That . . . actually sounds like an AMAZING campaign! Like, it actually meaningfully restructures how an evil campaign could function differently from a heroic one. The party isn't just looking to get paid to go on dangerous missions to fight monsters and battle evil, they're motivated by the shared goal of achieving immortality. Do they feel they won't step on each other's toes enough to achieve this together? Are one or more of the party members conspiring to betray their fellows once they have what they need? And even if none of them are, what's going to happen to the party should even one of them achieve Lichdom ahead of the others? Or even more crazy, if all of them do? This could be a campaign that has high level play and the player's greatest foes slide from being the forces of good to one another.
Given the liches we’ve gotten so far the first to achieve it will probably use the others as a filactory or to fuel it. Death march will kill the other players to conscript them. Berserker leaves one alive as a vendetta. Bard will make them listen to the magnum opus. Sorcerer will try seducing any party member of the opposite sex to create a strong bloodline.
@@ThePa1riot It doesn't even need to be an evil campaign... it could be a "gray" one... anti-heroes or anti-villains or a mishmash of both you rather have it that way... even more interesting if you have moral dilemmas like I want immortality for this or that reason, but... should I? is the cost to high? etc etc...
Let’s see you’ve got an entire party of litch players. Barbarian is a walking path of making people angry and hate them. The hierarch sorcerer is trying to seduce as many people as possible so that he’ll never die. The Druid is trying to defend a specific location or village. Maybe they realize that no society can live in peace for ever because wars need soldiers. So why not turn the land itself into a security system? You could save lives by sending plant people constructs to fight your battles. The bard lich wants to spread their undeath spell song as far as possible and figures that if they have their song remembered by other lich people she’ll never die as long as they live. She wouldn’t even need to hurt anyone and could just chill for eternity singing other songs. The fighter lich could be a 1 person army going on quests to slay legions of goblins only to unleash them on a powerful target before finishing the powerful target off personally. D&D has lots of potential puppets to add without doing anything bad. Or you could go full evil and slaughter half a village. The ranger could be working with the Druid and the fighter to hunt down more powerful foes with the fighter promising to kill the ranger if they can’t find anything stronger for them and their beast to kill. The artificer could harvest body parts from the decaying minions of the fighter and work with the bard to convince people to trust the artificer with business deals. Honestly outside of the barbarian I could see this little lich squad being all right people to work with. Fighter, Bard, Artificer, Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, sounds like a pretty strong party.
Okay people, from the top: Bard Lich - Anyways, here's Wonderwall~ +consumes your soul+ Sorcerer Lich - We keep it in the family. Druid Lich - KILL, CONSUME, MULTIPLY, CONQUER. Artificier Lich - The Flesh is Weak. Barbarian Lich - Muscle Man Too Angry to Die. Ranger Lich - Mr. Pet Sementary's Wild Ride (The Ride Never Ends) And now, Fighter Lich... YOU SHOULD ENLIST ON THE ARMY, NOW +cracks of thunder+
Theoretical Paladin Litch: “you called, my Pharaoh?” Mummy Lords are weaker than normal Litches when you compare their stat blocks. So why not give them some reinforcements?
"What even are you?" "I am War." This has to be my favorite lich so far. I recently came up with a very similar monster, but this is so much more fleshed out!
@@ThePa1riot Did I accidentally hit a reference? 😅 Just an exchange I thought of then imagining a Death March coming to a court to offer it's services.
@@Puzzles-Pinshmm Death march is conquest(it’s literally an army) Scourge is war (for khorne!) Lich rogue is death (sneak attack) And lich monk is famine(the fact they don’t need to eat or drink)
This is an active Valkyrie. Recollecting dead Warriors, giving the option to fight again. This dead march can use the idea to create and legion of Honor bound, passion bound warriors.
@@tlotro625 I imagine a palichdin would be very much like the Knight of the Holy Grail in the titular Indiana Jones movie, staying alive for as long as they have a sworn oath still in need of active enforcement. If they ever honorably discharge their duty without assuming a new one, they finally pass on. ...the Living Reliquary sounds good, but maybe a bit too cleric-y yeah, actually, save that one for the cleric lich, for sure.
I love how killing this lich meaningful changes its character. With other phylacteries it feels like the lich just respawns, but here they have a new body with different combat powers, which seems like a defining trait of the fighter-lich
But logically that is how a normal lich would work too. every time they respawn they would change their strategy, traps, spells, and magical items they would use to counter you. If like. 5e liches had any ability to change spellslots and have magical items.
@@phantom-ri2tg I think maybe I didn't give proper emphasis to "for this lich, death meaningfully changes their character" and that you're thinking my main point was "different combat powers on respawn is cool." My bad. But what you're describing sounds like "the bad guy's plan didn't work, so they made a new plan". It is mechanically interesting for a player character to face challenges that build on previous experience, but not inherently story rich. It is not lich-coded because the approach you've outlined can be used by literally any villain that gets away, or one who the DM decides to deus ex skedaddle out of there. I am less coherent from here on out, but my ramblings on the flavour-richness of this lich archetype are as follows: When I think about how the fighter-lich's character changes upon death, I am only half thinking about their character sheet (abilities, stats, mechanics etc) and I would say that character does not equal character sheet. To me, the mechanically interesting thing about this death/respawn is there is both a gain of skills and a loss of skills. Because why would there only be a gain? This would imply the lich wasn't using his best option. When I think "new body, new powers" I am heavily focussing on "new body" as "this used to be a person." If you envision the Dead March as completely devoid of personality, then yeah "new body" doesn't really mean much because every soldier is a shell for the lich to exist in. But I don't imagine it that way---each person chose to be there for their own reasons, and while they are unified in purpose, I imagine the new vessel to colour the lich's perception, if only slightly. Because if the lich gains the martial prowess of the new host--why then would it not gain other things, like memories? To this end, I imagine the lich as a living energy that animates an army and stands at its head. It gives great power to the one it possesses, but ultimately consumes them. I view the coolness less in the individual lich and more in the reason the army exists. Story-wise you can engage in grand explorations of "why war??" and "vengeance...bad???" when your villain is a series of people who have been wronged/share some unifying motivation. What does it mean to be a part of this martial force? What unfulfilled goal is so consuming that the fallen will chain their very souls to the Dead March? Will they want to be super successful/strong if it means they will be consumed by the lich? Just so many questions makes it fun for me. We'll each have different answers. It reminds me a lot of The Army of the Apocalypse from Malazan Book 4, if the Whirlwind Goddess could become hosted by many more people.
One thing I like about this lich is that since the body the lich is possessing doesn't decompose it can be passive if necessary. So imagine the last survivor of a battle, waiting in a abandoned fort awaiting a defeated enemy from a war years ago standing there in his full armor. If the players spoke to him, asking why he was there, he replied "I'm waiting for them" and if they said that the enemy was defeated years ago he answer "No, he wasn't", now imagine if he was right and the old enemy is the BBG? I love the troupe of 'My duty is not done yet for me to die' and this lich is perfect to it
Imagine opening up an ancient tomb and once inside the death march slays everyone that went inside. Then they would move on to clear the nearby villages and soon there would be an undead army laying waste the nation
Next campaign I run I'm going for "oops all liches," where I manipulate each of my players into "trying this neat backstory concept I found on UA-cam" and seeing how long it takes before the party realizes everyone is trying to become a lich.
Imagine a group of liches that, rather than give into paranoia and try to be the only ones at the top, are instead cooperating and strengthening each other, covering the weaknesses and bolstering the strengths of their fellow lich oligarchy.
-the Litche’s phylactery-minions decay over time. -intense cold preserves things. (Why do you think we keep raw meat in freezers?) -cold = increased minion lifespan. Well, guess who’s gonna make a Draugr / White Walker themed Death March~~~ 😈
Or a Roman Legion China army at the northern border / great wall kind of thing. Lich is part of the government and is given corpses to hold off some kind of mongol horde or tryanids.
I mean, he *did* happen to use Death Knight Arthas the Lich King in so much of this video. read up on some Warcraft 3 lore (predates WOW) and make The Scourge.
I like how you came up with a compleatly different idea than what I got. After like a first few seconds an idea instantly came to my mind "soul blade" as in a fighter that made his soul into his own weapon, now I have TWO cool ideas to think about
Just to add to the pile. Another idea I've seen tossed around is a fighter who just drank too many healing potions and now the healing magic is sticking long after their hearts stop beating
I got another idea for said pile, the Unbreakable. Based on the idea of Pride in one's fighting ability and willingness to answer all challenges to their might, an Unbreakable lich binds their soul to their armor and must meet all martial challenges face to face in order to scratch a tally marks, each mark extending their existence for a short time.
@blahthebiste7924 I feel like this idea would work better for a paladin lich considering paladins draw their power from their oaths. What if their devotion to their oath was so strong that they continued upholding their oath even after death? The paladin lich must continue to uphold their oath forever to remain a lich. Breaking their oath for any reason even slightly results in their lichdom being taken away. Basically, it is an unceasing, duty-bound, undead soldier who will never stop fighting "the good fight." He no longer can. Call it something like The Honorbound, or The Oathbound. I don't have an idea for a phylactery, but this is just off the top of my head. Maybe to become a lich, they have to have shown nothing but the utmost blind devotion to their oaths in life? Idk just some ideas. Edit: Now that I think about it, this idea could work just as well for a cleric lich. Just swap out devotion to an oath to be devotion to a God. Or maybe devotion to the cleric themselves? Cult leader lich? Man there's just so many cool ideas you can make with these concepts.
I'm guessing/hoping Warlock's phylactery is putting their soul into their Pact Boon item, which in turn is sharing their soul with their Patron, the connection and immortality going both ways. Beyond that, it's just standard Lich upkeep of collecting and burning souls as fuel to keep the undeath going. Doesn't have to be fancy for all of the Lich variants, Warlock could just be standard Wizard Lich in practice but substituting in their boss's experience for their lack of personal arcane nerdom. So, you get to cover multiple flavors of single item imbued phylactery from one statblock depending on: Pact of the Blade, Pact of the Chain, Pact of the Tome, or Pact of the Talisman, at the expense of the likely inconvenience of having the respawn point be in another plane of existence to where the Patron is and the Warlock's current quest isn't. Also enables that old trope of killing the source of the problem instead only releasing it into the world via their Warlock Lich as an anchor point. Gotta kill both master and servant together to get rid of them both.
