The idea of a lich who has achieved every goal they ever wanted and now just serves as the universe's grumpiest librarian killing a goblin every morning just to stay a lich, is strangeley appealing and my next NPC of note, thanks weird lore man
Basically Jergal. God of the Dead, got bored and gave it up so he could become a grumpy librarian cataloguing everyone who dies for the new God of the dead
I made a lich as the Lord of his own town inside a mountain, near the underdark, and after the players helped him, he's now like their library, and they write him letters all the time. They also have a guild office in his town. And their bard employee has befriended him, and convinced him that purple, gold, fur, and large hats are in style, so now he's a skellyman dressed as a pimp.
Had a bard who was a chef, and dedicated his life and career to uncovering the ultimate meal. Legends spoke of a dish so advanced, so magical, that tasting it would ascend the individual to a state of demi-godhood. He'd scour lost civilizations and tombs for scraps of knowledge that might uncover the truth of this culinary miracle. Time and again, he'd find small references to the dish...spices from the four regions of the world...exotic fruits and vegetables...bizarre ingredients...salt...but the main secret ingredient constantly eluded them. Eventually, he discovered the secret ingredient, deep within the bowels of a vile sorcerer's lair... It was the native flesh of the chef's own race...the flesh of noble, ancient blood...innocent and benevolent, and someone the people admired and loved. Turns out this "recipe" was an elaborate ritual to become a lich. The phylactery became the bowl in which the dish was served in. Obviously, this sort of revelation shocked the bard and sort of undermined his entire life's work. It really messed him up.
Me and my dm have been world building an secret endgame arc for the campain where several lords of the undead raise their armies at the same time. One of them is a vampire bard
To compound the fact that Lichdom is so hard to attain, most arcanists make a point of hunting down and destroying all knowledge of how it can be done. Both as a matter of principle, and to remove temptation from their own path (when a Wizard nears the end of their life, the fear can worm its way into even the most stalwart of minds). If so many Liches need to seek out extra-planar help to discover the secret, it's only because doing that might just be easier than finding and deciphering the handful of notebooks and tomes that contain _partial_ Lichdom research. Not to mention even Liches themselves will prefer to destroy their own notes if possible. They've already achieved what they wanted. Keeping a notebook around only opens up the possibility of them gaining a rival. And that won't do at all.
And to think they are missing out on an eternity of spite fueled rivalry and pranks a la The Infinite and the Divine. Immortality can only truly be enjoyed if you have someone to make you miserable.
And then there are the types of lich that hang around in tombs all the time, relating over-the-top horror stories while trying to fit in as many lame horror puns as possible, occasionally breaking into maniacal high-pitched laughter. "HELL-o _boils_ and _ghouls!"_
Don't forget the ones that don't think their evil lair is cool enough and constantly scheme to get a better one. "This time Castle Grayskull will be mine! Myah ha ha ha ha!"
In their heavens living on in the afterlife. They had a good run, enjoyed life to the fullest and now rest with their families of old. But what about you? You didn't beat life you warped it. Instead of living you stagnant, losing any reason to live. Do you even remember why you want to become this? To what end will you use your gathered power. Rule the world? Then what? Everything you take will fade away but you. Alone and afraid forever more. I can think of no hell greater.
@@conhunter7024 Take comfort in your finite existence, as I use immortality to achieve what not even the gods could. Free from distractions of the flesh. This is true freedom, to pursue power and ambition unchecked. Lie in your grave and rot away, like all the other fools, while I conquer the heavens themselves.
Random DnD idea: Friendly lich who spends his eternity writing down the knowledge he's collected; The countless adventurers sent to kill him are just vibing in his lair reading. Will make you cookies if you ask nicely
Well I know one that enjoys painting and playing video games in the underworld in a big scary looking castle . Have a beautiful voice and she's British . Her name is apricot but everyone just calles here FROOT the lich queen
I made a church where it was led by appointed liches of the deity. The church was lawful neutral and would perform burial rites and coming of age ceremonies for the country. The liches on the high counsel were balanced by an equal number of mortals. Their job was to help protect and guard the dead from those who wish to use them for selfish reasons. If a lich ever succumbed to selfish desires the divine flame that guarded their phylactery would consume it and a new lich would be made to replace the old one who was corrupt. Just an example of how to use a lich in a more positive way or non-evil setting. In service eternally to their deity and protecting the people with a legion of the dead followers to guard against outside threats.
Other than this ignores litches need to consume souls. And the over involvement of dieties in a horrifying big brother/state police esqe way, this seems like one of the better ways to make a non evil lich.
My Elna Osses is a Archlich who turned just so she could tour the world, realities and realms. She is neutral so no power of deities can harm her. Her undead body us perfect for all inviroments. Because any danger means that her touring could be ruined, she always makes sure danger is eradicated. Which means slaying liches and conquering undead armies. Her undead minions are her family and basically scout tourist spots. She was a Necromancer in life and believes that a Necromancer is a healer who hasn't given up. She would often heal people and aid brave adventurers. Devils have her picture and 'Keep away from Liches and undead army' is written on it in red ink.
@@C00kiesAplenty think of them more as back up army. In case the actual army of the kingdom/country shouldn't be sufficient or if they need extra help getting civilians to safety. The deity can supply them with souls of the damned and corrupt individuals who die so they feed that way. Again the punishment is high for those who are evil and it's not like the god has a bunch of liches ((3 I believe is what I used))
Not sure if actions taken at gun point can be taken as showing ones morallity. Which is basically the scenario you're describing. Maybe the Liches are still damn evil, they just don't want there phelactery burned.
I wonder if you could cut a deal with a dragon about that? Basically its a trade, "So long as you exist, so do I, and since I want you to exist forever, its in my interests to give you all sorts of protections you normally couldnt create for yourself."
that would be like hiding a drop of water in a lake. seriously, i think the lich soul would just fade into the dragons, and probably not even affect its personality. also also, im not sure living creatures can become phylacteries... unlike those cheap knock-offs voldemort uses.
He buys a Red Dragon egg, hatches and feeds said dragon, has it call him Dad/Master/Friend, then turns said dragon into a phylactery. A pet phylactery is better than a wild one or even cooperative one.
Yeah basically what i was thinking he would make it his pet and stay hidden until it gets to legendary red wurm age aka max level drago then go dominating the world with no fear of it getting killed
One of my favorite NPC's I have ever made was Professor Darwin, an aarakocra lich and professor of Necromancy at The College Arcanium. He had figured out a way to sustain himself of off emotionally energy so a collage seemed to be the best place for that. He would occasionally hide in fossil displays and jump out to scare students.
5:13 Doesn't matter where Acererak's phylactery is. He got dropped in lava, had that lava solidified with a Cone of Cold, had his solid-stone prison extracted with Stone Shape before it could re-melt, got dragged to Mt. Celestia via Plane Shift, had his prison dipped in adamantine, and then was dropped into the bottom of the holy water sea that surrounds the mountain so that none of his allies can retrieve him. Entombed in stone he cannot move or speak, so no verbal or somatic spells. As a lich he cannot die from starvation or suffocation. He can't even sleep, so he can't dream. All he can do is think aboot how much he hates the Dwarf Paladin who did this to him until his phylactery runs out of fuel and he withers away. *New York accent* "How does it feel Asscrack, to know that you brought every part of this upon yourself? How does it feel to be stupid!?"
He has more than one dungeon feeding his phalactery. We only know about Tomb of the Nine Gods and Tomb of Horrors but there are undoubtedly more. Also, he probably has contingencies for imprisonment. Nice prison but I wouldn't be shocked if a month or so later a mind controlled higher up church official came to take charge of his imprisonment, put the formidable cage you created on a cart, and then was never heard from again. Liches know how to become liches and so they always have hangers on who want to know the secret and will do anything to get it.
>Some random lich that wants to talk to his boss about how many dragons he needs to feed Acereraks demon army. >Casts *Gate* Acererak. >Acererak is free >tfw
Naw, what you need is a Bard who knows Animate Dead, and has a skeleton servant follow him around everywhere. When the Bard needs to cast spells, he has the skeleton bend over backwards, so he can play the xylophone on its ribcage using the skeleton's femurs.
we had a campaign against a very...flamoyant lich mastermind, who turned out to be positively bedazzled with all kinds of gold, silver and gems, and also had a decicively 'day of the dead/marriachi' kind of vibe (which was fitting for the mexican/spanish leaning area in which he operated) going on. We fought the guy, which turned out to be fairly easy, he was more of a pull the strings kind of guy. Long story short, he was a coward, and fairly bored of his existence there, and as we were about to crush his severed, intricately decorated skull, he wanted to bargain for his life. We being a mainly neutral, very for profit and general gains kind of group, had our bard use diplomacy and all his jazz trying to maybe get a good deal that still allowed us to keep the lich out of our general way. Cue our GM grinning like. Turned out his phylactery was a well enchanted, gold plated guitar. Our bard got the thing, and jammed the still talking and gaudy skull of our villian on the neck, we did a little sidequest for some binding spell mumbo jumbo, and our bard ended up with the most garish, magically enhanced, pretty indestructible, talking guitar that could also be persuaded in sharing it's wealth of knowledge about the underworld and vast amounts of magical topics. He even managed to make the thing not completely annoying.
