Lich idea: Tethera was a druid whose greatest love was her vast garden, however that became threatened when a magic drought cursed the land. She turned to dark druidic magic to save it, binding her very soul to the lives of her plants. Now she is a druidic lich serving her phylactery: a powerful, soul-hungry, undead garden. At the gardens behest she gives flowers grown from it to people to plant on the graves of the recently dead. These flowers allow people to talk with the dead of the grave every new moon. Little do the people know that the soul is simply devoured and the flowers speak with stolen memories. And if the garden if ever threatened every cemetery where the flowers are planted has a potential army beneath as well as townsfolk unwilling to believe their loved ones aren't talking to them. (Afterall, why have the phylactery be a weakness when it can be more dangerous than the lich)
I just realised Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean could be considered a Lich. Removed his heart rather than his soul, his lair that he holds dominion over is the Flying Dutchman, he made a pact with a sea goddess to guide the dead and when he broke that pact he and his crew (minions) steadily became less human and more like humanoid sea creature abominations (as opposed to rotting). He even recruits his crew from the dead and dying. If I ever run a seaborne campaign I’m definitely using him as a major villain
I have always considered him as such, it was one of the first things I thought when I heard about his heart. But I guess it is because i'm a big fan of Mummy Lords and they already use their heart as a phylactery.
Our setting has a lich as one of its central characters. Or rather, a FORMER lich. Lurwen was once your typical lich, until he was recruited into opposing the Crimson Incursion, the god of tyranny's attempt to conquer the material plane. He began to feel regret, longing for the ability to feel the joys of life once more. After the incursion was repulsed, the lich's companions were granted immortality, and Lurwen saw his chance. He brought forth his soul cage before the goddess of fire and hardship, and offered it as a burnt sacrifice, throwing his very existence upon the mercies of the Queen of the Sun. And his offering was accepted. What was once Lurwen the dreaded was now Lurwen the Living Saint, Lurwen the First Rekindled. He still spends his time beneath the prison city of Tare'Tuk, running the First Undead Monastery, guiding unwilling or remorseful undead along his path to become Rekindled, and returned to the proper cycle of life, death, and reincarnation.
My favourite concept I ever had for a lich, which I sadly never got to explore, was Lichdom being only phase 1. The way I was running it, there had only ever been 2 liches, Acererak and Vecna. Acererak was the first, the only one who knew all the secrets of lichdom, and he, as a demilich, whispered the secrets to Vecna from beyond the Astral Sea. What he neglected to mention, though, was that becoming a lich was only the beginning, the secret to true mastery of death is for one lich to consume another of similar power. So Acererak pulled strings behind the scenes, trying to bring Vecna to his level and, right as he hit the point he needed, Vecna was betrayed and killed by Kas. The entire campaign, the party are trying to stop a cult devoted to Vecna, only to learn that the leader was a servant of Acererak trying to resurrect Vecna to sacrifice him to Acererak. Then the party gets to find out what the next step after a lich is.
I'm making one for my setting as one of the late antagonists, and everything about him *bleeds* tragedy. He possesses an artifact (A chalice) that can grant true immortality as long as you drink from it every day...But in order to help people in the wake of grave crises, he gave away the gems on the chalice (Philosopher's stones), which have potent healing power... With the power of the chalice fading, he began to rot and shrivel with age, and, suddenly gripped with a fear of death (and believing he did not deserve it after all the people he helped), he retreated deep underground with the chalice... In fact, he does nothing to oppose the party or help anyone for a very long time. But, the party's goal is to reassemble those ancient artifacts, including the chalice. And, once it realizes that a party of heroes, backed by his old Patron, are coming for him and his chalice, he begins to lash out in total desperation, unleashing grave danger across the province he is hiding under. By the time the party gets to him, he is a sad, tragic, frantic sack of bones.
Ooh I'm a little hung up on the grand scale plan concept you mentioned, but hear me out. A lich who's chosen this path of eternal unrest and life of rot, not because of cowardice or a fear of death, but through sheer devotion to the grand scheme, the master plan. They couldn't trust in leaving it to fate or the future generations, it has to be them lest someone else could've gotten it wrong. This goal of theirs could even be a noble one, but perhaps their means to this end are unjustifiable, as they are willing to take as many souls as they need to see it through. This plan might've not been their own to begin with, but of someone else's long ago that they valued deeply enough to carry on their mission, out of tribute, a true believer. Although going as far as to become a lich may not have been what that original someone would've ever wanted. Or maybe they did? It's up to you though, these ideas are free if anyone wants to use them.
Here's an idea for a soul cage: A magic sword that, when it hasn't been upgraded, it's just a common or uncommon sword, but once it is fed souls (or reunited with the lich) it becomes an artifact sword.
I had a somewhat similar lich once. The sword was always an artifact though, always very powerful, as well as being intelligent and having awareness around it. In addition to being a +3 weapon, it had the Soul Steal property. I don't recall the specifics of the ability, but I believe it was something like a chance when you critically hit to instantly kill a foe by absorbing their soul into the weapon. The weapon was of course the phylactery for a lich, but he didn't use it himself, he would just give it freely to anyone strong and blood thirsty. That way, it would constantly be absorbing souls periodically while this crazy person used it. Meanwhile, the lich basically just went about their business as usual, no longer worrying about supplying souls to their phylactery. The best part is, even if that guy is killed at some point, whoever killed him will just use the sword themselves to keep killing with it in an endless cycle of violence and murder that perpetually sustains the lich.
Pompeii would be good inspiration for a lich's lair. Replace volcano with apocalyptic spell that absorbed the souls of everyone in the city to achieve lichdom or something.
Now thinking of a low fantasy campaign where the first Lich comes to power. The reason they are becoming a Lich is not some evil purpose, but instead simply must continue researching magic for the benefit of all society.
I find it weird that most liches aren't loaded up with magic items. It feels like a high intelligence beings would be packing magic items like an 80's action hero packs ammunition. Maybe give them a legendary action to replace all used magic items one time.
Not a lot of monsters come with magic items prescribed to their stat-block, only usually special characters. I've assumed this is partly for simplicity sake, not to over-complicate an already complex stat-block. However, I wonder if you could take some of the Liches innate abilities and turn them into magic items that the lich was in fact wielding, and could therefore be looted. I'm thinking maybe their tether lair action?