To add to the idea of service to a master, I almost like the idea of the Fighter Lich's phylactery being its nation. In order to finally put an end to this soldier, you have to topple the kingdom it serves. Maybe its undead soul corrupts and subtly manipulates the politics of that nation
Idea for a Death March (that I’m using for my campaign): A pirate Commodore travels the seas seeking out strong pirates to challenge in combat. After nearly exterminating pirates of his level, he becomes a Death March. The exterminated pirates and their related crews become his undead army of phylacteries. They are an undead Grand Fleet, traveling the seas and constantly seeking out strong pirate crews to take out and add to the Grand Fleet. I’ll be using this idea as a mini boss and a combat challenge for my level 17 party and he might pop up a few times before he’s finished for good!
An alternative phylactery for a pirate could be their ship. (Which has magical warding and automatic repairs) In order to defeat them you must sink the ship with the pirate on it, otherwise the liche respawns in the Captain's quarters or the lich can perform a ritual to raise their ship from the seabed and regain their immortality. And obviously pirates of the Caribbean is a perfect source of inspiration for this.
@@jasonreed7522 I like the idea and I’m going to tweak it a bit to add my own flair! He has his own Grand fleet of 45 ships, the fleet as a whole is the phylactery. Each ship that gets sunk chips away at the phylactery until the lead ship is sunk that destroys the phylactery completely. He makes it a priority to only have strong members in his fleet that are able to protect the ships from attack. If a ship is sunk, the crew of that ship falls with it. If the crew of each ship isn’t strong enough to hold their own in battle, they’re not worthy to continue serving the captain. The souls of the fallen crew members return to the Lich to heal/strengthen him
Pointy Hat: Let me introduce... the Death March, that constantly builds a standing army that literally marches in death to prolong its undead life. Griffith: *Heavy Breathing*
Oh man, what a concept. Someone who wants to kill the death march that killed his father, so he has to keep re-introducing himself to each new host body every time he beats one.
@@GigiBranconi Exactly Just imagine the ending of that movie with that premiss😂 - Hallo. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die Death March: Not much of a threat boy. (Kills death match, finds new body) -Hallo,My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die (Next body) -Hallo,My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die Death march "Stop saying that😡 (Next body) HALLO, MY NAME IS INIGO MANTOYA....... (Next) ....YOU KILLED MY FATHER.... (Next) ....PREPEAR TO DIE.......
Im making a pantheon of lichs as the basis of a world Im worldbuilding and I am so tempted to use this as the name of the pantheon or the country/culture that worships them.. the continent or even the world... only issue is I cant quite pronounce it myself so IDK but this had me reeling with laughter
You could get an insanely powerful army with this, I would use wights for his soldiers. Which means each kill they get can raise up to 10 zombies, you get almost like a structured army of general, commanders, soldiers. Although instead of making them rot away I would have it that the commanders retain some of their original personality, and if one of them managers to slay the Dearh March they become the new lich. What this does is it forces the lich to keep pushing to be the best fighter, while also giving the players more roleplay opportunity with the army itself. Hell they could even be an undead character on a mission to train to kill the Death March.
Oh, that the Deathmarch's raised keep their personality and become the deathmarch if they slay the 'general' is such a good idea. I think the deathmarch should be the army as a whole, and the one who says the general becomes the new general, but the one who was defeated isn't killed for good but can take over the general position again. It works well with the idea of the warrior striving to be the best and that losing to his army isn't necessary a bad thing as it allows him to hone further.
Another absolutely legendary lich variant with such great flavor and fantastic ties to the class. This entire series is one of my favorite series on UA-cam. Amazing job as always.
this is figuratively the best thing ever. a warlord who partakes in necromancy is just so obviously powerful and present on the world scale. having even a single death march in a DND world would shift the balance of power, because as you said they dont always need a incentive to help a ruler win as they NEED the corpses of others to stay alive. and them being a master fighter warlord gives them some fun flavor, as they could theoretically be honorable/merciful as they can only raise true warriors (fighters) so they would have no reason to kill, say a wizard or rogue.
And think of how formidable the Death March would be as a major villain. With a classic Lich, it’s a pain to even get close enough to do significant damage. With the Death March, they’re already a high level Fighter with potentially a century+ of combat experience, plus Legendary Resistance for the spell-casters.
Something to add because I loves all this and love this series and I love Pointy Hat. A trope you can use for the Death March is the "Exchange of name". You see it all the time where opponents who've earn each other respect via combat will exchange names the winner vows to hold them tightly in their memories in glorius battle. For the Death March, those memories are the reason that the phelactory grows. However, memory fades just like the decaying warriors to the point they are forgotten, and breaking that vow to the fallen. (cough cough oathbreaker cough) sorry had to clear my throat. Just a thought... Love you Pointy Hat!!
This would make it so you are forced to cooperate with your opponents, be a good sport, etc etc. I like the idea. In general, I like the idea of non-evil Liches (granted, I can see the lich taking over the body of an opponent as they are their philacteries). It would work better for a Pathfinder class: Swashbuckler. They are charisma based fighters that combat method is mainly (kinda) duels. But the D&D class incorporated into fighter.
The Death March being obsessed with martial perfection is certainly a valid way to go, but when I think 'Fighter Lich', I'm always reminded of the Hero's Shade from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. For those unfamiliar with Zelda, the Hero's Shade is the undead spirit of the Hero of Time, the version of Link that is the protagonist of LoZ: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. He became the Hero's Shade after saving Hyrule from Ganondorf and restoring the timeline to its proper course, but in the process removed the threat of Ganondorf from history and thus the Hero of Time was not only forgotten, but effectively erased from history, leaving Link to live a life as a hero that nobody knew about, with no great evil to vanquish in his lifetime and no worthy student to teach the skills and techniques he had honed all his life for the day when some new evil would inevitably rise. While the exact circumstances behind the Hero of Time's death are left out, what is known is that aftet his resentment at being unable to build a lasting legacy for himself caused him to become the Hero's Shade, awaiting the day when his successor, the next incarnation of Link as the Hero of Twilight, would appear and claim his skills and knowledge. For me, that's the essence of what a Fighter Lich should be; someone that refuses to allow death to take them because they still have one last mission to accomplish, and they must paradoxically cling to that one goal so vigorously that even the natural order of the universe cannot claim them, while having the overriding compulsion to succeed in it and end their own existence. I'd almost compare it to the Chosen Undead from Dark Souls, able to simply refuse to die permanently so long as their willpower and sanity holds out, but without a cause to cling to, the rigors of time and death slowly drain their will to live and their minds erode until they become madmen. Eventually, they go beyond madness and degrade into mindless undead called Hollows, until eventually even the most primal urge to survive is not enough to sustain them and they simply cease to function. To alleviate this degradation, the undead obsess over their goals to drive themselves forward and use whatever means they can to try and maintain their sanity, including absorbing the souls of those they slay in combat or coveting such things as 'Humanity' and finding ways to quantify and hoard it, all the while trying not to betray their ideals and undermine their sanity. That's the sort of thing that could give something like the Death March more character beyond simply being a warmongering army of the dead. It means that all manner of Fighters could become a lich, their reasons for pursuing and attaining undeath can be varied, and killing them permanently isn't as simple as just destroying all of their backup bodies.
I like this idea, but I feels a bit like a revenant or a ghost rather than a lich with a ritual and all. I do agree that it seems like the Death March could be destroyed far easier than a typical lich. How far is the radius that their army can be from the Death March anyway? A wizard with enough AOE attacks, or the ability to banish the Death March, or any magical means to move the Death March from their army, would have an easy time killing the Death March. I fear your idea is too difficult to kill, it's not as easy as destroying the phylactory, you have identify and kill the lich's ideal that its holding onto. When I saw the thumbnail, my first thought was animated armor. A lich that is similar to an eidolon that inhabits a vast collection of armors and weapons. Kill the lich, and the soul hops into the nearest armor that the lich has bound itself to. Without an armor to inhabit the lich is helpless, and perhaps it's phylactory is its original body entombed somewhere. They sacrifice a physical form for immortality, and need to make new armors to bind itself to less they all be destroyed leaving it helpless. I don't know, thoughts.
I'd argue the Hero's Shade is more of a ghost. The key is he's being tethered by the unfinished business itself, instead of actively choosing to become undead and actually having performed any ritual to achieve it. Also seems purely spiritual and unable to influence the world directly.
Sounds a bit like darth sion in kotor 2, his hatred allowed him to hold a broken body together despite being dead a dozen times over. It's only by attacking his will to fight that he will give up and let you pass. Not exacyly the same, but I figured I'd throw it in here.
@@grinninggoblin3698 Not necessarily. Just keep killing it until its will is sapped and its drive to complete its mission isn't enough to sustain it anymore. Mechanically speaking, if the lich dies without a viable phylactery, it's forced to make a death save, and the save gets harder and harder until eventually nothing short of a Nat 20 can save it. As for the matter of a ritual? Most fighters are not magically inclined, so unlike a druid or sorcerer, and the 'ritual' Pointy Hat describes is literally just 'keep killing master warriors and hope it's enough to count towards becoming a lich', whereas this works with that concept but doesn't demand that the fighter become a wandering killer, and it's one of those things where the prospective lich would have to have a goal and the will to follow through on it even in the face of mortality and continue pursuing it, even if it's impossible. To add another caveat to this, helping the lich fulfill its mission would remove its reason for living, and it would quickly crumble if it can't find something else to latch on to, but you could also trick it into thinking it's succeeded or persuade it into either modifying its existing mission or going about pursuing it in a different manner.
@@Shalakor Well that's the thing. There is a theory that the Hero of Time wandered into the Kokiri Forest and got lost deliberately so he'd die there as an adult and become a Stalfos, and that aligns with his depiction in Twilight Princess as a skeletal warrior. Further still, while we don't actually see the Hero's Shade interact with anything outside of the mental realm where he interacts with Link, he DOES fight Link and both deal and receive damage during their training sessions, implying that the Hero's Shade isn't totally incorporeal.
I think it’d be awesome to see a Bloodhunter Lich next. And while yeah it is a homebrew class its pretty popular. Also I think there’s supremely good drama in a monster hunter becoming a horrifying undead beast to continue slaying monsters. It plays on that idea of not becoming a beast by using their powers to kill beasts, but youve gone way over that deep end and are now a monster hating monster
I would absolutely love to see you do a gnoll video! They could be such interesting characters but instead they are just always described to be evil with little culture and interesting traits
Awesome video. Love the idea of an eternal undead army, constantly fighting, constantly growing. I think there was a DotA character with that lore, Dirge the Undying? For another interesting version of a "fighter lich," theres the Graveknight from Pathfinder. Where the lich and phylactery is sort of combined into their haunted armor. The body within is just a corpse it hijacks. Anyone who wears the armor (even a small piece) will eventually transform into the Graveknight. They can preserve themselves by giving a small piece of their armor (such as a pauldron or gauntlet) to a minion to wear, then when the Graveknight's armor is destroyed it will possess the minion, regrow the rest of the armor, and revive itself.
