The Hand of Vecna (EvilHack)
| [ The Hand of Vecna (EvilHack) (No tile) | |
|---|---|
| Base item | mummified hand |
| Affiliation | |
| When carried | none |
| When worn |
|
| When invoked |
|
| Base price | 50000 zm |
| Weight | 5 |
- For the artifact in SLASH'EM, SlashTHEM and Hack'EM, see The Hand of Vecna (SLASH'EM).
The Hand of Vecna is an artifact that appears in EvilHack. It is unaligned, and its base item is the mummified hand of Vecna.
Generation
The Hand of Vecna is only generated upon killing Vecna in a way that would normally leave a corpse, i.e. any method minus disintegration, digesting or stoning - if killed in such a manner, he will either drop this artifact or The Eye of Vecna, with an equal probability of each. Since Vecna is always generated in his Domain, the Hand cannot be wished for and will always revert to its base item if left in bones.
Description
The Hand of Vecna must be worn in order for its abilities to activate, and occupy the gloves armor slot: once put on, the Hand irreversibly fuses itself to your character's left arm and cannot be removed through any method - this applies even when polymorphed into a monster without hands. Monsters fear the power of the artifact and will not attempt to use it themselves.
The way in which the Hand functions makes it immune to the scroll of destroy armor, any source of erosion including the revamped destroy armor monster spell, disintegration, or any type of item theft. The Hand can be enchanted up to +7, and attempts to enchant it further will not ever evaporate it, instead having the same chance of simply failing without further effect. As the Hand of Vecna replaces the character's hand rather than being worn over it, rings can be put on and removed freely even if the Hand is cursed. The Hand also allows safe handling of objects such as cockatrice corpses that are ordinarily fatal to touch.
While fused to your character, the Hand of Vecna confers hungerless regeneration, half physical damage, immunity to sickness, and sets strength to 25. When a character with the Hand of Vecna fused attacks in melee, they deal a bonus of 1d5+7 cold damage to monsters without cold resistance. Invoking the Hand of Vecna while it is bound to your character has different effects based on your current luck: If your luck is -10 or lower, the Hand of Vecna turns its magic upon you, which is an instadeath regardless of magic resistance or death resistance. Otherwise, the Hand casts death magic upon all monsters in your line of sight, significantly reducing the HP of monsters that do not resist it, and has a 3⁄20 chance of killing affected monsters outright unless they have magic resistance. Regardless of the outcome of invoking the Hand, it will reduce your luck by 3, abuse wisdom, and inflicts a penalty to alignment record: -7 if you are lawful, none if you are unaligned, and a -3 alignment penalty otherwise.
The Hand of Vecna can be combined with Angelslayer at a forge to create The Sword of Annihilation.
Origin
Vecna is an original creation of Dungeons & Dragons, where he originally was a background figure that became popular enough to feature as a major antagonist. He is named for fantasy author Jack Vance, who among other achievements developed the "fire-and-forget" magic system that would come to be used in D&D and many other fantasy works. Vecna is first mentioned in Eldritch Wizardry, the third supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons game co-developed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, with the supplement authored by Gygax and Brian Blume - the supplement introduces the Hand of Vecna and Eye of Vecna, artifacts which are the only remnants of the long-destroyed evil lich.
While no details of the artifacts were ever revealed to Gygax, the descriptions of the artifacts in the 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide of 1989 further expanded on Vecna's history; the release of the 1990 adventure Vecna Lives! would finally have him debut in person. Though the exact details vary, most versions of Vecna's history state that the fight between him and his most trusted lieutenant Kas left Kas flung across the planes of the multiverse, with Vecna himself seemingly destroyed in whole save for a disemboded left hand and eye - even after eventually resurrecting, Vecna is always depicted with these parts missing from his form.
The left hand and eye of Vecna are high-valued and very dangerous magical artifacts that bestow incredible supernatural strength and spellcasting power upon their users, and provided even more benefits when used together. Such power naturally came at a terrible cost: using either one requires the removal of the corresponding body part to affix the artifact in its place, and the fragments of Vecna's will left within each one would turn its wearer towards evil while corrupting and decaying their body. Removing the affixed artifact(s) would invariably result in death, and both artifacts could only be destroyed permanently if a being that wore both artifacts was slain by the Sword of Kas. The Hand and Eye are considered classic Dungeons & Dragons artifacts that best exemplify the temptations of power and how they can easily tear apart an adventuring party.
Encyclopedia entry
The Eye of Vecna and the Hand of Vecna were the only remnants
of the powerful lich Vecna, after he was betrayed and killed by
his lieutenant Kas. The two appendages were left with a
fragment of the lich's will and attempted to work his deeds
wherever they went.
