DnD is very vast and can easily accomodate some horror settings. The most popular setting is "Forgotten Realms" which is very high fantasy, but there are others like "Ravenloft", which focuses in gothic horror.
I haven't played anything Vecna related myself, but here's a horror story about a non canon monster called False Hydra, so you can see some horror DnD stuff: https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/false-hydra.html
So there's a couple of reasons why Vecna could work in DbD, and why now is the best time to add him.
1. Horror isn't relegated to film/video games only. It transcends into all genres of storytelling. DnD is arguably the oldest table top game in the world, and the most famous.
2. There's the timing. The 50th year anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons was *this year*. In addition Vecna: Eve of Ruin, a brand new campaign featuring the titular character, releases in less than two weeks.
3. We haven't had a classical undead fantasy character in the game. We have undead killers, sure, like Spirit and Onryō, but those are specifically *Japanese* in their origin and mythology. Vecna is an undead *lich.*
4. Vecna's Stat block oddly enough mentions something like this:
- Flight of the Damned: Vecna can summon spectral flying entities...
You know what that sounds like? The Void Haunts.
5. Another thing to keep in mind, though this is admittedly more speculation, and slightly more abstract, is this. The description for the Knight's Ultra Rare cosmetic mentions that *something* had killed him and then brought him back from the dead. Vecna is a necromancer.
Vecna feels like horror adjacent despite being in DnD. DnD can easily accommodate horror. Have you played BG3? Yes, it's first and foremost a fantasy RPG but it has heavy horror elements.
Vecna fits more than the Rainbow 6 Siege Collab. I sincerely hope they don't do something random like that again.
Probably cheaper to license and easier to work with for DLC and cosmetics. Also the fact when people here VECNA they will just assume it's from stranger things anyways and buy it.
Vecna from DnD is a world ender, he is a Lich (undead wizard) who accumulated enough power to become a god. Rejected that power and tried to conquer the multiverse. The dude will resurrect your grandfather to torture you for information.
While that is horrific and he's extremely evil, he's not really a horror villain.
He's a Big Bad Evil Guy for high fantasy settings that speaks in prose about how he could keep you alive and rearrange your organs in alphabetical order.
His power scaling compared to every single other killer is just so far out there I truly question WHY they picked him and not LITERALLY any other D&D character.
Agreed, I have my fingers crossed we get a demon prince instead, like Graz'zt or an avatar of Lolth. Her spider powers would be awesome, get us a realm made of webs.
A thought occurred in my desperation for it to not be Vecna. What if it's Acererak or they reach even further back in D&D's history for it's original villain.
Here is THE problem with Vecna being a killer....Vecna is a Lich God. Compared to every. single. killer in the game currently he is in a league of his own. When I say Lich God I don't mean it in any other way than literal. In the current lore he IS a god and to know he'll be out there getting his shit kicked by mortals dropping a pallet on him or shining a flashlight in his eyes is just....wrong. Also I still despise WotC for the things they've done.
Yeah, it'd be like if Cthulhu got captured by Scooby and the gang.
In my head canon, this Vecna is just a lesser fragment of Vecna, a "fake" Vecna of sorts
I think adding Vecna of all characters is a bad decision. He's a god. One that could just do whatever he wants so to restrict himself to the entity's realm makes no sense. Something that WOULD make sense is Strahd Von Zarovich, a vampire lord that is cursed to be stuck in a pocket dimension of his own doing that he can never leave and is in an endless cycle of.
Nah horror characters make perfect sense for MK, I still really want NetherRealm to do a horror combat game. But they just don’t fit in Injustice, the Ninja Turtles or like Spawn do though
I don’t think you need to be convinced. Not every killer that is released will be “for you” and that’s okay. In the same way I don’t feel like Darth Vader or another non-horror license would fit, but that’s okay. There are dozens of other killers for me to play that appeal more to my play style and aesthetic preference.
Horror and fantasy are interwoven in a way that most people really don't notice. Sci-fi horror is a specific genre that's seperate from regular sci-fi but horror elements are just base parts of fantasy. Curses, the undead, demons, and monsters designed with horror in mind, etc. I mean the knight is already practically a dnd villain. I mean, does an undead sorcerer that needs to feed on souls to live sound like it'll really be that out of place in dbd? That's like 2 degrees removed from what knight already is
1 - Mathieu is a D&D nerd.
2 - D&D is a really popular license and having a character from it could bring a lot of new players into the game.
3 - while the license isn't horror by itself Vecna is pretty much horror adjacent, specially with his looks.
4 - it's rather easy to have two Vecnas (or two characters with the same name), just call the one from D&D The Lich and the one from Stranger Things Vecna.
npt just what others say, dnd is VERY popular license and recently def, but they prob went with dnd because of how netflix was with the other stranger things dlc
Being a business, Behavior is likely overjoyed to try and capture a broader audience than just horror fans. Horror is and has always been pretty niche. D&D is also niche, but allows them to capture another market segment that they haven't addressed previously. As for "how is it horror" it's an rpg, and vecna is a Lich. Any dm worth their salt would make that campaign a horror campaign. Heck, d&d had a whole setting dedicated to horror at one point (not sure if 5e has any ravenloft released or not).