Just found your channel the other day and have ravenously consumed all the lich class videos, imagine my surprise when you upload one the very next day! I love this series to death, thanks for all your hard work! Can't wait to comment with my experience using them in a future campaign!
NGL, death march gives me some solo leveling vibes Also, could see a kingdom hiding a death march in a frozen cave to preserve the rotting ones, only freeing them at times of war.
Love this idea, picturing a very vague quest from the kingdoms ruler to free a guardian that must only be called forth in times of greatest need and after a few sessons fighting through a war torn country to reach the ice bound fortress and finally releasing the guardian it very quickly becomes "OH gods what have we done!!" 😂
Or this could represent a point of alliance between a death march and some different type of Lich. The other Lich offers the death march some mechanism for preserving their undead phylactories (And maybe some sort of range extension to allow a few to be stored far away) and in exchange gains an massive powerful army that can get even bigger than if it was just the death march alone.
@@silverstike1410 Part of fun of having these different types of Liches is playing with the options for alliances and rivalries. The Artificer Lich could form an alliance with the Fighter Lich, the Barbarian Lich's rage could come from a Bard Lich making too many "Yo Mama" jokes, depending on the mechanics the fae warlock lich could wind up pledging the lord of the Fairy Beavers to vanquish a Druid Lich who's finds the technology of beaver dams an affront. There are so many options.
I also had an idea for a Lich Fighter. Inspired by the Jar Warriors from Elden Ring, the Iron Flesh. A warrior can only achieve a maximum amount of strength. Even undeath does not break the borders of the flesh that eventually reaches its limit. Not a problem, as the flesh and bones of warriors and monsters across time and space are his to conquer. They are sets of armor that instead of a body, have a mass of meat and bones of countless strong living beings that were defeated and eventually assimilated to become part of the Iron Flesh. Their phylactery is a cauldron that has all the accumulated remains the Iron Flesh collected and uses to fill his especially made armor that can place part of every single creature in the cauldron onto it, making it learn all skills and abilities from them. Naturally, you must destroy the cauldron to defeat it, because even if all the remains run out, their soul still lingers in the cauldron.
Not gonna lie this is very useful for me. In my setting some desperate cities when fighting in a war against an abyssal incursion that lasted 20 years turned to necromancy in an attempt to fight off the demons without losing any more of their strength. The war is now 30 years in the past and a 100 mile scare where the abyss itself bled into the material plan still exists and so do the “burial mounds” of these undead legions waiting to serve the people again. I now have a stat block for this army “for absolutely free!!!!!”
You are officially my favorite D&D UA-cam channel and one of my favorite channels overall. You just come up with so many fucking awesome ideas and give that stuff out for free. I love it. You’ve tickled my DM brain so many times
I think an awesome additional moral spin on death march would be to make them a professional force with the highest standards, unreachable for most mortal armies, even technically 'good' ones. Not only do they not ask for gold or food from their client, they also wage exclusively conventional warfare, no poisoned wells, no burnt farms, never hurt noncombatants and try their best to minimise the collateral damage. But whenever a soldier falls, thay are taken by the death march, friend and foe alike.
Here’s an idea for Paladin + Lich: The Undead Oath is an oath taken by a Paladin who knows death is upon him, but cannot complete his oath. So, the paladin must take a journey through undeath, abandoning the radiance, and turning to necrotic means, to defeat necrotic enemies. Whenever the paladin “dies”, he returns, with more information on his death, as long as his oath remains unbroken, it will return, and as you can guess, the oath is the phylactery. The Undead Knight will come back, again and again, until the oath is fulfilled, and the Paladin can rest. They are known as the Hallowed Ones. However, the danger of this oath is when the necromancy takes over, the Paladin will become, less human, feel less lively, forgetting morals, and subjecting to mindless violence, until their figure is almost unrecognizable. Becoming the thing that they were meant to beat. From the Hallowed One, to the Hollow One. This was inspired by some homebrew I was making for a Soulslike campaign, if you could guess.
How in the world every video in this series just keeps getting better? I'm so excited Which Lich comes out, I'm hoping I'll be able to use at least some of these concepts in the game!
Cool concept again, has nice ideas for mini bosses you have to destroy before the Death March Leader. Thank you again for your videos I love the ideas and they’ve helped me with two characters inspiration
Really cool idea and I liked how it feels like arthas menithill. I would try to add something from arthas where either by using the weapon that slayed them or by keeping something of great importance of the fighter they can be raised once the fighter becomes a lich. The risen early foes can either basically be skeletons who are advising or being generals to them making a body for them. Not them being a lich because they basically only had the one body and the real lich would have to sacrifice it's own soul resources to keep them around but would be nice to have a second in command that is important. Back to arthas can be like how he brought back kelthuzad, how he kept the soul of uther stuck with him, or how he probably would have raised Muradin if he had killed him when he got frost Mourne. I mean arthas brought back his childhood horse, I imagine he would have brought back the man who trained him to fight and have him stay close to him.
These Lich videos are fantastic, and I'm working on an undead war arc centered around the Death March as I rewatch this. Love your stuff man. Also your disclaimer put my sides into space
Just started binging your videos and you EASILY make some of the best D&D content. I just love your thought process and how it makes me think too. I made like 5 characters because of your videos (that I will never play), and you helped me out with backstories, the thing I struggle with the most. I had some ideas for the sorcerer video (thanks to you), and am wondering if I should just splurge them out here Alexia was always a bookworm, and as she grew older she became an aspiring wizard. She studied and trained hard pouring over scrolls and books for countless hours. However, she could never retain the information due to a constantly failing memory, but she never gave up. And though the explicit memories of spells, and wizardry faded, the implicit memories of how to do it subconsciously stuck. Seemingly surging with wild magic at random, each surge is actually a forgotten spell, it’s memory seemingly taking on a mind of its own High charisma to power through failures, high con to stay up all night studying, high int but disadvantage on any memory-based check, because she’s very smart but can’t remember things I personally prefer Sorcerers that got their powers later in life, when something happen to trigger it. I feel it makes far more interesting characters than "I was born with powers because my mom liked dragons a bit too much" This character also showcases why sorcerers use Charisma. it's not their ability to talk to others, but rather it's their sheer force of will. Alexia is a smart character, but that's not where her powers come from. She got magic through the mental equivalent of that one Doctor Who scene where the doctor punched a wall for billions of years. I also like how it makes the power seem more "earned" for lack of a better word. She wasn't just born with it, she didn't just happen to get it, she worked for wizardry, but ended up getting sorcery. I think that's a cool twist.
I can also see the Death March needing to reenact the creation ritual after it hops bodies to a subordinate in order to reverse the rotting that has occurred & "heal up" back to what it's original form was. This makes a good plot hook if he's looking for a Fighter in YOUR party as one of the masters he needs to reenact the ritual.
Nice. I ran an undead party we made just for laughs back when Ravenloft had just been released. It was wonderful, dark, and humorous. Anyway, we had a Mage Lich, Cleric Lich, Vampire Cleric, Ghost Thief (talk about trope), Vampire Fighter, and a Fighter Lich. How did the Fighter become a lich? The same way a dracolich is, with a little help. A reskinned and modded deathknight, he was as much a lich as any other, only instead of gaining magic power his undead form gained in martial power. And as a lich, he gained salient abilities, the death knights 2e abilities, and abilities specific to his specialization. And yes, they all earned these undead powers gaining levels. Later, we tried an undead Paladin. It's kind of the same thing, only his was with his god's help. Food for thought... food for thought.
Just WOW!! YOU SOLVED A BIG ISSUE! I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO MAKE A AWESOME LEADER FOR MY DEAD HALF DRAGON QUEEN LEASHES ARMY!!! He will be a bone night turned death March!!! I can't wait to see my players encounter this character. One of them is his adopted granddaughter. It will be so amazing and probably scarred them for life. Thank you so much for making this !!! I use a lot of your stuff in my campaign and it just floors my players watching their faces just makes my day.😊❤ My campaign is set in eberron they have already met the artificer lich whom they have become good friends with 😮. And the sorcerer lich 's next host is also an ex to somebody in the group.... (Evil laugh) 😈 One of my players got a regeneration ring and has been chopping off his own limbs to get awesome items from the artificer lich, this last time he removed his eyes and everyone in the party freaked out.😅.
I'm so glad I found this video, and your channel as a whole. I went from brainstorming a one shot with the Death March, all the way to writing a full campaign with him as the BBEG. Now, It's pretty much done, and I'm waiting to finish Curse of Strahd before running it. Seriously, this gave me the WANT to DM. So thanks Pointy Hat, I mean it.
I worked out a Modern Magic equivalent (before I even found this video), based on an old Thirty Years' War myth and the WW2 background of my setting. Major Tatsuya Yuji was a proud officer of the Imperial Japanese Army. He fought for the glory of the Emperor, and for the prosperity of all of East Asia, no matter what it took. Of course, the pressures of the war had forced... compromises. Lack of supply and the need for discipline made the local civilian populations more an obstacle (and occasional outlet of frustration) than anything else, but that was all right. Nonetheless, when the Americans came calling, his entire division was destroyed, and he was forced to flee into the jungles with the few soldiers he had left. He survived there for years on a combination of what little food he could acquire from the jungle, and on his own devotion to Japan. Eventually, Yuji emerged from the jungle into the solitary town on that forgotten island on the outskirts of what he knew as the Dutch Indies, gaunt from starvation and suffering from severe malnutrition. With his first contact with human civilization in years, he learned something that drove him to utter fury: Japan had not fought on as he had believed this whole time. They had not even fallen under the guns of invasion and fought in a glorious last stand to defend their Emperor. No, Japan had _surrendered._ Something so utterly dishonorable he could not comprehend it. And right there, in the middle of a town, in front of an array of terrified onlookers, Yuji died. His body fell back a step -- and then he stopped. As his heart stopped and his blood ran cold, he found in himself a new determination. He'd make them _pay._ The Americans, of course, but also the ungrateful peoples of Asia who had so resisted the benevolent rule of the Rising Sun, and especially the _cowards_ who had dared to surrender. As he drew his katana and his officer's pistol, he felt the depths of starvation leave him. Despite being dead, he never felt as alive as he did when he slaughtered that town. (The newly-made Indonesian government, going through the Bersiap, had bigger problems, and never learned of what happened on that island.) Yuji had become a Fext, a dead leader of men, untouched by the ravages of both time and warfare. Instinctively raising a new army, led by his former lieutenants. Since then, he's bidden his time, spreading his soldiers in secret across Southeast Asia, acquiring equipment and readying an army for his revenge. The players, of course, won't find out about this right away. What they'll find out is that shipping in the region has started disappearing. The American government, in collaboration with Indonesia and Japan, would call in the players, accomplished occult specialists and monster hunters, to investigate once grainy footage of one of the attacks is recovered -- of dead men bearing the flag of the Rising Sun attacking sailors and raising them as undead foot soldiers. I have yet to work out the campaign from there.
