there is a practice in Buddhism in which a monk starves himself to death and mummifies his own body in order to become what is called a living Buddha. if I were to make good lich, I would take inspiration from that and say that the monk's transcendence to an enlightened state allowed their soul to live on in the husk as an oracle of sorts. I brought this up in the comments of a Nerdarchy video, and they thought the lich monk was a cool idea, and I hope you do too!
Dylan Lewis,,,,, Self mummification is illegal. It is a very old practice where you stop eating certain foods until at the end you are basically just eating a kind of natural enamel. (could be wrong, saw a five minute story about it like 15 years ago). But it makes a well preserved mummy. Not sure how painful the whole process is. P
when you said "we have organization A, Organization B, and the Lich over here at C" I heard the Lich over here at SEA and now I'm imagining a pirate lich and I'm down. Maybe he has a huge pirate fleet and each phylactery is on a different ship sailing in a separate part of the ocean with an undead pirate admiral guarding it. That could be a super cool nautical campaign...
My lich would totally have casted (before becoming a lich) a Clone spell by sacrificing one of his arm (then found someone to cast Regeneration). The clone would be dormant in a secret place, with a spell book and a couple of magic items waiting for the Clone to come to life. If the PCs destroy the Phylactery but didn't knew about the clone and didn't took care of it, the lich would come back has a human and be like: ''Welp, lets start this over''. So the second half of the campaign would be the PCs trying to stop this mad mage working to regain control over his different cultists and minions to ascend back to lichdom.
from the point of view of GMing, i'd suggest not regenerating his arm (fluff being if it's regenerated he loses the essential connection to the clone grown from it). that way the players will have the "ohhhh fuuuuck" moment when they find out WHY the one-armed wizard-lich never grew his arm back
billy1bob2ones3 Yeah, I see your point. But then it should be a missing leg (the lich could actually walk on a wooden leg and use a cane): I feel like a missing arm would be a problem to cast spells... or maybe he is such a badass mage that he only need one hand to cast?
Pallas_Ovidius one armed is cooler. All you need is one hand for spells in 5e anyways. Always keep your big bads as badass as you can. Don't want some cheeky rogue to try to steal the peg leg of your final boss do you? Well maybe If it's that type of game it'd be pretty great actually...
Lich: "I have plans that are so vast they require the forces of time to churn for centuries!" Elf Wizard: "Aww, look. The adorable little human wants to be just like us."
There is a good example of a non evil lich in D&D lore. Heard the story way back in the late '80s. A lawful good apothecary was studying for some time until she realized her familiar was hiding from her. It had been over 100 years and she didn't notice it passing.
Speaking of Magic schools for liches, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Lich that had mastered *multiple* schools, so he had the Abjurer's forcefield, the Necromancer's kill-heal, and the Diviner's portents all in one. That would be abysmal to fight, but certainly interesting.
The campaign I'm running right now is going into epic levels and I was considering an epic lich, perhaps even Vecna, that was essentially a master of all arcane traditions
I could defiantly see this being done by an ancient Lich. Think of the most useless or situational specific spell you and they will know it. Why? Something to do.
The original lich comes from Russian folklore, his name was Koschei The Deathless. He hid his soul in a super hard to find place, a pin inside of an egg if I remember correctly.
"Koschei cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body. His soul (or death) is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest (sometimes the chest is crystal and/or gold), which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan in the ocean. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die. If the chest is dug up and opened, the hare will bolt away; if it is killed, the duck will emerge and try to fly off. Anyone possessing the egg has Koschei in their power. He begins to weaken, becomes sick, and immediately loses the use of his magic. If the egg is tossed about, he likewise is flung around against his will. If the needle is broken, Koschei will die."
@@kaleidoslug7777 A "grain of sand" still does not contain an interior, not to mention casting "Enlarge" on something with an average size of 1/16th of a millimeter does not give you anything you can inscribe anything inside of even if it did have an interior. Congratulations, you cast Enlarge. The grain of sand is now literally 2/16th a.k.a. 1/8th of a millimeter in size. (◔_◔)
We had a lich who was the ruler of an island kingdom of mages. The lich was the principle teacher of the mage school in his kingdom. He wasn't that bad a guy either, he only wanted to rule over a kingdom.
I'm glad you guys brought up Adventure Time. Scenes with the lich are seriously so amazing in that show. I get so much inspiration from that show. Can't recommend it enough.
I have seen the arguments for using a good aligned lich but I think it defeats the purpose of the class, anyone who perverts nature to the level that a lich does shouldn't be anything more than chaotic neutral.
Chaotic Neutral isn't evil, so I wouldn't mind the alignment knock there. Even if they had to be an "evil" alignment, that doesn't force the character to do "evil" things. They just do selfish things because they are afraid of the inevitable. Fear can drive even the best people to do the worst things.
Not evil, but overwriting nature for your own goals is still chaotic and can never be considered good because a selfless person would admit that death is a part of the natural cycle of things.
Ian Banchs Totally! I could absolutely see certain mages achieving their lichdom by making a deal with a god/demigod/whatever of death/undeath and becoming their priest
One thing that happened recently was that me and my players were fighting a lich-like creature (I'm not entirely sure if it is a full powered lich), and we beat its minions to near death. Instead of finishing off the creature, one of my party members decided to give it an ultimatum. Get in the bag of holding. The creature agreed, and cried while crawling head-first into the bag. Every now and then, that same party member would pull the creature's head out of the bag, using it like a token. The poor thing still thinks we'll eventually release it.
Another "lich-a-like" that you could pull inspiration from is "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Maybe have him in the stereotypical vampire trappings to catch players off-guard when garlic and holy water do jack-shit.
Great episode - my only criticism would be the lack of mentioning the Lich to beat all Liches - Vecna himself. Or does such an iconic character and wannabe God deserve his own video? (Hint hint 😉 )
I don't get why Sauron is never put into the lich category. He sealed his soul in an object for immortality and indestructibility. He is technically an undead, he was even referred to as "the necromancer".
HumanoidCableDreads he's a separate creature/entity in that lore. Can't be destroyed, even now he's a giant evil shadow cloud that no longer has a physical form and can't generate one.
