Have all my ie modding tools now so a quest mod should be about 2 weeks away, have lots of ideas, but any are welcome
Two weeks to do a quest mod? You're either overly optimistic or a modding demon 
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I dunno, maybe you could dig around for the original supplements that featured them and whatever quest you needed to do to get them. It should be more intricate than your standard "hunt down and kill some baddie" routine. There should be fake Hands and Eyes scattered about too, merchants trying to pawn them off on unsuspecting adventurers. So it'll be tough to find the real ones, heh. (Then there's the merchant claiming to have the mummified Private Parts of Vecna, which grant awe-inspiring superpowers to their bearer, but you have to cut off... eh, nevermind 
).
2 Weeks not that optimistic, have the advantage of being professional coder ( embedded systems ) and with all the moding tools being very mature, and lots of guides, cant see any major problems. Not that confident with VC++ so not picking up TOBex yet until refresh myself on Visual studio, ( and until have updated the project to VB7 )-
Love the idea of a false quest, but was not going to make the items a quest.
My ideas are based on the following background ( taken from the item description )
"Most sages know and tell the tale of Vecna the greatest of the arch liches and it goes something like this
"Many tales are told of the Archlich Vecna.
It is said that Vecna was one of the Planes' mightiest sorcerers, able to draw life from dust and send it back again, extinguish lives with a glance, and make the earth shudder beneath his touch. He was said to be so powerful that when the end of his life drew near, death refused to take him into its kingdom.
And so Vecna died, yet lived on.
Abandoned by death, Vecna became the master of a vast kingdom on a prime world called Oerth. Neither kind nor just, Lord Vecna's rule was one of great horror and suffering, and it is said his reach was so great that even the Powers of Oerth feared to cross him, for fearing of drawing his eye.
Yet, while Vecna's gaze traveled ever outward in search of new conquests, he failed to see his own end when it came for him... in the form of his lieutenant, Kas.
As was fitting for Vecna's left hand servant, the Archlich had fashioned a terrible weapon for his lieutenant as a symbol of his authority. Vecna made this weapon with such skill it is said that part of the sorcerer entered the blade, and it was this sliver of Vecna that gave the blade its life and its treacherous nature. Where once there was lifeless steel, there became thought, intent, and, perhaps most horrible of all, a voice.
The sword whispered treacheries to the ambitious Kas, night upon night, month upon month, year upon year, until one night, the remains of Kas' discipline was seduced by the rippling edge of the blade. Convinced by his blade that he was Vecna's superior, Kas confronted his dread master upon his Dessicated Throne, and the two of them fought a terrible battle.
During the battle, Kas was killed, but before he fell, his blade had dismembered his former master, scattering his remains so that no one may draw them together again. And so it has come to pass that pieces of Vecna have made their way across the Planes... one of these is the hand of Vecna. It carries with it a bloody, violent history, so much so that many scholars refuse to speak of its treacheries, for fear the hand will come to them, seeking to add another victim to its bloody chronology.
The hand of Vecna was instrumental in the extermination of the House of Hyeric, once the ruling dynasty in Nyrond. It is said to have been behind the sundering of the Conclave of Tyssis-on-the-Sea, which led to the three-cycle war that poisoned the seas of Malhatai and left the oceanic world barren of life. On the ashen Plane of Ghalentir, it possessed the gentle father of Sasaran, a babe with the potential to lead his suffering people from their shadowed lands to the Gates of Paradise... had not the hand drove Sasaran's father to murder his son as he lay sleeping in his crib. All these kingdoms, all these futures, the hand of Vecna laid waste."
but some greater scholars ( Elminster for one ! ) have asked questions of this tale, questions such as "why did Vecna become a lich", "how did this ,admittedly powerful, undead mage gain the ability to dominate a part of a plane and inspire enough fear in the greater and lesser gods to keep it! " and " If vecna was cut to pieces by the sword of Kass why did only the hand and eye go on to become artifacts "
The answer to these questions lies in the true tale of Arch Mage Vecna and the real nature of the hand and eye, a tale that is revealed to you, now that you are one of the small group of people and creatures to have held the hand.