@@gaborgaborfi2395 I don't even think you'd need to charm them past the second generation. They're completely isolated so they only learn from you and your thralls. Simply shape an entire society in a demi plane with only 20 years work, not much in the face of eternity
Story idea: the most powerful wizard to ever exist becomes a lich for some reason. But something goes wrong in the whole process. He gains all the powers and immortality and stuff. But he gets stuck in a kind of coma/stasis. He then remains dormant for decades/centuries/millenia, whatever suits your fancy. Then he awakes, without any memories whatsoever, not even knowing he is a lich or that he has any magical abilities. But due to previous magics he discovered, he already has eternal youth, so he doesn’t look any different than any other 20ish year old. He then goes around discovering his powers, and killing abominations he had made before his dormancy, thinking he is killing the legacy of a truly evil being. Good idea/bad idea?
@@brosephnoonan223 I'm not saying it's better, and honestly, I think the idea would be better served in an undead besides liches because liches are just so *iconically* evil, but on a totally different note... Where? I legit don't know where the templates are.
@@firetarrasque4667 I didnt say you did. Its been years since I looked at the 4e DMG, and it may have actually been in one of the monster manuals for 4e, I cant recall. But 5e shoups have it right where they detail the lich? It may have been a wizards article on their website im remembering abd I'm just misapproting it to the DMG.
@@brosephnoonan223 I never played 4e. Actually, I skipped straight from 2nd AD&D to 5e. It was kind of amazing to see how much the rules had been compacted.
If we go back to AD&D rules, one of the books explains that 1) a phylactery must be a box made of exquisit craftsmanship (a terrasque woulsnt work) 2) the box must have sigils carved into the inside. The sigils then have to be filled with silver, and the box needs to have a bunch of specific spells cast on it, last of which is permancy. 3) grandmas recipe has a specific recipe, and its basically a bunch of different poisons. 4) drinking grandmas recipe is more likely to kill you than turn you into a lich. If you die from it, literally only a god (not a wish, not a resurrection, not a demi-god) can bring you back. If you dont die from it, you become a lich.
There are really only a couple of sentient undead around. Liches, aka, "Lol, why die when you can just not?" Vampires, aka, "Alright, so I can't go outside during the day, can't go inside unless either I have a stake in ownership or I'm invited, can't cross running water, can't go to church anymore, and I crave the blood of the living... But I am stronger now... Well, time to be evil!" Revenants, aka, "Someone killed me. I'm gonna kill that guy." Death Knights, aka, "Listen, buddy, I killed a lot of people that thought I was their friend just to get this undeath thing to happen. You're not the first to come along and try to get me to repent my evil ways so I can die, and you won't be the last. By the way, Cloudkill."
Party ended up killing all of them except the Revenant because we had one of us become one to kill the vampire (Strahd). Seeing as how we succeeded we did technically kill the Rev. too since they wither away after their task is complete but we used the wish sword to bring him back blessed.
@Petrazenka technically speaking i believe a vampire, whether it's normal, martial or spellcaster, always has 15 cr, while a lich is around 23 and i can't remember succubus, so technically not, but fuck it, a super powerful creature of the night getting magic has to be more powerful than a mortal becoming undead and getting magic.
The one detail you missed (hilarious vid btw pretty awesome like the rest), was that Demi-lich isn't a downgrade, and neither is it what naturally happens when a Lich gets older. Usually when a Lich gets older (a few 1,000 years or so), yes it does crumble to dust, and overall the phylactery just houses a pretty much dead soul as it has failed and there's nothing for it to constitute. BUT certain Liches (such as Acererak) found a way to avoid this, much like the original Lich ritual some of this is left up to interpretation but the parts we do know are that, first the Lich has to learn the incantations and rituals involved, second it has to carve the correct runes into it's skull and Phylactery, and third it has to get a set of PERFECT soul gems to then implant into it's skull in the place of teeth and eyes. As it's body deteriorates it loses the ability to cast traditional magic (other than some innate casting) but does get a tremendous amount of control over necromatic magic, souls, and the like. And then the Lich's mind is still allowed to roam the astral plane or just the known universe seeing everything the infinite has to offer. At least until I used the triple Wish Djinn in ToH to cast 3 lvl 8 Magic Missiles on the closest skull of a demi-lich :P
There are good liches, yeah. I've read somewhere about elven rituals made to keep an elder's knowledge of their community and history alive forever, or to create some sort of panic-button war leader or sentinel. Gotta wonder what happens to one of those if they go demi. Probably very sad, and also life-threatening.
Then there's wiz from Konosuba who doesn't consume souls but Vitality( which is much nicer and not so mass murdery) also Wiz makes sure ghosts and ghouls don't overrun her town and she also runs a magic item shop.
Those are called Balnorn I believe and are in the Forgotten realms. There’s also the concept of Archliches which are good liches but 5E also used that term for extremely powerful liches like Vecna and Acererak so I’m not sure if it’s cannon anymore
The Venerated from the Undying Court in 3.5 ed are kind of positive undead/liches. Instead of being tied to negative planes they are tied to planes of positive energy and feed from the prayers and faith of the faithful. Really cool guys from Eberron elven lore.
Mollof I mean aren't all Vampires oppressed minorities? They have a series of major disabilities such as being unable to go out in the sun or in running water, and fucking hate groups called "Vampire Hunters" break into their homes and murder them.
I imagine a mortal Wizard laughing manically as he performs the ritual to lichdom, and then one second into becomin a lich he just goes "I made a huge mistake".
Van Richten’s guide to the lich is an amazing book to read up on liches and what they’re like. One of the best BBEG class monster in my opinion thanks to all the lore and possibilities
A lich will continuously gain power and knowledge until they reach a point in their existence I call "What's The". Once they reach *What's The Point,* they realize that, essentially, they're a dog chasing a car: Even if they get all the knowledge and all the power in the multiverse, they wouldn't know what to do with it, since all the things they would want before are meaningless now. *They basically abandoned everything that makes life worth living to avoid truly dying.*
Ngl a campaign where you play as a lich and start with no memories and slowly regain memories as you explore the world, eventually finding your own tower, would be pretty frickin awesome
Are these new 5E liches or something? I've never known liches to require any sustenance whatsoever. And normally the demilich is a creature approaching deific levels of strength.
Yeah the demilich description kinda threw me as ive always understood them to be INSANELY POWERFUL MONSTERS THAT WILL STRAIGHT UP KILL YOU! I especially like the extra unfairness of them where even if you kill one you get no loot because its all back hidden with its phylactery while it gets all the benefit of that awesome gear. Seriously, if I were a demilich, I would troll the hell out of adventurers with this. Create incredible illusions of vast wealth and knowledge in my "lair", let rumors leak out and when they fight me I get some fun. If I die, big deal, I pop back up in my hidden demiplane realm or whatever, meanwhile the adventurers get to enjoy a big old empty room with nothing to show for their "victory" For extra fun, pretend im not a demilich by keeping a headless skeleton around to rest my skull on like a normal lich until they pick a fight. After all, im immortal, got to make my own fun somehow.
@@chrishubbard64 the intilgent demi liches create there own pocket Dimension and try to keep a low profile they gained enough Power that even the gods may interviene to squash them If they feel there Domain threatened.
@person person I mean, you'd think the sheer difficulty of becoming a lich, as well as sacrificing one's own humanity, would be enough to dissuade most people.
@person person It's basically ethical shackles, in other words: Eating souls denies them whatever reward or punishment they would have received once they die normally so you're supposed to find that evil. I can already see a market here, imagine how many black hearted pieces of crap exists in the DnD world, if you spin this right you might even get them to PAY you to eat their souls just so they can get out of whatever devil contract or evil deity is coming to claim them. Being a lich it should be comparatively easy to research a storage medium for souls to implement this plan as well, you could sell them a soul stone that essentially sucks their ghost in the second they snuff it, and then have them delivered. After a few years in there they would probably beg you to eat them anyway...
When I get into D&D, I want a campaign where there's this crazy, but generally nice, Litch that is just that level 20 wizard that helps you out every now and then, and he acts like the meme skeletons from Spooktober, and has a passion for playing the trumpet, so much so that that was where he put his soul. He's also an optional joke superboss if the characters choose to fight him.
