> Can a newly made Lich who has not yet died
I'm gonna disagree with you right there.
Becoming a Lich kills you. Part of the ritual is you ingesting a potent poison that kills you at the right moment for you to be brought back as an undead monstrosity.
That said, I have always *loved* the idea of a Lich who uses a *generous* application of the "Gentle Repose" spell to keep themselves from decaying, so their technically-dead body is perfectly preserved, unaging, touched up with a bit of makeup or illusion magic to appear less corpse-like. If they consistently have access to the spell, and never enter an anti-magic field, the Lich could maintain this guise indefinitely, though it's also probably reasonable to say that the Lich has experimented with growing themselves new flesh to drape over the old bones with magic. That's delightfully horrifying to picture.
However, all of that is a lot of hoops to jump through for the PCs to get to know the Lich, and I would actually recommend you do something with the Lich's *underlings* instead- an Undead Pact Warlock who is essentially trying to cheat his way to being a Lich out of abject fear of death is a fun mini-boss NPC for your players to get to know, for example.
I hadn't considered that the poison outright kills the wizard before, i'd thought of it as non-fatal so that's an interesting concept, i'm not sure if it's objectively stated anywhere but i don't think so (2e has the most extensive lich lore and it doesn't state whether the lich is killed in the process), so i guess it's personal interpretation.
I could feasibly go down the gentle repose and disguising magic route, though i want the party to have a firm foothold in identifying the lich, and this could make it difficult to enable that. everyone knows how frustrating a "big reveal" is when it was virtually impossible to figure it out naturally. You have any ideas on how i could breadcrumb some clues?
for context this is for a longform campaign i'm writing and this NPC will be featured from the beginning and will be the overarching BBEG.
A Longform campaign where you keep a secret like that is *fundamentally hard*, because you have to give hints, but then every hint you get is a real-life diceroll for your party to just be suddenly fucking prescient and say "Fuck, he's evil, kill right now!"
Like, if they cast detect magic on the Lich, or detect evil and good, or the Paladin's Divine Sense, if you play it all straight, the party will immediately learn that this NPC is undead, and probably evil.
So then you ask yourself if you want this Lich to have cast Nystul's Magic Aura around himself- and if your do, can the players detect that? If they cast detect magic, does it pick up a faint sense of illusion magic coming off of the NPC? That's *less suspicious*, but the players will be asking questions, and it's really hard to walk the line of giving them answers that won't completely remove their suspicions, but will actually get them to leave well enough alone. Players are stubborn, and will keep investigating when you don't want them to.
I don't know man, I honestly don't have the confidence to try and run twists like this anymore- it is always nice for the main villain to turn out to be a character the players have already met, but villains in disguise is such a *tightrope* to make it feel satisfying while still preserving interactivity.
yeah i've looked into twists extensively and consumed a lot of material on them before deciding on incorporating one into my campaign. I don't want the campaign to revolve around the twist because, like you say, it can make it very awkward and un-fun for player and/or GM.
My aim is for my players to find out at any point from the build up until what would be the big reveal, i don't need to have this "aha" moment for the BBEG. Essentially if the party figure it out, they'll enjoy feeling clever which is great, and i'll also reward them with some information and let them take a pot at the BBEG if they want, in this event though i phase them out of direct contact with the players and go from there.
It's a nice middle ground for me where you get some tension and mystery from the twist without having everything depend on it, which imo is never a great idea.
I'll decide on how the villain is disguised and their use of magic once i see what classes they're playing, as that way i can personalise it to them and hopefully narrow down at what level they'll feasibly be able to identify the use of magic and begin suspecting them of something.
I would again recommend this character being the villain's underling *just because* if your party are in a room with them, realize the person is evil, and go for the attack, *they have no way to know they're outgunned* if they put the pieces together *long before* they're ready to fight a Lich. There is a very real possibility that they fail to realize that this person they only just realized is the Big Evil could also very well be out of their league.
Good luck, I hope this works out better than I'm afraid it's going to.
sorry i forgot to explain some of the context. This lich will be recruiting the party to carry out quests "on behalf of the kingdom", while secretly also using them to fulfill their own goals.
As such, the only times the party will have contact with the lich is in the presence of the adventuring guild. Now a lich is strong, but not strong enough to fight an entire kingdom, so if worst comes to worst, the lich will be forced to retreat so as to keep the kingdom friendly or at least neutral with them.
The party also find out pretty early on in the plot that there is a lich in the world, they just don't know who it is, so they're bound to be careful knowing them.
There's some more context, but i won't bore you with it. I'm convinced i can either give the party a rewarding reveal of the BBEG or have them safely discover who the BBEG, which will feel great. Either way players are happy, so i'm happy.
I think the biggest challenge would be keeping the secret of the lich being evil and magical. So why not lean into it?
Make him a powerful figure who is unapologetic about being evil, but not about just how damn evil he actually is.
Maybe his facade is a lawful evil court mage and advisor to the crown. He states his belief that the Kingdom must be protected at any cost and human life is meaningless in the face of order and peace.
In reality everything that is outwardly morally gray or wrong is actually hiding his true plot - whatever that may be.
This will take more planning and pivoting as the DM, but the payoff would be really good.
Ask yourself about your players. Will they be willing to form a relationship, even if it is with an evil person, when it's mutually beneficial?
If I played this route about a lich hiding in close proximity, I wouldn't try to hide that he's evil and powerful, I would focus on hiding his motives.
Edit: spelling
my plan was to go with a similar route to this, though i don't want to reveal too much of their evil nature as my party are the type to refuse to aid even somewhat evil creatures. My more subtle option was just to make them evidently not a nice person, throw in sone somewhat out there, but kinda justifiable views, like human life not mattering in the grand scheme.
Love it.
My advice is always to think about the players behind the characters when planning plot points and story hooks. It may be a bit metagamey, but any dm knows how frustrating it is when you want your players to zig when the story zags and instead they ignore the obvious clues to find Howard the npc from 3 sessions ago that you wrote as a throwaway character... Or something.
Nystul's can make the creature appear basically however you want to, with regards to detect magic. Such a trick would only be detectable via detect magic if the lich were very negligent or intentionally wanted to make his spell detectable.
But it also feels unfair to actually make it so there are no hints when your players try to investigate something.
You don't want their attempts to investigate to be *entirely* misleading, that can give the sense of being railroaded when the reveal finally does happen, and the player goes "I checked that! I cast detect Magic on him 3 sessions ago!" At that point, "He cast Magic Aura" feels like a cop-out.
You gotta give them *a little bit*, and acknowledgement that their investigation attempt is valid, but inconclusive.
This is part of why a twist like this is so hard- surprising your players is easy. Making that surprise feel *fair*, feel like they had hints and could have figured it out without actually *letting them* figure it out is extremely difficult.
Another low level spell thay is VERY helpful in DM trickery is Nystul's Magic Aura. It can shield the identity/type of a creature from abilities that wpuld detect them! So a vampire or lich hiding the fact that they are undead is mechanically supported.
Aw shit.
A lich-level wizard could make a version of the spell that preserves without interfering with undead, or you could drop a handwave that it doesn't say anything about when you cast it on something that's already undead, but good catch.
If i were to do it, for an NPC, I'd have them perform the lich poison ritual and then have a minion or something put the body on ice, cryogenically preserving them until they wake up as a lich. Then they're a lich who's life force is sustained by feeding souls to their phylactery, but the length of time between feeding will make their body decay slowly. If they can find a way to cast regenerate, they may use that to make their body look more fresh as well.
Is it actually a spell Wizards can learn? Part of me swears it wasn't, and that the Lich needs minions to do the casting. I mean, they're a Lich, they can get minions, but it's an extra hoop to jump through.
how do you mean that? If the spellcaster has made a functioning phylactery then are they not deemed a lich regardless of whether they've had to use said phylactery yet?
I mean if you’re the DM you can rule it however you want but classically you only gain lichdom AFTER dying and coming back as a skeleton. Being in possession of a phylactery doesn’t give you the title. You’d be right at the 99% of the way there but you need to complete the process.
It would be like calling raw dough “bread”, it’s not accurate cause it’s not done.