To understand the power of the hand and its history we must start at the beginning with a understanding of the planes and the nature of Gods.
The multiverse you stand in is complex beast, most sages give the model of a wheel or onion, and a common description is as follows
"Since they are without form or dimension, it is not possible to draw a road-map of the
planes and their relationships to each other. However, there is a structure and organization to them which can best be visualized as a series of spheres, one inside the other.
The Prime Material Planes
At the very center of this series of spheres are the Prime Material planes. These are the planes most familiar to Greyhawk creatures. The prime material planes include the many Earth-like alternate worlds and campaigns that operate from the more or less the same basic realities. There may be variations from prime to prime, but most features remain the same. The inhabitants of each prime always refer to their plane as the Prime Material Plane.
The Ethereal Planes
Surrounding each Prime Material plane is a separate Ethereal plane. The Ethereal planes are misty realms of proto-matter. Nothing is solid on these planes. In the Ethereal planes, there may be small pockets or islands of matter known as demiplanes. These demi-planes are sometimes the creations of extremely powerful wizards,technologists, or demi-gods.
The Inner Planes
Using the sphere analogy, outside of the Primes and the Ethereal planes are the inner planes, the primary building forces of the multiverse. The inner planes consist of the elemental, para-elemental, and quasi-elemental planes, and the planes of energy. The elemental planes are the building blocks of matter?Air, Water, Fire, and Earth. Where the elemental planes touch each other there arise the para-elemental planes?Smoke, Ice, Ooze, and Magma. The Energy planes are the Positive Energy plane (also called the Plane of Life) and the Negative Energy plane (the source of entropy). The quasielemental planes exist where the elemental planes touch the Energy planes?Lightning, Steam, Minerals, and Radiance around the Positive Energy plane, and Salt, Vacuum, Ash, and Dust around the Negative Energy plane. Many of the planes have their own creatures and rulers who are sometimes summoned to one of the primes through spells or magical items.
The Astral Plane
Beyond the inner planes (continuing with the spheres) is the Astral plane. Like the Ethereal planes, this plane serves as a connector between the different realities. It links the various Primes to each other (one travels from one Prime to another by crossing the Astral plane, not the Ethereals) and connects each Prime to the outer planes. The Astral plane is a barren place with only rare bits of solid matter. Indeed, the most common feature is the silver cords of travelers in the plane. These cords are the lifelines that keep travelers of the Plane from becoming lost, stretching all the way back to the traveler's point of origin.
The Outer Planes
Finally, outside all else are the Outer Planes, also called the Planes of Power. There are 17 known Outer Planes?there may be more. These planes can be reached only by powerful spells or by crossing the Astral plane. Each outer plane is unique. Some seem quite similar to the primes; others have terrain and physical laws wildly different from that to which the characters may be accustomed. Magic functions differently on each plane as do many other common assumptions of reality.Powerful beings (self-proclaimed gods, goddesses, and demi-gods) inhabit these planes along with a full range of other life forms. The outer planes are the final resting place of the spirits of intelligent life forms of the Prime Material planes. The known outer planes have been named by humans. Some of these names are:
Mechanus
Arcadia
Mount Celestia
Bytopia
Elysium
Beastlands
Olympus
Ysgard
Limbo
Pandemonium
The Abyss
Carceri
Gray Waste
Gehenna
Baator
Acheron
The Outlands"
But this common model is just that, a simple model to understand the hand we need more!
All the inner planes are finite in terms of size, but too big to comprehend.
All the inner planes share the same time space.
The Prime material plane is made up of many worlds separated by space, arranged as galaxys,suns,planets etc
The Elemental planes, negative material and positive material are basically continuous having no planets etc
The ethereal plane separates and connects all the inner planes, but to be more accurate it is not a plane at all. When any two things in this multiverse are brought together in physical contact ( cup and ball ) there is never a point in space where a line can be drawn between the two, if one looks close enough one sees a gradual transition from the particles of what can be called the cup to the particles of what can be called the ball. The same is true of the planes, where the prime material joins the negative material (for example ) there is no sudden transition, there is a grey area where the prime and negative are effectively the same, this is the ethereal "plane".