Hell no! Sauron is originally a "lesser angel", a Maia in Tolkien lore. Therefore, he was already immortal in some sense. The objective of the Ring was to expand his power, not grant him immortality. The details are on the Silmarillion.
A good idea for a lich, he's a librarian of a giant collection of magical artifacts and books. The only way to access his collection would be to set up a subscription where you have to present a tribute every decade, with varying levels of access to said library. The lich would sometimes want to trade with the pc's to gain something in his collection. For Warhammer 40k fans, a fantasy version of Trayzn the Infinite.
Awesome video guys! Sad you didn't bring up Acererak, but I liked the more focused look at Liches. Looking forward to maybe a follow up about Death knights, Demiliches and Mummy Lords in the future.
I am thinking about replacing the constant soul feeding with a requirement of that the phylactery is in a place of power, therefore hiding it in the middle of nowhere is not a valid option. It also allows for the lich to mellow out into a more neutral character instead of acting constantly evil.
Something I always found interesting was the idea that Liches _know_ they have a phylactery, and so instead would mislead would-be hunters as to what that phylactery is. Making very public renovations and constructing a specially made vault to contain something that might just be a crystal ball they enchanted, if you’re feeling particularly Mercer-ish, with a tracking spell.
D.M. N. You could definitely model a sea-faring lich after Davy Jones. Maybe his phylactery is his ship, and as long as his ship is still intact, he'll return to life on board after however long
Can we call Adventure Time's lich a true lich? He doesn't seem to have a phylactery, but instead just exists in every timeline and universe in one way or another. He also derives power from the mutated core of the planet, making it seem odd because of a supposed "undead" creature fueled by an essence of life, albeit corrupted.
Paths to immortality: * Lich. Instead of being vulnerable to any of your vital organs being stabbed, you are vulnerable to having a soul-box stabbed. Sounds like an upgrade, really. * Ghost: Incorporeal hands means you can't read, write, or watch TH-cam videos. Pass! * Vampire: Have to drink blood, burned by sunlight, immortality tied to coffin. * Demonic/Infernal Power: I'd prefer to keep my soul within arm's reach, thank you very much. * Mummy: _Really_ itchy underwear.
A while back I had a group of 7 players who were each 5th level that took down a lich in its lair. As you would expect lost of people died and only 1 player made it out. He only survived because of a slight retcon allowing him to use hellish rebuke when he remembered he had it after being subjected to a near fatal blow. Took down the lich and has become one of our groups most memorable encounters.
In my campaign a lich is part of four individuals whose goal is the unsealing of four nasty demi-gods. The motivations vary from individual to individual, but the four consist of a fiend, a mind flayer, a lich, and a vampire. It’s an interesting group overall.
Crazy idea, from session 0 you have the players align themselves with one of 3 factions within a given area, describe the virtues and flaws of each as well as their mortal leaders. Over the course of the campaign they learn that each is actually backed by one of 3 extremely powerful and extremely evil entities, a dragon a Lich and a beholder and this whole time they’ve been serving as pawns of whichever being commands their faction. Do they rebel against their leader? Do they come to terms with this reality and decide their choice is the better alternative? Regardless of what they do I feel like that would be a very interesting campaign
I grew up watching these videos, and as I rewatch all the videos, in which I already watched in high school, I'm going to post this comment. I love you guys, and y'all have gotten me through some tough times. The second I get out of college and get a stable job, I will definitely become a web demon.
I had an idea where a man transformed into a lich because his son’s children and their line had been cursed to suffer painful death and a horrific life. So he spends his time researching how to break the curse, and to keep an eye on the last of his line. A cute girl named Claire. He had become so powerful that he became a patron for her, allowing her to become a warlock with the pact boon of a protective talisman, a pink stuffed bear.
First off best 5e/d&d channel on utube! Also I would love to see u guys discuss campaign setting from home brew to already made ones like forgotten realms and ideas for such
Could it work if you embedded the phylactery in one of the PCs bodies in a past encounter so that you would have to kill a party member to kill the lich?
Honestly, in 5E, lichdom is pretty over-rated. Given the necromancy spell Clone, why would anyone choose lichdom. For 3,000 gp and 1 cubic cm of flesh (your own), you can make a literal back-up body, at any age you want. Keep it in a safe place with some back-up equipment (copy spellbook included) and you can auto-revive when you die of *any* cause (so long as your soul is willing and able). What's better, re-casting it only costs 1,000 gp (you can re-use the sarcophagus), and I see no particular reason you couldn't have more than one clone waiting for you at a time.
Ryan Gudger,,, Cubic meter? Not much left after you take a 3foot by 3 foot Chunk. I don't think most people could fill that with their whole body. Oh, cubic inch. That makes sense. P
As it has a growing time of 120 days, for the most part using clone and dieing generally means your gona be out of The game for quite some time if you ever make it back at all, not because your dead but because of the shear time taken out,
Running an assault on a lich must be like an all-or-nothing heist movie. The players recon and plan for the lich's defenses, make their move, and if everything goes right escape to retire on top of a fat stack of loot.
The H.P Lovecraft story mentioned is 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', basically the necromancer cursed his name so that anyone from his family would go crazy and try to resurrect him if they heard it. 'The Thing on the Doorstep' is also a good one, it is about a wizard transferring his soul to people with more magic potential, or having a child and swapping souls with them before killing his old body and spouse. Lovecraft is great if you need malicious magical machinations manifesting.
SPOILERS FOR THE CURSE OF STRAHD ---- Exethanter is one of my favorite liches i've had the pleasure of running. he literally gives zero shits that the player party is in the amber temple as long as they don't break his home. The player party liked him so much that he has become a recurring "friendly" npc. One of the players (the fifteenth level Lore master wizard ) without the knowledge of the rest of the party may or may not have broken the amber sarcophagi of tenebrous and bonded the essence of the shadow of death to Exethanters body. lets just say things are gonna get interesting for them soon.