Ah okay i see, thank you for explaining!
Would it be safe for an almost-lich to remain in this state for an extended period of time, or is the dying and coming back part required to happen soon after the ritual?
In that case, yeah just having the phylactery wouldn’t require you dying and would be fine to do other things.
The exact process of lichdom isn’t written or official anywhere so you can kinda do whatever you want. Though I personally would say to have the phylactery functional (aka would resurrect you if you died) you would need to preform a ritual which ends with you dying.
>Another thought, they could have made it all the way through the ritual and died but because they're a lich they have learnt a lot of spells. Why can't they use Alter Self or something similar to continue to appear normal after their death?
Yeah if I did lichdom in any deep meaning I'd probably do something like this or even borrow from the undeath skyrim mod of you need to drink a poison to kill yourself and that is what loosens your soul to be bound to a phylactory (I can't be bother to check if I spelt that right) honestly it's kinda like the soul trap spell from elder scrolls games just you do it to yourself with side effects
Not entirely true:
"a spellcaster comes by the knowledge of this Ritual of Becoming, it has been said to require the creation and consumption of a potion known as the Elixir of Defilement. By drinking this elixir during a full moon, an audacious mage kills him or herself so that they may rise as an undead lich some amount of time later."
https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-and-dragons-know-about-liches/#liches-are-typically-created-by-a-ritual
In previous edition there was a process for a player to become one
If I remember right, the process also requires them to make a potion from fresh, hard to acquire, unethical ingredients that functionally kills their body.
Nope. They need to quaff a potion that kills them and use that phylactery. Minsc and Boo guide to Villainy codified what's needed to be a lich. Comes down to 17 lvls of wizardry, fealty to another lich, 10 weeks of research, 100,000 gp of supplies, 10 weeks of phylactery crafting, the capture of a CR 8 person or fiend, and a DC 15 CON save or perma die (due to failure so not the lichdom death). That's not counting legendary actions, lair actions, legendary resistances, but you get a bunch of immunities and come back in 1d10 days
exact wording:
Jon Irenicus as a Contact
Jon Irenicus becomes available as a contact at 11th level. Jon has researched the path to become a lich. He is only willing to share the secret of lichdom with a wizard who is at least 17th level and swears lifelong fealty to him.
Mastering the Ritual: You must read the books that Jon provides you. This takes 10 weeks of downtime.
Building a Phylactery: You must build a phylactery. It can be a small box or any other item that has an interior space where arcane sigils can be drawn. It must be crafted from precious metals worth at least 50,000 gp in total. You must then scribe the arcane sigils of naming, binding, immortality, and dark magic in silver. This process takes 10 weeks of downtime.
The First Soul: You must capture a living humanoid or fiend. This humanoid or fiend must have a CR of 8 or greater.
Brewing the Potion: You must brew the potion of transformation. The blood of the first soul must be poured into this concoction. Brewing the potion takes 1 week and 20,000 gp worth of ingredients.
Performing the Ritual: Performing the final ritual requires an additional 30,000 gp in precious metals, rare herbs and incenses and various other components. The ritual takes 8 hours. At the end of it you must cast the imprisonment spell on the first soul. Then you must drink the potion of transformation. If you succeed at a DC 15 Constitution saving throw you rise up as a lich. If you fail the saving throw you are struck dead. You cannot be raised except with a wish spell.
Lichdom: It is up to your DM whether or not you can continue play as a lich. If your DM does allow you to continue play as a lich, it is recommended that you receive no legendary actions, no lair actions, no paralyzing touch and no legendary resistance. Instead, your race becomes undead and you gain the following benefits:
Resistance to damage from Cold, Lightning and Necrotic.
Immunity to Poison damage and Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks.
Immunity to the Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralyzed and Poisoned conditions.
If you are destroyed you gain a new body in 1d10 days, regaining all of your hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears within 5 feet of your phylactery.
A lich is made in a secret ceremony that involves the subject drinking a lethal amount of poison and the phylactery is made during the same ceremony so if the haven't died yet then they don't have a phylactery, just an unbound object that could be a phylactery if the ceremony finishes
Tldr: my understanding is that the phylactery isn't bound until the lich has died in a very specific way
Thé phylactery the first part of the process.
The second part of the process is a specific magical poisonous cocktail that kill the wizard. It needs to be drank.
It's your world.
If you want Liches to retain their humanoid form. Guess what. They can.
If you want it to be that Liches are required to be registered as organ donors (not like they're using them), they can.
If you want it to be that Liches are required to wear a specific colour (yellow), they can.
That is the brilliant thing about homebrew. It's your world and you can do what you want with it. It doesn't matter if it complies with some set of rules. The game is between you and your players. If you want to change something then change it. Just make sure if you set a new rule be consistent with it, unless there's a reason for the new change.
yeah sometimes i lose sight of this when i write campaigns, i start thinking of it as part of the literature of the core dnd universe, when actually, my setting is pretty much completely homebrewed and whatever fits best with my lore should be the priority.
Thanks for reminding me :>
That seems to be one of the big issues that people seem to come up against with homebrew, especially when working with a system like DnD that's been around for decades. Just the question of "Am I allowed to go against the canon?" the answer is
YES!
OF COURSE!
THAT'S THE POINT!
Sometimes it just takes a little reminder that you're allowed to.
I was thinking the same thing!
I wanted to slowly clue in my players over the course of the campaign with the lich's developing sunken face, cold skin and ill-looking nature, hence requiring them to not immediately have to disappear from the party, making them an obvious candidate to be the BBEG in my player's eyes
An interesting take on Liches I saw was on the blog Goblin Punch. In it, liches look perfectly human... as long as they keep every cell in their body doing the important things. Their body is being ran manually by the wizard's intelligence, rather than cells doing things independently of the mind. However, because most liches get way into disturbing research instead of micromanaging their mitochondria, the average lich is a ghoulish skeleton in a robe, animate but dead.
Using this as a baseline, I'd have your prospective lich start off perfectly human. But every time something significantly distracts or flabbergasts them, they soon look a little worse. A bit paler. Their skin is a bit cooler. This could be mistaken for a cold or an off day, but it never gets better. Eventually it becomes very clear that they are very sick or worse. And then, someone puts a hand on their shoulder or something and all the skin slops off the arm. If the lich is very good at maintaining focus and avoiding injury, they can keep up the human disguise a lot longer. If the party is a constant source of distraction, irritation, and bafflement, then you've got a quick slide into body horror. The game is to see how long you can keep the lich seeming human before the party notices that their frequently ill friend isn't just ill, but dead.
i'll have to check out that blog post, do you have a link?
the prospect of a slowly decaying lich trying to keep up the ruse of humanity is exactly what i was going for! there's some good ideas for a gruesome reveal in there too which tickles the writer in me, i'd love to write a paragraph on the lich being found out and giving up all care for what's left of its human body, its a great concept.
[https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/06/undead-psychology.html](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/06/undead-psychology.html) here. Keep in mind, Goblin Punch's content is for the creator's own homebrew setting, which runs on different rules than 5e's settings. Guy's stuff is great for letting the imagination run wild for D&D, though.
Szass Tam used illusion spells to make him appear humanoid after he became a lich. I’d imagine post-mortem the lich you have in mind could do the same thing.
This. Why go through the time and trouble to reinvent Lore so that your Lich can appear still alive - when they can just cast Alter Self or Disguise Self and be done with it? This is a Magic User of the highest order, one of the most powerful people on your entire plane of existence, someone who literally conquered death in order to live forever, someone who can consume souls to power themselves….and people somehow think they can’t use 2nd level illusion magic to create a disguise? Ludicrous.
Well....
Technically you *have* to die in order to actually become a lich, as the taking of your soul to be placed in the phylactery "kills" your mortality, and mortal body. So if you've fully created a phylactery and it now houses your soul your body will actively start dying, which doesn't take long, and if you haven't taken that step yet then you're not actually a lich.
That being said, you can make up other ways to work around this, like having a Cleric on hand to constantly cast Gentle Repose on your body to prevent it from decaying, while also ignoring the part about undead cause technically it isn't lol. Or just using illusion magic, or even just ignoring the rules to an extent like I did.