I made a lich NPC who's just obsessed with cats. He lives in the underdark, doesn't care about the goings on of the world, and just cultivates his herd of cats (sometimes turning them into skeletons so they live forever with him). He's guarded by an Ooze named Khyle.
Your basically series is by far the best one you've done. It's entertaining, but also really opens up some of the monsters I hadn't thought about. Please do more.
"Why do liches do what they do?" Probably because they wanted to be like gods. Liches hold an insane amount of power after all; the kind that can easily go up against experienced wizards and summoners. They already pay the cost by being inhuman and requiring souls to feast on constantly. They pay that debt for access to near limitless power.
Had a lich who got tired of adventurers trying to slay him, and since he had learned basically everything there was to know, decided to just go around helping adventures because that was less boring then staying in his own dungeon.
Well, generally it is agreed upon that players should never be allowed to become liches. It makes them too powerful compared to the party and people may accuse you of playing favourites. I have seen people kill each other over who gets the eye and hand of Vecna before, and even that is just simulating lichdom.
It could be an interesting thing to do at lv20 once the actual campaing is over. Also gives you an NPC for the next run of characters, that you didn't actually have to "make" :^P
@@FrankyDCrafter "I Am going to perform a powerful and dangerous ritual for near unlimited potential and immortality, because, you know, Tuesday it is so power I shall obtain"
Pedro Scoponi sense all my games are run in the same world, just different points in history, it’s cool to talk to them about what they think their players will be up to after the campaign. How they will effect the world as a whole. I think this player might do something along the lines of what you are talking about.
@person person iirc it's actually even established that most wizards who go the horcrux route one and done 'em, and Voldemort was just so unbelievably fucked in the head he went "why just dunk my soul in a snake when I can slice that bitch like an onion and put in all kinds of cool shit?"
Once read a short story about a character who went around rescuing women who fell to especially bad fates. They were killed, badly, but he would raise and revive them, eventually returning them to genuine life and mortality. They were not undead past a certain point and most apparently went on to mostly normal and boring lives, but the question was constantly raised of why he bothered in the first place. It turned out that this “hero“ was actually employing these once felled women to seek justice… Specifically so he could find the evildoers responsible for their deaths, take them somewhere for some reason, which was never specified. He was also a total d***, but no one questioned that since he seemed to be genuinely doing good in the world. Bad guy doing good things for nebulous reasons. It was never outright stated he was a Lich, but I’m still convinced. Lots of goodwill, party with hot women, and there’s a soul snack at the finish line. Rinse and repeat to infinity, and the normally irritating do-gooders are never any the wiser to the racket. The few who got suspicious may even choose to ignore it since regardless the reasons, he really was doing good. But he was still d***.
The obvious next step to the lich is to find a way to regein living flesh and enjoy all kind of simple pleasures again. There certanly must be ones who at least tries. The little fun thing a GM can do is to introduce a lich who find a way but it require him to cast away his powers and his immortality and basicly turning back. Even funnier thing is to introduce a lich who had turned back, become alive again, got old and decided to become a lich once more.
In 3.5 lich can polymorph themselves. Or you can just dominate a creature and feel through your connection what the creature feels. Or use a soul jar to pop into a living body for a bit. With the magic jar you could pop into a body, destroy your phylactery and then cast Resurrection on your remains. Or make a clone before you become a lich. Or use wish or miracle.
“He claimed his stake with earned knowledge, and sought truth that others would hide from him. He gathered Wealth, *Magical Power, & Clarity!* …But also Dust, *Wrinkles; Memories Begin To Fade.”* -These words have haunted me for 5 years, I love this vid thanks again for making it☠️
So the interesting thing aboot the people who become Liches is they give up all pleasures of the flesh. A lich can't eat, drink, or have sexytimes. This is someone who in addition to being evil enough to unmake other people to sustain their existence is also willing to have their eternal existence be one dedicated solely to their goals/gaining power. Also, since Liches have no internal time-keeping systems (Heartbeat, exhaustion, hair/nails growing in, hunger, needing to use the bathroom) they can sometimes get too engrossed in their activities if they do it somewhere without external time-keeping systems (The sun, the seasons) such as underground. And then oops, you forgot to feed your phylactery.
well liches can recreater this by using their magic powers, they could even recreate a human-like body and incarnate it as his soul isnt linked to his lichy body. Also there's no need for a phylactery after the ritual is complete, but you still have to destroy it if you want to kill one. Oh and liches can absorb souls witth their possesed bodies instead of carriyng the souls to the phylactery.
@@fabrypetty1689 There is the Magic Jar spell (6th Level, Necromancy) that allows you to steal bodies and posses them throught an object, allowing the Lich to enjoy the pleasures of being alive again. If we look at the spells description we can see that lichdom is a more potent variant of this spell. roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Magic%20Jar#content
We had a way to make liches in our game World, it's what Father of FMA wanted to do and it had the extra boon that the bodies of the country people you rip their souls of, become your undead minions, but it has the downside that in order to remain "sane", you need to seek out strong souls to steal and empower your phylactery every certain ammount of time. If you start a war between two countries and gorge on way too many souls, you can end up becoming an archlich. Usually the secret is only revealed by Asmodeus, Orcus or Mephisto. I had one demilich scribbing his phylactery on the spinal cord of an orphan mute girl, and posing as her macabre toy, she didn't know what the demilich was, and every time after it destroyed a town, it teleported her close to the next town and wiped clean her memory, so people will mistake her for a refugee of the last town the undead horde destroyed, and "detect evil" wouldn't work on her. It was a fantastic campaign. Liches and demiliches also had a compulsion of trying to perform the rituals to invoke Atropus into the world, as it is a part of the contract they have with the evil outsider they contact to learn the ritual to become liches. Good stuff. Then Forgotten Realms brought Baelnorns and we were like "Suuuure Good liches, yeah..."
That intro was amazing!!!! "...In panic, in fear he felt his soul resting at the top of the sand...". You could do some series of videos but with more serious tone too. Perhaps about an specific story or characters history review
One of my favorite explanation on how to become a lich involved cutting out your own heart to use as a ritual component in creating your phylactery, so you had to technically perform the ritual as a corpse before you could become undead. It also made sense to me as a pretty high bar for lichdom, otherwise any ol' chump could become a lich, instead of the ones who were really serious about prolonging life after death.
Imagine a demi lich who is tired of living gets discovered by a party, which he tasks with destroying his phylactery so he can finally rest. Could be an interesting side quest.
"Then you slob his knob like corn on the cob" DAMMIT, I'M TRYING TO FORGET THAT SONG, MY STUPID MEMEBRAIN KEEPS TRYING TO SET THOSE LYRICS TO PRACTICALLY EVERY SONG I HEAR
> Long time player character goes through hell to become a lich during level 17-20, after multiple campaigns > Much younger characters in a much later on campaign get through the final dungeon only to find that that character is the BBEG
who else immediately thought of a campaign where the PC's find an old buried skull with gems in the eye sockets when picked up says "Hello! My names Steve!" and then cackles manically.... basically becoming a quest giving style NPC they carry with them that can add much flavor to a campaign
The Demilich thing always confused me. You'd rather be threatened by a Demigod, for instance, than a full blown version. On the other hand, a Demilich is so insanely, perversely powerful it's ridiculous. It's basically a bejeweled gothicy Death Star small enough to wear a hat.
“Any interior space” I immediately though “oh cool so I’ll just write it in my mouth” and then realized that if I were to do that, *I would literally die whenever I bite the inside of my cheek when eating.*
I have an entire campaign setting centered around a good Lich who is trying his damnedest to keep a portal to the Abyss from opening in his former House's county. The players are almost always at odds with him from point go, because he's a lich. However, upon meeting him, they find that he's very personable and reasonable. He asks for volunteers among the populace before bodies to use in raising a police force. Most of his minions are either awakened skeletons, or necropoitans. He uses these minions, along with the undead police force to oust the enemy house, who are in league with the forces that wish to open the portal, from the county. His interaction with the PCS is very simple. He wants to hire them.
My favorite Lich idea remains the wizard couple who, being lawful neutral, took 'eternal vows' extremely literally. The pair wear the other's phylactery, such is their trust in each other, in the form of an ornate wedding ring. They swore to love and cherish forever, and in most encounters would either be an amused 'host' to guests in the form of a party that's been suckered (or acted on bad intel) or are the quietly not spoken of big blades behind a family business. If you disrupt the Aldmeri shipping company too much, they'll call in those grandparents they feel embarrassed about to sort it out. When a Lich politely asks you WTF you think you are doing ruining their grandkid's legitimate business, you are likely to feel the need to explain. The Zone of Truth is just window dressing to the overwhelming 'grandma/grandpa is disappointed in you' charisma you are facing down. Of course, this ran on the pre 'WOTC feels that Lich needs to kill people regularly to morally justify them always being bad because moral complexity isn't done around here anymore.' setup. But if you had enough extended family, they might go full 'ancestor cult' and have them fueling the couple, or any employee of the business or some such setup. Heck, run a maximum security prison and eat those souls, bargained and done.