I agree that the Lich need not be the stereotypical villain. Anyone who has lived that long, good or evil, should be more complex. A Lich might be the one especially early on who confronts the players with moral dilemmas and forces them to question their intentions. This might be the focus of an entire campaign. WoW did something like this with the Lich King expansion, wherein you find out at the end that there must always be a Lich King, otherwise the undead armies of the world would run rampant. He is their gatekeeper....and yet...doing so makes him more evil in return. My current DM has a Lich as the head of a noble house, albeit working behind the scenes. This being is a complex creature with motivations and plans beyond the scope of most mortals..and as we recently found out, a very deep and tragic soul. Great video guys. Keep up the good work.
your video keeps getting really echoy audio and some hard sudden cuts this time. Maybe it's because I'm on mobile but it seems the editing wasn't as good as it normally is
Can you guys do a video on rituals/summoning? I've always wanted to incorporate that into my campaigns but I can't think of like what components, location, or other things are important for that.
A group of liches working together reminds me of the gods of Lankhmar in the old 1st Edition Lankhmar Campaign setting: Invulnerable inside of their sepulcher, near-invincible within the city's walls, and utterly uninterested in anything that did not directly concern the continuation of their city.
Hey Jim! Can you guys talk about players being too damage-oriented versus sometimes opting for utility abilities/spells? -Signed a sometimes salty wizard that has to deal with logistics (traps, doors, pits) of 'getting to' the Big Bad Boss! fight alone.
Considering I usually play monk or warlock, that’s kind of my role being damage oriented. That doesn’t mean everyone in my party has to do that, my favorite characters just don’t give me the best options for non-damage oriented options. And warlock is this way simply because of how little spell slots he has, so I don’t want to waste them unless I need too.
Another example that I like, is Karla the Grey Witch from "Record of Lodoss War" (anime). She set it up so after her defeat, her soul went into her circlet. Those who wear it are possessed by her. She's more like True Neutral trying to keep a balance to the world so no one side is more powerful than the other.
To start out my campaign, I would have 1st lvl pcs hired by a mysterious wizard to deliver a metal coffer (lich phylacyery) to a remote location, they get paid and think nothing of it. Fast forward 12-15 lvls later they're faced with knowing they helped create this horror that for whatever reason, they must now destroy or be destroyed.
I’m glad to read some DMs out there allow PC’s to become a lich if it isn’t a completely OP move and fits. I think there can be really interesting development attached to it and a lot of reading online from other players definitely were against it. I get it’s different for every DM/group/whatever but I do use you guys for a major source of knowledge/opinion. Thanks for a great discussion!
I keep coming back to this one, because I'm currently working on a campaign that's capped off with a Female Liche who's been awakened during a huge battle and started rebuilding her empire (modeled after Catherine the Great). There's a lot of ground to cover and I'm finally at the point of really working on the Tsarina. I have a feeling I'll be rewatching this one a few more times before I'm satisfied.
In the HP lovecraft thing you were talking about, it's a highly advanced race decended from humans, who are on the verge of dying out. So as they die theyre projecting their souls through time, and possessing diffrent people for 20 years each
Could we get a little more info on that "The Sword" thing you guys referenced? Please and thank you! Also love the show guys, y'all have helped my DMing a ton!
Reminds me of a lich in my current campaign, who the party serves as allies and also pest control/clean up crew for whenever the lich needs one of his pets or runaways taken care of in his own kingdom.
"Followed this one family of halflings for 300 years" Fun fact time: Gandalf came to recruit Bilbo because he knew his mother/parents and they had been adventurers. No mention of their ancestors, but Gandalf's interest in the Shire started quite long ago... Yeah, immortal wizards can have interesting long term plans going, especially if the setting has fate/destiny going or long term divination works there. Speaking of LotR, Sauron is kind of a Lich, as far as needing a phylactery to avoid permadeath and staying in the world goes. Liches are one of the types of enemies where you pretty much have to rule that 90% of the magic they have has been enchanted to only work for the bad guy and his followers, spelled so it will curse whoever tries to use it after the Lich dies, or simply gets destroyed if the Lich dies. It is one thing to kill a dragon and have loads of gold, maybe the king who sent you on that mission already specified the part of the hoard you get as reward, or you are actually roleplaying good guys so you donate most of the gold to help the starving homeless caused by the dragon's rampage. A Lich and it's minions could have created hundreds of magic items, and letting the PCs loot any significant amount of them will break the campaign something fierce. Actually, even murderhobo PCs might decide they don't bother clearing out hundreds of Glyphs of Warding just to collect extra 1000gp and few potions of healing. The Lich's lair might be well worth looting for another half dozen lower level adventuring parties after the Lich is truly dead because the high level party was only interested in the most powerful magic and rushed the Lich so there are still a bunch of lesser enemies wandering around. That could be a fun way to start out a new party: the famous adventurers whose tales got your characters interested in adventuring and who gave them a tip of an old ruin that hasn't been fully cleared yet were actually your former PCs...
Here's why I like this. These guys made the forgotten realms\ fantasy games and lore interests; interesting for even an onlooker from the outside. If I'm putting together a election campaign for the world of fantasy to make its stand among things to do and opposing the stereotype it gets, then I'm strategizing on how spokesperson wise we use this guy on the campaign trail, .....so to speak.
Some really cool ideas for phylacteries that I've found laying around the internet: The Lich's family line. This creates a moral dilemma for any lawful good characters. To destroy the Lich they'd have to destroy it's entire lineage. A city. Not the people therein, but the city itself. The Terrasque. Speaks for itself.
One particularly fun way to use Glyph of Warding is to stack buffs on to a character, bypassing the normal limit imposed by concentration. A 9th-level spellcaster, fully prepared, can have *everything* up - a full suite of advantage, disadvantage, nondetection, detection, aura damage, aura defence, antimagic, etc etc. Sure, it's only going to happen once before they need to spend about a week straight re-casting all of those glyphs, but if you're only going to get one shot at them in their throne room, well, they'll be prepared. This also works for summoning an undead army - a glyph imprinting Animate Dead can be used to circumvent the normal restrictions on number of undead controlled. Perhaps the glyph triggers at the start of the fight, and in 1d4+1 rounds hostile undead just start *pouring* into the area, lending a sense of urgency to them defeating the lich, as well as providing an almost insurmountable challenge should they be too slow.
