Sounds like a good time!

I hereby solemnly swear to give my life in time of need to the cursed unlife of this realm.

*raises hand* Pick me Mr.Pointy Hat!

I hereforeswear my everlasting soul to the Pointiest of Hats, to serve him forever in the most cursed of undeath. Long may he reign in his unending glory!

I hereby swear: no harm shall come to the pointy hat

True

_Our service, eternal._ _Our sacrifice, infinite._ _Our regrets, absent._

Blood for the blood god

@@user-KNP13 Is that a Gray Necromancer reference? It feels familiar, but I am uncertain

@@kungknas6108 You do know what quotation marks do in google right?

Fr tho

Can the Undying Oath people die naturally?

@@jacksonhorrocks4281 ...No...thats the whole point of being a lich is NOT DYING FROM OLD AGE

@@KrakenOracle I tought it is more about 'Not dieing, in general'

@@dasirrlicht5415 well yeah, but you can still DIE

Even better, in some settings, it's not any specific being that grants divine power. Rather, it comes from the individual's belief in it. So in these settings, a paladin cannot break their oath so long as they believe they did not break it, and their faith remains true. Ergo, you can absolutely have a Lawful Evil Oath of Devotion Paladin

@@rustyshackle8000 Don’t give me ideas

@@gachadoddles6320 Bold of you to assume that wasn't my intention

Feels like the best way to run that adventure is to actually have the threat that they're so afraid of... But once the threat is gone, they find if very hard to stop doing what they're doing... :P

My Characters who are basically Reverse Flash but for Paladins: Worth it!

@@SkoomaGodDovahkiin666​​⁠*(The Only Thing They Fear Is You starts to play)* Doomguy, Slayer of Hells |=======|======|=====|=======| (He has multiple healthbars stacked on top of eachother)

@@Aaa-vp6ug Healthbars? I thought those were his "Holding Back" Gauges?

@@SkoomaGodDovahkiin666 each section is a holding back gauge. The whole thing is 1 healthbar. There’s 3 of them. He also has an additional invisible holding back gauge that makes him even more menacing!

It’s cool, and also a pun! My favourite!

The pun make cracking in laughter good

The nightmare will devour your soul!

Damn, that’s cool dude!

​@@beancandev7818if he's a centaur then that's a even stronger pun

Great idea, and if you want to make the phylactery more tangeble it could also be a scroll whit said oath pened and signed.

That was what I thought but I like his take a lot

That is pretty much what the Barbarian Lich is like, so kinda makes sense to do something else. (Although, on the other hand, multiple of the other class lich options made so far do already use "other people living" for the phylactery, so it's a bit of a tossup.)

That's how the Oathsworn work in the Arcana Evolved setting for 3.5edition. Lots of their features are litterally "refuse x". They can refuse food, pain, sleep, even aging. And once their oath is fulfilled, they turn back in normal people. Who can swear another oath at a moment's notice and get it all back. They're actually monks rather than paladins, but the ignoring / refusing thing made me think of it.

This is how I would do it. Oath of Conquest? Perfect. Oath of Devotion? To a royal lineage? Perfect. Oath of Glory sells itself. Oath of the Crown? See also Devotion. Watchers? Perfect. Vengeance? *chef's kiss*

Man, trying to recreate each one using different Paladin subclasses and this Forsworn statblock could be a lot of fun. Would inevitably need a few 3rd party Oaths added to the mix, but would be nice to try to use as many of the official ones as possible first.

Or they are like the ancient winged race in Legacy of Kain. They don't know who they serve, and the being they serve is parasitizing on the circle of birth, death and rebirth.

I think there are a lot of very interesting questions about that implication. For instance, is it possible for a Foresworn that sacrificing themselves and releasing their unlife is actually fulfilling their oath, or would their attachment to the Foresworn prevent them from making that choice? If they could make it, this might lead to a lot of interesting places if even one Foresworn thinks they need to eliminate the whole group in order to fulfill their oath.

@@CyberDrewan or it could be possible to destroy the reason/artifact that attracts those forces to release the lich paladins from their oaths. Just any way to undermine their reason for the oath as a way to beat them without a fight sounds like a nice plan. Destroying their oath is like destroying the phylactery. And they might even thank the heroes for it.