Love this! Hell yeah! Reminds me of that woman in barovia who must keep retaking the throne as her eternal punishment due to her being a warden of a plane of dread. This would work perfectly.
One of your best videos, actually. This concept is so much more usable and deep than most you create... I am astonished. I had similar ideaz but yours brings it all together better.
After watching this video, I had my friend watch it too. Both of us were so fascinated by the concept of the Death March as a BBEG in a campaign that we hashed out the skeleton of a full campaign with that very idea as the center. We’re very excited to introduce it to our table!
Another campaign idea, the Death March and The Scourge are in a never-ending cycle of violence and conflict. It may have started due to a village or territory in the outskirts being raized, but due to it, two factions, and they're laying waste to nigh everything. It's either "Conscript, die, & arise." or become Rage &Death
Really cool lich idea! I really like the idea of basically an ever growing army being what is required to keep this lich going, and the idea of focusing on the military aspects is really neat, definitely sets them apart from say a Barbarian or any other martial character. That being said, I gotta bring my obligatory issues with this back up, liches shouldn't have more than 1 phylactery. In the statblock you posted, the only way to permanently stop this lich is to destroy his ENTIRE ARMY (if there's another conscript within 300 ft, instant regen. If not, he just respawns 8 days later at the worst, meaning EVERY LAST ONE needs to be put to the sword). Liches are supposed to be near indestructible, but with an Achilles' heel that the players can exploit. And it's supposed to be a SINGLE item. Regular liches have their phylactery, mummy lords (the things you identify as the cleric version of a lich) have their canopic jar. Each of these guys has ONE weak spot, and if it's destroyed, the whole thing comes undone. For the fighter, we could take a note from the graveknight where their armor is the phylactery, but that's a bit too on the nose and easy for the players to access, so we could also just say it's the weapon they used to ascend to lichdom in the first place. Could be a cool concept as well, the players finally find the lich's phylactery in his vault, only for him to come busting down the door and pick it up himself to kill the intruders with. A nice last line of defense that seems fitting for a fighter lich.
Knocked this one out of the park, Pointy Hat. I love all your liches but this one feels like it could so smoothly become the foundation for any campaign.
Another incredible lich, though I think the name could use some work. The term "death march" applies better to the phylactery army than the undying leader them self. Perhaps something like "Grim Captain?"
Not really something that helps, but I recall that a small military unit sent on a mission which it is not expected to succeed at or even survive is called sometimes called a 'Forlorn Hope'.
I love this series! been incorporating some of them into ideas for my homebrew campaign. also have an OC warlock that becomes a Lich, hope we get that episode in the near future. Keep on rockin!
Oh look, Pointy Hat is making another lich! *Sees it's a fighter* ... I'M LISTENING! "Death March"? I love the name! Everything about this is super cool. Your content is always great but this is so far my favorite version of your liches. Bravo and thank you for all the very quality content you make!
0:32 I had a villain that was a fighter lich. He had betrayed his wizard patron at just the right time and took the potion and finished the ceremony. He found out that the wizard was not going to guarantee his own undying state but rather planned to sacrifice him to Orcus to gain even more power. It was great because the party at first was freaking out after the second time he showed back up alive after they had slain him. He was basically what would now be called an eldritch knight. But back then he was a dual class fighter mage. His low intelligence basically handicapped his magical power but he had a few spells as well as weapon specialization. (Ha ha yes I’m old! This was back to edition 2-3.5) He routinely mentored Necromancers. Helping them gain power in exchange for undead minions. He still had the formula for lichdom that he would hold out as a final reward. Of course he usually cheated them out of that last prize.
With this video, I was imagining a Death March who possesses the bodies of his soldiers with this armor and weapons of ice. The Armor is tied to the Death March's soul, and if the Death March so chooses, it can leave the soul of its current host, and bring its soul, armor, weapons etc. to a phylactery it chooses to inhabit.
ight this one is one of the best all of the liches you have made have been absolute bangers, but this one slaps supremely. also im making an npc necromancer that is making each of the liches you have made in this series to turn himself into a master of liches, and i cant wait for him to reveal himself to the world with his death march. thank you for all this delicious world building juice you have given us with this series
And now that we 7 liches, I will now connect each of Pointy hat’s liches to the 7 deadly sins: Barbarian lich = wrath Sorcerer lich = pride (see’s their family as a stepping stone for their own greatness) Ranger lich = gluttony (constantly having to eat, yet never being satisfied) Druid lich = sloth (unlike the other liches, they have a memorial which can do their killing and such for them.) Bard lich = envy (they’re song constantly needs to be in the spotlight and be remembered, so anyone more talented/memorable than them can be perceived as a threat) Artificer lich = greed (constantly on the lookout and hoarding new parts for their phalactories) And now, the fighter lich = lust (more specifically bloodlust, desiring new enemies to kill and add to its army)
I've been slowly moving away from D&D content because I'm interested in other RPG's recently. But I still come to pointy hat vids because they're fun and creative. Keep up the good work!
I was so hoping for the Paladin Lich, got a campaign planned that needs one of those. But I absolutely love this, great idea already thinking of other campaigns that can have this lich in it. Keep up the awesome work.
Would be interesting to see different fighter subclasses as Death Marches Like a Rune Knight that almost exclusively has giants and other large creatures in their conscript as a sort of siege army, or a Cavalier with a huge cavalry force ready to ride like the four horsemen
This is the best one so far, I love the compelling story and how MASSIVE this enemy could be in a campaign. I'm getting very "seeing white walkers for the first time on GoT" vibes and I love it! That said, it gives me an idea for a campaign where I use the Death March to as the BBEG and then get my players to choose between becoming a lich themselves (for whatever class) or finding another way to save their homes.
You make me want to see an evil campaign where everyone is a totally different class, and each person is trying to become their version of litch.
That . . . actually sounds like an AMAZING campaign! Like, it actually meaningfully restructures how an evil campaign could function differently from a heroic one. The party isn't just looking to get paid to go on dangerous missions to fight monsters and battle evil, they're motivated by the shared goal of achieving immortality.
Do they feel they won't step on each other's toes enough to achieve this together? Are one or more of the party members conspiring to betray their fellows once they have what they need? And even if none of them are, what's going to happen to the party should even one of them achieve Lichdom ahead of the others? Or even more crazy, if all of them do?
This could be a campaign that has high level play and the player's greatest foes slide from being the forces of good to one another.
Given the liches we’ve gotten so far the first to achieve it will probably use the others as a filactory or to fuel it. Death march will kill the other players to conscript them. Berserker leaves one alive as a vendetta. Bard will make them listen to the magnum opus. Sorcerer will try seducing any party member of the opposite sex to create a strong bloodline.
@@ThePa1riot It doesn't even need to be an evil campaign... it could be a "gray" one... anti-heroes or anti-villains or a mishmash of both you rather have it that way... even more interesting if you have moral dilemmas like I want immortality for this or that reason, but... should I? is the cost to high? etc etc...
The bard and artificer litches aren’t even nessesarily evil
Let’s see you’ve got an entire party of litch players.
Barbarian is a walking path of making people angry and hate them.
The hierarch sorcerer is trying to seduce as many people as possible so that he’ll never die.
The Druid is trying to defend a specific location or village. Maybe they realize that no society can live in peace for ever because wars need soldiers. So why not turn the land itself into a security system? You could save lives by sending plant people constructs to fight your battles.
The bard lich wants to spread their undeath spell song as far as possible and figures that if they have their song remembered by other lich people she’ll never die as long as they live. She wouldn’t even need to hurt anyone and could just chill for eternity singing other songs.
The fighter lich could be a 1 person army going on quests to slay legions of goblins only to unleash them on a powerful target before finishing the powerful target off personally. D&D has lots of potential puppets to add without doing anything bad. Or you could go full evil and slaughter half a village.
The ranger could be working with the Druid and the fighter to hunt down more powerful foes with the fighter promising to kill the ranger if they can’t find anything stronger for them and their beast to kill.
The artificer could harvest body parts from the decaying minions of the fighter and work with the bard to convince people to trust the artificer with business deals.
Honestly outside of the barbarian I could see this little lich squad being all right people to work with.
Fighter, Bard, Artificer, Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer, sounds like a pretty strong party.
"Only in death does service end"... "Well you see..."
Even in death, I still serve. .cue holy music blaring in the background as a large metal coffin starts waking up.
@@elishafollet5347 artificer is filling their complain
@elishafollet5347 the legend of the Grey necromancer 😮
"Death is only the beginning..."
I SHALL ENDURE A THOUSAND DEATH BEFORE I YELD!!
dumbledore calmly said
Okay people, from the top:
Bard Lich - Anyways, here's Wonderwall~ +consumes your soul+
Sorcerer Lich - We keep it in the family.
Druid Lich - KILL, CONSUME, MULTIPLY, CONQUER.
Artificier Lich - The Flesh is Weak.
Barbarian Lich - Muscle Man Too Angry to Die.
Ranger Lich - Mr. Pet Sementary's Wild Ride (The Ride Never Ends)
And now, Fighter Lich... YOU SHOULD ENLIST ON THE ARMY, NOW +cracks of thunder+
Fuckin btilliant
I'd suggest a smaller, more punchy "ENLIST YOURSELF, *NOW* !" [thunder cracks]
Whoooouoooo you're in the army now
@@olafthemoose9413damnit, beat me tonit
Theoretical Paladin Litch: “you called, my Pharaoh?”
Mummy Lords are weaker than normal Litches when you compare their stat blocks. So why not give them some reinforcements?
"What even are you?"
"I am War."
This has to be my favorite lich so far. I recently came up with a very similar monster, but this is so much more fleshed out!
You are not the first to think of Apollyon with this concept, including myself. 😂
Honestly, this fits her too freaking well.