I also find this weird. It says in their description that they should probably have magic items and would use them to defend themselves. So wizards of the coast, are we supposed to give them magic items?
I always liked the idea of a lich having a high level artificer on the payroll. Either an undead under their control or even a mortal they cooperate with for various reasons. Artificers have the ability to touch just random cheap, mundane objects of certain types and instantly enchanting them to become magical items. It stands to reason, at least to me, that with enough effort and time (easy for an immortal undead artificer that no longer needs rest or sleep or food anymore) could eventually expand what sorts of items that its infusions can duplicate. You could go so far as staff of power and robes of the archmagi and all that if you wanted, but even less powerful ones are still very useful. The reason I like this approach is because if the lich DOES get defeated, he can go back to the artificer to get those same infusions on new objects to instantly replace them and regain those abilities again. It also gives the players that killed the lich a potentially HUGE power boost having these very powerful items for a few days UNTIL the lich rejuvenates and gets fresh infusions, which would cause the old infusions to fade away and become mundane again. So it gives them very powerful items on a time limit, which can be fun for them without hurting the game long term.
Another reason someone would become a lich is obsession. One of my creations is Valacar the Sage, a librarian and Scolari so obsessed with collecting books and lore that he became a lich rather than trust future generations with his library. The fun bit here is at first he can be a patron for the PC's working through agents so they don't know who is paying them for books. Then in the future they need to raid his library and learn the awful truth.
I had a Lich NPC that was once a heroic wizard that attempted to stop a group of high powered cultists. The cultists themselves were conducting a ritual and as the wizard and his adventuring party broke in and fought the cult, the ritual took the blood spilled through the fight as an offering. In the end, all that were in the ritual circle in the room were devoured by the shadowy beast that was summoned but the ritual backfired and exploded, converting the wizard and a couple survivors into undead. Though they didn’t realize this light from the explosion was what changed them until days later when their bodies began to whither. One of the cultists had received the same curse/gift while the wizard was being converted into a lich and the fighter became more like a death knight. They have spent the now extended period of their lives trying to find the cultist while trying to find clues and artifacts to reverse the effects of the ritual. The party playing through this quest don’t know that the cultist in the group was a polymorphed dragon that had manipulated the cult into attempting the ritual. Though the dragon’s goal was eternal life so that he may become the strongest dragon on the planet, he soon realized he was converted into a dracolich. The wizard turned lich hates that he must sacrifice souls to keep himself from becoming a Demi lich and losing who he is before the mystery of the ritual is discovered. The death knight now acts as a sort of soul hunter so that his friend doesn’t bare the burden of the souls alone.
Lich alternative, A Wizard who has multiple clones hidden throughout the land in unscryable locations. Also if I was a lich I might make a skull shaped mountain fortress... It would be a deathtrap and I wouldn't be there.
My first character was killed by a lich's Power Word Kill. Luna (my PC), myself, and the rest of the party, both OOC and in-character, hated him long before we learned that he was an undead wizard living on stolen time. The whole "surprise, he's a lich and not some foppish noble" just made things more interesting.
To be fair, there was an old Russian tale about an imortal sorcerer that was enemies with Baba Yaga and could only be killed by destroying his heart that he hid away in a very hard to find place. He was not called a lich, but fits the criteria to a T.
Funny you mention the regret, cause I wrote a lich once that only survived on the idea of the lost cost fallacy, he felt stopping now meant all those souls died for nothing.
A character I made for my game is kinda a partial lich. To summarize, she tried a lichification ritual on her best friend after his death, not fully aware of how it was supposed to work, so she was turned into some twisted version of one instead. Instead of needing to capture the souls of others to survive, she has to satiate a hunger for humanoid flesh. She's tried not to give in in the past, but that's led to her body rotting away irrevocably. She now wanders aimlessly wanting to find new people, to entertain her or be her food, whichever choice comes first. She covers herself up to hide the aspects of her appearance giving away what she is and tries acting almost as an entirely different person to cover up her past.
One of the things I'm thinking of doing for a campaign I am going to be running soon is an apprentice wizard (VGtM) who is an ally of the PCs, even introduces them to his master (A Diviner from the same book). As the players grow in power, the apprentice makes progress towards acquiring the Necromancer stat block, which may progress to them becoming a lich without the players realizing that they are the ones who made it possible.
A lich is undead and doesn't need to breathe. I like to put my lich lairs underwater, usually far from any land. It uses divine magic to monitor what is happening and teleports to directly interact with the outside world.
Great vid and gives me some great ideas. Though when ever you mention a warrior or character who didn’t want to become a Lich but did for breaking a sacred vow is literally describing a Death Knight.
I remember a story posted on AllThingsD&D where a DM wanted to punish a party of murder hobos, so he had the king of the kingdom they'd been ravaging become a lich in order to raise dead to work the fields, since there weren't enough people left to grow crops. They arrived to fight the lich, but he didn't have the power to stop them. The lich mentioned how, in order to perform the ritual, an innocent had to be sacrificed. His own granddaughter volunteered. The players were second guessing their behavior after that session. Point is, a lich can be sympathetic, if you work it right.
The "collect lich parts" I've done, the party had to face it before time: a flameskull and 2 crawling claws using wands. Also, other than the dead knight, we have another "variant": the mummy lord, it's the sacred version
Perhaps a Lich should have their lairs adorned with statues of powerful, strong looking mages. Depicting how the Lich used to look before he decayed. How he sees himself.
Lich idea, a bard who poured all his soul into a song and it spread far and wide. Now they eigther are trying to end their existence by removing the song from memory or can only be truly slain by doing so. You decide.
Phylactery idea for a clerical lich. The lich used a living beings heart as the phylactery. Every few years the lich comes to town in the guise of a healer. While healing a sick or dying child, the lich swaps the heart from its old meat vessel to a new, younger one and casts heal on the child. Destroying the phylactery becomes a moral quandary as it would mean removing the child's heart.
