There’s a new villain in the Upside Down. The latest trailer for Stranger Things Season 4 recently confirmed as much, offering fans their first look at a monstrous, humanoid figure the likes of which they’ve never seen in the Netflix series.
The mysterious creature tells the show’s heroes that they’ve “broken everything” before promising that their “suffering is almost at an end.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTX0HxTq9wo&feature=emb_imp_woyt
As of now, little is known about the villain, including exactly what his relationship is to the Upside Down, the realm’s Demogorgons, and the citizens of Hawkins. But it looks like the character was inspired, like so many of Stranger Things’ antagonists, by one iconic Dungeons & Dragons villain.
Series creators Matt and Ross Duffer confirmed to IGN that the mysterious villain featured in the teaser is named Vecna. The Duffer Brothers didn’t reveal much more about the character, but they did mention that he’s partly inspired by iconic movie villains like Freddie Krueger, Pinhead, and Pennywise.
Vecna was a sorcerer who turned himself into an undead abomination known as a lich only to eventually ascend to godhood. He was first introduced to D&D back in 1976 with the publication of Dungeons & Dragons Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry, written by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume.
Vecna originally entered the canon only as of the mysterious source of two different artifacts. The Hand of Vecna, “a dried, shriveled and blackened hand, such as could have been caused by having been burned,” turned its users evil and had a number of difficult-to-control powers including (but not limited to) levitation and a spell known as Finger of Death.
The Eye, on the other … hand … was said to “glitter much in the same manner as the eye of a feline.” Among its powers was a particularly rare spell called “clairaudience,” which allows the user supernatural hearing and the ability to blink in and out of reality. There’s a catch, of course: In order to use the Eye of Vecna, users had to permanently graft it to their own skull, making its powerful blessings a curse that could not be removed.
“THE EFFECTS OF THE EYE ON THE USER MAY NOT BE ALTERED IN ANY MANNER,” states Eldritch Wizardry in all caps, “EVEN BY WISHES.”
Vecna has appeared several more times throughout the canon of D&D, including in the 5th edition Dungeon Masters Guide where he appeared as a part of a sample D&D pantheon for would-be Dungeon Masters to use in their world. But he appeared most recently as a god in Critical Role’s Vox Machina storyline.
So is it actually Vecna pulling the strings behind the scenes, or is it someone who just acts and behaves a lot like Vecna? An interesting note is that But, since the Vecna isn’t included in the game’s open-source rule set, so Netflix would have likely needed special permission to use his name from WOTC.
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