscalculated.


    I noticed the discrepency between the LGG and the wiki, but assumed the CY date was the one that would be more likely to be correct. Looking back at A Guide to the World of Greyhawk Fantasy Setting, though, I see the date was given there only in S.D., O.C., B.H., F.T., and O.R., leaving CY the odd man out. So my mistake!

    Quote:
    If you've placed Tyrus on the northern coast of the Pomarj, as I have, I'm not sure if the Keoish crown would consider it important enough, despite the name of Vecna, for the king to personally lead a attack on the city. Given Aerdy's westward expansion at the time


    You may be right. I was trying hard not to invalidate the large swaths of Samwise's timeline which depended on this, despite all the date changes I had to make to make it fit with the 2e DMG. I (or someone) may have to figure out new reasons for Lanchaster II and Senestal II to die.

    Quote:
    I see you have interpreted Yemish as a place (the 2E DMG mentions "Yemishite assassin"). Have you conceived any additional details?


    I think Cebrion said he associated it with the Red Kingdom in Western Oerik. I'd be more likely to place it somewhere on the Baklunish side of the Yatils.

    The connection with Tsojcanth comes from "Iggwilv's Legacy: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth" in the digital-only Dungeon #151, which stated that Tsojcanth slew a wielder of the Hand of Vecna. I decided here to make that wielder into Mace/Vecna II, because he's known to have been assassinated, although in an earlier thread I'd suggested the Gnomelord of the Blemu Hills instead.

    Quote:
    Also, I disagree with the Hand and Eye being reunited at such an early stage


    I know, but I wanted the Gnomelord to have both.

    Quote:

    Though I love Sam's idea of how the Pholtans, & thus the Paladin-King, got the Hand (and he definitely held the Hand) via the Gnomelord, this is thrown in disarray if the Gnomelord possessed only the Eye.


    Another good reason for the Gnomelord to have the Hand! As far as I know, the only place the Gnomelord is mentioned is in Vecna Lives!, page 22:

    "In it characters will find a section on the Eye and Hand of Vecna. This describes the appearance of these artifacts over the centuries, beginning with the Insurrection of the Yaheetes (in the Dreadwood), then with the reign of Vecna the Second in Tyrus (believed to be somewhere along the Pomarj coast), to the Gnomelord of Blemu..."

    This section doesn't identify who has which. The 2e DMG implied Paddin and Vecna II only had the Hand, and neither the Book of Artifacts nor Planescape: Torment mention the Gnomelord in the context of the Eye or anything else, so we're left with a question mark on what exactly the Gnomelord had. I thought it was fairly easy to cheat a bit.

    Quote:
    Since one of those, the DMG, only covers the Hand, this leads me to believe that the Gnomelord held only the Eye.


    I'm not sure that's a reasonable assumption. The DMG covers a bunch of known appearances of the Hand, but isn't necessarily exhaustive. The Book of Artifacts covers both artifacts, in two different sections, but doesn't mention the Gnomelord in either. Planescape: Torment, which may be of dubious canon status but seems cool enough to use, covers the Eye specifically and never mentions the Gnomelord (and also isn't necessarily exhaustive). The only place that the Gnomelord appears is in a place that covers both artifacts simultaneously, so it looks like a wash to me. There's no reason to assume the Gnomelord is more likely to have had one than the other.

    You're right that a strict reading of Vecna Lives! means no one but Haldamar and the unnamed elf could have had both, and the elf is clearly not the Gnomelord. But which do you go with? If I had to choose one, I'd give the Gnomelord the Hand, not the Eye, so that the Pholtans can bring it to Medegia and thence to Miro.

    Quote:
    Verlamis was not the name of the radiant spirit of the paladin (the "radiant paladin") encountered in Die Vecna Die!. The text states that he was sent by Verlamis to destroy Vecna.


    Oh, right. I read that poorly.

    Quote:
    I think it unlikely that Halmadar found Hand and Eye at the same time.


    I was sloppy with my copypasting, there, since I only gave the Paladin-King the Hand, yet somehow he also has the Eye later on, which is pretty unnecessary and, what's more, utterly unexplained. Though I guess the previous unnamed paladin (and I invented a completely new paladin there in order to separate him from the Paladin-King - maybe the unnamed paladin that brought the artifacts from Medegia to Miro was Verlamis) left both artifacts in Miro, and the Paladin-King could have gotten it from a Pholtan temple in the city when he conquered the place.