In the same manner the astral plane is the membrane between all the outer planes , the alternate primes and the alternate ethereals
The fundamental forces within the inner planes are gravity and magic, both are a result of the ethereal membrane, how exactly this occurs is beyond the scope of this explanation.
Now very brief discussion on gods and other powers of the multiverse, and here I quote my good friend Cuthbert
"Gods are formed by worship
There are three tiers of gods (ignoring pantheons ).
The elder gods..... Zeus Odin Ra etc.. They are all powerful in their respective planes and very old, they work through avatars and the leaser gods they command, They control the fate of souls of devoted that travel to their realm after death.
The new gods..... Helm, Omah, Mysteria......... These new gods are spawned every time the universe has a cycle change, not as powerful as the old gods, often perishing in battles or fading through lack of worship, only a few tend to survive cycle changes and progress to becoming elder gods. They exist on parts of the outer planes, with the permission of the elder gods who control the respective alignment plane.
Elemental deities, Heroes, Demi gods, Powerful humans....A host of these creatures exist, displaying in measure godlike power and abilities, sometimes worshiped by cults but rarely gaining enough worship to progress to spawning clerics and new god status.
NB... Gods are not the most powerful beings in the universe, this accolade belongs to the elder beings. Creatures that were here before gods and in some cases before the universe itself was made and oh yes, 2 humans.
"
The ethereal plane is not a uniform membrane, the barrier has countless folds tunnels, knots and holes so passage through the ethereal plane can be random at best ( indeed that is why the teleport spell can lead one to appear in a rock or a week in the past! ) this also leads to areas within the prime material where the fundamental forces can vary in strength and it is in one of these places, where magic is so faint as to be undetectable, that our tale begins.
There once was a small world at the edge of a magic less galaxy that was home to many humans, they lived without mages clerics or supernatural beings, and even the gods of the outer planes could not send their avatars through the natural barrier of folded ethereal membrane ( with a few extremely rare exceptions ).
Naturally these humans, as all humans seem to be, were a warlike race, and without magic or gods they waged war with weapons and machines, time passed, their numbers grew and so did their intelligence, yet the wars still raged, now fought with machines that could inflict damage on a scale unimaginable by even the greatest arch mage, still their intelligence grew, still the wars raged, still the machines got more powerful. One would think this cycle would stop but on this one world ( maybe unique in the multiverse ) it did not.
Finally 2 great nations formed and without pause went to war, huge machines fought each other to destruction all over the globe and in nearby space. the two sides were equally matched in intelligence skill and ruthlessness so the war raged for 500 years then there was born a man ( on the NearAsia side ) who?s intelligence and evil could not be measured and who?s name is now cursed by gods themselves. Dr Hastur
He used his godlike intelligence to create a great thinking machine into which he poured his very soul, his very life-force, leaving his body a lifeless husk, this machine serviced by countless minor machines and humans was given the task of once and for all defeating the NearAEura forces, and so the great machine went to work. Unfortunately no one thought to check the work and no one wandered weather Dr Hasturs evil could be within the machine along with his life-force, the war was raging after all! Until exactly 1 year later from a fully automated underground bunker the brothers emerged.
Two human like machines, golems with powers to destroy mountains and indeed they did end the war. The first day they destroyed all the war machines of both sides, the second day they killed all the human warriors of both sides! In fact any creature which could put up the slightest challenge. Then having nothing left to kill they simply went to sleep watched over by the great machine ( now serviced exclusively by other machines ).
