2022: The Year of Vecna?

The Hand of Vecna appears to be a dried, shriveled and blackened hand, such as could have
been caused by having been burned. The hand (and it is also rumored in dark passageways, an
eye) is the sole remains of an ancient lich who was so powerful that he was able to imbue his hand
with wondrous/horrible powers and to enable it to survive even after his long-undead body had
ceased to exist.

Eldritch Wizardry

Vecna is a villain almost as old as the game of Dungeons & Dragons itself. He was first mentioned in Eldritch Wizardry, the third supplement for Original D&D, which also introduced the druid class, psionics and the Demon Lords Orcus and Demogorgon. Despite his long and storied history with the game, Vecna has only appeared in 5E through the items that bear his name and various brief mentions. But that’s going to change in 2022, the Year of Vecna!

We’re not even a full month in and Vecna has already had two significant products released this year. The first was the Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn by the folks from Critical Role, where he appears as one of the deities of the setting. Unfortunately for the lich god he is not referred to by name, instead taking the moniker of The Whispered One within the text for legal reasons. This year Critical Role is also premiering their animated series The Legend of Vox Machina! It is going to depict the events of the Briarwood arc, which is important because Lord and Lady Briarwood are actually servants of Vecna. While they could change things for the series I think it is very likely we’ll get some references to The Whispered One by the end of the season.

Piggybacking off that, there’s another fan favorite property that dropped a reference to Vecna: Stranger Things. Looks like season 4’s second episode is called Vecna’s Curse. While I’m hoping that means they’re using Vecna as inspiration for this season’s big bad, even just a passing nod to him would be very cool when we return to Hawkins this summer.

Getting back to his second physical release this year: a Funko POP! exclusive to GameStop (unfortunately for me, this sold out almost immediately). He’s not the first official Dungeons & Dragons Funko figure, there have already been Drizzt Do’Urden & Guenhwyvar, a mind flayer, Minsc & Boo, Asmodeus, a gelatinous cube, Strahd, Xanathar, a mimic, Tiamat and Warduke. But Vecna is unique amongst these other figures because he is the only one with a new look. All the others are Funko versions of classic character designs, but Vecna has never had this gilded look before… or has he?

I just happened to stumble across this preview of the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2022 in which Vecna appears to have the same look as his Funko figure. This art is amazing and it is bizarre that it would only be found in this product. Everything else I can see in the previews and all the art from last year’s annual appears to be official and reprints. If both the 2022 Annual and the Funko figure have the same design it would lead me to believe that this is the art that Wizards was distributing to its partners dealing with Vecna. So far that only means these two products, which would be weird choices to display a redesign for a legendary character.

I don’t think the most logical thing to conclude is that this art was commissioned for this Annual and then sent to the Funko designers, it is possible but doesn’t make any sense. You wouldn’t redesign a 40 year old character for his first, limited release, retailer exclusive toy or for an incredibly cropped quarter page image for a British annual. I think it is far more likely made for a currently unreleased tabletop product. Granted, it could be old art they’ve been sitting on for a while but it just looks too new and awesome to me for that to be the case. Plus why not use it on the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms MtG cards they released last year?

Now it could have been alternate art they decided not to go with for the Magic set or for a cancelled product and it was too late to alter the Funko sculpt or the image in the Annual, I don’t know the timelines on those products. But that seems like more reason to keep the art for the card and I don’t think they get to this level of art without the product being a pretty sure thing. So in my mind (and I could be totally wrong here) that leaves us with art for a product that hasn’t released yet. The only two books we know specifics for are Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse and Critical Role Presents: Call of the Netherdeep. We’ve seen previews for Mordenkainen’s and Vecna isn’t in it. Vecna is very important for Critical Role, but I don’t think they get to use his name in their books and I don’t know if they would retread that plot in a significant enough way to warrant a new design that Wizards had control over. Reading the description of Netherdeep actually had me wondering if it was about Vecna for a second:

The greed of mortals has awakened a powerful entity long thought destroyed. For eons, this mighty champion of the gods has been imprisoned in the darkest depths of Exandria. His name has been forgotten, as have his heroic deeds. Languishing in despair, he calls out for new heroes to save him.

Critical Role Presents: Call of the Netherdeep

But the “champion of the gods” and the “heroic deeds” rules out Vecna in my mind. Plus the adventure only goes to level 12 and he deserves a better challenge than that. So for my money Vecna is going to be part of one of the unannounced 2022 products, probably one of the two classic campaign settings we’re revisiting this year. Now my first instinct would be that he would be part of a new Greyhawk product, it’s where he’s from and the world he’s probably most associated with. But I really think that Wizards is going to save a return to Greyhawk for the 50th anniversary in 2024. If they finally decide what they want to do with Gygax’s setting I think that just makes the most sense. So where would Vecna be? He’s been in every edition with his artifacts and/or as a deity, but he’s only featured heavily in three adventure products I can find: Vecna Lives!, Vecna Reborn and Die Vecna Die! The adventure Vecna Lives! was a Greyhawk product and I already ruled that out, and Vecna Reborn took place in Ravenloft and we’ve already seen that multiple times this edition. That leaves Die Vecna Die!, an adventure that took place in three seperate campaign settings: Greyhawk, Ravenloft and Planescape!

I will admit that I want a Planescape release more than anything, but I think there are some merits to this theory. First off, Mordenkainen Presents is explicitly a multiverse book and if you have a book of monsters from the multiverse you should have a book describing how to get around the multiverse. Second, the races from the Travelers of the Multiverse UA are bound to show up in a product sooner than later. Third, unless you don’t involve the Hand of Vecna in the product, it takes place in Avernus, or you completely change the Arkhan the Cruel situation, you’d want to have the means to travel to the Hells and back again, perfect for Planescape. And finally, the last time we really dealt with Vecna he travelled between three settings and was kicked out of Sigil by the Lady of Pain, add in the Critical Role connections and Vecna’s story is inherently a multiversal one.

There’s only one possible conclusion: PLANESCAPE CONFIRMED! All joking aside, I could be completely wrong on the timeline, the importance of this art and redesign, the idea that Vecna will return, that Planescape will be revisited or even that this is some new piece of art and not just a lost image or just a relatively unknown one. Regardless of the unkown future or wild fan theories, 2022 will still be the year of Vecna. He has a sleek new design, his first toy, a godly write-up, and is being referenced in one if not two of the most popular series related to D&D. One thing is for sure, just like the game he originated in, Vecna lives!