    But I really only wanted the Gnomelord to have both artifacts, not the Paladin-King, so the Eye of Vecna should probably be somewhere else, and you're right that Haldamar could have found it separately. The last place the Eye needed to be was with Ampathzeredes, since I was using the dracolich to explain how it got back to Oerth in place of the unnamed "planar traveler" from my older draft (I had actually considered making the planar traveler a member of the Doomguard, but that seemed too coincidental and it leaves it unresolved where the dracolich gets a Vecnan artifact from). The Hand needed to be with Vecna II, and from there I think it needs to somehow end up with the Gnomelord (while the Eye, in my opinion, doesn't) - the dracolich's lair doesn't need to be the path it takes, though, so the Gnomelord could've gotten the Hand somewhere else and the Eye could still be in the Dark Cathedral until it somehow makes its way to Haldemar.

    That's a pretty major gap. It's simpler to have the Hand and Eye travel together from the Dark Cathedral to Medegia to Miro to Haldemar (with the Hand briefly separated by the Radiant Paladin, who didn't need the Eye for anything), but simple isn't necessarily desireable. If you're really set on no one but the elf and Haldemar having both artifacts, then the path they took to Haldemar needs to be very different.

    Quote:
    Perhaps he had an ancestor who was a rogue Pholtan?

    Also, the LGG states that Halmadar terrorized the Shield Lands from 420-445 CY (p. 104). Perhaps he only had the Eye in 420, and was not viewed as a significant threat (&/or had not mastered its use) until a decade later, upon gaining the Hand?


    Both are possibilities. Or maybe he had the Hand in 420 and only later gained the Eye. I've pretty much run out of canonical characters to be given the artifacts in the meantime.

    I did, fairly arbitrarily, want a character of my own creation to have the Hand of Vecna in 287 CY (for reasons that have more to do with Sigilian history than Oerth's history), which doesn't fit at all with this timeline, so I may try to nudge things a bit. Verlamis can be active as late as 391 CY (still centuries before 591 CY), so I do have some leeway, though I didn't want to destroy Samwise's history of the founding of Miro and Dimre utterly.

    Sigh! Lots of things to reconsider. The journey of the Eye is more mysterious than the journey of the Hand, but I really liked the idea of a Fraternity of Order factol being grimly called "the even-handed" and having a withered hand that was possibly Vecna's own during the period of the Mercykiller war 300 years ago.

    rasgon wrote:
    It was the 60th year of Factol Simon the Odd-handed of the Fraternity of Order. Simon was an ancient wizard from the Prime, a distant cousin of the House of Rax on Oerth whose withered right hand was, some claimed, the legendary Hand of Vecna. During his long reign, noted for his distinct lack of even-handedness, he transformed the Fraternity from a society of avid debaters to one where all dissent against his own theories and dogma was punished with immediate censure or exile. A brilliant man, several of his theorums and precepts are still cited by Guvners today, and at the end of the his life he is said to have discovered one of the Great Axioms and reached apotheosis, leaving only his right hand behind, which his followers chucked through a portal back to his homeworld.


    ...but I don't need that kind of interruption in my timeline above at all, and I could use some more ideas about what the Eye of Vecna was up to between the dracolich and Haldemar.

    Hm. Y'know, I could space the otherworldly Planescape: Torment events out wider and have Haldemar wrest the Eye directly from the Abyss, after already inheriting the Hand from a bandit king some decades before. And I could use Simon the Odd-Handed as the unnamed "paladin" who brought the Hand from Medegia to Miro. Prelate Verlamis could have lived in Miro and discovered old records of Simon bringing it to that city, sending the Radiant Paladin on a quest to recover it from wherever it had ended up after the end of Simon's reign (and it need not even be on Oerth at that point).

    I like the idea of both artifacts wandering the planes for a time before returning to Oerth again. There are several places in the timeline (the defeat of Ampathzeredes, the defeat of the Gnomelord... the defeat of virtually any of the artifact-wielders, really, though I like the idea of Paddin's artifacts being cast into the sea, and of course they were buried with Halmadar) which a party of adventurers might have cast the artifacts through a portal or planar rift deliberately in an attempt to rid the world of them, only to eventually have them find their way back.

    Ampathzeredes could have the Hand of Vecna instead of the Eye, gained from a former follower of Vecna II, although it's unlikely a dracolich would have had it grafted on to him. The Gnomelord could have gained the Hand from Ampathzeredes's lair or from wherever the Six from Shadow put it - there's a few centuries it could have been wandering around instead of moldering in the Dark Cathedral. The Overking's men could have brought the Hand from the Blemu Hills to Medegia and Simon (perhaps a powerful and trusted sanctified wizard rather than a paladin) could have brought it from Medegia to Miro, and thence to Sigil after the Hand inspired him to gain power in that legendary city as Vecna himself would later try to do. Definitely a possibility, anyway.

    robbastard wrote:
    Halmadar was freed in 581 CY.