The flood of souls from this cataclysm did not go unnoticed in the outer planes, indeed Zeus himself ordered a expedition of greater Olympian deities to find out what was going on, since no avatar could penetrate the ethereal distortions it was decided to ask one of the uber powerful elder beings to help, and curious herself Phoenix agreed, so finally, after some good humored debate as to which god would go, Phoenix flew to the Sol system carrying an avatar of Hermes in her talons, punching a hole in the ethereal membrane ( as only an elder being can do ) and bringing magic to sol for the first time.
So it was exactly one year after the twins were "born" that Hermes stood on Sol and marveled at the carnage.
The presence of such a powerful somehow being awoke 11 and 12 ( the "names" the great machine had assigned the 2 brothers ) who thinking they were facing a powerful human warrior who had somehow avoided their gaze, did battle with relish.
They had a moment of surprise before Hermes turned them into 2 piles of molten scrap.
Although the twins had power to destroy mountains and physical strength greater than Hercules himself, they had never seen magic before, they were venerable to the simplest cantrip let alone spells cast by an higher god they could not even teleport!
Thinking the problem solved and the souls of the brave human warriors avenged Hermes left to the important task of converting as much of this virgin galaxy to the Olympian pantheon as possible before the other gods of the outer planes found the hole left by Phoenix and came to fight for worshipers.
But Hermes was not Helm! Hermes, Quicksilver, on feet of wings always a little too quick even with his gods eyes did not see the great machine observing the battle with the twins, did not see tiny machines recovering the memory components of 11 and 12, did not notice the great machine once again working.
100 years roll by and memory of the great machine and the cataclysm of Sol passed into history, sol was now a peaceful place having turned its back on the technology that was blamed for the cataclysm, clerics and the worship of Zeus flourished, all seemed well. Yet in a remote valley beneath a river the great machine had been working hard, and from the same bunker emerged Rhin and Qwill.
Stronger faster and more sophisticated than their predecessors, they appeared almost human ( apart from the rather obvious 3 eyes and six fingered hands ), but more than that they were clothed in regenerating flesh essential to contain the magical forces the great machine had analyzed and copied during its observation of Hermes. And what power it was ! They started life as arch mages with no limit on further progression, they could learn and gain experience, more than that they had the ability to effortlessly travel through the ethereal at least as well as Hermes!
As everything else had been upgraded so had the brothers wisdom, they could laugh joke and philosophies, yet their basic nature remained the same, they wanted only to fight and kill worthy opponents and in the process become better killers.
So pausing only to enjoy their first sunrise they slipped through the now permanent membrane hole into the multiverse proper.
The next few weeks saw the mysterious disappearance of many great heroes, demigods and powerful beings throughout widely dispersed locations within the prime material, as the two carved a bloody path gaining magic ability and experience at a exponential rate, the gods made oblivious by powerful anti divination magic?s weaved into the brothers did not see their peril till Rin and Qwill stood before the gates of Olympus politely asking to see Hermes.
Naturally Zeus is not to be underestimated, he was warned of the twins arrival centuries back by the fates and warned of the danger, but he was a elder god after all and arrogant in his power especially in his home plane. Thus the twins were greeted by most of the Olympian pantheon reigned against them. The battle raged for 12 hours, Zeus commanded the very substance of Olympus to fight against the intruders, yet Qwill held equilibrium by forming a direct gate to the negative material, and in the equilibrium Rhin dealt with the Olympians. The titans died first, only a few remained to retreat after the first salvo of energy and magic bolts that came from Rhin the rest of the battle was no less bloody, by sun fall Zeus had retreated badly wounded and the rest of the gods were fighting a retreat in the face of both the twins now active ( Qwill no longer had to hold equilibrium since Zeus was out of the picture ). It seemed all was lost for the Olympian gods, then at the last moment Zeus in his desperation allowed access to Olympus, and accepted help from anyone who would give it, And help came.