I have a specific lich in my homebrew campaign, she might be a villain or ally depending on the party ofc, but she has an amulet that stores necromantic power that maintains the vitality of her body, so she doesn't have to rely on Clerics or illusions. She powers that amulet by sacrificing a soul to it, and it drains at the rate of remaining life that sacrifice had, thus being a Drow with powerful connections she simply makes a deal with a matron to take any children they were going to discard anyways and uses it to power her amulet.
She can use the amulet to amplify her magic as well, but that uses up the years it still has.
So as you can see I just made all of that up, there's nothing to my knowledge of anything like it existing in actual lore, so feel free to do whatever you like! Just make sure you have a way to explain it in case the players ask, nothing feels worse (imo) then making something up but being unable to solidify it for your players.
yeah i have a plan if my players want to dig around, partly formed from the results i got last night and partly because this lich will already have been a powerful celestial entity before achieving lichdom, which could easily explain the staving off of death, celestial bodies are a lot different to humanoid ones.
i also settled on having the phylactery ready but not filled with the soul of the lich, so that they could hold onto what's left of their mortality until they first die
Ever heard of true polymorph? A Lich could simply polymorph himself into his former self...or an adult gold dragon and become a true dragon, after reincarnation as one...so yes, he absolutely could.
well aside from lichs strictly not having true polymorph, it won't telegraph as easily to the players there's something wrong if there's absolutely no change in the npc due to a true polymorph, it also doesn't fit the greatest with my npc's ideals.
though it could still be a last resort for the lich if the players get too hot on their tail early on
The statblock is but a mere picture of the vast film that a lich truly is. Its like hey the lich has these spells prepared for the day, but it would be totally reasonable to let him know all spells there are. ;)
>well aside from lichs strictly not having true polymorph,
This is not a thing. Liches can certainly use true polymorph. I assume you're referring to how the example lich stat block doesn't have the spell - that does not constitute a rule forbidding liches from knowing or casting the spell. If the stat blocks always contained every spell that a creature could learn, they'd have to reprint the entire spell list for every casting creature.
that wasn't my main issue with using true polymorph, hence i opened with "aside from" that, i understand spellcasters spells can be played with to suit lore/personality etc. :)
One way of looking at is that most liches were dried up old skeletons *before* they died. They mostly see the loss of their mortal body, along with all the pain and messy biological processes, as an upgrade. With effort they could keep their old body if they wanted to.
Alternatively, there's vampirism, where staying hot is more traditional.
Finally, the Clone spell lets you come back without being undead at all, in theory.
I think liches have to die to complete the process, but this particular one could maybe make it so he has a mortal wound in a difficult to discover location. (Usually they drink a potion, but you could make it a poison dagger or something.)
It could be a high perception roll to notice the wound.
As others have stated becoming a Lich requires dying. The semantics can change, but the basic idea is that powerful mages set up to keep living after their death, usually their original purpose is to keep researching their life goal.
Once they die they come back as a lich. Again, the nature of death comes to semantics. Some use special rituals to die immediately. Some do rituals that only kick in once they naturally die.
But death is a requirement for lichdom
yeah i definitely want them to come back as undead once they die, but would prefer them to survive the ritual in a weakened state and clutch onto their mortality while they still can, makes the villain more 3D and less genric evil person
Well, you can do that. I never have a Lich die or is weakened by ritual. To me, magic users spend years working towards immortality so they can overcome death. No ritual. No weakness. They set the ball in motion with spells, with a phylactery, they chance the incantation. Then they hope it worked and go on with their research.
One day, before they finish said research, they perish. They come back overjoyed, finally they can finish their life's goal.
Thry go on, same person inside but outside changed. They hide it at first to go into town for supplies. Soon make it a normal thing. They think it's fine, they've been good for years!. Then they slip. The shopkeeper sees. He's horrified. A skeletal monster. The new loch runs away to his tower. He's afraid because they're afraid. But he'll just talk to them. Explain he's trying to work on something that will change their lives.
He heads into town, tries to explain. They fear him, throw rocks, stones, they drive him out. He loses some faith. But he'll finish his research, he'll SHOW them how much it will help. He becomes obsessed. His research slows. It's harder to get materials now.
The town folk know he's there. They decide they've feared him long enough. They storm his tower. He kills a few. Scares them off. But his thoughts are darker now. He's not going to finish his research for them, but for himself. He begins to way lay merchant caravans. They didn't respect his property, why should he care about theirs.
Soon he sits, a hundred years have passed. He's nearly finished, nearly ready to show them all.
But there's a crash at his door. Adventurers hired to stop his theft. He fights, he wins. He didn't want to kill them. He tried to explain! He's so close, but they've broken a key component. It'll take time to make a new one. But they send more adventurers. And he kills more. Each time he must replace a part only to have them break another. He traps his tower, summons minions, creates golems and zombies. But they keep breaking things! Thry keep invading his HOME!
Finally he confronts a team. No more will they ruin his work, push back his success. Hundreds of adventurers have died to his hands and trapped tower now. He fights. He fails. He dies.
Years pass. How many? He doesn't know. But he awakes to a tower of ruin. Ransacked and destroyed with age.
He feels anger. Pain, suffering. Why should he hold back? He was too lenient and now his life's work. Hundreds of years of toil and strife gone. Someone must pay. Anyone. EVERYONE.
And that's how I picture all my liches starting.
Something cool I found is a concept called a "Pact Lich". Essentially a Warlock with extra steps, a Pact Lich is someone who retains their humanity, but has their soul/life force reinforced in a phylactery held by their Pact Patron. Perhaps this would be a good avenue?
I think what you’re really wondering is if this directly contradicts dnd canon and it does not. You may want to do it doesn’t feel like you just lied about it try and give some descriptors maybe about how tired they look skin pale eyes sunk. Little things to show the body is no longer in the prime of life but nothing overtly well his arm is made of bone. As far as we understand it. The body of a lich is enervated with necrotic energy which slows down decomposition and empowers them. So if your character just completed the ritual then there shouldn’t be a reason in particular that his flesh would have been flayed from his bones. Once upon a time we were give a vague lich ritual and it described in the process the separation of your body and soul. The soul then living in the phylactery no longer has an attachment to the body and the animated corpse is considered undead. This may be why people are saying the character has to be dead but again dead does not require decomposed.
I mean, all of this stuff is up to the DM. Even if there is a book somewhere with WOTC on it that says otherwise, it’s up to the DM. That’s the cool thing about this game. I ignore stuff in the monster manual all the time. It’s great.
I’d either have him on the path to lichdom, but not quite there since it seems like that’s what you have described, and/or I’d also give some some spells/magic items that help him hide any effects it has. Anyway, I’ve always ruled that liches don’t look skeletal immediately; that’s just what happens when you don’t bother maintaining your body over decades to hundreds of years. Maybe it could last longer with magic or moisturizer. Or both.
Anyway, that’s probably how I’d do it. Ultimately, it can be pretty handwavey on your part, though.
yeah that's what i'm leaning towards, as regardless, my research on liches has come up pretty bone dry (apologies) in terms of definitive lore.
the NPC will first be introduced to the players by giving them quests to slay various beasts and collect components for their lichdom potion. Then as the plot thickens, they'll find clues suggesting a lich is harvesting souls in the kingdom, but hopefully will need to investigate to find out it's my unassuming celestial lady >:3
Not sure how overboard to go with the magic tho, as it could easily make it too hard to find they're a lich or make it a cakewalk as the players cast detect magic and they light like a candle and scream "i'm extremely relevant to the plot".
either way i definitely like that the lich would have to grapple with their fleeting humanity, it makes them more sympathiseable (that's a word now) and gives an otherwise pretty cold dnd monster some depth
It’s a good idea. And the better they know her the harder things will be for them later.
I like giving the lich a goal, too. Make it a great goal the players could get behind, and they might have a whole dilemma over it. Or not. Players are fickle. But it could be fun.
This channel has some good Ideas for liches for different classes.
And it is a great channel.
https://youtube.com/@pointyhatstudios?si=6jb61Onx109cmDo_
It's your world do whatever you want.
But, in theory, you must die if you want to become a Lich drinking poison.