    And you're right, of course. That's when the Circle of Eight died. I was perfectly aware of that, so that makes for pretty major copypaste laziness on my part. Pretty inexcusable, really.

    Thanks for all your comments, and taking the time to read this in detail. I made a lot of stupid errors! I'll probably revise this extensively.


    Last edited by rasgon on Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:19 am; edited 4 times in total
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:55 am  

    aurdraco wrote:
    I can't remember if I've posted this before, but here's my take on why Dimrites were made to be unusual Pholtans. In an early Greyhawk supplement, Dimre's shield was shown. Its design is clearly a reflection of Pholtus holy symbol.


    What supplement is that? I'm looking at the shield of Dimre from the WoG boxed set and I'm not seeing the holy symbol of Pholtus there.
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:08 am  

    smillan_31 wrote:
    aurdraco wrote:
    I can't remember if I've posted this before, but here's my take on why Dimrites were made to be unusual Pholtans. In an early Greyhawk supplement, Dimre's shield was shown. Its design is clearly a reflection of Pholtus holy symbol.


    What supplement is that? I'm looking at the shield of Dimre from the WoG boxed set and I'm not seeing the holy symbol of Pholtus there.


    Ditto, Smillan: http://sh1.webring.com/people/ju/um_2769/herald.html
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:11 am  

    smillan_31 wrote:
    What supplement is that? I'm looking at the shield of Dimre from the WoG boxed set and I'm not seeing the holy symbol of Pholtus there.


    Pholtus's symbol is a disc of electrum in the 1983 boxed set, which is probably meant to combine the gold of the sun with the silver of Luna. The heraldry of Dimre has a golden circle with a red circle inside it, which isn't really very much like Pholtus's Silvery Sun.

    Probably the LGG authors only associated Dimre with Pholtus because it was so near the Pale, and because Pholtus's faith is such an interesting one to have heresies of.
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:45 am  

    Which raises the question for me of why Pholtus's more well-known symbol (Didn't know about the disc of electrum, thanks rasgon!) is the two moons combined? I'm assuming that originated with Dave Noonan. I much prefer the sun and moon(s) symbols on his robe from DRG # 68. There it looks like suns eclipsing a crescent moon, but they seem to vary.
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:50 am  

    The colors don't match up with the moons and the inner circle isn't a crescent but for some reason I always felt that the two circles represented one moon eclipsing the other, i.e. Pholtus holy symbol. That was just a reach I made to myself to explain why Dimre was Pholtan yet different from The Pale. Not a concept I am married to at all because it's clearly a HUGE reach. The shield was probably just randomly designed in '83, long before Dimre was ever detailed.

    rasgon wrote:
    Reading is power.


    I respect your encyclopedic knowledge of Greyhawk material and I expect better from you.
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:20 am  

    fdsd

    Last edited by rasgon on Sat Feb 04, 2017 5:27 am; edited 3 times in total
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    Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:34 pm  

    By way of bringing the topic back to Vecna, different people are going to see different things, but to me the concentric roundels on the chevron in Dimre's arms bring an eye to mind.
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    Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:38 am  

    It's certainly possible that the splinter sect grew up because the leaders of the cult used to hand and eye as tools for the greater glory of Pholtus - as I said before, Vecna's religion was not recongnised back then (because the writers had not re-invented him as a demi-god). It's arguable that his religion first grew out of the Ebongleam as evil worshippers preferred the secretive powers of the Hand and Eye and splintered off from the main Pholtan LN sect.
    GreySage

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    Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:12 am  

    PaulN6 wrote:
    as I said before, Vecna's religion was not recognised back then (because the writers had not re-invented him as a demi-god). It's arguable that his religion first grew out of the Ebongleam as evil worshippers preferred the secretive powers of the Hand and Eye and splintered off from the main Pholtan LN sect.


    What date, approximately, do you think Vecna's religion first formed?

    I think that Vecna already had a religion based on him even before his battle with Kas. I think he reigned from his Spidered Throne as an unliving false god, and after he was destroyed his cultists remained, following the bearers of his hand and eye, still praying to their fallen "deity."

    Certainly, Vecna had worshipers before he came back from the void where Kas's treachery had sent him.

    From Vecna Lives!, page 7:
    Quote:
    His will, evil and perverted, was too powerful to be destroyed when his body perished. For untold centuries it drifted, refusing to surrender. Strangely, small traces of power flowed to it, the energy of worshipers on Oerth. Even one as depraved as Vecna attracted those who revered and adored him.


