The Lich

The Whispered One. Lord of the Rotted Tower. The Master of Secrets. Few dare speak his true name, for fear that he may hear—or worse. Even as a young wizard, Vecna’s command of magic was matched by none. While others spent decades committing to and perfecting one school of magic, he effortlessly mastered each one of them. After his mother’s execution for witchcraft, his focus became obsession as he studied the darkest school of magic—necromancy, the magic of life and death. As his power grew, so did his ambition. Over the centuries, he shed his mortal shell and ascended to lichdom. His power gave rise to a great empire, ruled over from his Rotted Tower. His thirst for dark knowledge to fill his Book of Vile Darkness led him to many realms and planes. But it was in his own realm one of his servants found something—a spell, perhaps, torn from an ancient tome—written in a language he had never seen. From it he could sense an incredible dark energy. Without any document of the language, he had to spend months painstakingly analyzing its syntax, its phonetics, its form. He documented every stroke of every letter, scrutinizing and theorizing on their meanings, in a massive book hidden in his chambers. When his lieutenants came to him with problems in their domain, Vecna told them to deal with it themselves. He had more important matters to attend to. Countless nights were spent memorizing the strange script, attempting to make it make sense. Only occasionally would he leave his keep to investigate rumors of people who had disappeared without a trace in the night. At these scenes, he could sense the same foreign magic that emanated from the torn page. He was convinced that whatever was killing these people had also written this strange script. He was confounded, which made him furious. The scenes, few and far between, had no pattern, no common motive. No sign of struggle, no body, and only a lingering hum of dark energy. To what end did they need these bodies? One dark night, he had a breakthrough: a word he had been interpreting as “dying” made more sense as “disappearing.” Perhaps these people were not being killed at all: perhaps they were being taken alive. He applied this substitution through his notes and everything seemed to fall into place. He copied what he had learned to a fresh piece of parchment, written phonetically. He began to speak the words aloud and the room darkened. It filled with a creeping black fog. He felt himself displacing, going somewhere else. Vecna resisted, incanting memorized spells, holding the fog at bay. But as he gazed into the darkness, he felt that alluring energy from it; a despair, an evil he could scarcely imagine. A sick curiosity overcoming him, he dropped his concentration, and let the fog take him. Whatever it was, wherever it was, he understood that the only way to harness it was to submit to it. He knew, in his cold, unbeating heart, that its dark secrets would one day be his.