@@ThePa1riot Did I accidentally hit a reference? 😅
Just an exchange I thought of then imagining a Death March coming to a court to offer it's services.
Could definitely do a 4 horseman of the undead apocalypse sort of campaign. Could be rad
@@Puzzles-Pinshmm
Death march is conquest(it’s literally an army)
Scourge is war (for khorne!)
Lich rogue is death (sneak attack)
And lich monk is famine(the fact they don’t need to eat or drink)
*Apollyon has entered the chat
This is an active Valkyrie. Recollecting dead Warriors, giving the option to fight again. This dead march can use the idea to create and legion of Honor bound, passion bound warriors.
or headless rider...
Paladin Lich, maybe.
@@tlotro625 I imagine a palichdin would be very much like the Knight of the Holy Grail in the titular Indiana Jones movie, staying alive for as long as they have a sworn oath still in need of active enforcement. If they ever honorably discharge their duty without assuming a new one, they finally pass on.
...the Living Reliquary sounds good, but maybe a bit too cleric-y
yeah, actually, save that one for the cleric lich, for sure.
@@tlotro625 I just put my idea for it in the comments.
Good-aligned liches is a very cool idea
Ah yes. Another Lich for my collection
Are you a collector lich
A fine addition to my collection
@@tinniesealjijiYou could say that, i have a Homebrew campaign revolving around Undead. This will work perfectly alongside it all.
My favorite type of lich has to be archliches, they're a fun good aligned NPC
Ah yes, another Homebrew beast for my collection
“Draft do not upload”
*Proceeds to upload*
draft?
@@samusamu5342on the notification it reads 'DRAFT DO NOT UPLOAD'
@@desknerdyeah i just saw that only now since i was on pc
Do not upload?@@samusamu5342
@@samusamu5342 Fighter Lich---Paladin Lich---? They are called Death Knights from the Fiend Folio---look it up.
I love how killing this lich meaningful changes its character. With other phylacteries it feels like the lich just respawns, but here they have a new body with different combat powers, which seems like a defining trait of the fighter-lich
But logically that is how a normal lich would work too. every time they respawn they would change their strategy, traps, spells, and magical items they would use to counter you. If like. 5e liches had any ability to change spellslots and have magical items.
@@phantom-ri2tg I think maybe I didn't give proper emphasis to "for this lich, death meaningfully changes their character" and that you're thinking my main point was "different combat powers on respawn is cool." My bad. But what you're describing sounds like "the bad guy's plan didn't work, so they made a new plan". It is mechanically interesting for a player character to face challenges that build on previous experience, but not inherently story rich. It is not lich-coded because the approach you've outlined can be used by literally any villain that gets away, or one who the DM decides to deus ex skedaddle out of there.
I am less coherent from here on out, but my ramblings on the flavour-richness of this lich archetype are as follows: When I think about how the fighter-lich's character changes upon death, I am only half thinking about their character sheet (abilities, stats, mechanics etc) and I would say that character does not equal character sheet. To me, the mechanically interesting thing about this death/respawn is there is both a gain of skills and a loss of skills. Because why would there only be a gain? This would imply the lich wasn't using his best option. When I think "new body, new powers" I am heavily focussing on "new body" as "this used to be a person." If you envision the Dead March as completely devoid of personality, then yeah "new body" doesn't really mean much because every soldier is a shell for the lich to exist in. But I don't imagine it that way---each person chose to be there for their own reasons, and while they are unified in purpose, I imagine the new vessel to colour the lich's perception, if only slightly.
Because if the lich gains the martial prowess of the new host--why then would it not gain other things, like memories? To this end, I imagine the lich as a living energy that animates an army and stands at its head. It gives great power to the one it possesses, but ultimately consumes them. I view the coolness less in the individual lich and more in the reason the army exists. Story-wise you can engage in grand explorations of "why war??" and "vengeance...bad???" when your villain is a series of people who have been wronged/share some unifying motivation. What does it mean to be a part of this martial force? What unfulfilled goal is so consuming that the fallen will chain their very souls to the Dead March? Will they want to be super successful/strong if it means they will be consumed by the lich? Just so many questions makes it fun for me. We'll each have different answers. It reminds me a lot of The Army of the Apocalypse from Malazan Book 4, if the Whirlwind Goddess could become hosted by many more people.
One thing I like about this lich is that since the body the lich is possessing doesn't decompose it can be passive if necessary. So imagine the last survivor of a battle, waiting in a abandoned fort awaiting a defeated enemy from a war years ago standing there in his full armor. If the players spoke to him, asking why he was there, he replied "I'm waiting for them" and if they said that the enemy was defeated years ago he answer "No, he wasn't", now imagine if he was right and the old enemy is the BBG? I love the troupe of 'My duty is not done yet for me to die' and this lich is perfect to it
Imagine opening up an ancient tomb and once inside the death march slays everyone that went inside. Then they would move on to clear the nearby villages and soon there would be an undead army laying waste the nation
Next campaign I run I'm going for "oops all liches," where I manipulate each of my players into "trying this neat backstory concept I found on UA-cam" and seeing how long it takes before the party realizes everyone is trying to become a lich.
Imagine a group of liches that, rather than give into paranoia and try to be the only ones at the top, are instead cooperating and strengthening each other, covering the weaknesses and bolstering the strengths of their fellow lich oligarchy.
they all take a few levels into paladin and become a forsworn order for extra lichiness
@@jessegd6306the council of liches will decide your fate
That sounds like a great way to end a campaign with an argument...
-the Litche’s phylactery-minions decay over time.
-intense cold preserves things. (Why do you think we keep raw meat in freezers?)
-cold = increased minion lifespan.
Well, guess who’s gonna make a Draugr / White Walker themed Death March~~~ 😈
Or a Roman Legion China army at the northern border / great wall kind of thing. Lich is part of the government and is given corpses to hold off some kind of mongol horde or tryanids.
Just preserve a few even if they can't move anymore. Carry them with you like supplies.
I can't help but feel this is veering into the wild hunt Territory.
Great aesthetic honestly.
I mean, he *did* happen to use Death Knight Arthas the Lich King in so much of this video. read up on some Warcraft 3 lore (predates WOW) and make The Scourge.
🎶 *GoT theme on recorder intensifies* 🎶
"War... I am war."
-Apollyon
I was thinking the exact same thing
I know right?! Like, I now know how I would make Apollyon the BBEG of a campaign were I to do so.
I like how you came up with a compleatly different idea than what I got. After like a first few seconds an idea instantly came to my mind "soul blade" as in a fighter that made his soul into his own weapon, now I have TWO cool ideas to think about
Just to add to the pile. Another idea I've seen tossed around is a fighter who just drank too many healing potions and now the healing magic is sticking long after their hearts stop beating
I got another idea for said pile, the Unbreakable. Based on the idea of Pride in one's fighting ability and willingness to answer all challenges to their might, an Unbreakable lich binds their soul to their armor and must meet all martial challenges face to face in order to scratch a tally marks, each mark extending their existence for a short time.
@blahthebiste7924 I feel like this idea would work better for a paladin lich considering paladins draw their power from their oaths. What if their devotion to their oath was so strong that they continued upholding their oath even after death?
The paladin lich must continue to uphold their oath forever to remain a lich. Breaking their oath for any reason even slightly results in their lichdom being taken away. Basically, it is an unceasing, duty-bound, undead soldier who will never stop fighting "the good fight." He no longer can. Call it something like The Honorbound, or The Oathbound.
I don't have an idea for a phylactery, but this is just off the top of my head. Maybe to become a lich, they have to have shown nothing but the utmost blind devotion to their oaths in life? Idk just some ideas.
Edit: Now that I think about it, this idea could work just as well for a cleric lich. Just swap out devotion to an oath to be devotion to a God. Or maybe devotion to the cleric themselves? Cult leader lich? Man there's just so many cool ideas you can make with these concepts.
I'm guessing/hoping Warlock's phylactery is putting their soul into their Pact Boon item, which in turn is sharing their soul with their Patron, the connection and immortality going both ways. Beyond that, it's just standard Lich upkeep of collecting and burning souls as fuel to keep the undeath going. Doesn't have to be fancy for all of the Lich variants, Warlock could just be standard Wizard Lich in practice but substituting in their boss's experience for their lack of personal arcane nerdom.
So, you get to cover multiple flavors of single item imbued phylactery from one statblock depending on: Pact of the Blade, Pact of the Chain, Pact of the Tome, or Pact of the Talisman, at the expense of the likely inconvenience of having the respawn point be in another plane of existence to where the Patron is and the Warlock's current quest isn't. Also enables that old trope of killing the source of the problem instead only releasing it into the world via their Warlock Lich as an anchor point. Gotta kill both master and servant together to get rid of them both.
To add to the idea of service to a master, I almost like the idea of the Fighter Lich's phylactery being its nation. In order to finally put an end to this soldier, you have to topple the kingdom it serves. Maybe its undead soul corrupts and subtly manipulates the politics of that nation
Idea for a Death March (that I’m using for my campaign): A pirate Commodore travels the seas seeking out strong pirates to challenge in combat. After nearly exterminating pirates of his level, he becomes a Death March. The exterminated pirates and their related crews become his undead army of phylacteries. They are an undead Grand Fleet, traveling the seas and constantly seeking out strong pirate crews to take out and add to the Grand Fleet. I’ll be using this idea as a mini boss and a combat challenge for my level 17 party and he might pop up a few times before he’s finished for good!
"Do you fear... Death?"
An alternative phylactery for a pirate could be their ship. (Which has magical warding and automatic repairs)
In order to defeat them you must sink the ship with the pirate on it, otherwise the liche respawns in the Captain's quarters or the lich can perform a ritual to raise their ship from the seabed and regain their immortality.
And obviously pirates of the Caribbean is a perfect source of inspiration for this.
@@jasonreed7522 I like the idea and I’m going to tweak it a bit to add my own flair! He has his own Grand fleet of 45 ships, the fleet as a whole is the phylactery. Each ship that gets sunk chips away at the phylactery until the lead ship is sunk that destroys the phylactery completely. He makes it a priority to only have strong members in his fleet that are able to protect the ships from attack. If a ship is sunk, the crew of that ship falls with it. If the crew of each ship isn’t strong enough to hold their own in battle, they’re not worthy to continue serving the captain. The souls of the fallen crew members return to the Lich to heal/strengthen him
Part of the Crew...Part of the Ship. The Dutchman must have a captain.
Seriously, this could be the origin of the Flying Dutchman in D&D.
