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Adept Greytalker
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Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:08 am
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| 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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GreySage
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Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:11 am
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| 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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Grandmaster Greytalker
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Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:45 am
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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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Journeyman Greytalker
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Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:50 am
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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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GreySage
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Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:20 am
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fdsd
Last edited by rasgon on Sat Feb 04, 2017 5:27 am; edited 3 times in total
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Grandmaster Greytalker
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Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:34 pm
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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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Master Greytalker
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Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:38 am
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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.
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GreySage
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Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:12 am
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| 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:
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| 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.
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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:
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| 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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Master Greytalker
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Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:37 am
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Another quote from Vecna Lives!:
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| 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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GreySage
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Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:25 am
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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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Grandmaster Greytalker
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Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:48 pm
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| 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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Master Greytalker
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Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:42 am
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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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Master Greytalker
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Thu Aug 18, 2011 1:50 am
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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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Grandmaster Greytalker
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Thu Aug 18, 2011 8:48 am
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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! 
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Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:07 pm
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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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GreySage
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Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:22 am
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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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