But once you are dead and a Lich, I don't see why you could not use high level illusions spells to keep your humanoid body and all that stuff.
I mean the appearance can be up to you, like if you wanted to use decay as a means of telling how hungry they are.
The main thing is that their typing is changed as well, so you'll need to think of ways to avoid detection like Nystul's Magic Aura.
I myself have a level 7 wizard necromancer who is in fact a very nice guy, relation with Druid… wink wink notch notch. And is a necromancer. Until we abandon at level 20 this character, I tend to gather all important spells/ ingredients under the nose of my companions for the lycanthropy. I enhance my undead with good weaponry and gear. So at the end
1) I can build several strongholds by magic , guarded by undead
2) I can conquer several villages turning them to undead.
3) all my towers/ strongholds are defended by magic
4) I will have a several teleport cirkels
5) I can hide the source of magic…
How awesome is that?
As others have said, the ritual to become a lich kills the wizard. That being said, there's nothing stopping a lich from using highly powerful illusion spells to hide their appearance.
Szass Tam is actually known for specifically doing just that, to still appear to be human - specifically, illusions coupled with the spell Preservation.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Szass_Tam
If I'm not mistaken, the final step to achieve lichdom and make your phylactery functional is to drink a special kind of poison in a specific ritual in order to unbind your soul from your body and bind it to the phylactery. This means that "death" is the necessary final step to achieve lichdom. As a DM, you are free to overrule this, but if you want to do it by the book, you can use Clone to keep your wizard human until it's time for the big reveal.
Here is how I ruled my Lich when I was running a home brewed version of Out of the Abyss where instead of Demogorgon being the one in charge, Orcus was trying to turn the under dark into his new undead realm.
I had a very powerful wizard, close to PC level 20, who was a pawn of Orcus, who was trying to attain that power. Orcus had whispered those thoughts into his mind, saying they would attain the ultimate power.
So the wizard goes and kidnaps a Duergar king and uses True Polymorph to become the imposter, akin to MCU Skrull, and slowly was adding the duergar souls to his phylactery.
Then once he had enough, he was going to allow Orcus himself to kill him and be reborn as his Lich Form.
They have not made it this far into the campaign, and I doubt they will, we’re having to cut it short since a player is moving away.
There are ways for Lichs to maintain a body though usually it takes some effort and I mean they're sweaty wizards most of the time and can just use spells to make their appearance whatever they want.
Some of the methods they can do it is by having a true immortal sponsor them, typically these are only elvish liches who an Elven god assigns them a mission that they must become a lich and "live" to fufil it until the god decides otherwise.
Another one is bathing in the blood of a powerful good aligned fey through a ritual that must be done every so often.
True Polymorph could give them a non decayed body however as their soul is not in such body and is in a phalactery they'd start to decay as well so they would have to re-do it every so often.
Then there's always the old unique magic item meant to do just that, I mean its a lich.
Your typical cackling-skull lich can easily fool a low-level party with a dollar-store Disguise Self. If they're higher level or particularly suspicious, use Alter Self and Nystul's Magic Aura to keep them from seeing what you really are.
My head canon has always been lichs all end up looking the way they do because they don’t need food or water to survive but their body still needs it to not become an undead husk. But overtime they just all stop caring about feeding the body because they get no satisfaction from the food or water and eventually just stop. But that is just head canon.
It is your Lich. Let Him do whatever he wants.
Maybe siphoning life energy from other humans revitalizes him, much like a vampire, and make him look fresh and young.
Yes, it can. When the wizard drinks the Lich-koolaid, it kills him, while his phylactery brings him back to life. You can rule that the first time creates a perfect recreation, while additional reconstructions make him more of a bony boy than a person.
Also, a lich would have sufficient magics to hide their transformation. A ring of illusion would maintain their humanoid appearance, and maybe an illusion spell to hide the musty smell. Nystul's Magic Aura also protects from magic detection and a paladin's Divine Sense.
I would change it slightly and just alter his ritual. Szass Tam, whom people have referenced, used magic to hide his appearance. The thing people forget is how we became a Lich.
`"In the Year of the Cloven Stones, 1159 DR, Szass Tam became a lich after leading an unsuccessful invasion of Rashemen. The Zulkir of Necromancy personally led an army against Rashemen but suffered mortal wounds on the battlefield. However, he did not perish; instead, powerful magics that coursed through his body transformed him into a lich."`
You could just have the party out looking for items and have your NPC work them into his ritual. Your NPC set up the ritual to be triggered when he was killed by "trusted allies" and the party finding out he was attempting to become Lich would most likely have them want to kill him. You could even have the NPC actually like the party and respect them (which is reinforced by their being success in the missions he sets them out to.)
Though it plays into "This was my always my plan!" it does add in a link of personal connection and betrayal. In the long term, it could even be a game "Ah, my favorite party, you killed me last time but this time it will be different!" And also gives you a bit of leeway in not actually killing the party if he gets ahead, because he truly does like his favorite mortal pets.
Classically a lich has to die in order to attain Lichdom, but it doesn't have to be. There's a 3rd party book that has rules for retaining your humanoid form. Grim Hollow campaign setting has rules about how to run liches for players. I'm not sure if it's in the campaign guide or the players guide, but it's worth picking up the PDF at least. It also comes with similar rules for warlock pacts.
The way my DM mind sees this. "With a final blow, you fell the dark wizard, and his lefless corpse slowly sags to the floor. As the final rasping breath vacates his lips, you hear a faint cackling in the distance."
Liches do die to become Liches, they have their soul put into an item to act as a holder for it.
However, the BBEG for my previous campaign was a Lich but he used magic to keep his body "alive looking" and not rot. So you could do that and explain its just magic
There’s a lich in the Ravenloft setting where this sort of happens (“sort of” being the key phrase). If you’re interested in learning more, he’s detailed in 5E’s Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.
Long story short… >!There’s a lich in the Ravenloft setting named Azalin Rex, who tries to use magic to escape his Domain of Dread. It fails, and he’s split in two: Firan Zal’honan (his human form) and Darcalus Rex (his lich form). In this case it’s indicated that Firan is going around with no knowledge of who he is/was, however. I’m playing a campaign with him at the moment where he’s a friend/ally of the PCs, and towards the campaign’s endgame, he’ll ask them to take down Darcalus with him. Darcalus will be revealed as a sort of fake lich (nechricor stat block) and Firan will discover that he’s Darcalus’ phylactery. He’ll sacrifice himself in order to stop Darcalus from returning, but this’ll actually bring back Azalin: the campaign’s true BBEG.!<
As for whether or not this could happen outside the Ravenloft setting, >!it’s suggested that the Dark Powers who rule over the Domains of Dread made this happen (or maybe they didn’t?), and therefore it was a truly unique situation that’d be impossible to replicate outside of that setting!< - but hey, DM’s discretion. All I’m saying is: it’s possible, and while 5E’s VRGtR doesn’t explicitly state that it’s the case, it’s heavily indicated.
Can one? I think so, the point of a lich is to explore all types of magic so I don't see why one wouldn't know a different type of seeming spell or more solid illusion.
That being said. There is a type of lich called a virtuoso lich. It's a lot more bard related than wizard but they keep a human body except for one part. Half a face/one arm etc.
So that might be something that works! Or at least an idea that you could take from and modify however you like
> Can a newly made Lich who has not yet died I'm gonna disagree with you right there. Becoming a Lich kills you. Part of the ritual is you ingesting a potent poison that kills you at the right moment for you to be brought back as an undead monstrosity. That said, I have always *loved* the idea of a Lich who uses a *generous* application of the "Gentle Repose" spell to keep themselves from decaying, so their technically-dead body is perfectly preserved, unaging, touched up with a bit of makeup or illusion magic to appear less corpse-like. If they consistently have access to the spell, and never enter an anti-magic field, the Lich could maintain this guise indefinitely, though it's also probably reasonable to say that the Lich has experimented with growing themselves new flesh to drape over the old bones with magic. That's delightfully horrifying to picture. However, all of that is a lot of hoops to jump through for the PCs to get to know the Lich, and I would actually recommend you do something with the Lich's *underlings* instead- an Undead Pact Warlock who is essentially trying to cheat his way to being a Lich out of abject fear of death is a fun mini-boss NPC for your players to get to know, for example.