Recently played a Lich to close out my cousin's game (I wasn't in the group, he just asked me to play the Lich so nobody at the table, him included, would know what my combat plans were), and I just RPed him as close to Braum/Armstrong from FMA as I could. Was a blast, literally.
In the Battle for Wesnoth (turn-based strategy, it's free.) game, there are a few custom campaigns that features "Preserved Litches". Instead of dying in a conventional way, they drink a bottle of deadly preservatives.
I've got a side quest in my current campaign. A lich that, after centuries, found a conscience again. He has stopped engaging in feeding souls to the phylactery to keep himself going, and been steadily loosing power. He's to frail now to get past the barriers he had set to guard his phylactery, and is hiring the party to destroy it for him so he can finally end his insufferably long existence.
8:00 Or like when Dorian Grey (from Oscar Wilde) sees his portrait and takes back all the years, illness and injuries that the portrait took for him since the last time he looked at it.
So glad you guys have another episode, I was gutted there wasn't one last week :( I also tried emailing Travis about if you guys have a Patreon but got no reply... so do you have a Patreon? I looked and couldn't find anything.
I'm about to start a campaign I've been writing (first one I made by myself!) where the lich is the main villain and his phylactery is the physical embodiment of joy when he was human. It's a broken music box of his sister before (insert Orcus manipulation here), that reminds my lich of his past, humanity, and all that was taken from him as well as his pact to become the immortal undead he is now. Super curious to see how it develops
My favorite is the young corporate litch. He is the top dog of a cooperation-esc situation and all his occultist are just his employees and to get to the litch you have to go up corporate ladder before you become a problem to actual litch and that's why he hasn't just delt with you in one single moment
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Do liches really_sell_ their souls? A lich's soul is inside their phylactery, and they generally don't pawn those for spare cash.
You should watch Record of Lodoss war, best high fantasy rpg style cartoon.
Liches are my favorite monsters in all of D&D....been playing since 2nd edition
Pp
@@timothymclean bbxxxxxiilxbillvlkvllnvncbccbucxxvl m
there is a practice in Buddhism in which a monk starves himself to death and mummifies his own body in order to become what is called a living Buddha. if I were to make good lich, I would take inspiration from that and say that the monk's transcendence to an enlightened state allowed their soul to live on in the husk as an oracle of sorts. I brought this up in the comments of a Nerdarchy video, and they thought the lich monk was a cool idea, and I hope you do too!
I think it's cool and instead of spells he just has a bunch of different touch effects. This is a cool idea.
more than one way to reskin a lich. It'd make a sick NPC for the party to seek guidance from
That's badass!
Dylan Lewis so the monks in Breath of the Wild
Dylan Lewis,,,,, Self mummification is illegal. It is a very old practice where you stop eating certain foods until at the end you are basically just eating a kind of natural enamel. (could be wrong, saw a five minute story about it like 15 years ago). But it makes a well preserved mummy. Not sure how painful the whole process is. P
Honestly, it never occurred to me that Voldemort is a lich.
With 7 phylac...er...horcruxes no less!
Voldemort and sauron
The two big bads of modern fantasy fiction have been litches
He's arguably the dumbest one.
saurons technically a demon (corrupt maiar). Balrogs are your basic corrupt maiar.
Sauron isn't a lich to be fair, he is alike them, but far more superior
when you said "we have organization A, Organization B, and the Lich over here at C" I heard the Lich over here at SEA and now I'm imagining a pirate lich and I'm down. Maybe he has a huge pirate fleet and each phylactery is on a different ship sailing in a separate part of the ocean with an undead pirate admiral guarding it. That could be a super cool nautical campaign...
Chris Swezy pirates just werent viable enough in real life for a lich to want to be one.
Chris Swezy An underwater lair would be dope though.
Buried treasure phylactery?
That's basically who Davy Jones ended up being in the Pirates of the Caribbean films to be honest
Check out TFS Gaming's D&D game, there is in fact a Pirate Lich involved
My lich would totally have casted (before becoming a lich) a Clone spell by sacrificing one of his arm (then found someone to cast Regeneration). The clone would be dormant in a secret place, with a spell book and a couple of magic items waiting for the Clone to come to life. If the PCs destroy the Phylactery but didn't knew about the clone and didn't took care of it, the lich would come back has a human and be like: ''Welp, lets start this over''. So the second half of the campaign would be the PCs trying to stop this mad mage working to regain control over his different cultists and minions to ascend back to lichdom.
Pallas_Ovidius I'm totally stealing this
from the point of view of GMing, i'd suggest not regenerating his arm (fluff being if it's regenerated he loses the essential connection to the clone grown from it). that way the players will have the "ohhhh fuuuuck" moment when they find out WHY the one-armed wizard-lich never grew his arm back
billy1bob2ones3 Yeah, I see your point. But then it should be a missing leg (the lich could actually walk on a wooden leg and use a cane): I feel like a missing arm would be a problem to cast spells... or maybe he is such a badass mage that he only need one hand to cast?
Pallas_Ovidius one armed is cooler. All you need is one hand for spells in 5e anyways. Always keep your big bads as badass as you can. Don't want some cheeky rogue to try to steal the peg leg of your final boss do you? Well maybe If it's that type of game it'd be pretty great actually...
At that point, why bother with lichdom at all? Why not just make 10 clones. It only takes 1 cubic cm of flesh anyway.
Lich: "I have plans that are so vast they require the forces of time to churn for centuries!"
Elf Wizard: "Aww, look. The adorable little human wants to be just like us."
Dragon: "That's cute, the elves think they have a meaningful lifespan."
Timothy McLean Aboleth:" thats cute you think you can control the world."
The DM: and I control every one of you
God: yeah And I control you the dice and the entire universe so...
David O'Toole Jesus’s mom: you were saying
Robbie Rotten the father son and Holy Spirit LOL
Yea, Ill take aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah 1 lich
An
I want it Ｂ Ｏ Ｎ Ｅ Ｌ Ｅ Ｓ Ｓ
lol
Sir, *UHHHHHHHH* litches are made bones bro.
There is a good example of a non evil lich in D&D lore. Heard the story way back in the late '80s. A lawful good apothecary was studying for some time until she realized her familiar was hiding from her. It had been over 100 years and she didn't notice it passing.