I'd have Sister Milagros be totally unaware that a Devil, not some benevolent being essentially turned the island into a Banana republic/Death trap for demons and her order are basically fighting in a proxy war.

If they're right, though, there's a timing continuity issue with that. After all, they believed that something was attracting the demons to the island before making said oath in the scenario. So it certainly wasn't them as that hadn't happened yet. There are certainly many ways you could do it but it'd require tweaking the base scenario.

It is quite some time I read the books but I think he also had the chance to stop the cataclysmic event where the gods destroyed an entire city (Tarsis?) but on his way he turned around because he did not trust his mistress.

He was cheating on his wife with an elf. His wife had a kid, he thought wasn't his, so he killed both of them. He then went on to marry the elf. Realizing what he's done, he tried to repent, and was given the opportunity to stop the cataclysm. On his way to Istar, he encountered three new elf women, who made him think his new wife was unfaithful. So, he returned, killing his wife and kid. He, and the 3 elf ladies burned to death, and he was cursed to live as the death knight, and the 3 elves banshees, to remind him of everything he's done.

Soth's case is more complicated than that, and you get the order a bit wrong. I really like Soth, so let's explain it in detail. Soth was a human paladin and fell in love with an elven priestess he rescued from ogres bandits, even though he was married. He arranged his wife's death so that she wouldn't be an obstacle, but that arouse suspicion and he was jailed. Then, the other elven priestesses revealed the rest of the clergy that Soth's mistress was pregnant, which ruined his reputation for good. His lover and a few faithful soldiers freed him before he could get executed, and they took refuge in his castle. Eventually, Soth started to change because of all these events, and one day when he struck his mistress (now his wife), he realized he was changing into a monster and begged her forgiveness. His wife, still loving him, prayed the gods for a chance to redeem Soth. The gods gave Soth a task: stop the Kingpriest whose hubris (alongside the hubris of mortals in general, but the Kingpriest in particular) would lead the gods to send the Cataclysm, a meteor shower that would ravage the continent. Soth accepted, and he was determined to see this through. But on the way, he met a contingent of elven priestesses, the same priestesses his wife was part of (and who revealed his wife was pregnant), met him during his journey. He naively informed them of his mission. The priestesses were outraged: they were elves, the gods' favorite creation, the most pure and good of the races, and there were no way the gods would punish them or the Kingpriest, who was the embodiment of good (you can't hear my sarcasm, but just know that by that time, there were no cleric of the gods of good that still received power from their deity. Yeah. That should tell you all about how good they really were). So to divert Soth from his mission, they convinced him his wife was cheating on him. Soth was dominated by his passions and turned back on his mission to ride back to his castle. Right as the Cataclysm litterally started to happen, destroying the castle in a sea of flames, Soth accused his wife of infidelity and refused to help her or their newborn child from escaping the fire. His wife, in her dying breath, cursed him to suffer forever the consequence of his actions as they died together in the blaze. That curse made him an undead knight whose armor has become black from the fire he died in, charring his flesh and bones. The priestesses, for their role in his fall and the Cataclysm, became undead banshees forced to forever follow him and each night sing him (and themselves, because they are damn culprits there too) the story of his fall. So yeah. Soth is THE death knight. The one emblematic character for the entire concept, before Arthas and co later used it, and one of the best character of Dragonlance.

@@gabrieldoyen692 @Gravy65 Thanks.

Didn't Soth get sent to the Demiplane of Dread for that? As I recall, he and his realm were held there for some time. Long enough for Soth to become so apathetic and accepting of his sins that the Dark Powers kicked him out. One of the few Darklords to ever escape successfully besides Vecna, I think. Didn't Soth get killed off in the new setting of Krynn? Memory is fuzzy after Soth got out of the Demiplane. So what happened next?

I loved this! Very well-written and both sides present a good argument! Did you take inspiration from the conversation between Dr. Strange and Thanos? (And why am I kind of agreeing with the forsword minus the whole “devouring souls” thing?)

