Dungeons & Dragons: Who Is Vecna And How Did He Become A Deity?

thegamer.com:

With Stranger Things' introduction to yet another Dungeons & Dragons-related character, all anyone can talk about is Vecna. The show's portrayal of the deity creates a Freddy Krueger-like being that invades the minds of those who have experienced great trauma and sacrifices them for his own selfish ends. As frightful as this entity is, this isn't the real Vecna.

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While torturing others through their dreams is definitely something he would do if he were able, the Vecna of D&D is very different from his Netflix counterpart. While both are jaded narcissists that have great delusions of grandeur, the original Vecna's history is far more complicated than a boy born with supernatural powers.

Vecna was not born as an all-powerful evil god of secrets and death. No, he was born as a normal human in the city of Fleeth, a small city located on the eastern continent of Oerik. It is known that a young Vecna trained under the tutelage of his mother in the arts of magic, a subject that many feared within the walls of Fleeth. As such, upon discovery, Vecna's mother was executed for her practice of "witchcraft."

Angry and scared, Vecna fled, vowing vengeance upon the city that had taken his mother from him. It's here that there is a bit of confusion regarding what Vecna did next. There is a theory that he trained under Mok'slyk the Serpent, an entity said to be the very personification of magic, due to Vecna's supposed relation to the Ancient Brethren - a group that Mok'slyk is a part of. Other sources state that he became fearful of his own mortality and sought out the Demon Lord Orcus to learn the secrets of undeath. Regardless of his means, Vecna returned 1,000 years later to exact his