Speaking of Magic schools for liches, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Lich that had mastered *multiple* schools, so he had the Abjurer's forcefield, the Necromancer's kill-heal, and the Diviner's portents all in one. That would be abysmal to fight, but certainly interesting.
David Bost Welp people will hate me if I become a GM I'm stealing this idea
The campaign I'm running right now is going into epic levels and I was considering an epic lich, perhaps even Vecna, that was essentially a master of all arcane traditions
I could defiantly see this being done by an ancient Lich. Think of the most useless or situational specific spell you and they will know it. Why? Something to do.
Any wizard could. Just get the clone spell set it so it's a younger you. And go back to school for a new school of magic.
The original lich comes from Russian folklore, his name was Koschei The Deathless. He hid his soul in a super hard to find place, a pin inside of an egg if I remember correctly.
"Koschei cannot be killed by conventional means targeting his body. His soul (or death) is hidden separate from his body inside a needle, which is in an egg, which is in a duck, which is in a hare, which is in an iron chest (sometimes the chest is crystal and/or gold), which is buried under a green oak tree, which is on the island of Buyan in the ocean. As long as his soul is safe, he cannot die. If the chest is dug up and opened, the hare will bolt away; if it is killed, the duck will emerge and try to fly off. Anyone possessing the egg has Koschei in their power. He begins to weaken, becomes sick, and immediately loses the use of his magic. If the egg is tossed about, he likewise is flung around against his will. If the needle is broken, Koschei will die."
Pathfinder and Shadowrun also have their own versions of Baba Yaga and Koschei.
HumanoidCableDreads I was thinking of Kochei this whole time realising he's a lich
read "Tome of Beasts". he is there, with the needle mechanic and all :)
I have read it was Dutch mythology though I could be wrong
Phylactery that is a grain of sand. Chaotic Neutral Lich.
But it needs to contain an interior of with runes of immortality inside it
Rubens Martins de Carvalho Cast Enlarge, carve runes, dispell Enlarge. Doneso
@@kaleidoslug7777 A "grain of sand" still does not contain an interior, not to mention casting "Enlarge" on something with an average size of 1/16th of a millimeter does not give you anything you can inscribe anything inside of even if it did have an interior. Congratulations, you cast Enlarge. The grain of sand is now literally 2/16th a.k.a. 1/8th of a millimeter in size. (◔_◔)
Then while walking my dog on the beach one morning, my dog pisses on it. 😉
We had a lich who was the ruler of an island kingdom of mages. The lich was the principle teacher of the mage school in his kingdom. He wasn't that bad a guy either, he only wanted to rule over a kingdom.
I'm glad you guys brought up Adventure Time. Scenes with the lich are seriously so amazing in that show. I get so much inspiration from that show. Can't recommend it enough.
The comments sections on all of your videos are full of great ideas. How is this possible? I mean, its the comments section...
Squillen alot of people in the comments are DMs looking for inspiration, and in turn feel like sharing their ideas. Its a great community
The only non toxic community on TH-cam
Pruitt dropping the dope bars at the top of the show.
I have always wanted to play someone who didn't want to be a Lich for any evil purposes, but just because they were afraid of dying and the afterlife.
I have seen the arguments for using a good aligned lich but I think it defeats the purpose of the class, anyone who perverts nature to the level that a lich does shouldn't be anything more than chaotic neutral.
Chaotic Neutral isn't evil, so I wouldn't mind the alignment knock there. Even if they had to be an "evil" alignment, that doesn't force the character to do "evil" things. They just do selfish things because they are afraid of the inevitable. Fear can drive even the best people to do the worst things.
It could be an interesting and even profound character!
Not evil, but overwriting nature for your own goals is still chaotic and can never be considered good because a selfless person would admit that death is a part of the natural cycle of things.
A lich can never be aligned with order either because their very nature is a rejection of the natural order.
The lich who picks up a few levels of cleric so they can cast gentle repose themselves :P
Ian Banchs Totally! I could absolutely see certain mages achieving their lichdom by making a deal with a god/demigod/whatever of death/undeath and becoming their priest
I always play as a lich, I'm obsessed with their class. The anime Overlord has imo the best portrayal of a lich in media.
i mean the whole story is basically an homage to DnD. and a damn good one.
One thing that happened recently was that me and my players were fighting a lich-like creature (I'm not entirely sure if it is a full powered lich), and we beat its minions to near death. Instead of finishing off the creature, one of my party members decided to give it an ultimatum.
Get in the bag of holding.
The creature agreed, and cried while crawling head-first into the bag.
Every now and then, that same party member would pull the creature's head out of the bag, using it like a token. The poor thing still thinks we'll eventually release it.
Alec Evans thats some good shenanigans
PROBLEM: bag of holding has no air, that creature is very, very, very, very dead
Don’t worry, you don’t need air when you’re a lich
OriginalTharios
And that’s a bad policy
Another "lich-a-like" that you could pull inspiration from is "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Maybe have him in the stereotypical vampire trappings to catch players off-guard when garlic and holy water do jack-shit.
Great episode - my only criticism would be the lack of mentioning the Lich to beat all Liches - Vecna himself. Or does such an iconic character and wannabe God deserve his own video? (Hint hint 😉 )
Less wannabe and more very successful.
Good Stuff as always guys. I have learned so much about the game because of you guys.
Also tell Jim his shirts are always on point
Sir Yvain thanks!!
Appreciate the support!
I don't get why Sauron is never put into the lich category. He sealed his soul in an object for immortality and indestructibility. He is technically an undead, he was even referred to as "the necromancer".
HumanoidCableDreads I mean the point is conflicted, but yeah sauron is technically a lich
He is undead, uses magic, and sealed his soul in an object. Those are my three criteria for a lich.
HumanoidCableDreads he's a separate creature/entity in that lore. Can't be destroyed, even now he's a giant evil shadow cloud that no longer has a physical form and can't generate one.
Sauron could have reformed if he attained the ring of power, though.
Hell no! Sauron is originally a "lesser angel", a Maia in Tolkien lore. Therefore, he was already immortal in some sense. The objective of the Ring was to expand his power, not grant him immortality. The details are on the Silmarillion.
