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Kyouhen
2011-01-28, 01:55 PM
Greetings!

So I've got a character who's a Cleric/Fiendbinder and her chosen god is Vecna. The problem is I'm not entirely sure what to do RP-wise for worshipping him. She's got the Invisible Spell feat and will use it with all her spells (so nobody can tell what she's casting and what buffs she has active) and she's going to avoid letting anyone tell just what she's capable of in combat by letting her fiends do as much of the work as possible. (Avoiding getting into the fight unless someone forces her to, holding off on using her better items, etc)

Does anyone else know what type of things I can do as a worshipper of Vecna? (Note that for RP reasons in this campaign it's known that my character worships Vecna. Our characters are working with a faction that would have no problems figuring out that the people following me around are fiends, so they know I've got bound fiends and that I work for Vecna. Anything else I can easily keep hidden.)

Keld Denar
2011-01-28, 01:59 PM
Walk up behind one of the other players and whisper "Naughy Secrets" in their ear. That'll make everyone rather unsettled...

:smallcool:

Fouredged Sword
2011-01-28, 02:04 PM
Lie, keep secrets, promote confusion, sow distrust. These are the goals of you god.

Jair Barik
2011-01-28, 02:08 PM
Encourage the characters to play Paranoia.

LOTRfan
2011-01-28, 02:10 PM
Vecna's priesthood, cult activities, holy days, and sacred artifacts are all expanded upon in Dragon #348. I suggest looking there. I found it very enlightening on what goes on inside the heads of Vecna cultists.

Keld Denar
2011-01-28, 02:15 PM
<snip> head <snip> Vecna <snip>

A quest! A quest to recover the coveted Head of Vecna!

Jair Barik
2011-01-28, 02:17 PM
A quest! A quest to recover the coveted Head of Vecna!

You mean Morte?

LOTRfan
2011-01-28, 02:21 PM
A quest! A quest to recover the coveted Head of Vecna!

According to the article, that artifact actually exists. :smallamused:

Kyouhen
2011-01-28, 02:28 PM
A quest! A quest to recover the coveted Head of Vecna!

Hmm, sounds like quite the powerful artifact. Might be a fake though. I think I'll hack the head off one of my fiends to see what it does before I try putting it on myself. :smalltongue:

LansXero
2011-01-28, 02:30 PM
In the meantime you could hack off your hand and use a graft in it as a holy symbol. Or poke one eye out and replace it with a monocle enchanted with truesight

Keld Denar
2011-01-28, 02:31 PM
But once your friend has bonded with the famed Head of Vecna, he shall ascend to godhood and there is nothing you can do to stop it. You'll have missed out on your opportunity! Act now and claim the Head of Vecna as your own!

Kyouhen
2011-01-28, 02:44 PM
In the meantime you could hack off your hand and use a graft in it as a holy symbol. Or poke one eye out and replace it with a monocle enchanted with truesight
Actually, not entirely sure that's necessary. I WAS planning on having a tattoo of an eye on my left hand as a backup holy symbol, then wearing gloves all the time so people couldn't tell I had it. Just to be safe.

And why a monocle? Why not use a glass eye? Less disturbing to everyone else. :smalltongue:


But once your friend has bonded with the famed Head of Vecna, he shall ascend to godhood and there is nothing you can do to stop it. You'll have missed out on your opportunity! Act now and claim the Head of Vecna as your own!

He might ascend to godhood but I didn't see anything that says that becoming divine stops him from serving me. Actually, that might be even better! I have a god at my command! :smallbiggrin:

Jair Barik
2011-01-28, 02:55 PM
other things you could have in your eye socket that are more fun than a glass eye

-Small Magic 8-ball
-bouncy ball with a symbol of insanity on it
-A potion
-Any one of a number of eye grafts (e.g. Bodak eye graft)
-Compact thieves tools.
-A concealed symbol of vecna
-Somebody elses eye disguised to look like a glass eye
-A very small gate to another plane.

Czin
2011-01-28, 02:56 PM
Greetings!

So I've got a character who's a Cleric/Fiendbinder and her chosen god is Vecna. The problem is I'm not entirely sure what to do RP-wise for worshipping him. She's got the Invisible Spell feat and will use it with all her spells (so nobody can tell what she's casting and what buffs she has active) and she's going to avoid letting anyone tell just what she's capable of in combat by letting her fiends do as much of the work as possible. (Avoiding getting into the fight unless someone forces her to, holding off on using her better items, etc)

Does anyone else know what type of things I can do as a worshipper of Vecna? (Note that for RP reasons in this campaign it's known that my character worships Vecna. Our characters are working with a faction that would have no problems figuring out that the people following me around are fiends, so they know I've got bound fiends and that I work for Vecna. Anything else I can easily keep hidden.)
Vecna was the ultimate batman wizard in canon terms. He was a great planner and manipulator of both people and events. In life, unlife, and godhood he was and still is extremely ambitious and always hungered for more power and knowledge. To say that Vecna is intelligent is an understatement, he has a level of intelligence that no human has achieved before or since and is definitely in the top ten "smartest people in the entire great wheel" list.