In my sea side town Marsh Harbor is a bridge coined the Fey Bane Bridge. Encircling the bridge Wild Magic affects any spell or spell affect of any spell caster. The reason is that a Lich, Demi Lich or Arch Lich is imprisoned in the heart of the bridge. Woe to those who release it!!! I have not thought through anything yet about the energy being countered that this ancient evil would emanate or what happens if released. I thank you for your ideas
My necromancer character had a Demi Lich ( his former Lich Master) as a Staff/Insane companion. The Skull body of the Demi Lich was grasped by a skeletal hand and arm attached to a skeletal leg and foot. It hopped around and caused all sorts of nonsense 😂
And if ye want more like ideas on cool Lich abilities you can give yer spoopy liches, ye can take a look at the new Alternate Lich Abilities in the PF2e Book of the Dead. My personal favorite is the one that makes the Lich's phylactery into an animated object that the Lich can control as it's soul is inside it. So you can have it running around or trying to fight back.
In my current campaign, my players discovered, that the BBEG an old netheril Arcanist used the power of a mythallar to create two soul cages. And one of them are the bones of a player of the group. The player discovered he is the heir of the lich.
Idea for a litch/litch coven Master litch who simply wishes to learn more The apprentice litch who aspires to be as powerful if not more powerful as the master And the pact litches. Less powerful subservient souls that are both food and tools of war for the other 2
Hmmmm… Though there is no monster called liches there are still stories about those who would try to defy death by hiding their soul way into an object. Koschei The Deathless from Russian folklore is a good example.
Unless there is an earlier mythological or folklore figure I've been unable to find, as far as I can tell he's probably the origin of this trope. The guy's description even fits the bill of basically looking like an emaciated or mummified human with immense strength, cunning, and magical prowess. While yeah the word Lich is a more modern category people came up with, these kinds of men turned monsters from power and immortality are a reoccurring theme in folklore and mythology.
I've often described Koschei as the OG lich. He was never called that as the idea of a lich as we know them didn't appear until recently, but if someone asked me to describe what Koschei was I'd call him a lich
Eldritch lich based around beholders. Like graphed mother beholder parts to control other beholderers and can control the creation powers of the beholder while awake
I decided to use a lich after deciding to explore other themes, actually, and decided a lich was most likely the culprit, and fit the horror vibe I was going for. The themes I decided to explore where disease and madness, which I assume are themes commonly explored recently, following the pandemic lockdowns. My friends are wanting to play D&D again, some have dealt with those two themes in real life, and they had requested to do a horror themed game (probably influenced by Stranger Things). Anyway, what kind of mastermind could be behind my dastardly plot, who would allow me to explore disease and madness, and fit a grimdark horror setting? Obviously, a lich fits that bill quite nicely. That said, I have homebrewed my own setting/world, so a few things will be tweaked, so that the lich fits in the cosmology of my world, but yeah, pretty much a lich reskin with enough changes so that the players won't immediately recognize it and know what monster that they are facing- since so many stress the importance of playing up the unknown in a horror game. I guess more specifically, it would be Vecna, since my big baddie will be an undead god/old one.
would love to create a Lich that drains the memories, thoughts and dreams of people and they would hoards thousands and thousands upon thousands of books in a massive library. They can't not know, they fear the thought of not knowing anything of anything. They will actively seek out long lived races and mythical creatures to gain their knowledge going after elves, mind flayers, the elder brain, dragons, genies, beholders, other liches, sphinxes, nagas and maybe even powerful humans. maybe they have so much knowledge that they have to like make a container of knowledge so that they don't fry like their brain? or something, and if a player manages to get a hold of one of these containers maybe they have to make an almost impossible wisdom save to just keep their sanity but would gain immense knowledge. Or they would create these contains that basically act like brains and becomes a hivemind all sharing thoughts and knowledge.
Make the phylactery "soul cage" a magic item the PCs would want. Then have them wonder how this lich keeps finding them every two weeks or so, appearing in the middle of their camp in the dead of night out of nowhere.
My lich was punished by the gods. Damned with the screaming souls of an entire city that she angrily turned against the gods who let their children die
One of the easiest ways to make your monsters more formiddable is to make them mechanically more like players. Player characters are incredibly powerful, with abilities no creature has but would be tremendously more powerful if they did. Give large monsters great weapon master bonus damage with no hit penalty as it's just a swipe of the claw as large as a greatsword. Give sorcery points to casters skilled enough to alter spells with their own flair. Action surge. Meta magic. Ki points. The list goes on and just a few player abilities can make chump fights truly terrifying
I have a lich in my current campaign, a young priest of Selene turned sailor. Only to be misled by the mischievous Shar and kill his own temple and surrounding townspeople. But in damnation he has found redemption by guarding a severed elder undead dragon’s soul and preventing it from reuniting with its body. The dragons body makes up an enormous island chain unbeknownst to the party, the church, and inhabitants of the islands. The soul is trapped in large sapphire that fell from space, and I’m hoping my players mistake this gem as the Phylactery, destroying it, and releasing the dragon and damning everyone and thing. Happy DM thoughts.
Made the Phylactery of the Lich in my campaign a beloved party member who was trying to cure their own blood curse, so, the only way to save the world will be taking the life of someone who has been with them since the beginning, Just like the worlds most brutal trolly problem💀✨ (Oddly, this won’t permanently kill the character, I lowkey just needed a reason for my party to go to hell for some other plot stuff, and reclaiming the soul of a fallen ally felt like as good of a reason as any 😂)
Have to give credit where it’s due, your examples for lich villains was well explored. I made my campaign few months back and… my friends all chose dwarves🤦♂️ anyhow I made villain who convinced the group to hunt down my lich through several chapters involving a local marsh and dark magics corrupting the waters. By the time they got to it, there wasn’t a battle but rather reason why the lich was still present. “ to protect…. My blood… I chose this outta love… “ mind it though the lich was only a humble man in life who lost his relatives in a scheme to rid his bloodline in the past and in his last breathes he caster the spell as a absolute last resort to stop the men from killing his month old grandson. He is now three hundred years old, tethered still to his family’s brooch and desires only to see his kin and descendants flourish towards a better future. The real villain was of course the leading governor of where the heroes began in a scheme to end the liches bloodline once and for all. After the…. 🤦♂️ dwarves tea baggings the village made a angel statue dedicated to the lich, leaving him be to rest until he is needed again
What about a lich who discovered some great doom that was going to someday destroy the world if a solution couldn't be found, but nearing the end of his mortal life he realized that he would not live to find a solution in time. And so he underwent a terrible transformation so he could continue his research, certain that he and he alone could find the answers and save the world, he sacrificed his humanity, damned his soul and determined that anyone who got in his way must be eliminated and if thousands must perish to save the world then so be it, he was, after all, the hero who was destined to save everything from oblivion.