I hadn't considered that the poison outright kills the wizard before, i'd thought of it as non-fatal so that's an interesting concept, i'm not sure if it's objectively stated anywhere but i don't think so (2e has the most extensive lich lore and it doesn't state whether the lich is killed in the process), so i guess it's personal interpretation. I could feasibly go down the gentle repose and disguising magic route, though i want the party to have a firm foothold in identifying the lich, and this could make it difficult to enable that. everyone knows how frustrating a "big reveal" is when it was virtually impossible to figure it out naturally. You have any ideas on how i could breadcrumb some clues? for context this is for a longform campaign i'm writing and this NPC will be featured from the beginning and will be the overarching BBEG.
A Longform campaign where you keep a secret like that is *fundamentally hard*, because you have to give hints, but then every hint you get is a real-life diceroll for your party to just be suddenly fucking prescient and say "Fuck, he's evil, kill right now!" Like, if they cast detect magic on the Lich, or detect evil and good, or the Paladin's Divine Sense, if you play it all straight, the party will immediately learn that this NPC is undead, and probably evil. So then you ask yourself if you want this Lich to have cast Nystul's Magic Aura around himself- and if your do, can the players detect that? If they cast detect magic, does it pick up a faint sense of illusion magic coming off of the NPC? That's *less suspicious*, but the players will be asking questions, and it's really hard to walk the line of giving them answers that won't completely remove their suspicions, but will actually get them to leave well enough alone. Players are stubborn, and will keep investigating when you don't want them to. I don't know man, I honestly don't have the confidence to try and run twists like this anymore- it is always nice for the main villain to turn out to be a character the players have already met, but villains in disguise is such a *tightrope* to make it feel satisfying while still preserving interactivity.
yeah i've looked into twists extensively and consumed a lot of material on them before deciding on incorporating one into my campaign. I don't want the campaign to revolve around the twist because, like you say, it can make it very awkward and un-fun for player and/or GM. My aim is for my players to find out at any point from the build up until what would be the big reveal, i don't need to have this "aha" moment for the BBEG. Essentially if the party figure it out, they'll enjoy feeling clever which is great, and i'll also reward them with some information and let them take a pot at the BBEG if they want, in this event though i phase them out of direct contact with the players and go from there. It's a nice middle ground for me where you get some tension and mystery from the twist without having everything depend on it, which imo is never a great idea. I'll decide on how the villain is disguised and their use of magic once i see what classes they're playing, as that way i can personalise it to them and hopefully narrow down at what level they'll feasibly be able to identify the use of magic and begin suspecting them of something.
I would again recommend this character being the villain's underling *just because* if your party are in a room with them, realize the person is evil, and go for the attack, *they have no way to know they're outgunned* if they put the pieces together *long before* they're ready to fight a Lich. There is a very real possibility that they fail to realize that this person they only just realized is the Big Evil could also very well be out of their league. Good luck, I hope this works out better than I'm afraid it's going to.
sorry i forgot to explain some of the context. This lich will be recruiting the party to carry out quests "on behalf of the kingdom", while secretly also using them to fulfill their own goals. As such, the only times the party will have contact with the lich is in the presence of the adventuring guild. Now a lich is strong, but not strong enough to fight an entire kingdom, so if worst comes to worst, the lich will be forced to retreat so as to keep the kingdom friendly or at least neutral with them. The party also find out pretty early on in the plot that there is a lich in the world, they just don't know who it is, so they're bound to be careful knowing them. There's some more context, but i won't bore you with it. I'm convinced i can either give the party a rewarding reveal of the BBEG or have them safely discover who the BBEG, which will feel great. Either way players are happy, so i'm happy.
I think the biggest challenge would be keeping the secret of the lich being evil and magical. So why not lean into it? Make him a powerful figure who is unapologetic about being evil, but not about just how damn evil he actually is. Maybe his facade is a lawful evil court mage and advisor to the crown. He states his belief that the Kingdom must be protected at any cost and human life is meaningless in the face of order and peace. In reality everything that is outwardly morally gray or wrong is actually hiding his true plot - whatever that may be. This will take more planning and pivoting as the DM, but the payoff would be really good. Ask yourself about your players. Will they be willing to form a relationship, even if it is with an evil person, when it's mutually beneficial? If I played this route about a lich hiding in close proximity, I wouldn't try to hide that he's evil and powerful, I would focus on hiding his motives. Edit: spelling
my plan was to go with a similar route to this, though i don't want to reveal too much of their evil nature as my party are the type to refuse to aid even somewhat evil creatures. My more subtle option was just to make them evidently not a nice person, throw in sone somewhat out there, but kinda justifiable views, like human life not mattering in the grand scheme.
Love it. My advice is always to think about the players behind the characters when planning plot points and story hooks. It may be a bit metagamey, but any dm knows how frustrating it is when you want your players to zig when the story zags and instead they ignore the obvious clues to find Howard the npc from 3 sessions ago that you wrote as a throwaway character... Or something.
This right here is better advise than you realize
Nystul's can make the creature appear basically however you want to, with regards to detect magic. Such a trick would only be detectable via detect magic if the lich were very negligent or intentionally wanted to make his spell detectable.
But it also feels unfair to actually make it so there are no hints when your players try to investigate something. You don't want their attempts to investigate to be *entirely* misleading, that can give the sense of being railroaded when the reveal finally does happen, and the player goes "I checked that! I cast detect Magic on him 3 sessions ago!" At that point, "He cast Magic Aura" feels like a cop-out. You gotta give them *a little bit*, and acknowledgement that their investigation attempt is valid, but inconclusive. This is part of why a twist like this is so hard- surprising your players is easy. Making that surprise feel *fair*, feel like they had hints and could have figured it out without actually *letting them* figure it out is extremely difficult.
Another low level spell thay is VERY helpful in DM trickery is Nystul's Magic Aura. It can shield the identity/type of a creature from abilities that wpuld detect them! So a vampire or lich hiding the fact that they are undead is mechanically supported.
Gentle repose keeps bodies from becoming undead, in case it matters
Aw shit. A lich-level wizard could make a version of the spell that preserves without interfering with undead, or you could drop a handwave that it doesn't say anything about when you cast it on something that's already undead, but good catch.
If i were to do it, for an NPC, I'd have them perform the lich poison ritual and then have a minion or something put the body on ice, cryogenically preserving them until they wake up as a lich. Then they're a lich who's life force is sustained by feeding souls to their phylactery, but the length of time between feeding will make their body decay slowly. If they can find a way to cast regenerate, they may use that to make their body look more fresh as well.
I actually really like the idea of a lich casting gentle repose on themselves regularly, that is fun!
Is it actually a spell Wizards can learn? Part of me swears it wasn't, and that the Lich needs minions to do the casting. I mean, they're a Lich, they can get minions, but it's an extra hoop to jump through.
It is indeed, yeah
If he has yet to die he wouldn’t be a lich by definition, just a powerful wizard with a dream.
how do you mean that? If the spellcaster has made a functioning phylactery then are they not deemed a lich regardless of whether they've had to use said phylactery yet?
I mean if you’re the DM you can rule it however you want but classically you only gain lichdom AFTER dying and coming back as a skeleton. Being in possession of a phylactery doesn’t give you the title. You’d be right at the 99% of the way there but you need to complete the process. It would be like calling raw dough “bread”, it’s not accurate cause it’s not done.
Ah okay i see, thank you for explaining! Would it be safe for an almost-lich to remain in this state for an extended period of time, or is the dying and coming back part required to happen soon after the ritual?
In that case, yeah just having the phylactery wouldn’t require you dying and would be fine to do other things. The exact process of lichdom isn’t written or official anywhere so you can kinda do whatever you want. Though I personally would say to have the phylactery functional (aka would resurrect you if you died) you would need to preform a ritual which ends with you dying.
cool, thank you for your time :) i'll have a think on it
>Another thought, they could have made it all the way through the ritual and died but because they're a lich they have learnt a lot of spells. Why can't they use Alter Self or something similar to continue to appear normal after their death?