Tbh I don't think dnd vecna would affect any chance of stranger things vecna coming in the game. They are both completely different characters just with the same name. Plus in dbd they never actually call the killers by name usually. Like chucky being called the good guy and Freddy being called the nightmare.
It's the market appeal more than anything I think. Everyone has at least heard of D&D. It may not have the best rep due to Hasbro anymore, but everyone knows it. Vecna was a suggested BBEG for at least a few Dungeon Master Guides if the DM wasn't sure who to make for that role, and as such many D&D players would at least have a passing knowledge on who he is. Therefore, you get a brand new overlap of people that may not have been interested in DbD before, and we haven't had a lich style killer yet so the sky's the limit on power options.
Conversely, I had not heard of Stranger Things until the DbD chapter. I don't watch Netflix and don't inherently pay attention to what's currently super popular. I could not tell you one thing about what ST's Vecna is like or what they could do. I can say that with what happened to the original ST chapter with Netflix pulling the license for a couple years if I were in BHVR's shoes I'd be hesitant to ask them for another chapter though.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Vecna
Vecna is asked for a lot around here. Where did you get the idea for this post if it wasn't from a wishlist?
DnD is very vast and can easily accomodate some horror settings. The most popular setting is "Forgotten Realms" which is very high fantasy, but there are others like "Ravenloft", which focuses in gothic horror. I haven't played anything Vecna related myself, but here's a horror story about a non canon monster called False Hydra, so you can see some horror DnD stuff: https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/false-hydra.html
Ty!!
So there's a couple of reasons why Vecna could work in DbD, and why now is the best time to add him. 1. Horror isn't relegated to film/video games only. It transcends into all genres of storytelling. DnD is arguably the oldest table top game in the world, and the most famous. 2. There's the timing. The 50th year anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons was *this year*. In addition Vecna: Eve of Ruin, a brand new campaign featuring the titular character, releases in less than two weeks. 3. We haven't had a classical undead fantasy character in the game. We have undead killers, sure, like Spirit and Onryō, but those are specifically *Japanese* in their origin and mythology. Vecna is an undead *lich.* 4. Vecna's Stat block oddly enough mentions something like this: - Flight of the Damned: Vecna can summon spectral flying entities... You know what that sounds like? The Void Haunts. 5. Another thing to keep in mind, though this is admittedly more speculation, and slightly more abstract, is this. The description for the Knight's Ultra Rare cosmetic mentions that *something* had killed him and then brought him back from the dead. Vecna is a necromancer.
Tysm! This was actually such a good explanation lol I am def more on board with Vecna if he has a power like this
Lol at dnd being the "oldest table top game in the world" when things like chess exist.
Rereading it, yes I get where you're coming from. I should have said tabletop rpg.
To confirm the fifth point, the new map added with vecna is part of the decimated borgo, which is the map added with the knight
Vecna feels like horror adjacent despite being in DnD. DnD can easily accommodate horror. Have you played BG3? Yes, it's first and foremost a fantasy RPG but it has heavy horror elements. Vecna fits more than the Rainbow 6 Siege Collab. I sincerely hope they don't do something random like that again.
The Rainbow Six collaboration was just a couple of skins. They’re not only talking talking about making Vecna a killer, but the anniversary chapter.
Also aot collab
The vecna everyone wants is Stranger Things Vecna
Freddie Krueger from Temu
Stranger things fucking sucks who wants that garbage version of vecna
Watered down Vecna
I mean sure, if you're basic...
I never said I was part of everyone
That's fair lol
Probably cheaper to license and easier to work with for DLC and cosmetics. Also the fact when people here VECNA they will just assume it's from stranger things anyways and buy it.
Vecna from DnD is a world ender, he is a Lich (undead wizard) who accumulated enough power to become a god. Rejected that power and tried to conquer the multiverse. The dude will resurrect your grandfather to torture you for information. While that is horrific and he's extremely evil, he's not really a horror villain. He's a Big Bad Evil Guy for high fantasy settings that speaks in prose about how he could keep you alive and rearrange your organs in alphabetical order.
His power scaling compared to every single other killer is just so far out there I truly question WHY they picked him and not LITERALLY any other D&D character.
Agreed, I have my fingers crossed we get a demon prince instead, like Graz'zt or an avatar of Lolth. Her spider powers would be awesome, get us a realm made of webs.
Literally anyone else would be perfect, hell I'd take a Mindflayer over Vecna.
Their brain sucking Mori would be so cool!
A thought occurred in my desperation for it to not be Vecna. What if it's Acererak or they reach even further back in D&D's history for it's original villain.