You know, somehow, I'm just now realizing that while it obviously doesn't fit all the tropes, preserving one's life force and therefore living as long as their magic artifact does as a potentially central theme of a lich means that Dorian Gray could technically be a sort of lich, with his painting as his pylactery. Obviously he doesn't decay, but maybe there's an idea to be had there where a vain wizard doesn't want to lose their beauty, and manages to alter their lich spell so that the image of them in their phylactery decays instead of their actual body. Or maybe they offer this sort of lichdom to nobles at exuberant prices, creating many Dorians, for whatever scheme they're trying to pull off.
I played a good ol' Dread Necromancer all the way to level 20, became a lich as per the class capstone and had the character retire by opening a brothel within the capital city across from the Church of Light. And before you ask, the only living women within the brothel was the attendant at the front desk, the bar tender, and the kitchen staff. All of the 'working girls' were some varieties of cleverly disguised undead or golem. The cream of the crop however were 4 nymphs that had been given the vampire spawn template via create greater undead and trained as both Monks and Courtesans. My DM was both flabbergasted and impressed to the point where my brothel became an urban legend for all of his other games, entertaining and horrifying his players for years after the fact.
Lich who is in pain, but when it kills or it servants sacrifice living things to it in rituals, pain goes away and it's strength returns ...for a while. Perhaps lich needs new body after a while, new body starts always to break apart.
We had a lich who's phylaxtary was an artifact called the gem of everlasting gold. This held in the underground city my character lived in 38 centuriescago. The lich destroyed the PCs whole civilization and killed their god- talk about motivation
Okay… hot take…. Power Word Kill is boring. We’ve got so many incredible, terrifying 9th level spells now! Let’s mic things up a bit- my personal favorite is psychic scream!
For an enemy caster, Blade of Disaster is among the most interesting, especially if the caster is hard to attack. Glyph of Warding to create a resilient sphere perhaps?
The demilich is terrifying and you really should reread its statblock. Just a reminder that it's tiny and can fly so it's lair has no good reason to not be the most miserable Vietnam stile trap riden tunnel system. Just a reminder the demilich has resistance to magical bludgeoning piercing and slashing and has a save or die aoe ability. So this whole it's a pushover thing is just ridiculous.
WTF ... seriously ... if a DM, that cannot take good use of a high level, immortal, 20+ INT spellcaster, and reduces that creature to a mere combat encounter, then by all means, stop DMing! A creature with a INT score that high poses so much opportunities for plots, meta- or counterplots, it normaly doesnt have to use combat at all, and if it does, it does it to show off. Be sure it will have a plan b, c, d in it's sleeves and most likely more than an ace or two. And for demiliches, consult the ad&d 2nd editions monster manual, where they nicely explain, why the lich lost it's interest in his form and reaches for the stars. Also consult the van richtens guides to the lich for great inspiration to make it a real unique experience for your players ... and for christ sake, even if it's 5E now, stop and put everything down to combat encounters ...
A lich variant l saw in another game, used a set of runes inscribed on the body in order to be created. A soul rune to trap the soul in the body, an animation rune to keep the body mobile, and a preservation rune to keep the body from decaying. The weakness of this lich is that if the runes are destroyed the lich is destroyed. If the soul rune is destroyed the soul slip away and it become a soulless zombie, if the preservation rune is destroyed the body rapidly begin to decay. Or if the animation rune is damaged, the soul is now trapped in an inanimate corpse. This mean that the Lich will need to protect the runes at all costs.
Lich idea: Tethera was a druid whose greatest love was her vast garden, however that became threatened when a magic drought cursed the land. She turned to dark druidic magic to save it, binding her very soul to the lives of her plants. Now she is a druidic lich serving her phylactery: a powerful, soul-hungry, undead garden. At the gardens behest she gives flowers grown from it to people to plant on the graves of the recently dead. These flowers allow people to talk with the dead of the grave every new moon. Little do the people know that the soul is simply devoured and the flowers speak with stolen memories. And if the garden if ever threatened every cemetery where the flowers are planted has a potential army beneath as well as townsfolk unwilling to believe their loved ones aren't talking to them. (Afterall, why have the phylactery be a weakness when it can be more dangerous than the lich)
That's brilliant.... I'm stealing it
*yoink*
STOLEN
This is absolutely brilliant and it is also absolutely getting stolen! Thank You!
That's why they watch videos like this one, @jamesdeer3129 . Cmon down off your high horse and have fun with the rest of us.
I just realised Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean could be considered a Lich. Removed his heart rather than his soul, his lair that he holds dominion over is the Flying Dutchman, he made a pact with a sea goddess to guide the dead and when he broke that pact he and his crew (minions) steadily became less human and more like humanoid sea creature abominations (as opposed to rotting). He even recruits his crew from the dead and dying. If I ever run a seaborne campaign I’m definitely using him as a major villain
Holy shit! That's AMAZING!
I have always considered him as such, it was one of the first things I thought when I heard about his heart. But I guess it is because i'm a big fan of Mummy Lords and they already use their heart as a phylactery.
"Just remember lich is a template not a creature". As my old DM said as the lich Medusa flanked by undead beholders entered the room.
no way dude. I'm out, I'm running, forget the party
@@LoreFoundry
"Nice to see ya, wouldn't wannabe be ya" -Sorcerer, about to subtle spell planeshift to Celestia.
@jamesdeer3129He never said his dm thinks liches need a change. Why is it in your opinion wrong to be creative?
@jamesdeer3129 Your point being?
@jamesdeer3129 Immaculate logic, unfortunately to you, the guy you replied to was also not talking to you. Takes one to know one, huh?
Our setting has a lich as one of its central characters. Or rather, a FORMER lich.