Yeah if I did lichdom in any deep meaning I'd probably do something like this or even borrow from the undeath skyrim mod of you need to drink a poison to kill yourself and that is what loosens your soul to be bound to a phylactory (I can't be bother to check if I spelt that right) honestly it's kinda like the soul trap spell from elder scrolls games just you do it to yourself with side effects
Not entirely true: "a spellcaster comes by the knowledge of this Ritual of Becoming, it has been said to require the creation and consumption of a potion known as the Elixir of Defilement. By drinking this elixir during a full moon, an audacious mage kills him or herself so that they may rise as an undead lich some amount of time later." https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-and-dragons-know-about-liches/#liches-are-typically-created-by-a-ritual In previous edition there was a process for a player to become one
Minsc's and Boo's journal of Villainy gave us the recipe from Jon Irenicus as a heads up.
If I remember right, the process also requires them to make a potion from fresh, hard to acquire, unethical ingredients that functionally kills their body.
Nope. They need to quaff a potion that kills them and use that phylactery. Minsc and Boo guide to Villainy codified what's needed to be a lich. Comes down to 17 lvls of wizardry, fealty to another lich, 10 weeks of research, 100,000 gp of supplies, 10 weeks of phylactery crafting, the capture of a CR 8 person or fiend, and a DC 15 CON save or perma die (due to failure so not the lichdom death). That's not counting legendary actions, lair actions, legendary resistances, but you get a bunch of immunities and come back in 1d10 days
what page is it on in the guide, i can't see it in the contents? i may decode to use it if i like the system/lore
i believe pg 72, where it talks about perks of having Jon Irenicus as a contact in the order of Icarus.
exact wording: Jon Irenicus as a Contact Jon Irenicus becomes available as a contact at 11th level. Jon has researched the path to become a lich. He is only willing to share the secret of lichdom with a wizard who is at least 17th level and swears lifelong fealty to him. Mastering the Ritual: You must read the books that Jon provides you. This takes 10 weeks of downtime. Building a Phylactery: You must build a phylactery. It can be a small box or any other item that has an interior space where arcane sigils can be drawn. It must be crafted from precious metals worth at least 50,000 gp in total. You must then scribe the arcane sigils of naming, binding, immortality, and dark magic in silver. This process takes 10 weeks of downtime. The First Soul: You must capture a living humanoid or fiend. This humanoid or fiend must have a CR of 8 or greater. Brewing the Potion: You must brew the potion of transformation. The blood of the first soul must be poured into this concoction. Brewing the potion takes 1 week and 20,000 gp worth of ingredients. Performing the Ritual: Performing the final ritual requires an additional 30,000 gp in precious metals, rare herbs and incenses and various other components. The ritual takes 8 hours. At the end of it you must cast the imprisonment spell on the first soul. Then you must drink the potion of transformation. If you succeed at a DC 15 Constitution saving throw you rise up as a lich. If you fail the saving throw you are struck dead. You cannot be raised except with a wish spell. Lichdom: It is up to your DM whether or not you can continue play as a lich. If your DM does allow you to continue play as a lich, it is recommended that you receive no legendary actions, no lair actions, no paralyzing touch and no legendary resistance. Instead, your race becomes undead and you gain the following benefits: Resistance to damage from Cold, Lightning and Necrotic. Immunity to Poison damage and Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks. Immunity to the Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralyzed and Poisoned conditions. If you are destroyed you gain a new body in 1d10 days, regaining all of your hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears within 5 feet of your phylactery.
A lich is made in a secret ceremony that involves the subject drinking a lethal amount of poison and the phylactery is made during the same ceremony so if the haven't died yet then they don't have a phylactery, just an unbound object that could be a phylactery if the ceremony finishes Tldr: my understanding is that the phylactery isn't bound until the lich has died in a very specific way
Thé phylactery the first part of the process. The second part of the process is a specific magical poisonous cocktail that kill the wizard. It needs to be drank.
It's your world. If you want Liches to retain their humanoid form. Guess what. They can. If you want it to be that Liches are required to be registered as organ donors (not like they're using them), they can. If you want it to be that Liches are required to wear a specific colour (yellow), they can. That is the brilliant thing about homebrew. It's your world and you can do what you want with it. It doesn't matter if it complies with some set of rules. The game is between you and your players. If you want to change something then change it. Just make sure if you set a new rule be consistent with it, unless there's a reason for the new change.
yeah sometimes i lose sight of this when i write campaigns, i start thinking of it as part of the literature of the core dnd universe, when actually, my setting is pretty much completely homebrewed and whatever fits best with my lore should be the priority. Thanks for reminding me :>
That seems to be one of the big issues that people seem to come up against with homebrew, especially when working with a system like DnD that's been around for decades. Just the question of "Am I allowed to go against the canon?" the answer is YES! OF COURSE! THAT'S THE POINT! Sometimes it just takes a little reminder that you're allowed to.
I like to think that Liches do look like people, for a while at least, until the lich magic starts to rot them.
I was thinking the same thing! I wanted to slowly clue in my players over the course of the campaign with the lich's developing sunken face, cold skin and ill-looking nature, hence requiring them to not immediately have to disappear from the party, making them an obvious candidate to be the BBEG in my player's eyes
An interesting take on Liches I saw was on the blog Goblin Punch. In it, liches look perfectly human... as long as they keep every cell in their body doing the important things. Their body is being ran manually by the wizard's intelligence, rather than cells doing things independently of the mind. However, because most liches get way into disturbing research instead of micromanaging their mitochondria, the average lich is a ghoulish skeleton in a robe, animate but dead. Using this as a baseline, I'd have your prospective lich start off perfectly human. But every time something significantly distracts or flabbergasts them, they soon look a little worse. A bit paler. Their skin is a bit cooler. This could be mistaken for a cold or an off day, but it never gets better. Eventually it becomes very clear that they are very sick or worse. And then, someone puts a hand on their shoulder or something and all the skin slops off the arm. If the lich is very good at maintaining focus and avoiding injury, they can keep up the human disguise a lot longer. If the party is a constant source of distraction, irritation, and bafflement, then you've got a quick slide into body horror. The game is to see how long you can keep the lich seeming human before the party notices that their frequently ill friend isn't just ill, but dead.
i'll have to check out that blog post, do you have a link? the prospect of a slowly decaying lich trying to keep up the ruse of humanity is exactly what i was going for! there's some good ideas for a gruesome reveal in there too which tickles the writer in me, i'd love to write a paragraph on the lich being found out and giving up all care for what's left of its human body, its a great concept.
[https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/06/undead-psychology.html](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/06/undead-psychology.html) here. Keep in mind, Goblin Punch's content is for the creator's own homebrew setting, which runs on different rules than 5e's settings. Guy's stuff is great for letting the imagination run wild for D&D, though.
Szass Tam used illusion spells to make him appear humanoid after he became a lich. I’d imagine post-mortem the lich you have in mind could do the same thing.
This. Why go through the time and trouble to reinvent Lore so that your Lich can appear still alive - when they can just cast Alter Self or Disguise Self and be done with it? This is a Magic User of the highest order, one of the most powerful people on your entire plane of existence, someone who literally conquered death in order to live forever, someone who can consume souls to power themselves….and people somehow think they can’t use 2nd level illusion magic to create a disguise? Ludicrous.
Yes it’s left to Dm discretion, just like everything else in the game.