This video gave me an idea for a Lich that basically has Alzheimer's from being undead for so long and just wants to die. He can't rememver where he hid his Phylactery though, and hires the party to find it and finally kill him.
I am so making a wizard who wants to become a lich, and consults Richard From Accounting on how to do it! EDIT: A low INT wizard who planned from a young age to become a lich, and was jokingly told to find "Richard from Accounting", and has now spent the better part of his life trying to find the lands known as "Accounting" XD
There's probably a crazy thrill-seeking lich out there somewhere, regarded as a mighty demi-god hero who basically just kills bigger and badder enemies for the thrill. He doesn't do it for any reward, most possessions have lost all meaning, nor does he do it to save lives as everyone he has ever known or cared about long since died and become dust. Perhaps his phylactery is the skull of a long-dead friend that he shares tales of his adventures with.
Liches come across a bit like the Elders of the Universe in Marvel comics. The main difference is that the Elders' phylactery is basically the Universe (the Power Primordial, or leftover energy from the Big Bang . . . cosmic placenta, if you want to be nasty), but their connection to whatever obsessive goal they've developed is what keeps them going. If they give up on their goal, or never develop one, they allow themselves to die. But they often lose track of why they started in the first place: the Collector started collecting unique cultures, objects, creatures, etc. because he'd foreseen a being that would be born billions of years later and would destroy most or all of the Universe (opinions vary on whether it was Korvac or Thanos), so he planned to sequester all this stuff away so he could protect it and restore the Universe from a backup, in a way. Billions of years go by, and he's become a cosmic hoarder with no idea why he's gotta catch 'em all. The Possesor (of Knowledge) was originally obsessed with collecting all the knowledge in existence so that he could create a cosmic university to teach and propagate the collected lore of millions of species. Billions of years later, he started straight out draining the knowledge (and minds, and lives) of others so he'd have ALL the knowledge -- having completely forgotten why he wanted it in the first place.
0:57 well I would read the comic, if you had of told me what it was called instead of just showing a picture from it (if anyone knows what it’s called let me know)
The idea of a lich who has achieved every goal they ever wanted and now just serves as the universe's grumpiest librarian killing a goblin every morning just to stay a lich, is strangeley appealing and my next NPC of note, thanks weird lore man
Basically Jergal. God of the Dead, got bored and gave it up so he could become a grumpy librarian cataloguing everyone who dies for the new God of the dead
Nash'rah from Fear and Hunger. Grumpy and creepy but grumpy afterall
Trazyn the Infinite?
@@smtrop Warhammer nerd
I made a lich as the Lord of his own town inside a mountain, near the underdark, and after the players helped him, he's now like their library, and they write him letters all the time. They also have a guild office in his town.
And their bard employee has befriended him, and convinced him that purple, gold, fur, and large hats are in style, so now he's a skellyman dressed as a pimp.
"That just sounds like dying with extra steps"
Oh la la la someone's gonna get laid in Wizard College.
Thanks for making my day better, mate.
Nice rick and morty reference
I would think that most of the laying happens at Bard College
I roll to seduce the Lich
@@gargoyles9999 Said lich is female and looks relatively well-preserved, so she still looks attractive and retains her jiggly bits.
>be a lich.
>Opens an adventuring guild.
>send countless adventurers to die.
>collect souls to snack while earning money
>eternal profit.
"I'm not evil. I'm just a job creator."
>losing to a boy and his magical dog who was sent to you by a princess who's made out of candy
@@Constantine_Cvl8 Tbf he kicked that boy's butt quite a bit first
@@pon3d120 yeah
But if the Lich was axe crazy before dying, they cant go insane
Liches are in fact contractually obligated to say "Fall." Whenever casting Power Word Stun
Read the fine print it's right there I promise
"You are strong child, but I am beyond strength."
“These ancients are just the beginning. I will command a great and terrible army, and we will sail to a billion worlds.”
"We will sail until every light has been extinguished. "
@@MaximEyes "We shall sail until every light has been extinguished"
And then I became an actual manchild.
Oliver Burke nah just a very large child
Had a bard who was a chef, and dedicated his life and career to uncovering the ultimate meal.
Legends spoke of a dish so advanced, so magical, that tasting it would ascend the individual to a state of demi-godhood.
He'd scour lost civilizations and tombs for scraps of knowledge that might uncover the truth of this culinary miracle. Time and again, he'd find small references to the dish...spices from the four regions of the world...exotic fruits and vegetables...bizarre ingredients...salt...but the main secret ingredient constantly eluded them.
Eventually, he discovered the secret ingredient, deep within the bowels of a vile sorcerer's lair...
It was the native flesh of the chef's own race...the flesh of noble, ancient blood...innocent and benevolent, and someone the people admired and loved.
Turns out this "recipe" was an elaborate ritual to become a lich. The phylactery became the bowl in which the dish was served in.
Obviously, this sort of revelation shocked the bard and sort of undermined his entire life's work.
It really messed him up.
i for sure thought the ingredient was beans
@@bratanchik228 Horrifying!
I thought this was sanji while reading
taaco
Did he learn if it tasted good
You mean Lichard from accounting?
Yeah that guy. He keeps taking the last doughnut.
Truly an aspect of arcane malevolence
I Slay Dragons “You finish the joe, you make some moe! This ain’t new, baby!!!”
@@islaydragons1563 Who ate all the doughnuts?
i love the undead, i love summoning them, making them, the undead theme, and necromancy in general. so i guess im a basic lich
Necromancy is just another tool.
don't tell finn and jake
So what your saying is your basically a necrophiliac-
@@PuppetsToxin but with extra steps
Do you make them dance?
Spooky scary skeletons
Casting lots of spells
If it uses power word
You go straight to hell
And that's how the bard became a lich.
Me and my dm have been world building an secret endgame arc for the campain where several lords of the undead raise their armies at the same time.
One of them is a vampire bard
defenseive kobra
Sounds metal af
You dont even do that. You go straight to whatever remains of their digestive tract
@@Nyrufa crypt of the necrodancer
Just finished a campaign last night.
They made friends with the lich
AmigoRoberto Sounds like something my players would do
There just lonely boys
Everyone asks "Where's the lich?" Nobody ever asks "How's the lich?"
My party did the same thing 🙃 To be fair, he was a really chill lich.
AmigoRoberto maybe the real Lich were the friends they made along the way
To compound the fact that Lichdom is so hard to attain, most arcanists make a point of hunting down and destroying all knowledge of how it can be done. Both as a matter of principle, and to remove temptation from their own path (when a Wizard nears the end of their life, the fear can worm its way into even the most stalwart of minds). If so many Liches need to seek out extra-planar help to discover the secret, it's only because doing that might just be easier than finding and deciphering the handful of notebooks and tomes that contain _partial_ Lichdom research.
Not to mention even Liches themselves will prefer to destroy their own notes if possible. They've already achieved what they wanted. Keeping a notebook around only opens up the possibility of them gaining a rival. And that won't do at all.
Fuck you’re correct
And that’s not counting all the priests and paladins who destroy every trace of the rituals that they can find.
And to think they are missing out on an eternity of spite fueled rivalry and pranks a la The Infinite and the Divine. Immortality can only truly be enjoyed if you have someone to make you miserable.
One time a player begged me to make his dog a lich. And well, now we have the goodest undead boy.
He requires souls , or just scooby snaccs?
your saying it like those are diffrent
That’s a lot of peanut butter over eternity
@@anduro7448 he requires the souls of squirrels
Nah last time that happened his hand went across the universe
And then there are the types of lich that hang around in tombs all the time, relating over-the-top horror stories while trying to fit in as many lame horror puns as possible, occasionally breaking into maniacal high-pitched laughter.
"HELL-o _boils_ and _ghouls!"_
Tales From the Crypt?
Idea for BBEG, cryptkeeper lich that causes all the stories he tells just so he can have the stories.
@@coolgreenbug7551
*Normal ass day in the crypt with nothing of note happening*
The Lich: *Fine* , ill do it my self
Don't forget the ones that don't think their evil lair is cool enough and constantly scheme to get a better one.
"This time Castle Grayskull will be mine! Myah ha ha ha ha!"
"Only the honourable abide by the rules of life. And where are they? Rotting in the ground; lost to oblivion..."