Lurwen was once your typical lich, until he was recruited into opposing the Crimson Incursion, the god of tyranny's attempt to conquer the material plane. He began to feel regret, longing for the ability to feel the joys of life once more. After the incursion was repulsed, the lich's companions were granted immortality, and Lurwen saw his chance. He brought forth his soul cage before the goddess of fire and hardship, and offered it as a burnt sacrifice, throwing his very existence upon the mercies of the Queen of the Sun.
And his offering was accepted. What was once Lurwen the dreaded was now Lurwen the Living Saint, Lurwen the First Rekindled. He still spends his time beneath the prison city of Tare'Tuk, running the First Undead Monastery, guiding unwilling or remorseful undead along his path to become Rekindled, and returned to the proper cycle of life, death, and reincarnation.
My favourite concept I ever had for a lich, which I sadly never got to explore, was Lichdom being only phase 1. The way I was running it, there had only ever been 2 liches, Acererak and Vecna. Acererak was the first, the only one who knew all the secrets of lichdom, and he, as a demilich, whispered the secrets to Vecna from beyond the Astral Sea. What he neglected to mention, though, was that becoming a lich was only the beginning, the secret to true mastery of death is for one lich to consume another of similar power. So Acererak pulled strings behind the scenes, trying to bring Vecna to his level and, right as he hit the point he needed, Vecna was betrayed and killed by Kas.
The entire campaign, the party are trying to stop a cult devoted to Vecna, only to learn that the leader was a servant of Acererak trying to resurrect Vecna to sacrifice him to Acererak. Then the party gets to find out what the next step after a lich is.
I'm making one for my setting as one of the late antagonists, and everything about him *bleeds* tragedy. He possesses an artifact (A chalice) that can grant true immortality as long as you drink from it every day...But in order to help people in the wake of grave crises, he gave away the gems on the chalice (Philosopher's stones), which have potent healing power...
With the power of the chalice fading, he began to rot and shrivel with age, and, suddenly gripped with a fear of death (and believing he did not deserve it after all the people he helped), he retreated deep underground with the chalice... In fact, he does nothing to oppose the party or help anyone for a very long time.
But, the party's goal is to reassemble those ancient artifacts, including the chalice. And, once it realizes that a party of heroes, backed by his old Patron, are coming for him and his chalice, he begins to lash out in total desperation, unleashing grave danger across the province he is hiding under. By the time the party gets to him, he is a sad, tragic, frantic sack of bones.
Ooh I'm a little hung up on the grand scale plan concept you mentioned, but hear me out. A lich who's chosen this path of eternal unrest and life of rot, not because of cowardice or a fear of death, but through sheer devotion to the grand scheme, the master plan. They couldn't trust in leaving it to fate or the future generations, it has to be them lest someone else could've gotten it wrong. This goal of theirs could even be a noble one, but perhaps their means to this end are unjustifiable, as they are willing to take as many souls as they need to see it through. This plan might've not been their own to begin with, but of someone else's long ago that they valued deeply enough to carry on their mission, out of tribute, a true believer. Although going as far as to become a lich may not have been what that original someone would've ever wanted.
Or maybe they did? It's up to you though, these ideas are free if anyone wants to use them.
Here's an idea for a soul cage:
A magic sword that, when it hasn't been upgraded, it's just a common or uncommon sword, but once it is fed souls (or reunited with the lich) it becomes an artifact sword.
Deep cut: the old man in the cave at beginning of legend of Zelda was a Lich, and the sword his soul cage :)
I had a somewhat similar lich once. The sword was always an artifact though, always very powerful, as well as being intelligent and having awareness around it. In addition to being a +3 weapon, it had the Soul Steal property. I don't recall the specifics of the ability, but I believe it was something like a chance when you critically hit to instantly kill a foe by absorbing their soul into the weapon. The weapon was of course the phylactery for a lich, but he didn't use it himself, he would just give it freely to anyone strong and blood thirsty. That way, it would constantly be absorbing souls periodically while this crazy person used it. Meanwhile, the lich basically just went about their business as usual, no longer worrying about supplying souls to their phylactery.
The best part is, even if that guy is killed at some point, whoever killed him will just use the sword themselves to keep killing with it in an endless cycle of violence and murder that perpetually sustains the lich.
slowing but surely binging all the content; how much I missed something like GG in my life
Pompeii would be good inspiration for a lich's lair. Replace volcano with apocalyptic spell that absorbed the souls of everyone in the city to achieve lichdom or something.
Ooh! That’s super evocative, a very cool idea. 😮
This is sort of the idea behind my volcanic island that I'm calling "Fata Morgana" but is colloquially known as "the mirrored island"
Now thinking of a low fantasy campaign where the first Lich comes to power. The reason they are becoming a Lich is not some evil purpose, but instead simply must continue researching magic for the benefit of all society.
This would literally be me if such magic were real xD
I find it weird that most liches aren't loaded up with magic items. It feels like a high intelligence beings would be packing magic items like an 80's action hero packs ammunition. Maybe give them a legendary action to replace all used magic items one time.
Not a lot of monsters come with magic items prescribed to their stat-block, only usually special characters. I've assumed this is partly for simplicity sake, not to over-complicate an already complex stat-block.
However, I wonder if you could take some of the Liches innate abilities and turn them into magic items that the lich was in fact wielding, and could therefore be looted. I'm thinking maybe their tether lair action?
Oh yeah a lair action in there lair fits. I think a one use ring/amulet of counterspell would give some players pause to think.
I also find this weird. It says in their description that they should probably have magic items and would use them to defend themselves. So wizards of the coast, are we supposed to give them magic items?
Determine what treasure the lich has and if there is magic items, the lich should be using it.
I always liked the idea of a lich having a high level artificer on the payroll. Either an undead under their control or even a mortal they cooperate with for various reasons. Artificers have the ability to touch just random cheap, mundane objects of certain types and instantly enchanting them to become magical items. It stands to reason, at least to me, that with enough effort and time (easy for an immortal undead artificer that no longer needs rest or sleep or food anymore) could eventually expand what sorts of items that its infusions can duplicate. You could go so far as staff of power and robes of the archmagi and all that if you wanted, but even less powerful ones are still very useful.