Suddenly the twins faced not only the Olympians but Odin and the Norse pantheon (avatars) and Ra and the Egyptian pantheon (avatars) the combined magical and physical force of these gods smashed into the pair and for a second it seemed that their time was up. But Rhin just smiled for the twins knew they had been given power by the great machine that they had dare not use, until now, power copied from a brief glimpse of phoenix before she had left the sol system, power of an elder being, such was the nature of this power that it had a good chance of destroying the twins if their bodies could not contain it. The twins gambled, and the gamble paid of. Most of the avatars were destroyed in seconds, such was the savagery that Odin lost his real eye as a force wave blew his avatar apart and rippled back down the silver cord to his real body.
Now bright as the sun with pure force the two turned their attention to what remained of the Olympians but before they could unleash the bolt that would turn Olympus into powder chance smiled on the gods. For two others came to see what the commotion was all about, not gods , not heroes, but 2 Elder beings.
Ballor one eye was the first daemon, indeed all daemon kind were created ( by various dark gods )as a homage to this being.
Jack the Bodiless was half human half something else and was the greatest of his race of Psionic operant masters.
The two were good friends after having a bit of a rumble a few centuries back, and were having tea in a very nice spot of the astral plane when they sensed an almighty disturbance in the astral membrane, so naturally they went to have a look.
They were taken aback and a little angry when on arrival the twins took them for enemies and attacked, then when Rhin actually drew blood ( Ballors ) and Qwill managed to give jack a headache, then they revealed their true forms and power.
Such was the force unleashed in that next second that some sages to the gods have theorized that the multiverse was set of balance at that moment, and all the climactic ages from that moment to now have been a consequence of that one exchange of fire.
Rhin and Qwill battled bravely and fiercely pushing their body integrity to the limit. Yet they were forced back, forced from Olympus, forced from the astral and finally fought back to the prime. There the battle paused, becoming very tired and having made their point Ballor and Jack left the twins buried under a mountain of rubble, and as a parting shot destroyed the great machine ( with a telekinetic bolt from jack which re/arranged that continent ! )
Over the next day all sides took a breather and licked their wounds, the gods especially Olympus had lost many, the twins had lost the great machine which meant no resurrection, and Jack and Ballor had left going back to whatever business Elder beings have.
This still left the gods in a dilemma, when the twins came back , which surely they would, there would be no elder beings there to save them. But the situation had changed, the great machine was gone which meant the soul of Dr Hastur was now in Hades and no longer tied to the machine, this Zeus knew and after a did of bargaining gained access to.
And so Zeus learned the weaknesses of his enemies, and a fatal weakness it was, the two were created in parts and activated by the assembly of the last part, In the case of Rhin the left hand and with Qwill the central eye. Thus if these pieces were to be removed the machines would become inactive. It was Loki greatest of all thieves who took on the task, armed with Dr Hasturs removal instructions, skill, whit and concealment only the greatest of thieves could achieve, the deed was done.
Yet Dr Hastur even after his death managed to shield his creations, by withholding from Zeus one final secret, once deactivated the twins would be automatically teleported back to their birth bunker a location that even the doctor did not know, the whereabouts were destroyed along with the great machine.
Thus Loki was left alone holding just an eye and hand,
Over the next few millennia much effort was spent trying to find that bunker, but no trace was ever found, as for the eye and hand it was found that these 2 artifacts contained much power, even though they were the weakest parts of Rhin and Qwill, they were still parts of god killers. it was also found with the proper enchantments the items could be grafted onto mortals and godlings alike and that power used to a fashion, but with some nasty side effects.
So time moved on, the hand and eye being the centre of many intrigues and fights between the ever warring gods, passing from one god to another, eventually being rejected by all gods because of the trouble ( power imbalances ) owning them caused, eventually passing into the realm of heroes and mortals.
Obviously the true tale of these items was lost as the generations passed, of mortals and gods alike since the multiverse was now prone to strange cycles where even gods could die, and as each new owner claimed it for themselves."
Given this background i am thinking the eye-hand would only be found on the astral plane, either guarded by avatars of gods or in possession of some very powerful being. Thus why not create a new
BG2 spell Plane Shift, basically copy the teleport spell and modify to bring party to astral plane, which would be a custom area from which they could get to the artifacts and other very high lvl adventures.
when I'm usually around 
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