Okay so explanation, in the adventure module Vecna: Eve of ruin it gives a picture of Vecna before he became a lich, and he is some Draco Malfoy looking guy. However, in lore he was a member of a people known as the Flan who are described as having "bronze-colored complexion, varying from a light copper shade to a deep brown hue. Eyes are typically dark brown, black, brown, or amber. Their wavy or curly hair is usually black, brown-black, dark brown, or brown."
Also, his mother, named Mazell, was described as "Mazell was a slender, mature woman with bronze skin, black hair, dark eyes, and tattoos on her face, neck, arms, and chest."
So, it's likely that Vecna would have some of these traits as well and not be so pasty and blonde. The only way I can see him being white would be if he was mixed raced which is possible, but it should be mentioned his mother lived in a Flan city so it's unlikely.
But anyways I don't actually think this was purposeful by the writers or the artist, I think they just didn't know the lore for Vecna and just made him look like that because they felt like it.
bit misleading. the 2022 Vecna Dossier gives Vecna an entirely different origin to his Greyhawk counterpart. it's not like the kept the part about him being from the Flan and just ignored the fact that they have darker skin. although admittedly, i find the Greyhawk lore more interesting. they even make a note of it on the wiki.
How is this misleading? He was depicted one way in the past, and they depicted him a new way later. Whether or not they retconned more of his backstory is irrelevant (and might even make it worse).
i just think the suggestion that he was deliberately 'whitewashed' is misleading, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyway when you consider how much of the 2024 artwork celebrates diversity.
They are the same Vecna, there's a note in the DMG that gods like Tharizdun and Vecna have "transcended their origin on [Greyhawk] to impact the broader multiverse."
I am trying to find this on the DMG to fact-check it, but all I found was a small sentence on page 11 that states "Several of the gods are drawn from other patreons" and then mentions a bunch of gods from Greyhawk, Greece, Norway and Egypt.
But considering how some of these are altered in one way or another (including their names, in some cases), I don't see why they can't be two different characters.
And since now they have a divergent backstory, it would make even more sense to treat them as different entities.
Here's the exact line, from Chapter 5: Creating Campaigns
"Some deities of Greyhawk have also transcended their origin on this world to impact the broader multiverse. Two of these, Tharizdun and Vecna, are described in appendix A."
Then from Appendix A: Lore Glossary
"For a being known as the Chained God, the Elder Evil Tharizdun (thuh-RIZZ-dun or thair-izz-DOON) has managed to extend his baleful influence from the Greyhawk setting through many worlds of the Material Plane. He is an ancient force of entropy, the end of all things and the extinction of life. His worshipers are nihilists who seek to end all worlds by liberating their god. Tharizdun is often linked to cults of Elemental Evil (see chapter 5)."
"Vecna (VECK-nah) had humble beginnings in the Greyhawk setting, where an order of Wizards used him as a bootblack and scribe. He studied magic in secret until he amassed enough power to slaughter the order, and then he turned his efforts toward scribing the Book of Vile Darkness (described in chapter 7). Armed with that dread tome, he forged a kingdom to rule, with the vampire Kas as his lieutenant. But Kas betrayed and killed him, leaving only one hand and one eye intact (the Eye and Hand of Vecna are described in chapter 7)."
"Vecna’s evil will was so great that he persisted beyond death and eventually became a demigod of secrets and evil magic. His ambition drives him to pursue greater divine power across the multiverse."
you can just check out the books from 2e, it's a setting, settings are mostly lore not mechanics (tho with spelliammer specifically there may be a bit more mechanics involved than other settings so you may have to put in some work)
That... Makes it worse. "Not only are we gonna compare our darker skinned characters' skin tones to food, we're gonna name their entire group after the color!" is not a great look.
And "Vecna" is itself a simple anagram for "Vance", specifically Jack Vance, a fantasy and SF author whose books were liberally pillaged a great influence on the original creators of D&D.
eh from what I see almost all of the human groups had darker skin tones except one, and nothing tracks ~too~ directly to real world cultures anyway. https://greyhawk.fandom.com/wiki/Human
There is something with the art of blonde vecna and that other dude that looks suspiciously AI to me, like the way the light is rendered on both their face and hair looks strange, way too shiny
This is actually true and I never even thought about it and I do not have the module but have seen the art OP is referring to.
The Flan are weird one time they are talked about as being like complete analogues of the Native American tribes and other times they are referred to as having great empires like Sulm to fill out the prehistory of the setting.
I do but they had a different vibe in the Greyhawk world almost in some cases Mesopotamian or real old school fantasy with necropolises..
not like Cahokia or the other Mound People and they could have described them based on the Chaco Canyon city but did not and ..
The Oman culture was the South American equivalent which is literally an analogue culture but with a really cool ass migration story from Hepmonaland to the Amedio Jungle.
The art itself looks like they touched up on an AI image. The clothing style is very similar to the "generic fantasy" look that is generated on most generators.