    So for a time he was merely a bodiless shade drifting through the lowest reaches of the Lower Planes. He regained form and cohesion because of worship.

    It's true that he didn't become a demigod right away. The faith of his demented followers called him back as something, perhaps a quasi-deity or perhaps merely a powerful spirit initially.

    Quote:
    Gradually, Vecna's cult grew and he assumed the powers of a demigod. The process took a long time: gathering his power, responding
    to his worshipers, and settling himself among the greater powers. Vecna persevered and eventually reached the point where he was accepted as a minor demigod in the legions of evil.


    At the very least, then, he had a (small) cult of worshipers for "a long time" before he actually became a true demigod.

    When did he become a demigod, though? Some have suggested it wasn't until he was (theoretically) imprisoned beneath Castle Greyhawk in 505 CY. Perhaps it was earlier, though (and we don't know for certain he was one of the demigods imprisoned there).

    Vecna Lives! continues:
    Quote:
    Guaranteed immortality [by becoming a demigod], Vecna was still not satisfied. With his scheming mind, he has devised a plan to ascend to greater godhood and humble his rival deities. With his usual long patience, Vecna has been working on this plan for centuries.


    I think it's clear he's been a demigod for centuries, then, or something like one, and he was worshiped for centuries before that. My guess is he's had a religion worthy of notice for at least 400 years, then (or approximately since 181 CY, accounting for 200 years as a minor demigod, and at least 200 years as the center of a false religion before then). If you favor the theory that he only been a true demigod since 505 CY or so, he still must have had a religion surrounding him since at approximately 305 CY.
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    Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:37 am  

    Another quote from Vecna Lives!:
    Quote:
    Still, for the majority of mortals, Vecna is identified as an arch-lich, although he transcended this paltry honorific ages ago.
    The phrase "ages ago" leads me to believe that Vecna was at least a hero-deity by 1 CY. (Alas, the term ages is used loosely here. An astrological age is ~2000 years, and a geolithic age is 1,000,000 years. Neither definition fits for Vecna.) Given his cult's secretive nature, I think it's plausible that he didn't gather enough worshipers to ascend to demigodhood until the sixth century CY.
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    Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:25 am  

    Vecna-time is properly reckoned in coon's ages, because of the many raccoons who his giant beaver cultists have initiated into the sect. Raccoon followers are especially valued by the Lord of Secrets because their masks make them look sneaky.
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    Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:48 pm  

    rasgon wrote:
    Vecna-time is properly reckoned in coon's ages, because of the many raccoons who his giant beaver cultists have initiated into the sect. Raccoon followers are especially valued by the Lord of Secrets because their masks make them look sneaky.


    I knew there was a reason I always distrusted giant beavers.
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    Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:42 am  

    I think I'll hold out for the raccoons' 4E stats before I use them in my campaign.

    That's an interesting history for poor ol one eye. Although I meant that, while Vecna had secret worshippers, his was not a recognised religion among the populace. He was elevated to the main pantheon in 3e only because he was considered cool and because of some recent shenanigans in a Ravenloft module that built on top of what happened in Vecna Lives. It makes some sense that secret worshippers might have deposited themselves within the Ebongleam without the need for the entire sect to be considered Vecna worshippers.

    Since we have yet to play Vecna Lives in my campaign my players find it hard to think of him as anything other than a god. I keep reminding them that he is a legend, not a deity.
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    Thu Aug 18, 2011 1:50 am  

    There's an article up on WotC today with some vague background on Vecna and Kas, including the tale on how and why he became a demi-god. At least the Flanaess gets a mention, even if the article is devoid of further specifics beyond mentioning the Rotted Tower as his lair.
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    Thu Aug 18, 2011 8:48 am  

    Thanks, Paul. There was at least one problem with the timeline in the narration, but overall it was a good read. And the Silver Mask of Kas has given me an idea for the next arc in my 4e campaign! Smile
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    Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:07 pm  

    For those unable to access the full articles, a summary of the GH bits is presented here: http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-article-kas-vecna.html

    It's interesting to see that Hart addressed the problem with the clergy of Pholtus being Vecna's chief nemesis in Vecna: Hand of the Revenant by using Pelor. Ideally, he would have used Rao, but at least Pelor is in the right pantheon.
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    Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:22 am  

    The Fraternity of Shadows wiki has already drawn from that article.

    http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/History_Check:_Kas_and_Vecna
    http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Kas
    http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Vecna

    Keep in mind that while the article that Mort quotes describes Kas as a paladin, 4th edition paladins can be of any alignment.
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