Fard of the shit fard of the poo
Pointy Hat: Let me introduce... the Death March, that constantly builds a standing army that literally marches in death to prolong its undead life.
Griffith: *Heavy Breathing*
Yo bro, why the sky red?
@@swordmaster2305 creepy stone dealie is bleeding... Oh it formed a face and is screaming now.... Yeah I'm out.. or not.
(No means NO)
Inigo Montoya: My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die
Death March: Not much of a threat boy
Oh man, what a concept. Someone who wants to kill the death march that killed his father, so he has to keep re-introducing himself to each new host body every time he beats one.
@@AegixDrakanIñigo and the Lich would just
"My name is"
"yeah yeah we all know this already"
That’s funny with the essence transfer
@@exudekuAnd he would still repeat it every time, just to annoy them
@@GigiBranconi
Exactly
Just imagine the ending of that movie with that premiss😂
- Hallo. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die
Death March: Not much of a threat boy.
(Kills death match, finds new body)
-Hallo,My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die
(Next body)
-Hallo,My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die
Death march "Stop saying that😡
(Next body)
HALLO, MY NAME IS INIGO MANTOYA.......
(Next)
....YOU KILLED MY FATHER....
(Next)
....PREPEAR TO DIE.......
04:23 PHTCARRDNSLR is my favorite new way of referring to Pointy Hat’s D&D ideas in passing conversation
Im making a pantheon of lichs as the basis of a world Im worldbuilding and I am so tempted to use this as the name of the pantheon or the country/culture that worships them.. the continent or even the world... only issue is I cant quite pronounce it myself so IDK but this had me reeling with laughter
Coolest one yet, I imagine a wounded soldier, waiting to die, when a death march makes him an offering
Davy Jones on land:
Do ya fear death?
You could get an insanely powerful army with this, I would use wights for his soldiers. Which means each kill they get can raise up to 10 zombies, you get almost like a structured army of general, commanders, soldiers.
Although instead of making them rot away I would have it that the commanders retain some of their original personality, and if one of them managers to slay the Dearh March they become the new lich. What this does is it forces the lich to keep pushing to be the best fighter, while also giving the players more roleplay opportunity with the army itself. Hell they could even be an undead character on a mission to train to kill the Death March.
It's death marches all the way down. The ability to break their bonds is an important source of chaos and change.
Oh, that the Deathmarch's raised keep their personality and become the deathmarch if they slay the 'general' is such a good idea.
I think the deathmarch should be the army as a whole, and the one who says the general becomes the new general, but the one who was defeated isn't killed for good but can take over the general position again.
It works well with the idea of the warrior striving to be the best and that losing to his army isn't necessary a bad thing as it allows him to hone further.
Another absolutely legendary lich variant with such great flavor and fantastic ties to the class. This entire series is one of my favorite series on UA-cam. Amazing job as always.
this is figuratively the best thing ever.
a warlord who partakes in necromancy is just so obviously powerful and present on the world scale.
having even a single death march in a DND world would shift the balance of power, because as you said they dont always need a incentive to help a ruler win as they NEED the corpses of others to stay alive.
and them being a master fighter warlord gives them some fun flavor, as they could theoretically be honorable/merciful as they can only raise true warriors (fighters) so they would have no reason to kill, say a wizard or rogue.
Samurai lich. . .
@@tiph3802
"Look at me. I am the Shogun now."
And think of how formidable the Death March would be as a major villain.
With a classic Lich, it’s a pain to even get close enough to do significant damage. With the Death March, they’re already a high level Fighter with potentially a century+ of combat experience, plus Legendary Resistance for the spell-casters.
@@ThePa1riot Or a mayor ally, death marchs seem like a really useful way to combat extraplanars with massive overwhelming armies invading.
Something to add because I loves all this and love this series and I love Pointy Hat. A trope you can use for the Death March is the "Exchange of name". You see it all the time where opponents who've earn each other respect via combat will exchange names the winner vows to hold them tightly in their memories in glorius battle. For the Death March, those memories are the reason that the phelactory grows. However, memory fades just like the decaying warriors to the point they are forgotten, and breaking that vow to the fallen. (cough cough oathbreaker cough) sorry had to clear my throat. Just a thought... Love you Pointy Hat!!
This would make it so you are forced to cooperate with your opponents, be a good sport, etc etc. I like the idea. In general, I like the idea of non-evil Liches (granted, I can see the lich taking over the body of an opponent as they are their philacteries).
It would work better for a Pathfinder class: Swashbuckler. They are charisma based fighters that combat method is mainly (kinda) duels. But the D&D class incorporated into fighter.
The Death March being obsessed with martial perfection is certainly a valid way to go, but when I think 'Fighter Lich', I'm always reminded of the Hero's Shade from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
For those unfamiliar with Zelda, the Hero's Shade is the undead spirit of the Hero of Time, the version of Link that is the protagonist of LoZ: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. He became the Hero's Shade after saving Hyrule from Ganondorf and restoring the timeline to its proper course, but in the process removed the threat of Ganondorf from history and thus the Hero of Time was not only forgotten, but effectively erased from history, leaving Link to live a life as a hero that nobody knew about, with no great evil to vanquish in his lifetime and no worthy student to teach the skills and techniques he had honed all his life for the day when some new evil would inevitably rise. While the exact circumstances behind the Hero of Time's death are left out, what is known is that aftet his resentment at being unable to build a lasting legacy for himself caused him to become the Hero's Shade, awaiting the day when his successor, the next incarnation of Link as the Hero of Twilight, would appear and claim his skills and knowledge.
For me, that's the essence of what a Fighter Lich should be; someone that refuses to allow death to take them because they still have one last mission to accomplish, and they must paradoxically cling to that one goal so vigorously that even the natural order of the universe cannot claim them, while having the overriding compulsion to succeed in it and end their own existence.
I'd almost compare it to the Chosen Undead from Dark Souls, able to simply refuse to die permanently so long as their willpower and sanity holds out, but without a cause to cling to, the rigors of time and death slowly drain their will to live and their minds erode until they become madmen. Eventually, they go beyond madness and degrade into mindless undead called Hollows, until eventually even the most primal urge to survive is not enough to sustain them and they simply cease to function. To alleviate this degradation, the undead obsess over their goals to drive themselves forward and use whatever means they can to try and maintain their sanity, including absorbing the souls of those they slay in combat or coveting such things as 'Humanity' and finding ways to quantify and hoard it, all the while trying not to betray their ideals and undermine their sanity.
That's the sort of thing that could give something like the Death March more character beyond simply being a warmongering army of the dead. It means that all manner of Fighters could become a lich, their reasons for pursuing and attaining undeath can be varied, and killing them permanently isn't as simple as just destroying all of their backup bodies.
I like this idea, but I feels a bit like a revenant or a ghost rather than a lich with a ritual and all. I do agree that it seems like the Death March could be destroyed far easier than a typical lich. How far is the radius that their army can be from the Death March anyway? A wizard with enough AOE attacks, or the ability to banish the Death March, or any magical means to move the Death March from their army, would have an easy time killing the Death March.
I fear your idea is too difficult to kill, it's not as easy as destroying the phylactory, you have identify and kill the lich's ideal that its holding onto.
When I saw the thumbnail, my first thought was animated armor. A lich that is similar to an eidolon that inhabits a vast collection of armors and weapons. Kill the lich, and the soul hops into the nearest armor that the lich has bound itself to. Without an armor to inhabit the lich is helpless, and perhaps it's phylactory is its original body entombed somewhere. They sacrifice a physical form for immortality, and need to make new armors to bind itself to less they all be destroyed leaving it helpless.
I don't know, thoughts.
I'd argue the Hero's Shade is more of a ghost. The key is he's being tethered by the unfinished business itself, instead of actively choosing to become undead and actually having performed any ritual to achieve it. Also seems purely spiritual and unable to influence the world directly.
Sounds a bit like darth sion in kotor 2, his hatred allowed him to hold a broken body together despite being dead a dozen times over. It's only by attacking his will to fight that he will give up and let you pass. Not exacyly the same, but I figured I'd throw it in here.
@@grinninggoblin3698 Not necessarily. Just keep killing it until its will is sapped and its drive to complete its mission isn't enough to sustain it anymore. Mechanically speaking, if the lich dies without a viable phylactery, it's forced to make a death save, and the save gets harder and harder until eventually nothing short of a Nat 20 can save it.
As for the matter of a ritual? Most fighters are not magically inclined, so unlike a druid or sorcerer, and the 'ritual' Pointy Hat describes is literally just 'keep killing master warriors and hope it's enough to count towards becoming a lich', whereas this works with that concept but doesn't demand that the fighter become a wandering killer, and it's one of those things where the prospective lich would have to have a goal and the will to follow through on it even in the face of mortality and continue pursuing it, even if it's impossible.
To add another caveat to this, helping the lich fulfill its mission would remove its reason for living, and it would quickly crumble if it can't find something else to latch on to, but you could also trick it into thinking it's succeeded or persuade it into either modifying its existing mission or going about pursuing it in a different manner.
@@Shalakor Well that's the thing. There is a theory that the Hero of Time wandered into the Kokiri Forest and got lost deliberately so he'd die there as an adult and become a Stalfos, and that aligns with his depiction in Twilight Princess as a skeletal warrior. Further still, while we don't actually see the Hero's Shade interact with anything outside of the mental realm where he interacts with Link, he DOES fight Link and both deal and receive damage during their training sessions, implying that the Hero's Shade isn't totally incorporeal.
I think it’d be awesome to see a Bloodhunter Lich next. And while yeah it is a homebrew class its pretty popular. Also I think there’s supremely good drama in a monster hunter becoming a horrifying undead beast to continue slaying monsters. It plays on that idea of not becoming a beast by using their powers to kill beasts, but youve gone way over that deep end and are now a monster hating monster
I would absolutely love to see you do a gnoll video! They could be such interesting characters but instead they are just always described to be evil with little culture and interesting traits
I treat mine like I do my Drow. "Some of us are assholes who worship Lolth/Yeenoghu. The rest of us aren't stupid."
Awesome video. Love the idea of an eternal undead army, constantly fighting, constantly growing. I think there was a DotA character with that lore, Dirge the Undying?
For another interesting version of a "fighter lich," theres the Graveknight from Pathfinder. Where the lich and phylactery is sort of combined into their haunted armor. The body within is just a corpse it hijacks. Anyone who wears the armor (even a small piece) will eventually transform into the Graveknight. They can preserve themselves by giving a small piece of their armor (such as a pauldron or gauntlet) to a minion to wear, then when the Graveknight's armor is destroyed it will possess the minion, regrow the rest of the armor, and revive itself.