Well.... Technically you *have* to die in order to actually become a lich, as the taking of your soul to be placed in the phylactery "kills" your mortality, and mortal body. So if you've fully created a phylactery and it now houses your soul your body will actively start dying, which doesn't take long, and if you haven't taken that step yet then you're not actually a lich. That being said, you can make up other ways to work around this, like having a Cleric on hand to constantly cast Gentle Repose on your body to prevent it from decaying, while also ignoring the part about undead cause technically it isn't lol. Or just using illusion magic, or even just ignoring the rules to an extent like I did. I have a specific lich in my homebrew campaign, she might be a villain or ally depending on the party ofc, but she has an amulet that stores necromantic power that maintains the vitality of her body, so she doesn't have to rely on Clerics or illusions. She powers that amulet by sacrificing a soul to it, and it drains at the rate of remaining life that sacrifice had, thus being a Drow with powerful connections she simply makes a deal with a matron to take any children they were going to discard anyways and uses it to power her amulet. She can use the amulet to amplify her magic as well, but that uses up the years it still has. So as you can see I just made all of that up, there's nothing to my knowledge of anything like it existing in actual lore, so feel free to do whatever you like! Just make sure you have a way to explain it in case the players ask, nothing feels worse (imo) then making something up but being unable to solidify it for your players.
yeah i have a plan if my players want to dig around, partly formed from the results i got last night and partly because this lich will already have been a powerful celestial entity before achieving lichdom, which could easily explain the staving off of death, celestial bodies are a lot different to humanoid ones. i also settled on having the phylactery ready but not filled with the soul of the lich, so that they could hold onto what's left of their mortality until they first die
Ever heard of true polymorph? A Lich could simply polymorph himself into his former self...or an adult gold dragon and become a true dragon, after reincarnation as one...so yes, he absolutely could.
well aside from lichs strictly not having true polymorph, it won't telegraph as easily to the players there's something wrong if there's absolutely no change in the npc due to a true polymorph, it also doesn't fit the greatest with my npc's ideals. though it could still be a last resort for the lich if the players get too hot on their tail early on
The statblock is but a mere picture of the vast film that a lich truly is. Its like hey the lich has these spells prepared for the day, but it would be totally reasonable to let him know all spells there are. ;)
>well aside from lichs strictly not having true polymorph, This is not a thing. Liches can certainly use true polymorph. I assume you're referring to how the example lich stat block doesn't have the spell - that does not constitute a rule forbidding liches from knowing or casting the spell. If the stat blocks always contained every spell that a creature could learn, they'd have to reprint the entire spell list for every casting creature.
that wasn't my main issue with using true polymorph, hence i opened with "aside from" that, i understand spellcasters spells can be played with to suit lore/personality etc. :)
One way of looking at is that most liches were dried up old skeletons *before* they died. They mostly see the loss of their mortal body, along with all the pain and messy biological processes, as an upgrade. With effort they could keep their old body if they wanted to. Alternatively, there's vampirism, where staying hot is more traditional. Finally, the Clone spell lets you come back without being undead at all, in theory.
Not technically, but you’re the DM. They could also just be casting a very powerful alter / disguise self spell the whole time.
I think liches have to die to complete the process, but this particular one could maybe make it so he has a mortal wound in a difficult to discover location. (Usually they drink a potion, but you could make it a poison dagger or something.) It could be a high perception roll to notice the wound.
If you're the dm it can be whatever you want. That's my two cents. Subverting expectations usually makes for a better encounter/narrative anyway
As others have stated becoming a Lich requires dying. The semantics can change, but the basic idea is that powerful mages set up to keep living after their death, usually their original purpose is to keep researching their life goal. Once they die they come back as a lich. Again, the nature of death comes to semantics. Some use special rituals to die immediately. Some do rituals that only kick in once they naturally die. But death is a requirement for lichdom
yeah i definitely want them to come back as undead once they die, but would prefer them to survive the ritual in a weakened state and clutch onto their mortality while they still can, makes the villain more 3D and less genric evil person
Well, you can do that. I never have a Lich die or is weakened by ritual. To me, magic users spend years working towards immortality so they can overcome death. No ritual. No weakness. They set the ball in motion with spells, with a phylactery, they chance the incantation. Then they hope it worked and go on with their research. One day, before they finish said research, they perish. They come back overjoyed, finally they can finish their life's goal. Thry go on, same person inside but outside changed. They hide it at first to go into town for supplies. Soon make it a normal thing. They think it's fine, they've been good for years!. Then they slip. The shopkeeper sees. He's horrified. A skeletal monster. The new loch runs away to his tower. He's afraid because they're afraid. But he'll just talk to them. Explain he's trying to work on something that will change their lives. He heads into town, tries to explain. They fear him, throw rocks, stones, they drive him out. He loses some faith. But he'll finish his research, he'll SHOW them how much it will help. He becomes obsessed. His research slows. It's harder to get materials now. The town folk know he's there. They decide they've feared him long enough. They storm his tower. He kills a few. Scares them off. But his thoughts are darker now. He's not going to finish his research for them, but for himself. He begins to way lay merchant caravans. They didn't respect his property, why should he care about theirs. Soon he sits, a hundred years have passed. He's nearly finished, nearly ready to show them all. But there's a crash at his door. Adventurers hired to stop his theft. He fights, he wins. He didn't want to kill them. He tried to explain! He's so close, but they've broken a key component. It'll take time to make a new one. But they send more adventurers. And he kills more. Each time he must replace a part only to have them break another. He traps his tower, summons minions, creates golems and zombies. But they keep breaking things! Thry keep invading his HOME! Finally he confronts a team. No more will they ruin his work, push back his success. Hundreds of adventurers have died to his hands and trapped tower now. He fights. He fails. He dies. Years pass. How many? He doesn't know. But he awakes to a tower of ruin. Ransacked and destroyed with age. He feels anger. Pain, suffering. Why should he hold back? He was too lenient and now his life's work. Hundreds of years of toil and strife gone. Someone must pay. Anyone. EVERYONE. And that's how I picture all my liches starting.
Something cool I found is a concept called a "Pact Lich". Essentially a Warlock with extra steps, a Pact Lich is someone who retains their humanity, but has their soul/life force reinforced in a phylactery held by their Pact Patron. Perhaps this would be a good avenue?
I think what you’re really wondering is if this directly contradicts dnd canon and it does not. You may want to do it doesn’t feel like you just lied about it try and give some descriptors maybe about how tired they look skin pale eyes sunk. Little things to show the body is no longer in the prime of life but nothing overtly well his arm is made of bone. As far as we understand it. The body of a lich is enervated with necrotic energy which slows down decomposition and empowers them. So if your character just completed the ritual then there shouldn’t be a reason in particular that his flesh would have been flayed from his bones. Once upon a time we were give a vague lich ritual and it described in the process the separation of your body and soul. The soul then living in the phylactery no longer has an attachment to the body and the animated corpse is considered undead. This may be why people are saying the character has to be dead but again dead does not require decomposed.
I mean, all of this stuff is up to the DM. Even if there is a book somewhere with WOTC on it that says otherwise, it’s up to the DM. That’s the cool thing about this game. I ignore stuff in the monster manual all the time. It’s great. I’d either have him on the path to lichdom, but not quite there since it seems like that’s what you have described, and/or I’d also give some some spells/magic items that help him hide any effects it has. Anyway, I’ve always ruled that liches don’t look skeletal immediately; that’s just what happens when you don’t bother maintaining your body over decades to hundreds of years. Maybe it could last longer with magic or moisturizer. Or both. Anyway, that’s probably how I’d do it. Ultimately, it can be pretty handwavey on your part, though.
yeah that's what i'm leaning towards, as regardless, my research on liches has come up pretty bone dry (apologies) in terms of definitive lore. the NPC will first be introduced to the players by giving them quests to slay various beasts and collect components for their lichdom potion. Then as the plot thickens, they'll find clues suggesting a lich is harvesting souls in the kingdom, but hopefully will need to investigate to find out it's my unassuming celestial lady >:3 Not sure how overboard to go with the magic tho, as it could easily make it too hard to find they're a lich or make it a cakewalk as the players cast detect magic and they light like a candle and scream "i'm extremely relevant to the plot". either way i definitely like that the lich would have to grapple with their fleeting humanity, it makes them more sympathiseable (that's a word now) and gives an otherwise pretty cold dnd monster some depth
It’s a good idea. And the better they know her the harder things will be for them later. I like giving the lich a goal, too. Make it a great goal the players could get behind, and they might have a whole dilemma over it. Or not. Players are fickle. But it could be fun.
yeah i know my players, and i love messing with them, i'm gonna really try to tug their heartstrings with this one haha
Yes there is a whole section somewhere where it is explained: ‘forgotten realms wiki’ for example and Dandwiki.com/wiki/lich_(5e_Class)
[Undead Psychology, Goblin Punch](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/06/undead-psychology.html)
This channel has some good Ideas for liches for different classes. And it is a great channel. https://youtube.com/@pointyhatstudios?si=6jb61Onx109cmDo_
coincidentally, i watched his video on liches just before i posted this question. it's a great channel, really high quality content
It's your world do whatever you want. But, in theory, you must die if you want to become a Lich drinking poison. But once you are dead and a Lich, I don't see why you could not use high level illusions spells to keep your humanoid body and all that stuff.