10/10 intro Pruitt 👌
Much appreciated.
Another awesome Lich was the one in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, where you have to pickpocket his phylactery.
Yeah that was one of my favorite assasinations. You could also just kill them normally though.
A good idea for a lich, he's a librarian of a giant collection of magical artifacts and books. The only way to access his collection would be to set up a subscription where you have to present a tribute every decade, with varying levels of access to said library. The lich would sometimes want to trade with the pc's to gain something in his collection. For Warhammer 40k fans, a fantasy version of Trayzn the Infinite.
Awesome video guys! Sad you didn't bring up Acererak, but I liked the more focused look at Liches.
Looking forward to maybe a follow up about Death knights, Demiliches and Mummy Lords in the future.
I am thinking about replacing the constant soul feeding with a requirement of that the phylactery is in a place of power, therefore hiding it in the middle of nowhere is not a valid option. It also allows for the lich to mellow out into a more neutral character instead of acting constantly evil.
Something I always found interesting was the idea that Liches _know_ they have a phylactery, and so instead would mislead would-be hunters as to what that phylactery is. Making very public renovations and constructing a specially made vault to contain something that might just be a crystal ball they enchanted, if you’re feeling particularly Mercer-ish, with a tracking spell.
does Davy Jones from the pirates of the caribbean count as a lich?
D.M. N. You could definitely model a sea-faring lich after Davy Jones. Maybe his phylactery is his ship, and as long as his ship is still intact, he'll return to life on board after however long
Kinda? I don't know if his heart being stored elsewhere counts as his soul being in a phylactery.
Kinda count is just easier to destroy
Can we call Adventure Time's lich a true lich? He doesn't seem to have a phylactery, but instead just exists in every timeline and universe in one way or another. He also derives power from the mutated core of the planet, making it seem odd because of a supposed "undead" creature fueled by an essence of life, albeit corrupted.
Maybe The core would be his phylactery then he isn't a standard lich but he is still one in my book
Ever think he somehow made the Comet/ nuke that hit Ooo his phylactery?
Paths to immortality:
* Lich. Instead of being vulnerable to any of your vital organs being stabbed, you are vulnerable to having a soul-box stabbed. Sounds like an upgrade, really.
* Ghost: Incorporeal hands means you can't read, write, or watch TH-cam videos. Pass!
* Vampire: Have to drink blood, burned by sunlight, immortality tied to coffin.
* Demonic/Infernal Power: I'd prefer to keep my soul within arm's reach, thank you very much.
* Mummy: _Really_ itchy underwear.
Casting Clone: no downsides
@@openaardvark419 It's pretty temporary, though. It's less immortality and more of a 1-UP.
A while back I had a group of 7 players who were each 5th level that took down a lich in its lair. As you would expect lost of people died and only 1 player made it out. He only survived because of a slight retcon allowing him to use hellish rebuke when he remembered he had it after being subjected to a near fatal blow. Took down the lich and has become one of our groups most memorable encounters.
Did anyone else hear overlapped audio throughout?
Oliver Harrison yep
This is what I'm talking about! Hopefully more awesome legendary monsters videos are on the way!
Two more weeks of MONSTERS coming up!!!
In my campaign a lich is part of four individuals whose goal is the unsealing of four nasty demi-gods. The motivations vary from individual to individual, but the four consist of a fiend, a mind flayer, a lich, and a vampire. It’s an interesting group overall.
Martyr Logaerius: became a lich just to keep the immortal Vileblood queen under house arrest.
We're 7th level and our DM is making us fight the Lich King today. Woohoo...
How'd it go?
^ how did that go?
@@silentcomedyW5 Turned out it was actually a programmed illusion and instead we went through an amazing dungeon together with some crazy moments!
@@heidihurlock06 that's awesome. Sounds like your dm has some super fun ideas
@@silentcomedyW5 ^
Crazy idea, from session 0 you have the players align themselves with one of 3 factions within a given area, describe the virtues and flaws of each as well as their mortal leaders. Over the course of the campaign they learn that each is actually backed by one of 3 extremely powerful and extremely evil entities, a dragon a Lich and a beholder and this whole time they’ve been serving as pawns of whichever being commands their faction. Do they rebel against their leader? Do they come to terms with this reality and decide their choice is the better alternative? Regardless of what they do I feel like that would be a very interesting campaign
In nearly 15 years, I've never seen Jim Davis tap a toe. It must have been a truly epic concert.
Ah Yes my favourite Kind of web dm videos:The monsters
Monsters for TWO MORE WEEKS!!!
Web DM YES THANK GOD HELL YEAH MORE PLEASE THERE THE BEST WOOOOO....sorry I need to chill
I love em too!
I grew up watching these videos, and as I rewatch all the videos, in which I already watched in high school, I'm going to post this comment. I love you guys, and y'all have gotten me through some tough times. The second I get out of college and get a stable job, I will definitely become a web demon.
I had an idea where a man transformed into a lich because his son’s children and their line had been cursed to suffer painful death and a horrific life. So he spends his time researching how to break the curse, and to keep an eye on the last of his line. A cute girl named Claire. He had become so powerful that he became a patron for her, allowing her to become a warlock with the pact boon of a protective talisman, a pink stuffed bear.
First off best 5e/d&d channel on utube! Also I would love to see u guys discuss campaign setting from home brew to already made ones like forgotten realms and ideas for such
Could it work if you embedded the phylactery in one of the PCs bodies in a past encounter so that you would have to kill a party member to kill the lich?
Real Voldemort of you
Honestly, in 5E, lichdom is pretty over-rated. Given the necromancy spell Clone, why would anyone choose lichdom. For 3,000 gp and 1 cubic cm of flesh (your own), you can make a literal back-up body, at any age you want. Keep it in a safe place with some back-up equipment (copy spellbook included) and you can auto-revive when you die of *any* cause (so long as your soul is willing and able). What's better, re-casting it only costs 1,000 gp (you can re-use the sarcophagus), and I see no particular reason you couldn't have more than one clone waiting for you at a time.
Colin Smith I read it as 1 cubic meter XD
Nope, and I read it wrong, too. It's not metric at all. 1 cubic inch.
