One of the most powerful Dungeons and Dragons magic items of all time, the grisly Head of Vecna bestows upon its finder and activator the nigh-on godlike powers of the Archmage, lich, and demigod, Vecna.

Similar to, yet strikingly different from, the Hand of Vecna, Toes of Vecna, Eye of Vecna and the Teeth of Vecna, The Head, as it is sometimes called, requires no special powers, special words, spells, potions, arcane knowledge, wishes, or other of the usual magic item palaver to activate.

No special knowledge, that is, except knowledge of how to activate the other "Items of Vecna". And since these garish trophies of Vecna's destruction are possibly the most well-known magical items in D&D, you can bet this is something that everyone knows.

But let's step back for a minute before we activate our "Item of Vecna". It needs to be said that Vecna is not really dead. The body that the archmage Vecna was "wearing" when he transmuted into a lich was blown into pieces by the violent and rushed nature of the transformation spell. Vecna's acolytes fled with the non-consumed bits: 12 teeth, both hands, several toes (no-one knows how many), one eye, and The Head.

Exploding into little bits didn't slow Vecna down -- he became a lich to gain power, and it worked -- but the acolytes who had made off with the bits were never heard of again.

Vecna, we need to understand, before we proceed, was EVIL. Not "evil" as in "That's an evil smell coming from your football shorts", but EVIL.

Evil evil. As in: Slayer of Children for No Discernable Purpose; Drinker of Merlot; Republican; User of Fruity Language evil.

Yes, I know, it makes me cold all over too. Please, just hold me.

The way to activate an "Item of Vecna", of course, is to cut off (or rip out) the bit of yourself that matches it and shove the Vecna part, hot and sizzling with stored magic, into the hole / onto the bloody stump.

With the Hand of Vecna, this gives an instant boost to dexterity, as well as several cool (if evil) spells that can be cast once per day. The resulting alignment change to some brand of evil is not likely to bother you, and if it bothers others you now have several new ways of dealing with that. Per day.

The Teeth of Vecna are more limited, but give an instant boost to charisma, plus different spells depending upon what tooth you've shoved, raw, into your bleeding gum. The resultant alignment shift to evil also probably won't bother you much, as with your extra charisma, you'll be able to convince the squeamish to go along with your plans.

The Toes of Vecna give a boost to speed, but the resultant foot odor means you need to use the speed pretty much all the time just to stay ahead of the bounty hunters, after you for crimes against humanity.

The Eye of Vecna has many powers, including the ability to see in all directions, ala Professor "Mad Eye" Moody from Harry Potter.

Imagine you're the Dungeon Master as the Head of Vecna is found:

Dungeon Master: Behind the secret door you find a small alcove, in which is a disembodied head.

Player 1: I cast Detect Magic!

Dungeon Master: Oh, it's magical all right...

Player 2: I use my scroll of Identify!

Dungeon Master: The process of Identify takes about an hour. At the end you're sure that you have, in your possession, the fabled Head of Vecna! Tales have been written about this item, wars fought over it... (trails off)

Player 1 / Player 2 / Player 3 (gasps of astonishment fade into a thoughtful pause)

Player 1: Cut my head off!

Player 2: No! You got the Vorpal Sword! Cut my head off! Now!

Player 3: I'm already evil - so I won't lose my class abilities! Cut my head off!

(And then, if you somehow still possess the power of speech...)

Dungeon Master: (sotto voce as if disbelieving your own amazing luck) The magic of the Head of Vecna is about to be revealed -- and I thought there were no more surprises for this old, jaded DM -- so who is having their head cut off?

---

P.S. A brief word on copyright. The story one finds on the internet by one Mark Steuer, and the role-playing campaign he refers to, appears not to be the origin of the Head of Vecna legend -- this dastardly item was well known in Australian role-playing circles many, many years before Mark published his article. To make this retelling of the old story unique, I have deliberately changed the attributes of Vecna, the story of the creation the items, their properties, etc. etc.

The name "Vecna" is possibly a trademark of Wizards of the Coast.

Powered By GURPS was Steve Jackson Games' answer to the d20 system craze that was hitting the industry right after the release of Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition.

The d20 system was causing people to realize the usefulness of a generic system of rules, allowing publishers to focus on making modules and backgrounds for the RPG. Until now, that was exclusively the domain of the generic setting makers, such as Palladium Books (makers of Rifts, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG, and others), Hero System (makers of Fantasy Hero and Champions), FUDGE, and GURPS, of course. Arguably, GURPS was one of the most successful generic RPGs, so you can understand the threat posed by D&D, the 800 pound gorilla of roleplaying games, entering the generic RPG market.

Right before they had fully formed the idea, they had already made a few steps. GURPS had released a "GURPS Lite" edition, which contained the basic character generation rules and enough rules which would let you play GURPS very easily. (It was lacking some of the richer details of character generation, such as super powers and magic, but it had enough where you could easily fudge them in as a GM.) They made GURPS Lite a free PDF download so that the cost of enticing new players into the game was cheap. In addition, they also gave out printed copies in pamphlet style. (Similar to what Fuzion and FUDGE had done before them.) This was similar to the d20's equivalent system reference document.