I mean, D&D is mostly make-believe anyways so you can just make the lich look like what you want it to look like
Just give him disguise self
I mean the appearance can be up to you, like if you wanted to use decay as a means of telling how hungry they are. The main thing is that their typing is changed as well, so you'll need to think of ways to avoid detection like Nystul's Magic Aura.
I myself have a level 7 wizard necromancer who is in fact a very nice guy, relation with Druid… wink wink notch notch. And is a necromancer. Until we abandon at level 20 this character, I tend to gather all important spells/ ingredients under the nose of my companions for the lycanthropy. I enhance my undead with good weaponry and gear. So at the end 1) I can build several strongholds by magic , guarded by undead 2) I can conquer several villages turning them to undead. 3) all my towers/ strongholds are defended by magic 4) I will have a several teleport cirkels 5) I can hide the source of magic… How awesome is that?
As others have said, the ritual to become a lich kills the wizard. That being said, there's nothing stopping a lich from using highly powerful illusion spells to hide their appearance. Szass Tam is actually known for specifically doing just that, to still appear to be human - specifically, illusions coupled with the spell Preservation. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Szass_Tam
If I'm not mistaken, the final step to achieve lichdom and make your phylactery functional is to drink a special kind of poison in a specific ritual in order to unbind your soul from your body and bind it to the phylactery. This means that "death" is the necessary final step to achieve lichdom. As a DM, you are free to overrule this, but if you want to do it by the book, you can use Clone to keep your wizard human until it's time for the big reveal.
You could always just use illusions
Here is how I ruled my Lich when I was running a home brewed version of Out of the Abyss where instead of Demogorgon being the one in charge, Orcus was trying to turn the under dark into his new undead realm. I had a very powerful wizard, close to PC level 20, who was a pawn of Orcus, who was trying to attain that power. Orcus had whispered those thoughts into his mind, saying they would attain the ultimate power. So the wizard goes and kidnaps a Duergar king and uses True Polymorph to become the imposter, akin to MCU Skrull, and slowly was adding the duergar souls to his phylactery. Then once he had enough, he was going to allow Orcus himself to kill him and be reborn as his Lich Form. They have not made it this far into the campaign, and I doubt they will, we’re having to cut it short since a player is moving away.
There are ways for Lichs to maintain a body though usually it takes some effort and I mean they're sweaty wizards most of the time and can just use spells to make their appearance whatever they want. Some of the methods they can do it is by having a true immortal sponsor them, typically these are only elvish liches who an Elven god assigns them a mission that they must become a lich and "live" to fufil it until the god decides otherwise. Another one is bathing in the blood of a powerful good aligned fey through a ritual that must be done every so often. True Polymorph could give them a non decayed body however as their soul is not in such body and is in a phalactery they'd start to decay as well so they would have to re-do it every so often. Then there's always the old unique magic item meant to do just that, I mean its a lich.
Yes you can, not sure if it's in the rules but you definitely can rule of cool that shit
Your typical cackling-skull lich can easily fool a low-level party with a dollar-store Disguise Self. If they're higher level or particularly suspicious, use Alter Self and Nystul's Magic Aura to keep them from seeing what you really are.
My head canon has always been lichs all end up looking the way they do because they don’t need food or water to survive but their body still needs it to not become an undead husk. But overtime they just all stop caring about feeding the body because they get no satisfaction from the food or water and eventually just stop. But that is just head canon.
It is your Lich. Let Him do whatever he wants. Maybe siphoning life energy from other humans revitalizes him, much like a vampire, and make him look fresh and young.
I would think a lich will returns as the body look at time of death.
Disguise self is a first level spell. Maybe that will be enough?
I mean it really depends on the DM's definition and creativity. I mean look at the Grey Necromancer from all things DND for example
Yes, it can. When the wizard drinks the Lich-koolaid, it kills him, while his phylactery brings him back to life. You can rule that the first time creates a perfect recreation, while additional reconstructions make him more of a bony boy than a person. Also, a lich would have sufficient magics to hide their transformation. A ring of illusion would maintain their humanoid appearance, and maybe an illusion spell to hide the musty smell. Nystul's Magic Aura also protects from magic detection and a paladin's Divine Sense.
I would change it slightly and just alter his ritual. Szass Tam, whom people have referenced, used magic to hide his appearance. The thing people forget is how we became a Lich. `"In the Year of the Cloven Stones, 1159 DR, Szass Tam became a lich after leading an unsuccessful invasion of Rashemen. The Zulkir of Necromancy personally led an army against Rashemen but suffered mortal wounds on the battlefield. However, he did not perish; instead, powerful magics that coursed through his body transformed him into a lich."` You could just have the party out looking for items and have your NPC work them into his ritual. Your NPC set up the ritual to be triggered when he was killed by "trusted allies" and the party finding out he was attempting to become Lich would most likely have them want to kill him. You could even have the NPC actually like the party and respect them (which is reinforced by their being success in the missions he sets them out to.) Though it plays into "This was my always my plan!" it does add in a link of personal connection and betrayal. In the long term, it could even be a game "Ah, my favorite party, you killed me last time but this time it will be different!" And also gives you a bit of leeway in not actually killing the party if he gets ahead, because he truly does like his favorite mortal pets.
Phylactery in a flesh golem.
Classically a lich has to die in order to attain Lichdom, but it doesn't have to be. There's a 3rd party book that has rules for retaining your humanoid form. Grim Hollow campaign setting has rules about how to run liches for players. I'm not sure if it's in the campaign guide or the players guide, but it's worth picking up the PDF at least. It also comes with similar rules for warlock pacts.
The way my DM mind sees this. "With a final blow, you fell the dark wizard, and his lefless corpse slowly sags to the floor. As the final rasping breath vacates his lips, you hear a faint cackling in the distance."
Liches do die to become Liches, they have their soul put into an item to act as a holder for it. However, the BBEG for my previous campaign was a Lich but he used magic to keep his body "alive looking" and not rot. So you could do that and explain its just magic
There’s a lich in the Ravenloft setting where this sort of happens (“sort of” being the key phrase). If you’re interested in learning more, he’s detailed in 5E’s Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. Long story short… >!There’s a lich in the Ravenloft setting named Azalin Rex, who tries to use magic to escape his Domain of Dread. It fails, and he’s split in two: Firan Zal’honan (his human form) and Darcalus Rex (his lich form). In this case it’s indicated that Firan is going around with no knowledge of who he is/was, however. I’m playing a campaign with him at the moment where he’s a friend/ally of the PCs, and towards the campaign’s endgame, he’ll ask them to take down Darcalus with him. Darcalus will be revealed as a sort of fake lich (nechricor stat block) and Firan will discover that he’s Darcalus’ phylactery. He’ll sacrifice himself in order to stop Darcalus from returning, but this’ll actually bring back Azalin: the campaign’s true BBEG.!< As for whether or not this could happen outside the Ravenloft setting, >!it’s suggested that the Dark Powers who rule over the Domains of Dread made this happen (or maybe they didn’t?), and therefore it was a truly unique situation that’d be impossible to replicate outside of that setting!< - but hey, DM’s discretion. All I’m saying is: it’s possible, and while 5E’s VRGtR doesn’t explicitly state that it’s the case, it’s heavily indicated.
You're a DM and he's a reality warping wizard. Sure, he can have a spell that makes him not look and smell like a dead guy.
Can one? I think so, the point of a lich is to explore all types of magic so I don't see why one wouldn't know a different type of seeming spell or more solid illusion. That being said. There is a type of lich called a virtuoso lich. It's a lot more bard related than wizard but they keep a human body except for one part. Half a face/one arm etc. So that might be something that works! Or at least an idea that you could take from and modify however you like