In their heavens living on in the afterlife. They had a good run, enjoyed life to the fullest and now rest with their families of old. But what about you? You didn't beat life you warped it. Instead of living you stagnant, losing any reason to live. Do you even remember why you want to become this? To what end will you use your gathered power. Rule the world? Then what? Everything you take will fade away but you. Alone and afraid forever more. I can think of no hell greater.
Where in the fuck is this from. I've heard it so many times but I've never fucking seen it. Or maybe I forgot.
Now I really want to know where this quote is from
@@conhunter7024 what the hell is thi
@@conhunter7024 Take comfort in your finite existence, as I use immortality to achieve what not even the gods could. Free from distractions of the flesh. This is true freedom, to pursue power and ambition unchecked. Lie in your grave and rot away, like all the other fools, while I conquer the heavens themselves.
"You know the spell "Imprisonment" by heart. Even though your heart is in a box." That is a truly legendary line
FYI: Phylactery is actually a greek word. It means "place to keeps shit safe" - no joke.
Wait, by shit do you mean stuff and things or do you literally mean fecal matter?
@@bonogiamboni4830 Stuff. Am Greek.
@@bonogiamboni4830 guarding-thing, guarding room.
@@mEEEEE1934 ah ok i was worried for a second.
Anyone gonna mention that this was commented by world anvil
Random DnD idea: Friendly lich who spends his eternity writing down the knowledge he's collected; The countless adventurers sent to kill him are just vibing in his lair reading. Will make you cookies if you ask nicely
Well I know one that enjoys painting and playing video games in the underworld in a big scary looking castle . Have a beautiful voice and she's British . Her name is apricot but everyone just calles here FROOT the lich queen
That is called an Archlich. A good lich :)
I made a church where it was led by appointed liches of the deity. The church was lawful neutral and would perform burial rites and coming of age ceremonies for the country. The liches on the high counsel were balanced by an equal number of mortals. Their job was to help protect and guard the dead from those who wish to use them for selfish reasons. If a lich ever succumbed to selfish desires the divine flame that guarded their phylactery would consume it and a new lich would be made to replace the old one who was corrupt.
Just an example of how to use a lich in a more positive way or non-evil setting. In service eternally to their deity and protecting the people with a legion of the dead followers to guard against outside threats.
Other than this ignores litches need to consume souls. And the over involvement of dieties in a horrifying big brother/state police esqe way, this seems like one of the better ways to make a non evil lich.
Or make several types of Liches. Like the Incorporial where they are technically vampiric but don't need souls but instead vitality.
My Elna Osses is a Archlich who turned just so she could tour the world, realities and realms. She is neutral so no power of deities can harm her. Her undead body us perfect for all inviroments. Because any danger means that her touring could be ruined, she always makes sure danger is eradicated. Which means slaying liches and conquering undead armies. Her undead minions are her family and basically scout tourist spots. She was a Necromancer in life and believes that a Necromancer is a healer who hasn't given up. She would often heal people and aid brave adventurers. Devils have her picture and 'Keep away from Liches and undead army' is written on it in red ink.
@@C00kiesAplenty think of them more as back up army. In case the actual army of the kingdom/country shouldn't be sufficient or if they need extra help getting civilians to safety.
The deity can supply them with souls of the damned and corrupt individuals who die so they feed that way. Again the punishment is high for those who are evil and it's not like the god has a bunch of liches ((3 I believe is what I used))
Not sure if actions taken at gun point can be taken as showing ones morallity. Which is basically the scenario you're describing. Maybe the Liches are still damn evil, they just don't want there phelactery burned.
Man a lich with a red dragon being his phelactory would be quite hard to kill
I wonder if you could cut a deal with a dragon about that? Basically its a trade, "So long as you exist, so do I, and since I want you to exist forever, its in my interests to give you all sorts of protections you normally couldnt create for yourself."
that would be like hiding a drop of water in a lake. seriously, i think the lich soul would just fade into the dragons, and probably not even affect its personality. also also, im not sure living creatures can become phylacteries... unlike those cheap knock-offs voldemort uses.
He buys a Red Dragon egg, hatches and feeds said dragon, has it call him Dad/Master/Friend, then turns said dragon into a phylactery.
A pet phylactery is better than a wild one or even cooperative one.
Yeah basically what i was thinking he would make it his pet and stay hidden until it gets to legendary red wurm age aka max level drago then go dominating the world with no fear of it getting killed
Or push come to shove make the phelactory fire proof and hid it in the dragons stomach
One of my favorite NPC's I have ever made was Professor Darwin, an aarakocra lich and professor of Necromancy at The College Arcanium. He had figured out a way to sustain himself of off emotionally energy so a collage seemed to be the best place for that. He would occasionally hide in fossil displays and jump out to scare students.
"He had figured out a way to sustain himself of off emotionally energy so a collage seemed to be the best place for that."
Noice
Adventure zone?
This is perfect
What a bastard! I love him.
I'ma steal this
Acererak's phylactery is not in his butt. The fighter and paladin checked.
I thought the bard would check
@@user-ft3jq5vi2l no because that's where they found the bard
not even going to ask...
Wow! So bards can be used like that? I thought they were only useful for seducing eldritch horrors that were too strong for the party. Interesting.
It's carved in the earth.
Well I would like to read about this comic lich named Steve, but I see no link or the like
Just look up Steve lichman, you should find it via that
stevelichman dot com is the address. It's by Dave Rapoza :)
Thank you you two
As always the MVP is in the comments
rapozacomics.carbonmade.com/projects/5313679 bam
5:13 Doesn't matter where Acererak's phylactery is. He got dropped in lava, had that lava solidified with a Cone of Cold, had his solid-stone prison extracted with Stone Shape before it could re-melt, got dragged to Mt. Celestia via Plane Shift, had his prison dipped in adamantine, and then was dropped into the bottom of the holy water sea that surrounds the mountain so that none of his allies can retrieve him.
Entombed in stone he cannot move or speak, so no verbal or somatic spells. As a lich he cannot die from starvation or suffocation. He can't even sleep, so he can't dream. All he can do is think aboot how much he hates the Dwarf Paladin who did this to him until his phylactery runs out of fuel and he withers away.
*New York accent* "How does it feel Asscrack, to know that you brought every part of this upon yourself? How does it feel to be stupid!?"
I feel like I've seen this before.
He has more than one dungeon feeding his phalactery. We only know about Tomb of the Nine Gods and Tomb of Horrors but there are undoubtedly more. Also, he probably has contingencies for imprisonment. Nice prison but I wouldn't be shocked if a month or so later a mind controlled higher up church official came to take charge of his imprisonment, put the formidable cage you created on a cart, and then was never heard from again. Liches know how to become liches and so they always have hangers on who want to know the secret and will do anything to get it.
Imagine the lava did enough damage to eject from control of that body. So all you did was make a big, shiny, heavy and wet rock.
>Some random lich that wants to talk to his boss about how many dragons he needs to feed Acereraks demon army.
>Casts *Gate* Acererak.
>Acererak is free
>tfw
He got Karsd
I want to make a sentiant skeleton pc bard whose instrument is his ribcage
I flinched at this
Bardic inspiration! (beats chest encouragingly)
@@alphakicker8499 idk. It could work. Maybe make a campaign where all the pcs basically lived at the nightmare before christmas town.
Naw, what you need is a Bard who knows Animate Dead, and has a skeleton servant follow him around everywhere. When the Bard needs to cast spells, he has the skeleton bend over backwards, so he can play the xylophone on its ribcage using the skeleton's femurs.
we had a campaign against a very...flamoyant lich mastermind, who turned out to be positively bedazzled with all kinds of gold, silver and gems, and also had a decicively 'day of the dead/marriachi' kind of vibe (which was fitting for the mexican/spanish leaning area in which he operated) going on. We fought the guy, which turned out to be fairly easy, he was more of a pull the strings kind of guy.
Long story short, he was a coward, and fairly bored of his existence there, and as we were about to crush his severed, intricately decorated skull, he wanted to bargain for his life. We being a mainly neutral, very for profit and general gains kind of group, had our bard use diplomacy and all his jazz trying to maybe get a good deal that still allowed us to keep the lich out of our general way. Cue our GM grinning like.