Ryan Gudger,,, Cubic meter? Not much left after you take a 3foot by 3 foot Chunk. I don't think most people could fill that with their whole body. Oh, cubic inch. That makes sense. P
As it has a growing time of 120 days, for the most part using clone and dieing generally means your gona be out of The game for quite some time if you ever make it back at all, not because your dead but because of the shear time taken out,
Well, there’s the power factor....
And, even if your body decays....time will not vanquish you.
Running an assault on a lich must be like an all-or-nothing heist movie. The players recon and plan for the lich's defenses, make their move, and if everything goes right escape to retire on top of a fat stack of loot.
Haha i tapped that notification so fast and there's still over a hundred got in before me. Been waiting for this one, nice one guys
The greatest intro in history.
The H.P Lovecraft story mentioned is 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', basically the necromancer cursed his name so that anyone from his family would go crazy and try to resurrect him if they heard it. 'The Thing on the Doorstep' is also a good one, it is about a wizard transferring his soul to people with more magic potential, or having a child and swapping souls with them before killing his old body and spouse. Lovecraft is great if you need malicious magical machinations manifesting.
SPOILERS FOR THE CURSE OF STRAHD
----
Exethanter is one of my favorite liches i've had the pleasure of running. he literally gives zero shits that the player party is in the amber temple as long as they don't break his home.
The player party liked him so much that he has become a recurring "friendly" npc.
One of the players (the fifteenth level Lore master wizard ) without the knowledge of the rest of the party may or may not have broken the amber sarcophagi of tenebrous and bonded the essence of the shadow of death to Exethanters body.
lets just say things are gonna get interesting for them soon.
I loved this guys. I'm making a 2 lich campaign. This helped a lot!!!
Awesome show guys, always look forward to these. Keep up the good work 👍
FTW your making an undead campaign all based around a lich and Web DM becomes some sort of omnipotent god and decides to help out..
I agree that the Lich need not be the stereotypical villain. Anyone who has lived that long, good or evil, should be more complex. A Lich might be the one especially early on who confronts the players with moral dilemmas and forces them to question their intentions. This might be the focus of an entire campaign.
WoW did something like this with the Lich King expansion, wherein you find out at the end that there must always be a Lich King, otherwise the undead armies of the world would run rampant. He is their gatekeeper....and yet...doing so makes him more evil in return.
My current DM has a Lich as the head of a noble house, albeit working behind the scenes. This being is a complex creature with motivations and plans beyond the scope of most mortals..and as we recently found out, a very deep and tragic soul.
Great video guys. Keep up the good work.
goddamnit i love this show. I will consume every piece of media you nerds can pump out.
Thank you Jim keep up the awesome work
I love your videos, keep up the good work!
Greetings from Germany!
Will do! Hello from America!
Charles Dexter Ward is my favorite HPL story! Wow what a great reference. #JimDavisCan
and a Big Lebowski from Pruitt?! on point
I've been waiting for this. Thank you.
A video on Relics/Artifacts would be awesome! I've watched this video 3 times now, so many new campaign ideas!
loved it, just realizing that Davy Jones was a Lich!! haha
the video had some double audio issue.
your video keeps getting really echoy audio and some hard sudden cuts this time. Maybe it's because I'm on mobile but it seems the editing wasn't as good as it normally is
duskstromz same here
Lich voice :)
It's a byproduct of shooting in the dome.
I noticed it too. :/ Fortunately, it's not too distracting. And their other videos are better.
Let the rock flow thru you, Jim.
Kyle Maxwell I gently swayed at The Sword concert.
All are moved by the winds of rock!
and the Winds of Change
FOR THE RAVEN GOD!
EDIT: Also, the Scorpions. 'nuff said.
Can you guys do a video on rituals/summoning? I've always wanted to incorporate that into my campaigns but I can't think of like what components, location, or other things are important for that.
A group of liches working together reminds me of the gods of Lankhmar in the old 1st Edition Lankhmar Campaign setting: Invulnerable inside of their sepulcher, near-invincible within the city's walls, and utterly uninterested in anything that did not directly concern the continuation of their city.
Pruitt's intro game is just on 🔥 right now.
Hey Jim! Can you guys talk about players being too damage-oriented versus sometimes opting for utility abilities/spells? -Signed a sometimes salty wizard that has to deal with logistics (traps, doors, pits) of 'getting to' the Big Bad Boss! fight alone.
Considering I usually play monk or warlock, that’s kind of my role being damage oriented. That doesn’t mean everyone in my party has to do that, my favorite characters just don’t give me the best options for non-damage oriented options. And warlock is this way simply because of how little spell slots he has, so I don’t want to waste them unless I need too.
Another example that I like, is Karla the Grey Witch from "Record of Lodoss War" (anime). She set it up so after her defeat, her soul went into her circlet. Those who wear it are possessed by her. She's more like True Neutral trying to keep a balance to the world so no one side is more powerful than the other.
To start out my campaign, I would have 1st lvl pcs hired by a mysterious wizard to deliver a metal coffer (lich phylacyery) to a remote location, they get paid and think nothing of it. Fast forward 12-15 lvls later they're faced with knowing they helped create this horror that for whatever reason, they must now destroy or be destroyed.
I’m glad to read some DMs out there allow PC’s to become a lich if it isn’t a completely OP move and fits. I think there can be really interesting development attached to
it and a lot of reading online from other players definitely were against it. I get it’s different for every DM/group/whatever but I do use you guys for a major source of knowledge/opinion. Thanks for a great discussion!
Nice episode, this will help me with some ideas I have for a Lich in my campaign.
I keep coming back to this one, because I'm currently working on a campaign that's capped off with a Female Liche who's been awakened during a huge battle and started rebuilding her empire (modeled after Catherine the Great). There's a lot of ground to cover and I'm finally at the point of really working on the Tsarina. I have a feeling I'll be rewatching this one a few more times before I'm satisfied.
In the HP lovecraft thing you were talking about, it's a highly advanced race decended from humans, who are on the verge of dying out. So as they die theyre projecting their souls through time, and possessing diffrent people for 20 years each
Could we get a little more info on that "The Sword" thing you guys referenced? Please and thank you! Also love the show guys, y'all have helped my DMing a ton!