This is most likely the case. A lot of parts seem handpainted but the heads, hair and Vecna's hand are fairly sus and in an incoherent rendering style compared to the rest. I can't be assed to find the artist and analyze more of their work for confirmation though
True, I'm trying my best to make it actually good from my friends but the amount of damage control im doing is insane (mfw accidental time travel happens twice in this adventure)
Yeah, I love the older lore. I keep searching out older editions to add lore to the worlds, because I usually play in Greyhawk or Dragonlance, and use the older books to spice up my games.
It could also just be that they wanted the creepy guy who became a lich to always look like a creepy guy who'd become a lich, a pasty and pale Draco Malfoy looking guy is pretty easy art to depict - which also serves to clearly showcase how "alien" Vecna was to even his own culture.
I mean Doyalist answer is WotC wanting to avoid playing into villain tropes about downtrodden ethnic groups, while the Watsonian answer could be his father was a white dude and/or he has some genetic throwbacks to another ancestor who was white, happens IRL all the time. Also do we know if the Ur-Flan were of a similar complexion to the Flan of Fleeth?
One thing I find funny though is how in the Forgotten Realms the Red Wizards of Thay are canonically almost as pasty as I am, their ethnic background as Mulan means they’re of Egyptian heritage and all the necromancy literally killed off their melanin probably XD
And he looks cool. Aragorn's race isn't even important to his character, so no harm in the race swap. It's cool to see character I love re-imagined in a different light.
Anyone who makes a deal of it is weird. You, are weird for making any kind of deal about this.
Numenorean isn't a skin color, knucklehead. Skin color is so unimportant to Aragorn's special bloodline that no one even knows what tf he is just by looking
Genetically the Numenoereans were basically humanity until 2-3 thousand years prior. You'd have to make every human black for Aragorn being the pinnacle of Numenor blood to make any sense.
It doesn't make sense given how the rest of the world is structured ethnically. There's both Rhun and Harad, which both are basically exclusively PoC. It doesn't really matter much, but it doesn't make any sense with any consistent world building for the heir to a bloodline-based monarchy (that stayed pretty isolated genetically to the point where Aragorn lives like, 4 times the length of a 'normal' human due to his extremely undiluted bloodline) to be black unless the majority of middle earth is primarily black too. And middle earth is basically the fantasy series with the most reliance on consistent world building.
However, I do get you that it's not a huge deal. But there's not a way that it makes sense with the worldbuilding, and the worldbuilding here is very intentional and it's one of the biggest selling points of the series, so that being treated as disposable or changeable is going to ruffle some feathers in a way that isn't "I don't like seeing black people in fantasy".
Giving Aragorn a BMW 750i with cruise control and heated seats wouldn't be important to his character, but still fucks with the story because it contradicts the world.
m8, it's vecna. Everything about Vecna is and was always boring. There's a reason that everything involving Vecna is no where near as beloved & iconic & impactful as a campaign like Curse of Strahd. Zzzzz
BTW, People who make vague claims like this without bothering to give any specifics don't know the lore either. If you did you'd just say it
Which is why your wrong. Aragorn's skin color is so unimportant in the lore that no one even knew he was a special bloodline just by looking at him, they had to learn extra details about him first. Like his age or certain objects he carried.
There's absolutely no reason for Aragorn's bloodline to be reimagined as black, and there's even no reason Aragorn's bloodline couldn't be made of people with many different skin colors.
That Aragorn design is awesome. Normally with LOTR characters I notice they always look like off brand versions of the movie actors. It’s nice to see a straight up original take on a character.
I mean I feel like it’s a bit of a stretch to say wotc whitewashed Vecna based on that alone. Though I wouldn’t doubt it considering their whitewashing in the dnd magic the gathering sets. Also it’s very common to depict the wizards on their way to becoming a lich as pale and sickly. Which considering how old and powerful Vecna was even before becoming a lich I can easily see him fitting that description regardless of what he looked like in his youth.
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u/TieberiusVoidWalker Karsus Expert Nov 08 '24
Okay so explanation, in the adventure module Vecna: Eve of ruin it gives a picture of Vecna before he became a lich, and he is some Draco Malfoy looking guy. However, in lore he was a member of a people known as the Flan who are described as having "bronze-colored complexion, varying from a light copper shade to a deep brown hue. Eyes are typically dark brown, black, brown, or amber. Their wavy or curly hair is usually black, brown-black, dark brown, or brown."
Also, his mother, named Mazell, was described as "Mazell was a slender, mature woman with bronze skin, black hair, dark eyes, and tattoos on her face, neck, arms, and chest."
So, it's likely that Vecna would have some of these traits as well and not be so pasty and blonde. The only way I can see him being white would be if he was mixed raced which is possible, but it should be mentioned his mother lived in a Flan city so it's unlikely.
But anyways I don't actually think this was purposeful by the writers or the artist, I think they just didn't know the lore for Vecna and just made him look like that because they felt like it.