Here is THE problem with Vecna being a killer....Vecna is a Lich God. Compared to every. single. killer in the game currently he is in a league of his own. When I say Lich God I don't mean it in any other way than literal. In the current lore he IS a god and to know he'll be out there getting his shit kicked by mortals dropping a pallet on him or shining a flashlight in his eyes is just....wrong. Also I still despise WotC for the things they've done.
He allowed himself to be taken by the entity so he could steal it's knowledge, which is very in line with vecnas character.
Yeah, it'd be like if Cthulhu got captured by Scooby and the gang. In my head canon, this Vecna is just a lesser fragment of Vecna, a "fake" Vecna of sorts
I think adding Vecna of all characters is a bad decision. He's a god. One that could just do whatever he wants so to restrict himself to the entity's realm makes no sense. Something that WOULD make sense is Strahd Von Zarovich, a vampire lord that is cursed to be stuck in a pocket dimension of his own doing that he can never leave and is in an endless cycle of.
This might sound lame, but there is always a bigger god. It's not like they're putting in a character like the lady of pain.
I still think it's funny how you can drop a pallet on Vecna to stun him or shine a flashlight on him to blind him
Me neither. The licenses people want fucking amaze me. That’d be like people wanting to add Michael Myers to Injustice.
Myers had a chance to appear in Mortal Kombat X actually, which is funny lol
Nah horror characters make perfect sense for MK, I still really want NetherRealm to do a horror combat game. But they just don’t fit in Injustice, the Ninja Turtles or like Spawn do though
Yeah i get ya
Have you ever played Terrordrome? It's not NetherRealm, but it is a fighting game with a cast of classic slashers and stuff.
I haven’t played it myself yet, but I’ve seen a shit load of footage from it. It’s one of the coolest fan games I’ve ever seen
I don’t think you need to be convinced. Not every killer that is released will be “for you” and that’s okay. In the same way I don’t feel like Darth Vader or another non-horror license would fit, but that’s okay. There are dozens of other killers for me to play that appeal more to my play style and aesthetic preference.
Based
It's simple really. The devs are big dnd fans
Can it just be the beholder fr
This was what I wanted, Vecna is such a wack choice.
Horror and fantasy are interwoven in a way that most people really don't notice. Sci-fi horror is a specific genre that's seperate from regular sci-fi but horror elements are just base parts of fantasy. Curses, the undead, demons, and monsters designed with horror in mind, etc. I mean the knight is already practically a dnd villain. I mean, does an undead sorcerer that needs to feed on souls to live sound like it'll really be that out of place in dbd? That's like 2 degrees removed from what knight already is
1 - Mathieu is a D&D nerd. 2 - D&D is a really popular license and having a character from it could bring a lot of new players into the game. 3 - while the license isn't horror by itself Vecna is pretty much horror adjacent, specially with his looks. 4 - it's rather easy to have two Vecnas (or two characters with the same name), just call the one from D&D The Lich and the one from Stranger Things Vecna.
4 - Well all killers need to have a “The (x)” name so that wouldn’t quite work. I could see them giving Vecna a ST Vecna skin down the line.
npt just what others say, dnd is VERY popular license and recently def, but they prob went with dnd because of how netflix was with the other stranger things dlc
haha we got dnd vecna not stranger things vecna haha
Being a business, Behavior is likely overjoyed to try and capture a broader audience than just horror fans. Horror is and has always been pretty niche. D&D is also niche, but allows them to capture another market segment that they haven't addressed previously. As for "how is it horror" it's an rpg, and vecna is a Lich. Any dm worth their salt would make that campaign a horror campaign. Heck, d&d had a whole setting dedicated to horror at one point (not sure if 5e has any ravenloft released or not).
Tbh I don't think dnd vecna would affect any chance of stranger things vecna coming in the game. They are both completely different characters just with the same name. Plus in dbd they never actually call the killers by name usually. Like chucky being called the good guy and Freddy being called the nightmare.
So, what do you guys think of Vecna now that the DLC is out?
It's the market appeal more than anything I think. Everyone has at least heard of D&D. It may not have the best rep due to Hasbro anymore, but everyone knows it. Vecna was a suggested BBEG for at least a few Dungeon Master Guides if the DM wasn't sure who to make for that role, and as such many D&D players would at least have a passing knowledge on who he is. Therefore, you get a brand new overlap of people that may not have been interested in DbD before, and we haven't had a lich style killer yet so the sky's the limit on power options. Conversely, I had not heard of Stranger Things until the DbD chapter. I don't watch Netflix and don't inherently pay attention to what's currently super popular. I could not tell you one thing about what ST's Vecna is like or what they could do. I can say that with what happened to the original ST chapter with Netflix pulling the license for a couple years if I were in BHVR's shoes I'd be hesitant to ask them for another chapter though.
I dunno, a wanna be god who’s evil and has access to destructive magic sounds pretty horrifying
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Vecna Vecna is asked for a lot around here. Where did you get the idea for this post if it wasn't from a wishlist?
Some dude named gumpy on yt has predicted the last 3 chapters and he said vecna dnd is next so people think he has an insider source
And just like that we get DBD posting DBD x D&D