I assume you are referring to the bad they talk about at the end?
I would also like to know... :D
Me also!
The Sword is a rock band
Reminds me of a lich in my current campaign, who the party serves as allies and also pest control/clean up crew for whenever the lich needs one of his pets or runaways taken care of in his own kingdom.
"Followed this one family of halflings for 300 years" Fun fact time: Gandalf came to recruit Bilbo because he knew his mother/parents and they had been adventurers. No mention of their ancestors, but Gandalf's interest in the Shire started quite long ago... Yeah, immortal wizards can have interesting long term plans going, especially if the setting has fate/destiny going or long term divination works there. Speaking of LotR, Sauron is kind of a Lich, as far as needing a phylactery to avoid permadeath and staying in the world goes.
Liches are one of the types of enemies where you pretty much have to rule that 90% of the magic they have has been enchanted to only work for the bad guy and his followers, spelled so it will curse whoever tries to use it after the Lich dies, or simply gets destroyed if the Lich dies. It is one thing to kill a dragon and have loads of gold, maybe the king who sent you on that mission already specified the part of the hoard you get as reward, or you are actually roleplaying good guys so you donate most of the gold to help the starving homeless caused by the dragon's rampage. A Lich and it's minions could have created hundreds of magic items, and letting the PCs loot any significant amount of them will break the campaign something fierce.
Actually, even murderhobo PCs might decide they don't bother clearing out hundreds of Glyphs of Warding just to collect extra 1000gp and few potions of healing. The Lich's lair might be well worth looting for another half dozen lower level adventuring parties after the Lich is truly dead because the high level party was only interested in the most powerful magic and rushed the Lich so there are still a bunch of lesser enemies wandering around. That could be a fun way to start out a new party: the famous adventurers whose tales got your characters interested in adventuring and who gave them a tip of an old ruin that hasn't been fully cleared yet were actually your former PCs...
great start to the day
Here's why I like this. These guys made the forgotten realms\ fantasy games and lore interests; interesting for even an onlooker from the outside. If I'm putting together a election campaign for the world of fantasy to make its stand among things to do and opposing the stereotype it gets, then I'm strategizing on how spokesperson wise we use this guy on the campaign trail, .....so to speak.
Some really cool ideas for phylacteries that I've found laying around the internet:
The Lich's family line. This creates a moral dilemma for any lawful good characters. To destroy the Lich they'd have to destroy it's entire lineage.
A city. Not the people therein, but the city itself.
The Terrasque. Speaks for itself.
I've been waiting two weeks, I've needed my fix man!
One particularly fun way to use Glyph of Warding is to stack buffs on to a character, bypassing the normal limit imposed by concentration. A 9th-level spellcaster, fully prepared, can have *everything* up - a full suite of advantage, disadvantage, nondetection, detection, aura damage, aura defence, antimagic, etc etc.
Sure, it's only going to happen once before they need to spend about a week straight re-casting all of those glyphs, but if you're only going to get one shot at them in their throne room, well, they'll be prepared.
This also works for summoning an undead army - a glyph imprinting Animate Dead can be used to circumvent the normal restrictions on number of undead controlled. Perhaps the glyph triggers at the start of the fight, and in 1d4+1 rounds hostile undead just start *pouring* into the area, lending a sense of urgency to them defeating the lich, as well as providing an almost insurmountable challenge should they be too slow.
This episode came at the perfect time!
I like the idea of a lich being a sort of information broker. He'll tell you what you need to know...for a small price.
Recently played a Lich to close out my cousin's game (I wasn't in the group, he just asked me to play the Lich so nobody at the table, him included, would know what my combat plans were), and I just RPed him as close to Braum/Armstrong from FMA as I could. Was a blast, literally.
"you don't need a nose, what are you gonna do with it anyway you're a lich"
Me who has no sense of smell since birth: Maybe I am a Lich
In the Battle for Wesnoth (turn-based strategy, it's free.) game, there are a few custom campaigns that features "Preserved Litches". Instead of dying in a conventional way, they drink a bottle of deadly preservatives.
"The Rock does indeed flow through Jim Davis, voted top five DM's by my brain.
Yaas! The Sword is awesome. WebDM is even cooler. \m/
Pruitt, the mad hatter of nerds. That intro rocked...
I've got a side quest in my current campaign.
A lich that, after centuries, found a conscience again.
He has stopped engaging in feeding souls to the phylactery to keep himself going, and been steadily loosing power.
He's to frail now to get past the barriers he had set to guard his phylactery, and is hiring the party to destroy it for him so he can finally end his insufferably long existence.
WebDm at the beach! Perfect for when the Aboleth finally takes over Myrtle Beach
8:00 Or like when Dorian Grey (from Oscar Wilde) sees his portrait and takes back all the years, illness and injuries that the portrait took for him since the last time he looked at it.
Pallas_Ovidius I don't consider Grey a lich because he doesn't use magic and isn't undead.
HumanoidCableDreads I Don't either, I was just refering to the way he melted when he saw his portrait/''phylactery''.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is one of my favorite HPL stories and is actually one of the first I read.
YES! I've been waiting for so long for this video! :D
I love these long episodes! So good!
My favoriet caster in modern media is definetly Imhotep from The Mummy movies. Wizard,Cleric..even lich all rolled into one.
So glad you guys have another episode, I was gutted there wasn't one last week :( I also tried emailing Travis about if you guys have a Patreon but got no reply... so do you have a Patreon? I looked and couldn't find anything.
Jake Toner keep your eyes peeled; we've got a big month ahead of us.
Jim Davis Beyond excited, cheers Jim!
I'm about to start a campaign I've been writing (first one I made by myself!) where the lich is the main villain and his phylactery is the physical embodiment of joy when he was human. It's a broken music box of his sister before (insert Orcus manipulation here), that reminds my lich of his past, humanity, and all that was taken from him as well as his pact to become the immortal undead he is now. Super curious to see how it develops
My favorite is the young corporate litch. He is the top dog of a cooperation-esc situation and all his occultist are just his employees and to get to the litch you have to go up corporate ladder before you become a problem to actual litch and that's why he hasn't just delt with you in one single moment