The reason I like this approach is because if the lich DOES get defeated, he can go back to the artificer to get those same infusions on new objects to instantly replace them and regain those abilities again. It also gives the players that killed the lich a potentially HUGE power boost having these very powerful items for a few days UNTIL the lich rejuvenates and gets fresh infusions, which would cause the old infusions to fade away and become mundane again. So it gives them very powerful items on a time limit, which can be fun for them without hurting the game long term.
Another reason someone would become a lich is obsession. One of my creations is Valacar the Sage, a librarian and Scolari so obsessed with collecting books and lore that he became a lich rather than trust future generations with his library. The fun bit here is at first he can be a patron for the PC's working through agents so they don't know who is paying them for books. Then in the future they need to raid his library and learn the awful truth.
It takes a lot to impress me, and you good sir have done just that. Thank you. Myself as well as my family will be purchasing your wonderful series.
I had a Lich NPC that was once a heroic wizard that attempted to stop a group of high powered cultists. The cultists themselves were conducting a ritual and as the wizard and his adventuring party broke in and fought the cult, the ritual took the blood spilled through the fight as an offering. In the end, all that were in the ritual circle in the room were devoured by the shadowy beast that was summoned but the ritual backfired and exploded, converting the wizard and a couple survivors into undead. Though they didn’t realize this light from the explosion was what changed them until days later when their bodies began to whither. One of the cultists had received the same curse/gift while the wizard was being converted into a lich and the fighter became more like a death knight. They have spent the now extended period of their lives trying to find the cultist while trying to find clues and artifacts to reverse the effects of the ritual.
The party playing through this quest don’t know that the cultist in the group was a polymorphed dragon that had manipulated the cult into attempting the ritual. Though the dragon’s goal was eternal life so that he may become the strongest dragon on the planet, he soon realized he was converted into a dracolich.
The wizard turned lich hates that he must sacrifice souls to keep himself from becoming a Demi lich and losing who he is before the mystery of the ritual is discovered. The death knight now acts as a sort of soul hunter so that his friend doesn’t bare the burden of the souls alone.
Great ideas. Thx. Always remember the reasons why someone would overcome death.
Lich alternative, A Wizard who has multiple clones hidden throughout the land in unscryable locations.
Also if I was a lich I might make a skull shaped mountain fortress... It would be a deathtrap and I wouldn't be there.
Big props for using Soul Cage instead of more traditional words. Very cool of y'all and thank you.
My first character was killed by a lich's Power Word Kill. Luna (my PC), myself, and the rest of the party, both OOC and in-character, hated him long before we learned that he was an undead wizard living on stolen time. The whole "surprise, he's a lich and not some foppish noble" just made things more interesting.
To be fair, there was an old Russian tale about an imortal sorcerer that was enemies with Baba Yaga and could only be killed by destroying his heart that he hid away in a very hard to find place. He was not called a lich, but fits the criteria to a T.
Funny you mention the regret, cause I wrote a lich once that only survived on the idea of the lost cost fallacy, he felt stopping now meant all those souls died for nothing.
Making sickening abilities cause exhaustion is very interesting... I also really like the recharge breath weapon idea.
A character I made for my game is kinda a partial lich. To summarize, she tried a lichification ritual on her best friend after his death, not fully aware of how it was supposed to work, so she was turned into some twisted version of one instead. Instead of needing to capture the souls of others to survive, she has to satiate a hunger for humanoid flesh. She's tried not to give in in the past, but that's led to her body rotting away irrevocably. She now wanders aimlessly wanting to find new people, to entertain her or be her food, whichever choice comes first. She covers herself up to hide the aspects of her appearance giving away what she is and tries acting almost as an entirely different person to cover up her past.
One of the things I'm thinking of doing for a campaign I am going to be running soon is an apprentice wizard (VGtM) who is an ally of the PCs, even introduces them to his master (A Diviner from the same book).
As the players grow in power, the apprentice makes progress towards acquiring the Necromancer stat block, which may progress to them becoming a lich without the players realizing that they are the ones who made it possible.
A lich is undead and doesn't need to breathe. I like to put my lich lairs underwater, usually far from any land. It uses divine magic to monitor what is happening and teleports to directly interact with the outside world.
Great vid and gives me some great ideas. Though when ever you mention a warrior or character who didn’t want to become a Lich but did for breaking a sacred vow is literally describing a Death Knight.
I remember a story posted on AllThingsD&D where a DM wanted to punish a party of murder hobos, so he had the king of the kingdom they'd been ravaging become a lich in order to raise dead to work the fields, since there weren't enough people left to grow crops.
They arrived to fight the lich, but he didn't have the power to stop them.
The lich mentioned how, in order to perform the ritual, an innocent had to be sacrificed.
His own granddaughter volunteered.
The players were second guessing their behavior after that session.
Point is, a lich can be sympathetic, if you work it right.
When the lich is the hero and the party is the villains:
I wish I knew what each of the cinematic trailers they used were! They all worked so well for this and I want to watch the ones I haven't seen yet
Sauron could be a lich. He's a powerful necromancer who is defeated when the One Ring is destroyed
The "collect lich parts" I've done, the party had to face it before time: a flameskull and 2 crawling claws using wands. Also, other than the dead knight, we have another "variant": the mummy lord, it's the sacred version
Perhaps a Lich should have their lairs adorned with statues of powerful, strong looking mages. Depicting how the Lich used to look before he decayed. How he sees himself.
Lich idea, a bard who poured all his soul into a song and it spread far and wide. Now they eigther are trying to end their existence by removing the song from memory or can only be truly slain by doing so. You decide.
A lich that turns to technology to preserve his rotting body or replace it with robotics. Making a power Technomancer Lich.
That's 40k Necrons
Artificer lich
@@disgruntledbob2812 i love this so much
@@MikeOldani or the god-emperor of mankind
This is exactly what my BBEG is in my TOA games 👀😆 The Techromancer
Phylactery idea for a clerical lich. The lich used a living beings heart as the phylactery. Every few years the lich comes to town in the guise of a healer. While healing a sick or dying child, the lich swaps the heart from its old meat vessel to a new, younger one and casts heal on the child. Destroying the phylactery becomes a moral quandary as it would mean removing the child's heart.
