#divinity: madness

[dailyadventureprompts]

Hello Mr. Dapper! Love this blog and your many reimaginings of classic dnd deities and creatures. I was curious about something: Considering your dislike of purely evil gods and DnDs future focusing on the guy, what are your thoughts on Vecna?

Deity: Vecna, the Whispered One

My task of overhauling d&d’s villanous pantheon was started by a simple critique:  that if god was evil, there still needed to be a reason for people to worship it. To go with one example,  So many of the death gods in d&d want to kill everything that lives, yet they’re still presented as having legions of followers who are happy to die for them in opposition to the party.   You can say “Oh they’re just brainwashed, crazy cultists” but that’s just bad writing and thematically empty, neither of which I want for the sort of games I run. 

Vecna is actually an interesting case study in that he’s an outwardly wicked deity that has a theme which people would actively want to follow:   As a god of secrets, Vecna is the patron of any who will sacrifice anything to learn the answer to their problems, or conversely, the ones desperate to ensure their own secrets will never be known.  The story of Vecna as a mortal mage who attained first lichdom, then godhood is an aspirational one for all those power mad occultists out there, a common enough demographic in the d&d world both as villains and as player characters. 

Cults of Vecna worshippers likewise make sense as the whole point behind the historical practice of mystery cults was that those at the upper levels maintained their power through control of information and access to secret learnings.  You want to learn how to do magic? To speak to the dead? To protect your secrets from being known? Put on this ominous robe, learn the secret handshake, and don’t forget to drop your tithe intto the altar’s collection skull. Think of it like a forbidden knowledge based MLM. 

 Here’s some adventure hooks: 

While many of the whispered one’s acolytes dedicate themselves to discovering to the delving of arcane mysteries, others focus their attention on more worldly secrets. A powerful noblewoman is being blackmailed by a worshipper of Vecna not only for personal enrichment but also as an act of devotion, after he uncovered proof of indiscretions that would ruin her reputation.  While she’s too afraid to go for help herself and risk exposure, a devoted servant has seen her hidden suffering and has contacted the party for aid. 

Barely disguising its fiendish nature, a devil in service to Vecna approaches the party with an offer to reveal the secret intents or weaknesses of their enemies, if only they will deign to meet its terrible price.  While this information could do great good, or even save lives, just how low are the heroes willing to stoop? 

Seeking out the aid of a powerful mage, the party discover the old man on the brink of nervous collapse, having looked to deeply into the void and filled his mind with visions best left unmentioned.  Haunted by nightmares both real and imagined, he needs their help in quieting his mind through the gathering of rare ingredients and the distillation of a potent elixir. The process is not without risk however, are the party willing to help if it means erasing the information they need from his head, to say nothing of potentially lobotomizing the poor wizard? 

Art

[dangeroustaintedflawed]

[abandonedmannequinfactory]

the virgin suicides, 1999

[lil-vibes]

Day 5: Peer into the darkness

Previous/Next

(prompt list here! ) + bonus bc i cant help myself 😔

[gliplah]

[liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiily]

i have not been hating on men enough recently, i apologise...

[shisasan]

The Love Poems of Rumi, Looking for Your Face edited by Deepak Chopra First published 1273

[chickenchirps27]

y’all really like them, have some more!!

[an-eggs-quest]

Iiits Matthew! My little interpretation of him :p (ft. Doey)

Psst. Mild angst below

[andrumedus]

Come, sweet, I am a house with many rooms. There is no end. Each room is a street to the next world. Where live other cities beneath incendiary skies. And you have made a fire in every room. Come. Lie with me before the flame.

Joy Harjo, In Mad Love and War; “City of Fire”

[bambi-eyes444]

[abandonedmannequinfactory]

me core

[4bsurdcreature]

Narrative Foils

Based off of This Post

[dailyfatefigures]

Divine Arm of Dawn by Mad Hands

[alephskoteinos]

One thing I think I must credit Plato for is the fact that he apparently had no truck with our modern division between "the Apollonian" as rationality and "the Dionysian" as esctasy or mania. He instead associated both Apollo and Dionysus with frenzy or mania. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates describes four kinds of divine madness. One of them comes from Apollo, and another comes from Dionysus. Apollo's divine madness was the mania of prophesy, while Dionysus' divine madness was related to religious mysteries, or at least more particularly his own mysteries.

That's one thing that's genuinely admirable, or rather relatable even, about Platonism: in Platonism, the gods are supposed to make you sort of mad, because madness, of a certain sort, means knowledge. Which means that divine inspiration and knowledge are linked with personal disinhibition.

[shisasan]

The Love Poems of Rumi, Intoxicated by Love edited by Deepak Chopra First published 1273