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Post by geneweigel on Oct 30, 2008 7:56:07 GMT -5
Vecna is just like using Crom or Cthulhu, we've all used it but the major 2e injections of the Vecna items into Greyhawk still have that yuck taste. All the artifacts had that multiverse feel to them with the methods of destruction touching obviously non-Greyhawk places and elements of myth.
That was something that I never asked him. He said that each Oerth would have its own Iuz or counterpart. What about artifacts? Yellowskull could technically have a counter version if Iuz created it. Fragarach, the magic item from the same adventure, was ported in from another world.
You could just as easily say that the Vecna remains came from the ruined world of "Bloomz". ;)What the hell was the name of this Blume world anyway?
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Post by Scott on Oct 30, 2008 8:31:36 GMT -5
I think the 2E stuff had the same effect on me, which is why I haven't given Vecna much thought.
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Post by geneweigel on Oct 30, 2008 8:58:16 GMT -5
The only contradiction with Vecna came from Gary. It was regarding my inquiry on the Gloam Imprimus Smirtch character. If Vecna was listed as the once supreme lich and archlich what did he have to do with Smirtch who was the 'lich of liches"? He said make no mistake that it had nothing to do with the Greyhawk campaign and was from Blume's campaign. Smirtch the Gloam Imprimus had to have a "Secondo" and so on so I was curious. By the way in regards to the name Smirtch, I believe there is something there that was overlooked by many Greyhawk-ites. The Bond novel villains SMERSH (the real world Soviet "death to spies" ["SMERt' SHpionam"]organization) was changed to a more fictional band called SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) for the films so you know thats where the name Smirtch hails from (SPECTRE=SMERCH=Smirtch) in typical Gygaxian "Tiamat/Leviathan logic". So with Gary's obsession (not the lost AD&D game element "obsession"! ) with multi-tiered organizations, I can just imagine that the Gloam Imprimus had a huge organization of undead on Oerth. Perhaps why the shuffle off/dismissal of the mundane Vecna came so readily to him. Perhaps. he had other plans for the liches (undead) of Oerth it seems. The question is what to call it. Certainly not the Bone Heart*! (*Sargent's name for the Circles of Iuz for the unaware.) Heh! The "Pentacles of Orcus" playing on "Wand of Orcus"?
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GT
Wizard
Duke of Indiana, Knight Commander
Posts: 2,032
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Post by GT on Oct 30, 2008 16:50:51 GMT -5
Heh! Well, with Vecna/Kas in both the OD&D books and the 1E DMG, I just "grew into" the Greyhawk connection, even though from the very beginning Gary said that was Brian's invention. The focus of 2E on Vecna DID sour the thing--especially "resurrecting" him as a deity! They totally reversed the "game drives the novels" concept to the "novels drive the game". Yes, the 2E crowd at T$R were---ummmm--shall we say, "interesting"?? ^__^ However, I still like having Vecna and Kas as part of my "personal canon"... like I said, I'm a friggin' history major! Interestingly: None of those three artifacts have figured in my campaign (yet), but back in 1980 or 1981 I let a fighter/m-u (my second player in my world) discover "The Sword of Ralfenson", an artifact sword wielded by a Ranger who opposed Kas in that legendary era! ^__^
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