I feel like I've seen that same cursed magic item in D&D before, but can't be sure if or not it was in 5E or an earlier edition.
When you click on the title hoping it's a little secret and you can peek before UA-cam takes it down...
Also, that intro... RIP Akira Toriyama.😢
Just found your channel the other day and have ravenously consumed all the lich class videos, imagine my surprise when you upload one the very next day! I love this series to death, thanks for all your hard work! Can't wait to comment with my experience using them in a future campaign!
NGL, death march gives me some solo leveling vibes
Also, could see a kingdom hiding a death march in a frozen cave to preserve the rotting ones, only freeing them at times of war.
Love this idea, picturing a very vague quest from the kingdoms ruler to free a guardian that must only be called forth in times of greatest need and after a few sessons fighting through a war torn country to reach the ice bound fortress and finally releasing the guardian it very quickly becomes "OH gods what have we done!!" 😂
Or this could represent a point of alliance between a death march and some different type of Lich. The other Lich offers the death march some mechanism for preserving their undead phylactories (And maybe some sort of range extension to allow a few to be stored far away) and in exchange gains an massive powerful army that can get even bigger than if it was just the death march alone.
The best lich for the death March to team up with would be the Artificer Litch
@@silverstike1410 Part of fun of having these different types of Liches is playing with the options for alliances and rivalries. The Artificer Lich could form an alliance with the Fighter Lich, the Barbarian Lich's rage could come from a Bard Lich making too many "Yo Mama" jokes, depending on the mechanics the fae warlock lich could wind up pledging the lord of the Fairy Beavers to vanquish a Druid Lich who's finds the technology of beaver dams an affront. There are so many options.
I also had an idea for a Lich Fighter.
Inspired by the Jar Warriors from Elden Ring, the Iron Flesh.
A warrior can only achieve a maximum amount of strength. Even undeath does not break the borders of the flesh that eventually reaches its limit. Not a problem, as the flesh and bones of warriors and monsters across time and space are his to conquer.
They are sets of armor that instead of a body, have a mass of meat and bones of countless strong living beings that were defeated and eventually assimilated to become part of the Iron Flesh.
Their phylactery is a cauldron that has all the accumulated remains the Iron Flesh collected and uses to fill his especially made armor that can place part of every single creature in the cauldron onto it, making it learn all skills and abilities from them.
Naturally, you must destroy the cauldron to defeat it, because even if all the remains run out, their soul still lingers in the cauldron.
Not gonna lie this is very useful for me. In my setting some desperate cities when fighting in a war against an abyssal incursion that lasted 20 years turned to necromancy in an attempt to fight off the demons without losing any more of their strength. The war is now 30 years in the past and a 100 mile scare where the abyss itself bled into the material plan still exists and so do the “burial mounds” of these undead legions waiting to serve the people again. I now have a stat block for this army “for absolutely free!!!!!”
A fighter lich would fit the archetype of an immortal general obsessed with expanding his empire.
that sound more like a paladin...
"The Death March" omg what a sick name. Damnnn pointy ur getting really good at this
A Death March is a real thing! It’s a war crime so very fitting for a Lich
You are officially my favorite D&D UA-cam channel and one of my favorite channels overall. You just come up with so many fucking awesome ideas and give that stuff out for free. I love it. You’ve tickled my DM brain so many times
I'm DM'ing today and after a small little debacle in the last session I had to improvise. You saved my life. Great work as always!
I think an awesome additional moral spin on death march would be to make them a professional force with the highest standards, unreachable for most mortal armies, even technically 'good' ones.
Not only do they not ask for gold or food from their client, they also wage exclusively conventional warfare, no poisoned wells, no burnt farms, never hurt noncombatants and try their best to minimise the collateral damage. But whenever a soldier falls, thay are taken by the death march, friend and foe alike.
GODS YES!!! Exactly what I was thinking regarding their 'service'.
Here’s an idea for Paladin + Lich:
The Undead Oath is an oath taken by a Paladin who knows death is upon him, but cannot complete his oath. So, the paladin must take a journey through undeath, abandoning the radiance, and turning to necrotic means, to defeat necrotic enemies. Whenever the paladin “dies”, he returns, with more information on his death, as long as his oath remains unbroken, it will return, and as you can guess, the oath is the phylactery. The Undead Knight will come back, again and again, until the oath is fulfilled, and the Paladin can rest. They are known as the Hallowed Ones.
However, the danger of this oath is when the necromancy takes over, the Paladin will become, less human, feel less lively, forgetting morals, and subjecting to mindless violence, until their figure is almost unrecognizable. Becoming the thing that they were meant to beat. From the Hallowed One, to the Hollow One.
This was inspired by some homebrew I was making for a Soulslike campaign, if you could guess.
Maaan... can't wait for your HUGE Setting/lore/character options/monster book.
How in the world every video in this series just keeps getting better? I'm so excited Which Lich comes out, I'm hoping I'll be able to use at least some of these concepts in the game!
Well done! I was about to skip the ad but it was great! This has to be the most fanciest product I have ever seen on the UA-cam video!
Cool concept again, has nice ideas for mini bosses you have to destroy before the Death March Leader. Thank you again for your videos I love the ideas and they’ve helped me with two characters inspiration
Oh boy the directors cut
i saw the title and immidetly got excited. i love dark souls
Amazing video, missed the while you didn't upload and I'm super happy to have you back. This was incredible and has so many options!
Editing and humor on point, as usual! Love your videos. Thanks for uploading even with the channel problems.
You did upload
You know what I'm just going to watch this in case the title was not a mistake
Really cool idea and I liked how it feels like arthas menithill. I would try to add something from arthas where either by using the weapon that slayed them or by keeping something of great importance of the fighter they can be raised once the fighter becomes a lich. The risen early foes can either basically be skeletons who are advising or being generals to them making a body for them. Not them being a lich because they basically only had the one body and the real lich would have to sacrifice it's own soul resources to keep them around but would be nice to have a second in command that is important. Back to arthas can be like how he brought back kelthuzad, how he kept the soul of uther stuck with him, or how he probably would have raised Muradin if he had killed him when he got frost Mourne. I mean arthas brought back his childhood horse, I imagine he would have brought back the man who trained him to fight and have him stay close to him.
This series is absolutely awesome! Each episode is stunning and makes me want to play the game even more
These Lich videos are fantastic, and I'm working on an undead war arc centered around the Death March as I rewatch this. Love your stuff man. Also your disclaimer put my sides into space
Just started binging your videos and you EASILY make some of the best D&D content. I just love your thought process and how it makes me think too. I made like 5 characters because of your videos (that I will never play), and you helped me out with backstories, the thing I struggle with the most.
I had some ideas for the sorcerer video (thanks to you), and am wondering if I should just splurge them out here
Alexia was always a bookworm, and as she grew older she became an aspiring wizard. She studied and trained hard pouring over scrolls and books for countless hours. However, she could never retain the information due to a constantly failing memory, but she never gave up. And though the explicit memories of spells, and wizardry faded, the implicit memories of how to do it subconsciously stuck. Seemingly surging with wild magic at random, each surge is actually a forgotten spell, it’s memory seemingly taking on a mind of its own
High charisma to power through failures, high con to stay up all night studying, high int but disadvantage on any memory-based check, because she’s very smart but can’t remember things
I personally prefer Sorcerers that got their powers later in life, when something happen to trigger it. I feel it makes far more interesting characters than "I was born with powers because my mom liked dragons a bit too much" This character also showcases why sorcerers use Charisma. it's not their ability to talk to others, but rather it's their sheer force of will. Alexia is a smart character, but that's not where her powers come from. She got magic through the mental equivalent of that one Doctor Who scene where the doctor punched a wall for billions of years. I also like how it makes the power seem more "earned" for lack of a better word. She wasn't just born with it, she didn't just happen to get it, she worked for wizardry, but ended up getting sorcery. I think that's a cool twist.
"DRAFT DO NOT UPLOAD"
Hmmm
Couldn't find it, where did he say it?
@@JesusFreak98 on the notification
@@voidgrim6529 it's normal to me
Yeah, my push notification said it too
@@JesusFreak98 I was in the original title before it got changed, probably an accident
Bro uploaded the draft
insert millitary industrial complex reference here
I can also see the Death March needing to reenact the creation ritual after it hops bodies to a subordinate in order to reverse the rotting that has occurred & "heal up" back to what it's original form was. This makes a good plot hook if he's looking for a Fighter in YOUR party as one of the masters he needs to reenact the ritual.
Nice. I ran an undead party we made just for laughs back when Ravenloft had just been released. It was wonderful, dark, and humorous. Anyway, we had a Mage Lich, Cleric Lich, Vampire Cleric, Ghost Thief (talk about trope), Vampire Fighter, and a Fighter Lich.
How did the Fighter become a lich? The same way a dracolich is, with a little help.
A reskinned and modded deathknight, he was as much a lich as any other, only instead of gaining magic power his undead form gained in martial power. And as a lich, he gained salient abilities, the death knights 2e abilities, and abilities specific to his specialization. And yes, they all earned these undead powers gaining levels. Later, we tried an undead Paladin. It's kind of the same thing, only his was with his god's help.
Food for thought... food for thought.
When you upload the draft
is it?
It was @@samusamu5342
@@samusamu5342 Gotta draft that undead army!
(But, yeah, I clicked the notification too.)
Think it got fixed?
@@walterkruse348 no hes not talking about A draft... hes talking about THE draft...
Just WOW!! YOU SOLVED A BIG ISSUE! I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO MAKE A AWESOME LEADER FOR MY DEAD HALF DRAGON QUEEN LEASHES ARMY!!! He will be a bone night turned death March!!! I can't wait to see my players encounter this character. One of them is his adopted granddaughter. It will be so amazing and probably scarred them for life. Thank you so much for making this !!! I use a lot of your stuff in my campaign and it just floors my players watching their faces just makes my day.😊❤
My campaign is set in eberron they have already met the artificer lich whom they have become good friends with 😮.
And the sorcerer lich 's next host is also an ex to somebody in the group.... (Evil laugh) 😈
One of my players got a regeneration ring and has been chopping off his own limbs to get awesome items from the artificer lich, this last time he removed his eyes and everyone in the party freaked out.😅.
Now I want to see a scourge and a death march go at it. A undead Army vs a undead calamity.