A Cleric of Venca is likely to share most of these traits, minus the batman wizardry, though he certainly could emulate it with a large number of scrolls. A Vecna cleric is almost invariably going to have high mental scores, as a full caster your need to keep your physical scores high in the first place just isn't there, and as a cleric of Vecna, that gives ever more reason to have one or more of your physical stats as a dump stat (I'd recommend Strength and Dexterity though I wouldn't put too much into constitution either since becoming undead is almost a given amongst Vecna's worshipers.)

As for worshipping the greatest (formerly) mortal mage of all time, you should probably always do it in secret and never make your prayers louder than a whisper or let the lighting get brighter than that of a small candle. Also, it's very common for clerics of Vecna to initially believe that they are serving some obscure cult of Boccob or Wee Jass with the truth only being revealed when they're too deep in to get out, so depending on just how far your character has advanced in Vecna's Cult, she may not even realize which deity she's gaining her powers from.

As you worship the maimed one you should probably keep grudges for a very long time, lie or simply twist the truth a hell of a lot, manipulate other people's feelings and try to arrange events in your favor, listen closely to any rumors or gossip for possible information (don't forget to snoop around too, but don't draw any suspicion to yourself), and take a great interest in Arcane Magic (you can represent this by having a lot of ranks in knowledge arcana and have the magic domain, maybe you could even have said character be able to cast spells from the sorcerer/wizard list as a wizard of half her level, though if you're not the DM you'll need to ask first.)

If you really want to be cheesy, you can have the God-Blooded of Vecna template...half of the time your enemies won't even remember you exist and walk away scratching their heads wondering what they're doing there; you'll become nigh on impossible to remember (you know how you just can't remember the names and appearances of certain people? this template makes you like that, in spades) and all information concerning you is stricken from all of history and the memories of all but Vecna himself (and maybe a few of his higher ranking flunkies), thus foiling pretty much all attempts at gathering information about you through either magic or mundane means. But if you use this, you had best polish your skill at dodging thrown books and dice.

Hyudra
2011-01-28, 03:19 PM
Hrmm...

I like Vecna. Second to Hextor as far as an interesting character to build.

Look at it this way: In terms of background, relatively few join Vecna's cult willingly. You're a scholar, young noble, adventurer or the like, and you get into a pinch. A benefactor offers you a way out. Some money to finance that expedition, a word in the right ear to get you a promotion, that missing piece of knowledge you were missing. It's a lifesaver, and your benefactor makes it clear you owe a favor.

Then that favor gets called in. It asks you to do something you normally wouldn't. Nothing extreme, but just a little outside of your comfort zone. The scholar gets asked to keep a piece of knowledge recovered from the Necropolis of Mortuz from reaching the museum. The young noble is told to attend the Midsummer Court Ball and steal the hand of Lady Katerina from her fiancee. The adventurer is asked to kill the Warlord Kruz rather than bring him to the authorities. And most of the time, things go off without a hitch.

But eventually, you get in a bad situation again, and you know that your benefactor will bail you out... for that uncomfortable price. Eventually, things don't go as planned. You carry out that favor, and things go wrong. Perhaps someone dies, or a curse is unleashed on an unfortunate soul, or an international incident breaks out, leading to war. You're culpable, and all of a sudden, your 'benefactor' has your sensitive parts in a vise. Do as you're asked, or the worst possible people will find out your role in events, or if they already know, then they'll find out what identity you've assumed and where you're hiding.

And most who go down this path are simply broken men and women, dreading that letter slipped under their door or the voice in the darkness of their room at night, that asks them to do the next dark deed in the service of their 'benefactor'.

But, a year or two down the line, if you were cunning and resourceful enough, you've managed to finangle your way into being a member of the cult. Just to survive, you've taken to using the same tactics against others as were used against you. Half the members of your cult cell have the dirt on you, and you've got dirt on the other half, one or two of whom you recruited in the same way you were recruited. With knives at each others throats (literal and metaphorical alike) and documents in the hands of third parties who can mail them off if he doesn't hear from the right person every week, you have an unspoken truce borne of self preservation. You work towards the same general ends, knowing that nine of the ten fellow cultists are going to stab you in the back and leverage the situation in their favor, if you give them the chance.