Literally Ghost Rider.

Just that intro cutscene alone. Man gets nailed to a chair by a lance and stands up off it.

but paladins dont need deities for their powers they are not clerics

​@sarpdenizakbyk78 they don't need to, but they can and it's a good option

Kethric "My Pookie" Thorm. Coolest elf in fiction second to Mannimarco and Feanor.

>Just make him swear an Oath to an evil deity. Pointy Hat FUMING reading this comment after spending 4 days writing his half-hour zombie knight conspiracy homebrew to make the idea work.

Oh i thought like, criminally corrupt and then thought that it was actually awesome, like maybe there was a way to combine social corruption with being a Paladin, like them being a gang boss or something.

The phylactery infected him huh, so was his consciousness the paladin but on paint fumes, or was it that old Lich from the smashed phylactery taking over?

That's actually super cool

I wouldn't even classify Javert as evil. He's the ultimate embodiment of Lawful Neutral, to the point of either bordering or crossing the line into Lawful Stupid. He is absolutely an antagonist, and a personal nemesis to Valjean, but his characterization would not have him treat Valjean the way he did if Valjean were not a convicted felon and parole jumper. And that's why I'd say Paladins can easily be good villains. Because you don't have to be evil to be one, depending on the context of the story.

​@CivilWarMan , to be fair to Inspector Javert, 18th century policing was a lot more ****ed up

@@CivilWarMan Yeah, if anything, he'd be less of a threat if he were Evil, since at least then he could have been bargained with by offering him something of personal gain. Evil is the selfish alignment.

@@CivilWarMan Javert is ultimately just doing his job and following a strict moral code, that any (hu)man who commits a crime (regardless of circumstance) is damned and incapable of redemption. Discovering that Valjean has redeemed himself rocks his world so completely that he cannot continue.

​@Doublemonk0506 you were less likely to be shot tho

Turns out the Paladin Liches are the only thing keeping the Barbarian Liches and Ranger Liches at bay and both sides employ the Artificer and Fighter Liches....

I believe there's a paladin villain in the early FR novel "Thornhold". IIRC, the author said she deliberately portrayed the guy as having the lowest possible Wisdom score that could still qualify him for AD&D paladinhood, to explain how misconceived his actions in what he *thought* were the best interests of Good turned out to be.

my brother in christ, they made the oath of conquest subclass how do they NOT use that for villains??!?

We don’t even need an “evil” Paladin. Just throw a paladin whose whole shtick is the “repent or burn” type stuff.

​@@calebleach7988 conquest does that, they are all about ruling with an iron fist and becoming a beacon of fear to your enemies. They clearly don't care about mercy both because of what they have as tools and because they are thematically designed as an antithesis to the oath of mercy. They are all about becoming tyrants, ruling over the weak, and holding law and order over compassion or good.

Aribeth from nwn, Caelar Ardent from dlc of bg2

How could you?! Now I am also gripped by the desire to open my old account >:[

It's still there and going strong!

The Krakromancer!

When he only talked about the archipelago and the orbs, before he mentioned the sea elves, I thought it would somehow be connected to the second temple of Uk'otoa. Yes, I watched that episode of The Mighty Nein less than a week ago.

Also I'm predicting it, no he is not a liche but he could literally be a liche with the exact same scenario, he has a skeleton army, is an undead and has a goddamn magic revive wooshie washie (the nightsong)

good cop bad cop but it's forsworn and deathnight

@@d3str0i3rI like to imagine the Deathknight tried to become a Foresworn but was rejected by their god, but still serves as an honorary member of the order.

For extra irony, the death knight could still be alive, throwing everyone off.

Can't help but imagine these two groups in numbers of 100 or so duking it out in a giant field as the kings army watches in horror. "We have to fight him!? He just pulled out that guy's femur, AND THEYRE BOTH STILL FIGHTING!"

ooooohhhh that's a goooood twist. XD

Of course. They needed a grand enough sacrifice to manifest in the world. And the best way was to put pressure on the paladins, then provide them with the bait to resist and grow strong and fat.

The "build your own Dreadnaught" starter pack.