In my sea side town Marsh Harbor is a bridge coined the Fey Bane Bridge. Encircling the bridge Wild Magic affects any spell or spell affect of any spell caster. The reason is that a Lich, Demi Lich or Arch Lich is imprisoned in the heart of the bridge. Woe to those who release it!!! I have not thought through anything yet about the energy being countered that this ancient evil would emanate or what happens if released. I thank you for your ideas
My necromancer character had a Demi Lich ( his former Lich Master) as a Staff/Insane companion. The Skull body of the Demi Lich was grasped by a skeletal hand and arm attached to a skeletal leg and foot. It hopped around and caused all sorts of nonsense 😂
And if ye want more like ideas on cool Lich abilities you can give yer spoopy liches, ye can take a look at the new Alternate Lich Abilities in the PF2e Book of the Dead. My personal favorite is the one that makes the Lich's phylactery into an animated object that the Lich can control as it's soul is inside it. So you can have it running around or trying to fight back.
17:22 you can also always give the lich shape change and have them turn into a ancient red shadow dragon (if you increase there CR)
(Combat starts. Party gets ready.)
Lich: *_Fall._*
(Party falls unconscious.)
In my current campaign, my players discovered, that the BBEG an old netheril Arcanist used the power of a mythallar to create two soul cages. And one of them are the bones of a player of the group. The player discovered he is the heir of the lich.
Do you think the villain from “Snow White and the Huntsman” could be classified as a lich? Takes away some of those conventional tropes too.
Idea for a litch/litch coven
Master litch who simply wishes to learn more
The apprentice litch who aspires to be as powerful if not more powerful as the master
And the pact litches. Less powerful subservient souls that are both food and tools of war for the other 2
So, sith lords seeking immortality?
@@maxgrozema1093
Yes
Hmmmm… Though there is no monster called liches there are still stories about those who would try to defy death by hiding their soul way into an object. Koschei The Deathless from Russian folklore is a good example.
Unless there is an earlier mythological or folklore figure I've been unable to find, as far as I can tell he's probably the origin of this trope. The guy's description even fits the bill of basically looking like an emaciated or mummified human with immense strength, cunning, and magical prowess. While yeah the word Lich is a more modern category people came up with, these kinds of men turned monsters from power and immortality are a reoccurring theme in folklore and mythology.
I've often described Koschei as the OG lich. He was never called that as the idea of a lich as we know them didn't appear until recently, but if someone asked me to describe what Koschei was I'd call him a lich
Eldritch lich based around beholders. Like graphed mother beholder parts to control other beholderers and can control the creation powers of the beholder while awake
You guys have any idea where do you get the illustrations from your thumbnail (artist or games that have that art). They look so cool!
Thanks! The thumbnail of this particular video is from one of our own books, the Grim Hollow Campaign Guide. Artist is Raymond Minnaar.
@@GhostfireGaming perfect timing! Me and my friends are looking for an undead themed campaign. Will definitely pick this up.
I decided to use a lich after deciding to explore other themes, actually, and decided a lich was most likely the culprit, and fit the horror vibe I was going for. The themes I decided to explore where disease and madness, which I assume are themes commonly explored recently, following the pandemic lockdowns. My friends are wanting to play D&D again, some have dealt with those two themes in real life, and they had requested to do a horror themed game (probably influenced by Stranger Things). Anyway, what kind of mastermind could be behind my dastardly plot, who would allow me to explore disease and madness, and fit a grimdark horror setting? Obviously, a lich fits that bill quite nicely. That said, I have homebrewed my own setting/world, so a few things will be tweaked, so that the lich fits in the cosmology of my world, but yeah, pretty much a lich reskin with enough changes so that the players won't immediately recognize it and know what monster that they are facing- since so many stress the importance of playing up the unknown in a horror game. I guess more specifically, it would be Vecna, since my big baddie will be an undead god/old one.
would love to create a Lich that drains the memories, thoughts and dreams of people and they would hoards thousands and thousands upon thousands of books in a massive library. They can't not know, they fear the thought of not knowing anything of anything. They will actively seek out long lived races and mythical creatures to gain their knowledge going after elves, mind flayers, the elder brain, dragons, genies, beholders, other liches, sphinxes, nagas and maybe even powerful humans. maybe they have so much knowledge that they have to like make a container of knowledge so that they don't fry like their brain? or something, and if a player manages to get a hold of one of these containers maybe they have to make an almost impossible wisdom save to just keep their sanity but would gain immense knowledge. Or they would create these contains that basically act like brains and becomes a hivemind all sharing thoughts and knowledge.
Make the phylactery "soul cage" a magic item the PCs would want.
Then have them wonder how this lich keeps finding them every two weeks or so, appearing in the middle of their camp in the dead of night out of nowhere.
I build liches like pc story though mine tend to be cleric liches
My lich was punished by the gods. Damned with the screaming souls of an entire city that she angrily turned against the gods who let their children die
One of the easiest ways to make your monsters more formiddable is to make them mechanically more like players. Player characters are incredibly powerful, with abilities no creature has but would be tremendously more powerful if they did.
Give large monsters great weapon master bonus damage with no hit penalty as it's just a swipe of the claw as large as a greatsword. Give sorcery points to casters skilled enough to alter spells with their own flair. Action surge. Meta magic. Ki points. The list goes on and just a few player abilities can make chump fights truly terrifying
I love liches as villians who sought unlimited power to do something good.
I have a lich in my current campaign, a young priest of Selene turned sailor. Only to be misled by the mischievous Shar and kill his own temple and surrounding townspeople. But in damnation he has found redemption by guarding a severed elder undead dragon’s soul and preventing it from reuniting with its body. The dragons body makes up an enormous island chain unbeknownst to the party, the church, and inhabitants of the islands. The soul is trapped in large sapphire that fell from space, and I’m hoping my players mistake this gem as the Phylactery, destroying it, and releasing the dragon and damning everyone and thing. Happy DM thoughts.
