The Wand of Orcus is a symbol and artifact owned by the powerful demon prince Orcus. The wand has the potential to slay any living creature the user wishes dead.
The exact details of the creation of the Wand is unknown. However, recently, certain details have come to light. The skull on the Wand of Orcus is the skull of a famous warrior named Anarchocles. When Anarchocles died, Orcus took the skull from the warrior’s corpse, which was destroyed anyway, and placed the skull on the end of an iron scepter, which then was imbued with some of Orcus’s own essence, creating the Wand of Orcus. Anarchocles’s spirit, however, needed to be preserved to keep the power of the Wand intact. As such, Orcus bound the warrior’s spirit into a golden circlet, which was in all ways like the circlet for a skeletal warrior. This circlet is the secret weakness of the Wand, for if it, the repository of Anarchocles’s spirit, were ever touched to the skull of his body, then, like a skeletal warrior, both would be destroyed, which would also destroy the Wand.
Sources
Dead Gods
A brief history of Orcus (Necromancer Games)
Encyclopedia Magica vol. 4 (TSR)
Dungeons Masters Guide 1st ed.
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