Which is where you start. Blackmail, subterfuge, manipulation and secrets. Information is how you get yourself out of the dark pit that you've half dug for yourself. The right knowledge can blackmail those who have an edge on you, or get you into a situation where they can't touch you. Where information fails, power suffices. Consider the following examples:
Leticia Lecruz was an apprentice bookbinder facing an arranged marriage to a pig of a man twice her age. A friend of a friend offered to distract the husband and trick him into breaking the marriage contract before the wedding could be pulled off. It worked... only this 'friend of a friend' wanted a favor in return. The bookbinder Leticia was working for was preparing a great gift for the champion warmage returning from his conquests afar - a blank spellbook inlaid with gold, pearl and dragonscale. The favor was simple - take the blank page of parchment she was given and insert it among the pages to be included in the tome's creation.

When the warmage went insane, months later, and set Fortwith Keep on fire, Leticia knew. When she saw the list of names being promoted to fill the positions of power rendered vacant by the fires, she realized how deep the game ran. It took her three months, but she found that 'friend of a friend' and pledged fealty, body and soul, bound by magical contract. That got her, in a roundabout way, into the ranks of the cult. Finding a way around the magical contract so she could slit her mistress' throat meant getting herself in deep with two other members of the cult, but it was worth it for the revenge. It's been a downhill slide in the two years since, and Leticia knows her days are numbered. She's the low girl on the totem pole in the local cell, with far too little leverage over the others and too many nooses about her neck... but she has a plan. She's been researching lichedom, and she's fairly certain that she's found a long unknown method of becoming a fleshly lich. All of the benefits and comforts of life, but nonetheless immortal, undying and filled to the brim with dark power. If she can get that far, it means a fresh start, and whatever the others can do to her doesn't matter.

She's joined an adventuring party, giving the cult the impression she's doing it in service of the cell leader... which she is, superficially. But her real goals involve gathering the ingredients she needs for her ritual and if she can do it covertly enough to avoid tipping off her cell, with scrying and invisible watchers on her twenty hours out of any given day, she needs to manipulate the situation so the group, apparently of their own volition, is willing to head into one or two ancient ruins, where Leticia might be able to scrounge up some wall-etchings, tomes, relics or ghosts that she needs to figure out how the final part of the ritual goes.

.
Pollyana Sol is the nicest cleric you'll ever meet. She's a pretty young redheaded girl who never fails to have a smile on her face, does her work without complaint and goes out of her way to help the community. You'd never know, the Clerics of Pelor say, that when they first saw her, she was an orphan who had trudged nine kilometers barefoot, half blind and grievously injured, from the site of an attack on her caravan. She made the journey with her arms clasped around the corpse of her baby brother, unwilling to let go or leave him behind. Adopted by the church, she has made it a life goal to bring healing to others, and to care for other orphans at the local institution. Such kindness and warmth with such pain in her past, the clerics say, is a testament to Pelor's glory.

The High Priest is dying of a wasting sickness that divine magics cannot cure, and as names are being tossed around about who will fill the vacant position, there is talk of Pollyana being made the youngest ever priestess to ascend to the role. Such would bring about dark days for the church, however, for Pollyana was the daughter born to two worshipers of Vecna, indoctrinated at a young age and arranged as a mole within the church, where she was to wait and see just how much damage she could do. She's finally settled on a plan, and with the poisoning of the High Priest well underway, she is slated to become the new High Priestess.

There's a rub, though. The title of High Priest, in this particular sect, requires a pilgrimage. Pollyana, if she is to accept the role, must make an adventurer's journey to bring healing, light and wellness to others. Thus far she has managed to use deception to hide the fact that she truly worships Vecna. With lives on the line, will she be able to do the same in a party of adventurers, convincing them she is a Pelorite cleric, without the full repertoire at her disposal?
Ideally, you want to have some sort of high-stakes game in the works, that your party isn't entirely in on, but which won't necessarily disrupt the campaign (unless your DM is amenable & willing to work with such). This should, ideally, be a ploy just hard enough to pull off that you're forced to constantly be on your toes, use deceit and connive your way out of bad situations. The roleplaying should flow naturally from there.

Kyouhen
2011-01-28, 03:55 PM
Vecna was the ultimate batman wizard in canon terms. He was a great planner and manipulator of both people and events. In life, unlife, and godhood he was and still is extremely ambitious and always hungered for more power and knowledge. To say that Vecna is intelligent is an understatement, he has a level of intelligence that no human has achieved before or since and is definitely in the top ten "smartest people in the entire great wheel" list.