Made the Phylactery of the Lich in my campaign a beloved party member who was trying to cure their own blood curse, so, the only way to save the world will be taking the life of someone who has been with them since the beginning,
Just like the worlds most brutal trolly problem💀✨
(Oddly, this won’t permanently kill the character, I lowkey just needed a reason for my party to go to hell for some other plot stuff, and reclaiming the soul of a fallen ally felt like as good of a reason as any 😂)
Have to give credit where it’s due, your examples for lich villains was well explored. I made my campaign few months back and… my friends all chose dwarves🤦♂️ anyhow I made villain who convinced the group to hunt down my lich through several chapters involving a local marsh and dark magics corrupting the waters. By the time they got to it, there wasn’t a battle but rather reason why the lich was still present. “ to protect…. My blood… I chose this outta love… “ mind it though the lich was only a humble man in life who lost his relatives in a scheme to rid his bloodline in the past and in his last breathes he caster the spell as a absolute last resort to stop the men from killing his month old grandson. He is now three hundred years old, tethered still to his family’s brooch and desires only to see his kin and descendants flourish towards a better future. The real villain was of course the leading governor of where the heroes began in a scheme to end the liches bloodline once and for all. After the…. 🤦♂️ dwarves tea baggings the village made a angel statue dedicated to the lich, leaving him be to rest until he is needed again
Idea: How about a lich whose phylactery is their castle? And the castle has to be completely destroyed to destroy the lich soul inside.
Could a Lich use the clone spell to transfer it's essence into a clone body once their current body rots away?
The interesting thing is, you can have something almost lich like but not lich, in the form of a spell caster using Magic Jar, a 6th level spell.
Minions, magical items and custom spells are what they need
What about a lich who discovered some great doom that was going to someday destroy the world if a solution couldn't be found, but nearing the end of his mortal life he realized that he would not live to find a solution in time. And so he underwent a terrible transformation so he could continue his research, certain that he and he alone could find the answers and save the world, he sacrificed his humanity, damned his soul and determined that anyone who got in his way must be eliminated and if thousands must perish to save the world then so be it, he was, after all, the hero who was destined to save everything from oblivion.
What if the Soul Cage is a another living being, and to kill the Lich you had to kill an innocent person?
You know, somehow, I'm just now realizing that while it obviously doesn't fit all the tropes, preserving one's life force and therefore living as long as their magic artifact does as a potentially central theme of a lich means that Dorian Gray could technically be a sort of lich, with his painting as his pylactery. Obviously he doesn't decay, but maybe there's an idea to be had there where a vain wizard doesn't want to lose their beauty, and manages to alter their lich spell so that the image of them in their phylactery decays instead of their actual body. Or maybe they offer this sort of lichdom to nobles at exuberant prices, creating many Dorians, for whatever scheme they're trying to pull off.
8:06 Demiliches are not lesser in any way, quite the opposite in fact. They "evolved" to not need a body(or most of their body) anymore.
Could this work with Alhoons?
Undead are the best boys
I played a good ol' Dread Necromancer all the way to level 20, became a lich as per the class capstone and had the character retire by opening a brothel within the capital city across from the Church of Light. And before you ask, the only living women within the brothel was the attendant at the front desk, the bar tender, and the kitchen staff. All of the 'working girls' were some varieties of cleverly disguised undead or golem. The cream of the crop however were 4 nymphs that had been given the vampire spawn template via create greater undead and trained as both Monks and Courtesans. My DM was both flabbergasted and impressed to the point where my brothel became an urban legend for all of his other games, entertaining and horrifying his players for years after the fact.
the after credits scene...
Lich who is in pain, but when it kills or it servants sacrifice living things to it in rituals, pain goes away and it's strength returns ...for a while. Perhaps lich needs new body after a while, new body starts always to break apart.
We had a lich who's phylaxtary was an artifact called the gem of everlasting gold. This held in the underground city my character lived in 38 centuriescago.
The lich destroyed the PCs whole civilization and killed their god- talk about motivation
Artificer lich having transfered there conciousness into constructs,
Okay… hot take…. Power Word Kill is boring. We’ve got so many incredible, terrifying 9th level spells now! Let’s mic things up a bit- my personal favorite is psychic scream!
For an enemy caster, Blade of Disaster is among the most interesting, especially if the caster is hard to attack. Glyph of Warding to create a resilient sphere perhaps?
Koschei the Deathless tho
The demilich is terrifying and you really should reread its statblock. Just a reminder that it's tiny and can fly so it's lair has no good reason to not be the most miserable Vietnam stile trap riden tunnel system. Just a reminder the demilich has resistance to magical bludgeoning piercing and slashing and has a save or die aoe ability. So this whole it's a pushover thing is just ridiculous.
If you have to make a LIch more formidable than it already is, you've been running them wrong.
totally agree
haha 😂 making vampire formidable, just make them sparkle in sunlight instead of turing to dust , who wants to fight a twillight esq vampire 😂😂😂😂💀💀💀
WTF ... seriously ... if a DM, that cannot take good use of a high level, immortal, 20+ INT spellcaster, and reduces that creature to a mere combat encounter, then by all means, stop DMing!
A creature with a INT score that high poses so much opportunities for plots, meta- or counterplots, it normaly doesnt have to use combat at all, and if it does, it does it to show off. Be sure it will have a plan b, c, d in it's sleeves and most likely more than an ace or two.
And for demiliches, consult the ad&d 2nd editions monster manual, where they nicely explain, why the lich lost it's interest in his form and reaches for the stars.
Also consult the van richtens guides to the lich for great inspiration to make it a real unique experience for your players ... and for christ sake, even if it's 5E now, stop and put everything down to combat encounters ...
A lich variant l saw in another game, used a set of runes inscribed on the body in order to be created. A soul rune to trap the soul in the body, an animation rune to keep the body mobile, and a preservation rune to keep the body from decaying. The weakness of this lich is that if the runes are destroyed the lich is destroyed. If the soul rune is destroyed the soul slip away and it become a soulless zombie, if the preservation rune is destroyed the body rapidly begin to decay. Or if the animation rune is damaged, the soul is now trapped in an inanimate corpse. This mean that the Lich will need to protect the runes at all costs.
Thats a great spin on it! Its cool to have the rule of three and multiple levels of victory over the lich other than: destroy soul cage explodes lich