Turned out his phylactery was a well enchanted, gold plated guitar. Our bard got the thing, and jammed the still talking and gaudy skull of our villian on the neck, we did a little sidequest for some binding spell mumbo jumbo, and our bard ended up with the most garish, magically enhanced, pretty indestructible, talking guitar that could also be persuaded in sharing it's wealth of knowledge about the underworld and vast amounts of magical topics. He even managed to make the thing not completely annoying.
a lich does ultimately become benevolent
as they need souls to be born over & over
their existence is entangled with
the wellbeing of the world
Good point
Or they kidnap a bunch of people and charm their minds to jelly and have them make babies to throw into his soul blender forever
@Jamie Adams sweet
imagine being born into like the 37254th generation of these charmed. what a nightmare
they'd not even be human anymore
@@gaborgaborfi2395 I don't even think you'd need to charm them past the second generation. They're completely isolated so they only learn from you and your thralls. Simply shape an entire society in a demi plane with only 20 years work, not much in the face of eternity
@@jamieadams2589 Reminds me of Autodale.
Some examples of lich keepers:
1) Archdemon of Undeath
2) God of Undeath
3) Doggos
I dunno about the last one, I mean, have you seen JoJo? they die almost every single time...
@@ChanivonKarpa no i have not
*Rabbits
What will win?
Level 20 devotion Paladin with a lifetime of weapon training and warfare?
Or one good boi with a box around his neck?
@Hakageryuu Dunno man, how many breads have you eaten in your life?
Story idea: the most powerful wizard to ever exist becomes a lich for some reason. But something goes wrong in the whole process. He gains all the powers and immortality and stuff. But he gets stuck in a kind of coma/stasis. He then remains dormant for decades/centuries/millenia, whatever suits your fancy. Then he awakes, without any memories whatsoever, not even knowing he is a lich or that he has any magical abilities. But due to previous magics he discovered, he already has eternal youth, so he doesn’t look any different than any other 20ish year old. He then goes around discovering his powers, and killing abominations he had made before his dormancy, thinking he is killing the legacy of a truly evil being. Good idea/bad idea?
Ah.
Back in 2nd AD&D, Liches could be Arcane OR Divine. And they weren't created by a ritual.
They basically just... Forgot to die.
To be fair, the DMG for 4th & 5th edition have templates that can be applied to any npc you'd like to be a lich.
@@brosephnoonan223 I'm not saying it's better, and honestly, I think the idea would be better served in an undead besides liches because liches are just so *iconically* evil, but on a totally different note...
Where? I legit don't know where the templates are.
@@firetarrasque4667
I didnt say you did.
Its been years since I looked at the 4e DMG, and it may have actually been in one of the monster manuals for 4e, I cant recall. But 5e shoups have it right where they detail the lich? It may have been a wizards article on their website im remembering abd I'm just misapproting it to the DMG.
@@brosephnoonan223 I never played 4e. Actually, I skipped straight from 2nd AD&D to 5e. It was kind of amazing to see how much the rules had been compacted.
Um, my character has -1 intelligence, which makes him too stupid to die.
If we go back to AD&D rules, one of the books explains that
1) a phylactery must be a box made of exquisit craftsmanship (a terrasque woulsnt work)
2) the box must have sigils carved into the inside. The sigils then have to be filled with silver, and the box needs to have a bunch of specific spells cast on it, last of which is permancy.
3) grandmas recipe has a specific recipe, and its basically a bunch of different poisons.
4) drinking grandmas recipe is more likely to kill you than turn you into a lich. If you die from it, literally only a god (not a wish, not a resurrection, not a demi-god) can bring you back. If you dont die from it, you become a lich.
aka aint nobody following that
There are really only a couple of sentient undead around.
Liches, aka, "Lol, why die when you can just not?"
Vampires, aka, "Alright, so I can't go outside during the day, can't go inside unless either I have a stake in ownership or I'm invited, can't cross running water, can't go to church anymore, and I crave the blood of the living... But I am stronger now... Well, time to be evil!"
Revenants, aka, "Someone killed me. I'm gonna kill that guy."
Death Knights, aka, "Listen, buddy, I killed a lot of people that thought I was their friend just to get this undeath thing to happen. You're not the first to come along and try to get me to repent my evil ways so I can die, and you won't be the last. By the way, Cloudkill."
Party ended up killing all of them except the Revenant because we had one of us become one to kill the vampire (Strahd). Seeing as how we succeeded we did technically kill the Rev. too since they wither away after their task is complete but we used the wish sword to bring him back blessed.
Ghouls are sentient. And ghasts. They are juat starving.
@@Sodiumman123 Where is the wight love at?
@@flinfake Knew I was forgetting some... is it too late to set it wight?
Ring wraiths's invisibility is a blessing and a curse.
"Generally Undead are soulless shambling husks"
*Vampire:* Am I a joke to you?
Well, *generally*. There's also revenants and death knight and... i think wights are sentient too?
After you sold your rights to twilight, yes, yes you are.
@@bonogiamboni4830 Wights are sentient, but somehow have no Soul. They use literal Hate as Replacement.
@@Sirius10117 cool.
@Petrazenka technically speaking i believe a vampire, whether it's normal, martial or spellcaster, always has 15 cr, while a lich is around 23 and i can't remember succubus, so technically not, but fuck it, a super powerful creature of the night getting magic has to be more powerful than a mortal becoming undead and getting magic.
Turning a PC into a Lich for Vecna killing reasons was kinda fun.
Vecna Lives!!!
The Whispered One will return
I never actually saw it, but from what ive heard i thought vax was a revenant
One of my characters has Vecna’s arm right now. Or does Vecna’s arm have my character? 🧐
@@Not_Ciel the latter.
The one detail you missed (hilarious vid btw pretty awesome like the rest), was that Demi-lich isn't a downgrade, and neither is it what naturally happens when a Lich gets older.
Usually when a Lich gets older (a few 1,000 years or so), yes it does crumble to dust, and overall the phylactery just houses a pretty much dead soul as it has failed and there's nothing for it to constitute. BUT certain Liches (such as Acererak) found a way to avoid this, much like the original Lich ritual some of this is left up to interpretation but the parts we do know are that, first the Lich has to learn the incantations and rituals involved, second it has to carve the correct runes into it's skull and Phylactery, and third it has to get a set of PERFECT soul gems to then implant into it's skull in the place of teeth and eyes. As it's body deteriorates it loses the ability to cast traditional magic (other than some innate casting) but does get a tremendous amount of control over necromatic magic, souls, and the like. And then the Lich's mind is still allowed to roam the astral plane or just the known universe seeing everything the infinite has to offer.
At least until I used the triple Wish Djinn in ToH to cast 3 lvl 8 Magic Missiles on the closest skull of a demi-lich :P
There are good liches, yeah. I've read somewhere about elven rituals made to keep an elder's knowledge of their community and history alive forever, or to create some sort of panic-button war leader or sentinel.
Gotta wonder what happens to one of those if they go demi. Probably very sad, and also life-threatening.
Renwick Caradoon is an example of a good lich
Then there's wiz from Konosuba who doesn't consume souls but Vitality( which is much nicer and not so mass murdery) also Wiz makes sure ghosts and ghouls don't overrun her town and she also runs a magic item shop.
Those are called Balnorn I believe and are in the Forgotten realms. There’s also the concept of Archliches which are good liches but 5E also used that term for extremely powerful liches like Vecna and Acererak so I’m not sure if it’s cannon anymore
Eberron had the Undying Court of Aerenal, basically liches maintained by the love and devotion of their descendants.
The Venerated from the Undying Court in 3.5 ed are kind of positive undead/liches. Instead of being tied to negative planes they are tied to planes of positive energy and feed from the prayers and faith of the faithful. Really cool guys from Eberron elven lore.
Watching this gave me the idea to make a lich character who is going through an "afterlife crisis" (like a mid-life crisis, but *way* later).
1 Unicorn Horn
1 Newborn
1 Act of indescribable evil
That was the subliminal message at about 3:20
funfact, that was a joke I removed.
Awwwbut jokes are good
Probably the most likely of all the possible recipes in all honesty.
"using" a Unicorn Horn on a Newborn seems like an Act of indescribable evil
@@cobrakingofeart Best way to do the tasks is to do them all at once!
Steve Lichman is the comic that was mentioned at the beginning of the video. It's goddamn amazing, 10/10
Any plans for Basically Mummies, Vampires, or Death Knights?
Inquisitor Thomas death knights would be a cool one
Then he needs to do Dragons and dracoliches
Inquisitor i would like to report some heresy
The vampires in my world are a opressed minority :D
Mollof I mean aren't all Vampires oppressed minorities? They have a series of major disabilities such as being unable to go out in the sun or in running water, and fucking hate groups called "Vampire Hunters" break into their homes and murder them.
I imagine a mortal Wizard laughing manically as he performs the ritual to lichdom, and then one second into becomin a lich he just goes "I made a huge mistake".
Another Lich: "Puts a hand on his shoulder"Well, friend it will get only worse from here onwards.
Wizard : WTF
5:51 What type of sorcery did that lichen use to fill those jeans?
Tremble from the power of *THICC LICH*
The best kind of lich
@@david18cruz1989 Das' hot!