I'm so glad I found this video, and your channel as a whole. I went from brainstorming a one shot with the Death March, all the way to writing a full campaign with him as the BBEG. Now, It's pretty much done, and I'm waiting to finish Curse of Strahd before running it. Seriously, this gave me the WANT to DM. So thanks Pointy Hat, I mean it.
I worked out a Modern Magic equivalent (before I even found this video), based on an old Thirty Years' War myth and the WW2 background of my setting.
Major Tatsuya Yuji was a proud officer of the Imperial Japanese Army. He fought for the glory of the Emperor, and for the prosperity of all of East Asia, no matter what it took. Of course, the pressures of the war had forced... compromises. Lack of supply and the need for discipline made the local civilian populations more an obstacle (and occasional outlet of frustration) than anything else, but that was all right. Nonetheless, when the Americans came calling, his entire division was destroyed, and he was forced to flee into the jungles with the few soldiers he had left. He survived there for years on a combination of what little food he could acquire from the jungle, and on his own devotion to Japan.
Eventually, Yuji emerged from the jungle into the solitary town on that forgotten island on the outskirts of what he knew as the Dutch Indies, gaunt from starvation and suffering from severe malnutrition. With his first contact with human civilization in years, he learned something that drove him to utter fury: Japan had not fought on as he had believed this whole time. They had not even fallen under the guns of invasion and fought in a glorious last stand to defend their Emperor. No, Japan had _surrendered._ Something so utterly dishonorable he could not comprehend it. And right there, in the middle of a town, in front of an array of terrified onlookers, Yuji died. His body fell back a step -- and then he stopped. As his heart stopped and his blood ran cold, he found in himself a new determination. He'd make them _pay._ The Americans, of course, but also the ungrateful peoples of Asia who had so resisted the benevolent rule of the Rising Sun, and especially the _cowards_ who had dared to surrender. As he drew his katana and his officer's pistol, he felt the depths of starvation leave him. Despite being dead, he never felt as alive as he did when he slaughtered that town. (The newly-made Indonesian government, going through the Bersiap, had bigger problems, and never learned of what happened on that island.) Yuji had become a Fext, a dead leader of men, untouched by the ravages of both time and warfare. Instinctively raising a new army, led by his former lieutenants. Since then, he's bidden his time, spreading his soldiers in secret across Southeast Asia, acquiring equipment and readying an army for his revenge.
The players, of course, won't find out about this right away. What they'll find out is that shipping in the region has started disappearing. The American government, in collaboration with Indonesia and Japan, would call in the players, accomplished occult specialists and monster hunters, to investigate once grainy footage of one of the attacks is recovered -- of dead men bearing the flag of the Rising Sun attacking sailors and raising them as undead foot soldiers. I have yet to work out the campaign from there.
Love this! Hell yeah! Reminds me of that woman in barovia who must keep retaking the throne as her eternal punishment due to her being a warden of a plane of dread. This would work perfectly.
One of your best videos, actually.
This concept is so much more usable and deep than most you create... I am astonished.
I had similar ideaz but yours brings it all together better.
Wait, could the folk lore tale of “The Wild Hunt” be a ranger lich?
More like fighter/ranger dual class
After watching this video, I had my friend watch it too. Both of us were so fascinated by the concept of the Death March as a BBEG in a campaign that we hashed out the skeleton of a full campaign with that very idea as the center. We’re very excited to introduce it to our table!
I love remixing your ideas into new things. It really give me inspiration on continuing my 2 year long campaign and breathe new life into it
YES ITS HERE
SOON I WILL HAVE THE WHOLE SET
Another campaign idea, the Death March and The Scourge are in a never-ending cycle of violence and conflict. It may have started due to a village or territory in the outskirts being raized, but due to it, two factions, and they're laying waste to nigh everything.
It's either "Conscript, die, & arise." or become Rage &Death
Something tells me this is a draft not to upload
i dont see anything meaning that
Ditto but I can't put my finger on why.
Hmmmm I wonder
Maybe because it is called death march when that is what he called the scourges march killing everything in its path
Unbeliever leave 😂
Really cool lich idea! I really like the idea of basically an ever growing army being what is required to keep this lich going, and the idea of focusing on the military aspects is really neat, definitely sets them apart from say a Barbarian or any other martial character.
That being said, I gotta bring my obligatory issues with this back up, liches shouldn't have more than 1 phylactery. In the statblock you posted, the only way to permanently stop this lich is to destroy his ENTIRE ARMY (if there's another conscript within 300 ft, instant regen. If not, he just respawns 8 days later at the worst, meaning EVERY LAST ONE needs to be put to the sword). Liches are supposed to be near indestructible, but with an Achilles' heel that the players can exploit. And it's supposed to be a SINGLE item. Regular liches have their phylactery, mummy lords (the things you identify as the cleric version of a lich) have their canopic jar. Each of these guys has ONE weak spot, and if it's destroyed, the whole thing comes undone.
For the fighter, we could take a note from the graveknight where their armor is the phylactery, but that's a bit too on the nose and easy for the players to access, so we could also just say it's the weapon they used to ascend to lichdom in the first place. Could be a cool concept as well, the players finally find the lich's phylactery in his vault, only for him to come busting down the door and pick it up himself to kill the intruders with. A nice last line of defense that seems fitting for a fighter lich.
Knocked this one out of the park, Pointy Hat. I love all your liches but this one feels like it could so smoothly become the foundation for any campaign.
Uh oh, is the title wrong or was this not supposed to be up?
babe wake up, new which lich just dropped!
Bard-Barian lich
Spends eternity ripping foes limb from limb while singing about epically ripping foes limb from limb.
so basicly a heavy metal stereotype bard on roids... but also technically sorta undead but not really...
Your sense of humor rocks, as does your drawing style... and your DnD chops
Let's go Antonio!!!!! Love this series so much! Really hope this video does well for you :3
DRAFT DO NOT UPLOAD hmm
"DRAFT DO NOT UPLOAD"
Another incredible lich, though I think the name could use some work. The term "death march" applies better to the phylactery army than the undying leader them self. Perhaps something like "Grim Captain?"
Not really something that helps, but I recall that a small military unit sent on a mission which it is not expected to succeed at or even survive is called sometimes called a 'Forlorn Hope'.
@@josephperez2004 I think that helps a lot. Ladies and gentlemen, the Forlorn Captain!
Nah, Death March sounds way cooler.
I love this series! been incorporating some of them into ideas for my homebrew campaign. also have an OC warlock that becomes a Lich, hope we get that episode in the near future. Keep on rockin!
Oh look, Pointy Hat is making another lich!
*Sees it's a fighter*
...
I'M LISTENING!
"Death March"? I love the name! Everything about this is super cool. Your content is always great but this is so far my favorite version of your liches. Bravo and thank you for all the very quality content you make!
DRAFT DO NOT UPLOAD
0:32 I had a villain that was a fighter lich. He had betrayed his wizard patron at just the right time and took the potion and finished the ceremony. He found out that the wizard was not going to guarantee his own undying state but rather planned to sacrifice him to Orcus to gain even more power. It was great because the party at first was freaking out after the second time he showed back up alive after they had slain him. He was basically what would now be called an eldritch knight. But back then he was a dual class fighter mage. His low intelligence basically handicapped his magical power but he had a few spells as well as weapon specialization. (Ha ha yes I’m old! This was back to edition 2-3.5) He routinely mentored Necromancers. Helping them gain power in exchange for undead minions. He still had the formula for lichdom that he would hold out as a final reward. Of course he usually cheated them out of that last prize.
I absolutely ADORE this series. I’d LOVE to see how you’d make a monk lich!
I usually don't comment on videos but your Which Lich videos are so freakin good!! This reminds of the Sorcerer Lich. You are so creative.
With this video, I was imagining a Death March who possesses the bodies of his soldiers with this armor and weapons of ice. The Armor is tied to the Death March's soul, and if the Death March so chooses, it can leave the soul of its current host, and bring its soul, armor, weapons etc. to a phylactery it chooses to inhabit.
1:44 Don't worry, I won't ever leave you
Watching u get better at this over time has been amazing
ight this one is one of the best
all of the liches you have made have been absolute bangers, but this one slaps supremely.
also im making an npc necromancer that is making each of the liches you have made in this series to turn himself into a master of liches, and i cant wait for him to reveal himself to the world with his death march.
thank you for all this delicious world building juice you have given us with this series
Pointy Hat is single handedly my favorite dnd channel! keep it up!
Pointy Hat, let me tell you loud how much i love your ideas and your arts, both inspirational and amazing! Thanks for your content and what you share!
And now that we 7 liches, I will now connect each of Pointy hat’s liches to the 7 deadly sins:
Barbarian lich = wrath
Sorcerer lich = pride (see’s their family as a stepping stone for their own greatness)
Ranger lich = gluttony (constantly having to eat, yet never being satisfied)
Druid lich = sloth (unlike the other liches, they have a memorial which can do their killing and such for them.)
Bard lich = envy (they’re song constantly needs to be in the spotlight and be remembered, so anyone more talented/memorable than them can be perceived as a threat)
Artificer lich = greed (constantly on the lookout and hoarding new parts for their phalactories)
And now, the fighter lich = lust (more specifically bloodlust, desiring new enemies to kill and add to its army)
This actually aligns really well with a campaign I wanted to run, so this is really helpful.
Also Narua is such a cool character idea
I've been slowly moving away from D&D content because I'm interested in other RPG's recently. But I still come to pointy hat vids because they're fun and creative. Keep up the good work!
This was super interesting and well thought out. I really hope we get a monk lich next, the real life act of self mummyfication is so perfect for it.
This guy has one of the best video structures on UA-cam. Just wow!
I was so hoping for the Paladin Lich, got a campaign planned that needs one of those. But I absolutely love this, great idea already thinking of other campaigns that can have this lich in it. Keep up the awesome work.
Would be interesting to see different fighter subclasses as Death Marches
Like a Rune Knight that almost exclusively has giants and other large creatures in their conscript as a sort of siege army, or a Cavalier with a huge cavalry force ready to ride like the four horsemen
This is the best one so far, I love the compelling story and how MASSIVE this enemy could be in a campaign. I'm getting very "seeing white walkers for the first time on GoT" vibes and I love it! That said, it gives me an idea for a campaign where I use the Death March to as the BBEG and then get my players to choose between becoming a lich themselves (for whatever class) or finding another way to save their homes.
In an upcoming campaign, I will be playing an heir to a Hierarch, that you created. Thank you so much for making that. I'm really excited.
Been waiting for this to drop forever! This is awesome!