INTRODUCTION

Thoughts and Memory



I sit upon this celestial throne and I await the end.

I collect names as mortals collect friends. I have been called The Whispered One, the Master of the Spider Throne, The Dying King, the Chained God, Master of Secrets. In a very short while another name will be added to my list, Vecna, the One True God of All Times and Spaces. Now that I have siphoned the might of the Corpse King Iuz, I have at last achieved what I have long desired, true godhood.

My old rotting form has been replaced by a sleek, youthfulness. Once more I am twenty summers of age. My new found power has caused my form to swell to a colossal height. Again I see with two eyes; one absurdly smaller than the other, but alas I see much. Actually I see everything. I now possess omniscience, and nothing lies beyond my knowledge.

I can hear the sermons of Ely Cromlich in the next room, I feel the daggers of agony once again seeking to eject me from my rightful place. Such is not to be. My power is more than enough to counter them. The dear Lady of Pain will just have to wait. I sense the cries of agony as the armies of Sigil attempt to breach my defenses. A simple invisible wall laced with death was sufficient to keep out the heathens.

Converts trickle in, and are baptized in my name. They shall inherit the universe under me, and be the recipients to my vast store of secrets. One of them shall be raised to demigod status, and be my voice on thousands of worlds. I am now a greater god, and I no longer fear betrayals from measly demigods.

Measly? For more than a millennia I was a measly demigod of secrets. Who hid on the planes of ash and negative material, and plotted my ascension from afar. Even before that, I was a moldy lich who played at godhood and gloated over the bald flatteries of mortal and undead insects. Still half a world fell into my hands and I was struck down by a traitor's blade I forged my self.

No, I have met failure after failure. Power trickling into my hands in minute drops. Even now as a true god, my power is weakened simply by compromising with the Lady of Pain. When supremacy is mine, I alone shall hold the power and the knowledge. Let the unwashed masses feed upon the crumbs I scrape to them. If they know one thing, let it be that the favor of Vecna the Mighty empowers no one.

The Serpent, my mentor, whispers in the depths of my mind. It reassures me of my task, the complete devastation of the current order. The Serpent promises and manipulates me on its misty coils as strings do to a marionette. It has been with me in every period of my life, speaking in palace throne rooms, even in the deserts where I starved with my people when I was a child.

And once again I remember my past...