Quote:
Originally posted by Gangrell:
If I'm correct, Vecna was a powerful lich but before his trip onto godhood, an assassin cut off his hand and took out his eye, thus making the artifacts The Hand and Eye of Vecna. He was so powerful, those two body parts were considered artifacts, but I forget how exactly he became a god.
Add: In Dungeons and Dragons, an Arch-Lich are priests or mages that have come unto undeath as a Lich of a non-evil alignment, so it wouldn't be right calling Vecna an "Arch" Lich.
Demi-Lich for 2nd Edition Dungeons&Dragons
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Greyhawk info Long long ago on the world of Greyhawk, where mages the like of Mordenkainen, Melf, Rary, Bigby (and most of the others who have spells named after them) first began, an evil mage carved an emipre of blood slaves and death, he ascended to become the most powerful lich to ever exist, and used his kingdom to inspire belief in his divinity (thus leading him to godhood). He crafted an extremely powerful artifact for his chief lieutenent Kas, the sword of Kas. The artifact however was a powerful evil item and had a great deal of Vecna's personality imbued into it, mostly his ambition and evil.
The sword constantly whispered to Kas that he could take control of the empire from Vecna very easily with it's power. Eventually Kas believed that it was true and attacked Vecna, the resulting combat destroyed Vecna and Kas, leaving only the Hand and Eye of Vecna (and his robe for BG2), and the Sword of Kas, however Vecna was partially on his way to godhood, having become a demigod by this point, and so his essence was not fully able to be dispersed. Eventually Vecna was reborn and trapped in Ravenloft. (Gondegal the lost king from the books you find scattered about the game, is also stranded in Ravenloft) However according to current Canon for Ravenloft Vecna has escaped, and Kas is an extremely powreful vampire.
Vacna is also known as the Maimed god, for obvious reasons.