A Cleric of Venca is likely to share most of these traits, minus the batman wizardry, though he certainly could emulate it with a large number of scrolls. A Vecna cleric is almost invariably going to have high mental scores, as a full caster your need to keep your physical scores high in the first place just isn't there, and as a cleric of Vecna, that gives ever more reason to have one or more of your physical stats as a dump stat (I'd recommend Strength and Dexterity though I wouldn't put too much into constitution either since becoming undead is almost a given amongst Vecna's worshipers.)

As for worshipping the greatest (formerly) mortal mage of all time, you should probably always do it in secret and never make your prayers louder than a whisper or let the lighting get brighter than that of a small candle. Also, it's very common for clerics of Vecna to initially believe that they are serving some obscure cult of Boccob or Wee Jass with the truth only being revealed when they're too deep in to get out, so depending on just how far your character has advanced in Vecna's Cult, she may not even realize which deity she's gaining her powers from.

As you worship the maimed one you should probably keep grudges for a very long time, lie or simply twist the truth a hell of a lot, manipulate other people's feelings and try to arrange events in your favor, listen closely to any rumors or gossip for possible information (don't forget to snoop around too, but don't draw any suspicion to yourself), and take a great interest in Arcane Magic (you can represent this by having a lot of ranks in knowledge arcana and have the magic domain, maybe you could even have said character be able to cast spells from the sorcerer/wizard list as a wizard of half her level, though if you're not the DM you'll need to ask first.)

If you really want to be cheesy, you can have the God-Blooded of Vecna template...half of the time your enemies won't even remember you exist and walk away scratching their heads wondering what they're doing there; you'll become nigh on impossible to remember (you know how you just can't remember the names and appearances of certain people? this template makes you like that, in spades) and all information concerning you is stricken from all of history and the memories of all but Vecna himself (and maybe a few of his higher ranking flunkies), thus foiling pretty much all attempts at gathering information about you through either magic or mundane means. But if you use this, you had best polish your skill at dodging thrown books and dice.

Hmmm, those are all interesting ideas. Her domains are going to be Magic, Planning (Assuming the DM allows it, he probably will though) and Knowledge (Cloistered Cleric). As I said though, most of the people she'll be around are aware that she worships Vecna and has a retinue of fiends at her command. In the campaign setting we're working for a bit of a rebellion, which consists of a decent chunk of wizards and paladins. Not exactly the type of people that would be easy to hide these things from, but they're willing to turn a blind eye to her acts as long as the don't backfire.

I also had figured she wouldn't really be a part of a reasonable cult. She was more or less going to willingly start worshipping Vecna on her own in hopes of learning more of the tiny little secrets that make the universe tick, then do something (haven't decided what yet) that actually managed to get his attention and let her become a cleric. I also figured this would tie in nicely with the Fiendbinder aspect, as enslaving fiends who were stupid enough to leave their truenames unguarded is probably something Vecna would like. :smalltongue:

She's also going to very quickly dig up the personal truenames of the other party members. For future use. If she needs to. :smalltongue:

Also where is that god-blooded template from? It sounds entirely too awesome for this character.

Czin
2011-01-28, 04:04 PM
Hmmm, those are all interesting ideas. Her domains are going to be Magic, Planning (Assuming the DM allows it, he probably will though) and Knowledge (Cloistered Cleric). As I said though, most of the people she'll be around are aware that she worships Vecna and has a retinue of fiends at her command. In the campaign setting we're working for a bit of a rebellion, which consists of a decent chunk of wizards and paladins. Not exactly the type of people that would be easy to hide these things from, but they're willing to turn a blind eye to her acts as long as the don't backfire.

I also had figured she wouldn't really be a part of a reasonable cult. She was more or less going to willingly start worshipping Vecna on her own in hopes of learning more of the tiny little secrets that make the universe tick, then do something (haven't decided what yet) that actually managed to get his attention and let her become a cleric. I also figured this would tie in nicely with the Fiendbinder aspect, as enslaving fiends who were stupid enough to leave their truenames unguarded is probably something Vecna would like. :smalltongue:

She's also going to very quickly dig up the personal truenames of the other party members. For future use. If she needs to. :smalltongue:

Also where is that god-blooded template from? It sounds entirely too awesome for this character.
The God Blooded template is from the MM5, it's a very low LA template . Fhe fluff for it is essentially X deity/outsider lord/archomental was this character's great great great great great great great great great grand uncle (though some many simply have you undergo a ritual) and though the divine blood is incredibly diluted (or the ritual won't grant you what WotC would think of as being spectacular), it's still there in great enough quantities to have observable effects.