Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, the multiverse may come unraveled if we don’t play D&D.

Published adventures are often juggling a lot of objectives. The adventure may be trying to illustrate a specific style of campaign, it may be highlighting a certain type of creature or opponent. And sometimes, it may be trying to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. In this episode, we’re going to look at Vecna: Eve of Ruin, and see what kind of fine tuning you might want to explore when engaging with this plane hopping epic adventure.

The Hand and Eye of Vecna first appeared in the Eldritch Wizardry supplement in 1976. Back then, all we knew about Vecna was that he was a lich that left some body parts behind. Vecna’s name is an anagram of Vance, in honor of author Jack Vance. The idea of a matched hand and eye set of artifacts comes from Micheal Moorcock, where the Corum stories introduced the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn. Vecna has had a resurgence in modern times, at least in part due to Stranger Things using Vecna for the name of its most recent season’s villain. If you still can’t get enough Vecna, you can put your life in Vecna’s hands by using Vecna Healthcare’s online health portals. No, really, that’s a thing.