The other step that they had made was that they had included GURPS Lite in their Discworld Roleplaying Game making it one of their first supplement books which could be considered a complete RPG by itself. Discworld a full copy of GURPS Lite, and additional rules so that you could fully play anything within the Discworld genre. Since it used the same rules as GURPS, it also allowed you to import rules and ideas from other GURPS books easily.

After they released Discworld, they realized that they had found a possible strategy for competing with the d20 System (which had already announced plans for d20 Modern). The first printing of Discworld wouldn't have the "Powered By GURPS" tagline, but subsequent ones would. In addition, they later launched other titles such as Transhuman Space and Hellboy with the Powered by GURPS tagline.

At first, they omitted the "GURPS" from the title of their books, to avoid giving people the impression that these were "yet more GURPS books" which were dependant on a library of GURPS rulebooks and supplements. Some newer releases would later add "GURPS" back in the title, however, such as GURPS WWII, GURPS Prime Directive, and GURPS Conspiracy X. They've been relatively inconsistant about the presence of GURPS in the title. For example, the titles of two new releases are Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game to the mouthful that is their "The Vorkosigan Saga Sourcebook and RPG (Powered by GURPS)"

They've always had much success converting other proprietary systems to the GURPS system, with a long list such as GURPS Bunnies and Burrows, GURPS Autoduel, as well as the ill-fated GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade. Their new strategy seems to be publishing the conversions as part of their "Powered By GURPS" line. GURPS Prime Directive and GURPS Traveller both seem to be having much success with this strategy.

List of some recent "Powered By GURPS" books:

• GURPS Conspiracy X
• Discworld Roleplaying Game
• GURPS Prime Directive
• Transhuman Space
• GURPS Traveller
• GURPS World War II

Sources:

• http://www.sjgames.com/poweredbygurps/
• http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/lite/
• http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/discworld/
• http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/
• http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1284

Google acquires rights to Everything2 database and code

HOLLAND, Michigan and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 1, 2005 – Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), the world's largest search engine, announced today the acquisition of the Everything2 database and technologies from its founder, Nate Oostendorp, and the Everything Development Company. The site and its content will be rebranded "Google Communities" and added to the stable of Google services.

“Google is pleased with the addition of the Everything2 database” said Bill Brasky, Google’s executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. “We value our user community, and look forward to providing them with this new method of creating and sharing rich and personal web content.”

"Becoming part of Google's offering is tremendously exciting," said Ryan Postma, Everything2's editor-in-chief and general manager. "I look forward to utilizing the services of Google's professional development team to realize our plans for improved content management. It'll be a welcome change from the volunteer team of drop-outs, burn-outs, and Jeopardy! champions."

Before the new Communities section is added to Google's main pages, a thorough review of the Everything2 database is in order to remove any postings which violate Copyright laws. "This review underscores Google’s commitment to the importance of intellectual property rights," said Brasky. "We felt that the time to purge the database had come," added Postma. "We're raising the bar for future content and making the new Communities site a welcoming place for new and established writers alike."

About Everything2

Everything2 is a user-driven, collaboratively filtered database. Featuring hundreds of thousands of articles in over a million "data nodes" Everything2 brings a personal, first-person perspective to the information stores of the World Wide Web, mixing fact, fiction, and personal experience into a compelling web of hypertext.

About Google

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with information. Our innovations in web search and advertising have made our website a top Internet destination and our brand one of the most recognized in the world. We maintain the world's largest online index of websites and other content, and we make this information freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. Our automated search technology helps people obtain nearly instant access to relevant information from our vast online index.

All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Starfaring was, arguably, the first sci fi role playing game. It was released in 1976. (The first actual sci fi role playing game was TSR's Metamorphosis: Alpha, however, TSR's game didn't deal with the grander aspect of space travel/exploration). Starfaring was written by Ken St. Andre and published by his Flying Buffalo company. It was an extremely low quality work, consisting of a single booklet, spiral bound, and printed on 8 1/2" x 11" paper. The covers were a heavier pink paper and the cover art featured a lurid drawing of a large-breasted, blaster-toting space vixen. The cover gave an indication of the game's theme.

Before the Christian right corn-holed role playing, getting TSR to remove devils and demons from the Monster Manual, Starfaring was more typical of role playing in the anything goes era of the '70s. It was a sci fi game about sex and drugs and rock'n' starships. Seriously.

Starfaring took a rather unique approach to role playing. Instead of generating and playing a single character, in St. Andre's game one generated and played an entire starship and crew. The object of the game was to take your starship on a series of adventures and pay back your government loan. You need to discover new planets and a fuel source called "star crystals".

Your starship sometimes had encounters with an alien race of Bug Eyed Monsters called the Slish. When you met the Slish, combat happened. Your crew's ability scores contributed to how well your starship fights. Various medical and recreational drugs your crew members have stashed aboard could aid your crew in combat. Combat was reminiscent of Flying Buffalo's other RPG mainstay, Tunnels & Trolls.

Starfaring, although first out of the gate, was highly damaged. The game went for too much humor and camp. The mechanics didn't allow for adventures outside of your starship. And even more crippling the game didn't allow for multiple starships. This ended up meaning it was a two person role playing game. There was a game master player and a ship player.