Oh bby
*Adventure Time intro gets increasingly louder*
Van Richten’s guide to the lich is an amazing book to read up on liches and what they’re like. One of the best BBEG class monster in my opinion thanks to all the lore and possibilities
A lich will continuously gain power and knowledge until they reach a point in their existence I call "What's The". Once they reach *What's The Point,* they realize that, essentially, they're a dog chasing a car: Even if they get all the knowledge and all the power in the multiverse, they wouldn't know what to do with it, since all the things they would want before are meaningless now. *They basically abandoned everything that makes life worth living to avoid truly dying.*
My boy Diogenes could have been the OG lich.
That caught me of guard because how correct you are.
1:27
Indeed.
Ngl a campaign where you play as a lich and start with no memories and slowly regain memories as you explore the world, eventually finding your own tower, would be pretty frickin awesome
Lmao “a super glued top hat 🎩” I see what you did there
Are these new 5E liches or something? I've never known liches to require any sustenance whatsoever. And normally the demilich is a creature approaching deific levels of strength.
Yeah the demilich description kinda threw me as ive always understood them to be INSANELY POWERFUL MONSTERS THAT WILL STRAIGHT UP KILL YOU! I especially like the extra unfairness of them where even if you kill one you get no loot because its all back hidden with its phylactery while it gets all the benefit of that awesome gear. Seriously, if I were a demilich, I would troll the hell out of adventurers with this. Create incredible illusions of vast wealth and knowledge in my "lair", let rumors leak out and when they fight me I get some fun. If I die, big deal, I pop back up in my hidden demiplane realm or whatever, meanwhile the adventurers get to enjoy a big old empty room with nothing to show for their "victory" For extra fun, pretend im not a demilich by keeping a headless skeleton around to rest my skull on like a normal lich until they pick a fight. After all, im immortal, got to make my own fun somehow.
@@chrishubbard64 the intilgent demi liches create there own pocket Dimension and try to keep a low profile they gained enough Power that even the gods may interviene to squash them If they feel there Domain threatened.
Indeed, this description wasn't exactly accurate. Demiliches are diminished in size, not power, confirmed by ToA.
@person person I mean, you'd think the sheer difficulty of becoming a lich, as well as sacrificing one's own humanity, would be enough to dissuade most people.
@person person It's basically ethical shackles, in other words: Eating souls denies them whatever reward or punishment they would have received once they die normally so you're supposed to find that evil.
I can already see a market here, imagine how many black hearted pieces of crap exists in the DnD world, if you spin this right you might even get them to PAY you to eat their souls just so they can get out of whatever devil contract or evil deity is coming to claim them. Being a lich it should be comparatively easy to research a storage medium for souls to implement this plan as well, you could sell them a soul stone that essentially sucks their ghost in the second they snuff it, and then have them delivered. After a few years in there they would probably beg you to eat them anyway...
When I get into D&D, I want a campaign where there's this crazy, but generally nice, Litch that is just that level 20 wizard that helps you out every now and then, and he acts like the meme skeletons from Spooktober, and has a passion for playing the trumpet, so much so that that was where he put his soul. He's also an optional joke superboss if the characters choose to fight him.
and during that superboss the dm just blasts a doot version of you know what. D D d A
Why don’t you write and run this campaign?
I made a lich NPC who's just obsessed with cats. He lives in the underdark, doesn't care about the goings on of the world, and just cultivates his herd of cats (sometimes turning them into skeletons so they live forever with him). He's guarded by an Ooze named Khyle.
Your basically series is by far the best one you've done. It's entertaining, but also really opens up some of the monsters I hadn't thought about.
Please do more.
"Why do liches do what they do?" Probably because they wanted to be like gods.
Liches hold an insane amount of power after all; the kind that can easily go up against experienced wizards and summoners.
They already pay the cost by being inhuman and requiring souls to feast on constantly. They pay that debt for access to near limitless power.
Steve: Well fu** me then.
Bard: Well if you insist.
Had a lich who got tired of adventurers trying to slay him, and since he had learned basically everything there was to know, decided to just go around helping adventures because that was less boring then staying in his own dungeon.
I really hope that my wizard player doesn’t stumble across this video lol. Don’t want to give him any ideas.
Well, generally it is agreed upon that players should never be allowed to become liches. It makes them too powerful compared to the party and people may accuse you of playing favourites. I have seen people kill each other over who gets the eye and hand of Vecna before, and even that is just simulating lichdom.
Caleb Lee yea but my player would not play it for the power lol, he would find a way to make the leach useless.
It could be an interesting thing to do at lv20 once the actual campaing is over. Also gives you an NPC for the next run of characters, that you didn't actually have to "make" :^P
@@FrankyDCrafter "I Am going to perform a powerful and dangerous ritual for near unlimited potential and immortality, because, you know, Tuesday it is so power I shall obtain"
Pedro Scoponi sense all my games are run in the same world, just different points in history, it’s cool to talk to them about what they think their players will be up to after the campaign. How they will effect the world as a whole. I think this player might do something along the lines of what you are talking about.
Davy Jones from the movie _"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest"_ is a lich.(heart in a box)
One could argue that the heart itself is the phylactery, as that is what has to be destroyed to kill him
“Did you forget? I’m a heartless wretch!(Lich)” -Davy Jones
its more like a mummy lord then ( their hearts are in a jar, Lich's soul is)
@person person iirc it's actually even established that most wizards who go the horcrux route one and done 'em, and Voldemort was just so unbelievably fucked in the head he went "why just dunk my soul in a snake when I can slice that bitch like an onion and put in all kinds of cool shit?"
Once read a short story about a character who went around rescuing women who fell to especially bad fates. They were killed, badly, but he would raise and revive them, eventually returning them to genuine life and mortality. They were not undead past a certain point and most apparently went on to mostly normal and boring lives, but the question was constantly raised of why he bothered in the first place. It turned out that this “hero“ was actually employing these once felled women to seek justice… Specifically so he could find the evildoers responsible for their deaths, take them somewhere for some reason, which was never specified. He was also a total d***, but no one questioned that since he seemed to be genuinely doing good in the world. Bad guy doing good things for nebulous reasons.
It was never outright stated he was a Lich, but I’m still convinced. Lots of goodwill, party with hot women, and there’s a soul snack at the finish line. Rinse and repeat to infinity, and the normally irritating do-gooders are never any the wiser to the racket. The few who got suspicious may even choose to ignore it since regardless the reasons, he really was doing good. But he was still d***.
When you are gonna go into Acerarak's dungeon and realize you are so screwed.
Describes any and all dungeons of his in a nutshell. Seriously some of the traps in the older ones were horribly brilliant.
5:49 Throwback to the sovereign glue Idea. Now you're thinking with portals.
The obvious next step to the lich is to find a way to regein living flesh and enjoy all kind of simple pleasures again. There certanly must be ones who at least tries.
The little fun thing a GM can do is to introduce a lich who find a way but it require him to cast away his powers and his immortality and basicly turning back. Even funnier thing is to introduce a lich who had turned back, become alive again, got old and decided to become a lich once more.
In 3.5 lich can polymorph themselves. Or you can just dominate a creature and feel through your connection what the creature feels. Or use a soul jar to pop into a living body for a bit. With the magic jar you could pop into a body, destroy your phylactery and then cast Resurrection on your remains. Or make a clone before you become a lich. Or use wish or miracle.
“He claimed his stake with earned knowledge, and sought truth that others would hide from him. He gathered Wealth, *Magical Power, & Clarity!* …But also Dust, *Wrinkles; Memories Begin To Fade.”*
-These words have haunted me for 5 years, I love this vid thanks again for making it☠️
So the interesting thing aboot the people who become Liches is they give up all pleasures of the flesh. A lich can't eat, drink, or have sexytimes. This is someone who in addition to being evil enough to unmake other people to sustain their existence is also willing to have their eternal existence be one dedicated solely to their goals/gaining power.
Also, since Liches have no internal time-keeping systems (Heartbeat, exhaustion, hair/nails growing in, hunger, needing to use the bathroom) they can sometimes get too engrossed in their activities if they do it somewhere without external time-keeping systems (The sun, the seasons) such as underground. And then oops, you forgot to feed your phylactery.
well liches can recreater this by using their magic powers, they could even recreate a human-like body and incarnate it as his soul isnt linked to his lichy body. Also there's no need for a phylactery after the ritual is complete, but you still have to destroy it if you want to kill one. Oh and liches can absorb souls witth their possesed bodies instead of carriyng the souls to the phylactery.
@@fabrypetty1689 There is the Magic Jar spell (6th Level, Necromancy) that allows you to steal bodies and posses them throught an object, allowing the Lich to enjoy the pleasures of being alive again.
