Dungeons & Delvers: Red Book Liches

In Dungeons & Dragons, liches are basically undead wizards that are incredibly difficult to kill due to their phylactery, which is an item or device that contains the lich's soul: as long as it's intact, the lich will just keep coming back.

Since smart liches (which are basically all of them by virtue of being high-level wizards) keep them well hidden and protected, I'd imagine this would typically involve a lengthy adventure to locate and destroy it, first.

Apparently liches were based on or inspired by similar monsters found in stories written by Clark-Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard, though I'm only vaguely familiar with the one H.P. Lovecraft's story The Thing on the Doorstep.

Something else I didn't know, was that the visual of the demilich was apparently derived from a Fritz Leiber story titled Thieves House. Might have to give that a read, someday.

In trying to look up everything I could about liches (on the chance they were inspired by mythology and folklore), there was a reference to Koschei (the Deathless or Undying), a Slavic baddie whose soul is placed in a needle or egg, which is in turn hidden within a series of animals and/or other objects.

Because of all that I figured, why limit liches to just wizards? Why not let them be any mortal creature that has attained at least near immortality by sequestering their soul into some other object or creature (or even multiple objects and/or creatures)?

Granted, I think most often liches would be wizards due to the option of using powerful, often sinister magic to remove and bind their soul without simply killing them (likely a costly necromantic ritual). Could also see this as a undead sorcerer milestone ability.

Alternatives would include potent items and artifacts, random happenstance, have another wizard, witch, or what-have-you perform the ritual for you, or petition a powerful entity to remove and bind your soul.

The latter options would likely beholden you to someone else, but hey, if you want to live for a really, really long time and be incredibly tough, but don't want to do the legwork yourself...

A way to make the ritual easier to perform would be to include one or more methods by which the lich can be irrevocably slain, like how curses are easier to pull off if there's some way to break it without using magic. In at least one of the Koschei legends, he could have been destroyed by casting him into a river of fire. So, perhaps something unlikely but still feasibly doable.

Adventuring parties could learn of these loopholes, and exploit them to make it easier to take down a lich, especially if the phylactery is too well hidden and/or protected (though this may have limits, which I'll get to in a bit).

The appearance of a lich would vary. I could see the soul-binding causing your body to decay: it's dead, your soul is elsewhere, you're just basically remote-controlling your body, now. Could decay just like any other corpse, though it could also take much, much longer. You might also continue to decay until even your skeleton decomposes.

In this case, either being a lich simply drastically extends your life span, or requires you to perform regular, ahem, "maintenance": take fresher bones from other creatures to replace your own (or even just add to your body, eventually turning you into some skeletal abomination), grow clone bodies using your own blood as a basis, or even slay a creature and take over their body. Maybe you need to murder and possess your direct descendants (or at least remove their souls).

Depending on the nature and scope of the ritual, your body could remain perfectly normal looking, or might require you to bathe in blood or something similar to sustain your appearance. Perhaps wounds inflicted upon you don't heal unless you bathe in blood or devour souls. Of course, with a few Illusionist talents you can look however you damn well please.

Not having to worry about blood and organs, in most cases liches would be tougher than they were while alive, though I could see something like a dragon being a little weaker, what with its lack of scales, but the most powerful form of lichdom (likely the workings of a god or god-like being) could render you immune to most attacks, or your wounds heal really quickly.

For the average lich, you need to obtain souls and bind them to your phylactery, or put them in crystals or magic circles or something connected to it. Whenever you'd die one of the souls is destroyed or consumed to keep you alive, or if you have the Grim Reaper in your game he comes and takes another soul in your stead.

This way a party can eventually perma-kill a lich without needing to deal with the phylactery, its just that it could take a really long time, and a lich running out of lives is probably going to lay low until they stock up on more.

Souls could even be gradually consumed while a lich is active, serving as a kind of magic energy. This would be on a year-to-year basis, so if you sacrifice a human that had 30 years left, that's what it's good for. So go for healthy, young individuals, ideally elves and dwarves if you can swing it.

As for the inherent abilities of a lich, beyond the enhanced durability and (near?) immortality, I think general death-themed abilities are appropriate: an icy touch that can drain life (since a lich is all about that), an aura that mitigates healing magic, and fear. I could see it gaining temporary VP from killing living creatures, using them to fuel spells if it has them (kind of like temporary Willpower...ooh should add that to the Necromancer tree).

Really though I'm going to handle this like I did ghosts, providing some example liches with a variety of pre-lich professions and power, something like a 3rd Edition template to layer on top of an existing creature, and then a bullet list of abilities to add to them so you can customize your lich based on what it was, as well as the process leading up to it becoming a lich.

Maybe it's more Lovecraftian, or based on a serpentman cult (with the ability to shed its undead flesh or poison you with a touch). Maybe it should have fire-themed abilities, or can transform into worms and wriggle away. Whatever makes sense for you.

Announcements

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