If we look at the spells description we can see that lichdom is a more potent variant of this spell.
roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Magic%20Jar#content
@@Hektols In addition to Magic Jar, they could just polymorph themselves
Random Guy : *It's difficult to raise a family.*
Necromancer : *Not if they were buried close together.*
Random Guy : *What ?*
Your Twilight Forest reference made me unfathomably happy
We had a way to make liches in our game World, it's what Father of FMA wanted to do and it had the extra boon that the bodies of the country people you rip their souls of, become your undead minions, but it has the downside that in order to remain "sane", you need to seek out strong souls to steal and empower your phylactery every certain ammount of time.
If you start a war between two countries and gorge on way too many souls, you can end up becoming an archlich. Usually the secret is only revealed by Asmodeus, Orcus or Mephisto.
I had one demilich scribbing his phylactery on the spinal cord of an orphan mute girl, and posing as her macabre toy, she didn't know what the demilich was, and every time after it destroyed a town, it teleported her close to the next town and wiped clean her memory, so people will mistake her for a refugee of the last town the undead horde destroyed, and "detect evil" wouldn't work on her. It was a fantastic campaign.
Liches and demiliches also had a compulsion of trying to perform the rituals to invoke Atropus into the world, as it is a part of the contract they have with the evil outsider they contact to learn the ritual to become liches. Good stuff.
Then Forgotten Realms brought Baelnorns and we were like "Suuuure Good liches, yeah..."
"Richard from accounting" killed me.
1:26
I for one am completely on board with Diogenes eventually becoming a lich
Sad, i was expecting an overlord pun somewhere. Lord Momounga and his waifu army!
To become a lich you got to perform a... Lichual... ._.
I'll see myself out.
That intro was amazing!!!! "...In panic, in fear he felt his soul resting at the top of the sand...".
You could do some series of videos but with more serious tone too. Perhaps about an specific story or characters history review
One of my favorite explanation on how to become a lich involved cutting out your own heart to use as a ritual component in creating your phylactery, so you had to technically perform the ritual as a corpse before you could become undead. It also made sense to me as a pretty high bar for lichdom, otherwise any ol' chump could become a lich, instead of the ones who were really serious about prolonging life after death.
Imagine a demi lich who is tired of living gets discovered by a party, which he tasks with destroying his phylactery so he can finally rest. Could be an interesting side quest.
It would have to have something protecting it that even the lich doesn't control in that case
"Then you slob his knob like corn on the cob"
DAMMIT, I'M TRYING TO FORGET THAT SONG, MY STUPID MEMEBRAIN KEEPS TRYING TO SET THOSE LYRICS TO PRACTICALLY EVERY SONG I HEAR
When you defeat one the strongest lichs ever known and instead of celebrating you send your soul to the planes of pandemonium
This has to be the mos hilarious explanation of a lich and im not even a DnD player....
by now I'm hooked to this channel, thanks for your videos man!
Mordekaiser. Yeee boi. That's gonna be my inspiration for my next lich PC.
> Long time player character goes through hell to become a lich during level 17-20, after multiple campaigns
> Much younger characters in a much later on campaign get through the final dungeon only to find that that character is the BBEG
I can see why they get bored. Theres only so many times you can say "lich please" and its still funny.
who else immediately thought of a campaign where the PC's find an old buried skull with gems in the eye sockets when picked up says "Hello! My names Steve!" and then cackles manically.... basically becoming a quest giving style NPC they carry with them that can add much flavor to a campaign
The Demilich thing always confused me.
You'd rather be threatened by a Demigod, for instance, than a full blown version. On the other hand, a Demilich is so insanely, perversely powerful it's ridiculous. It's basically a bejeweled gothicy Death Star small enough to wear a hat.
“Any interior space”
I immediately though “oh cool so I’ll just write it in my mouth” and then realized that if I were to do that, *I would literally die whenever I bite the inside of my cheek when eating.*
Become Lich. Become mad. Make deals like the Devil. Laugh maniacally.
Profit.
I have an entire campaign setting centered around a good Lich who is trying his damnedest to keep a portal to the Abyss from opening in his former House's county. The players are almost always at odds with him from point go, because he's a lich. However, upon meeting him, they find that he's very personable and reasonable. He asks for volunteers among the populace before bodies to use in raising a police force. Most of his minions are either awakened skeletons, or necropoitans. He uses these minions, along with the undead police force to oust the enemy house, who are in league with the forces that wish to open the portal, from the county. His interaction with the PCS is very simple. He wants to hire them.
Aren't Demilich like, the strongest liches? I just remember them vaporizing folk Infinity Gauntlet style.
that is an archlich
My favorite Lich idea remains the wizard couple who, being lawful neutral, took 'eternal vows' extremely literally. The pair wear the other's phylactery, such is their trust in each other, in the form of an ornate wedding ring. They swore to love and cherish forever, and in most encounters would either be an amused 'host' to guests in the form of a party that's been suckered (or acted on bad intel) or are the quietly not spoken of big blades behind a family business. If you disrupt the Aldmeri shipping company too much, they'll call in those grandparents they feel embarrassed about to sort it out. When a Lich politely asks you WTF you think you are doing ruining their grandkid's legitimate business, you are likely to feel the need to explain. The Zone of Truth is just window dressing to the overwhelming 'grandma/grandpa is disappointed in you' charisma you are facing down. Of course, this ran on the pre 'WOTC feels that Lich needs to kill people regularly to morally justify them always being bad because moral complexity isn't done around here anymore.' setup. But if you had enough extended family, they might go full 'ancestor cult' and have them fueling the couple, or any employee of the business or some such setup. Heck, run a maximum security prison and eat those souls, bargained and done.
I am but a simple Tabaxi I see video of basically I click!
This video gave me an idea for a Lich that basically has Alzheimer's from being undead for so long and just wants to die. He can't rememver where he hid his Phylactery though, and hires the party to find it and finally kill him.
Intresting...
I am so making a wizard who wants to become a lich, and consults Richard From Accounting on how to do it!
EDIT: A low INT wizard who planned from a young age to become a lich, and was jokingly told to find "Richard from Accounting", and has now spent the better part of his life trying to find the lands known as "Accounting" XD
a low int wizard... you mean a muscle wizard? "i cast FIST!"
*Lichard
There's probably a crazy thrill-seeking lich out there somewhere, regarded as a mighty demi-god hero who basically just kills bigger and badder enemies for the thrill. He doesn't do it for any reward, most possessions have lost all meaning, nor does he do it to save lives as everyone he has ever known or cared about long since died and become dust. Perhaps his phylactery is the skull of a long-dead friend that he shares tales of his adventures with.
2:41 then you learn Clone. It's way easier, doesn't require suckling eldritch nob, and lets you actually LIVE instead of rotting away like a zombie.
tknks for your video - it's not only great info about the liches, but also if not that video, I would never know about World Anvil! Thank you a lot!
What if we could keep our minds in the cloud and broadcast it to a robot body - ROBOLICH
You mean exos
Campaign idea: the party is hired by a depressed lich who can't remember where he put his phylactery.
I am a simple man, I see Necromancy related video's, I click with joy.
This is a fitting end, I just finish watching the Overlord series the day this video came out.
I clicked because I saw the adventure time lich then I realized this was dnd and was stilll happy
Liches come across a bit like the Elders of the Universe in Marvel comics. The main difference is that the Elders' phylactery is basically the Universe (the Power Primordial, or leftover energy from the Big Bang . . . cosmic placenta, if you want to be nasty), but their connection to whatever obsessive goal they've developed is what keeps them going. If they give up on their goal, or never develop one, they allow themselves to die. But they often lose track of why they started in the first place: the Collector started collecting unique cultures, objects, creatures, etc. because he'd foreseen a being that would be born billions of years later and would destroy most or all of the Universe (opinions vary on whether it was Korvac or Thanos), so he planned to sequester all this stuff away so he could protect it and restore the Universe from a backup, in a way. Billions of years go by, and he's become a cosmic hoarder with no idea why he's gotta catch 'em all. The Possesor (of Knowledge) was originally obsessed with collecting all the knowledge in existence so that he could create a cosmic university to teach and propagate the collected lore of millions of species. Billions of years later, he started straight out draining the knowledge (and minds, and lives) of others so he'd have ALL the knowledge -- having completely forgotten why he wanted it in the first place.
"A man is born..."
Ugh, A tragedy, Im ready to become a bone daddy already.
0:57 well I would read the comic, if you had of told me what it was called instead of just showing a picture from it (if anyone knows what it’s called let me know)
"or climb inside a dragons belly"
sounds like vore to me
Thankyou for getting me hooked on Steve the Lich it's amazing.