Apologies for the random music in the video. It was an editing glitch. I wondered where the music went at the end... now I know.

The Lich in my game became a Lich because he wanted to live long enough to see his beloved obtain divinity and the power to make sure she succeeds. His phylactery is ring that she wears. My players definitely thought it was a cool idea.

About ten years ago I played a cleric who wanted to become a lich. Now, I'm running a campaign 400 years later where she succeeded. Her phylactery is her father's skull. He was a paladin of Pelor, and I murdered him in game. I really like the time travel idea, because I know everything that happened 400 years ago. That's an amazing tip and I'm absolutely going to use it.

The Borg Queen could be an example of a Sci-Fi Lich. No matter how many times her physical body is destroyed, she is reintegrated on another ship. The Borg are sort of like technological zombies.

Werewere. A man who on the night of the full moon turns into a man.

Licherature.

WereMimics. A human who changes into a mimic when they sleep.

Liches are fantastic Big Bad material, there's so much you can do with them and the phylactery concept means that running into and fighting them repeatedly is perfectly reasonable. The PCs can even triumph.... for a time. My last campaign had a Lich who was fairly reclusive and doing deep arcane research, but kept getting annoyed by all the chaos and squabbling of the places they visited or dwelled in. They also had a rather negative relationship with a god of chaos and discord. Their decision? Establish a global empire that will maintain lawful and fair rule of the world so that can the lich can continue doing his research in peace. Completely behind the scenes, anonymously sponsoring/pushing the empire forwards and weakening their opposition.

Not one mention of Koschei the Deathless from Russian mythology? His "heart" (or soul) is contained within a needle. The needle is within an egg. The egg is within a duck. The duck is within a hare. The hare is in an iron chest buried at the foot of an old oak tree on a remote island somewhere. He is literally the original inspiration for the liche's phylactery concept.

Ah yes, the dreaded werewere. By day, he looks like a normal man, going about his business like any other citizen. But under the full moon, he turns into...a different man!

I once made a Lich that became a Lich trying to save problems such as aging and plagues, but she could only do so for herself, and it was not a perfect spell either, as her flesh still decayed, though her mind and soul were trapped in the horror of seen her own flesh decay, so she stablished herself in her lab trying to solve the problem of flesh decaying, or find a better sollution, a panacea, that would solve humanity's problems with plagues, that would make humans imortals so no one else had to suffer... but so far as she had not achived her goal, she had to study, she had to experiment, and therefore she requested the local village to send subjects for her to experiment on her attempt to develop the panacea. The first few groups went willingly, they wanted to help with the panacea, but as group after group failed to return and it became more evident that the mage's flesh was falling from her face, they rebelled, they refused to send even more subjects. The lich felt betrayed, what had she sacrificed for those ungrateful peasants? she sacrificed her life, she sacrificed her beauty, she sacrificed her mind, everything! she would not take a "no" for an answer, she would fulfill her mission, whatever the cost! That had being almost a century ago, the rest of the world just survived the plague and is now rebuilding, the plague is no longer a problem. How do they deal with the Lich once they found out this isolated village is being used as experimental lab for a lich that wishes to cure a disease that is no longer a problem? Well, in my case I also added a twist... the village developed a pact with the Lich, they would actively call adventurers for a supposed easier task, and send them to the cave where the Lich made her lab. As long as she had subjects for her experiments, she would not need to take the peasants , this way she would leave the village she wished to save in peace...

When you mentioned the ball gowns, I thought of a yearly ball, put on by the local liche/queen. The Queen is after the love of her people, so everyone is invited, there’s an all you can eat buffet. Sure, someone disappears at the ball each year, but they get a night full of fun and a guaranteed full belly, so it’s worth the risk. The queen has a host of clerics that regularly cast Gentle Repose on her, keeping her looking beautiful and alive. The party is new in town and hear the town crier reminding everyone about the ball tonight that everyone is invited to. The party (hopefully) attend because free food and alcohol. Of course it’s one of the party members that gets taken to put in the phylactory. The phylactory is a mirror, because the liche queen is vain. Even if it’s meta gaming I’d allow the party members to look for the one that got taken. There were a couple rooms that the party couldn’t get into because they were warded. Of course the taken are behind one of the doors with the liche queen and her phylactory.

One time I introduced a lich as a big bad to my campaign, but didn't intend them to be outright evil - at least not to the extent most liches are where they're malevolent for the sake of malevolence as it often seems. Mine, instead, was just incredibly power hungry but so distracted with his work that he didn't notice his creations were running rampant because it just never crossed his mind. The party found themselves entering the home of the lich, and instead of finding entirely hostile undead they were met by an intelligent undead servant who welcomed them and brought them in for tea with their master, who had told the servant that anyone who happened to stop by was welcome to be here for tea. They ended up having tea with the lich, and to their surprise he was incredibly sympathetic to their cause of trying to stop the rampant undead harassing the surrounding landscape. They managed to barter with him that in return for helping stop it, they would help him with a few things. Including, unknown to them, becoming a demilich. Sadly, to their dismay, their powerful, undead friend didn't awaken in the long time after he decayed (stuff with a time warp happened, allowing them to reach the time after he'd returned). They ended up having to slay his enraged remains, destroy the remains with all the absurd stuff you need to do in Pathfinder to destroy a demilich, and destroy their friend who hadn't managed to be one of the lucky few to awaken as a demilich.

I’ve always found Liches to be a good BBEG because you can’t make a Lich without creating a strong backstory and history. Having that situation where some vampire and a Lich try preserving the living is really interesting to think about. Really excited you covered these! Your monster series are really fun and insightful.

Damn, now I want to play a „Harry Potter“ game where Dumbledore is a liche. That is a really great idea and could make for quite a campaign.

When you mentioned dumbledore i shouted at my tv for this reason voldemort was technically a lich with 7 phalectarys

First read "How to use Lychees in your Game". Was a bit confusing... I realy like the Idea of the Undead trying to save there "livestock". Also congrats to the "cooperation"/mentioning on World Anvil

The 2002 He-man series pretty much confirmed Skeletor as a lich to me. The process Keldor goes through (although short which it is a cartoon so that's understandable) is really similar to having the power given by an evil deity. Just watched an "origins of Skeletor" video a couple days ago. Keldor looked a lot like a dark elf really.

An interesting take would be that the Lich fulfills a role similar to the Dragon Tyrant Fable. Imagine a powerful undead mage that is so powerful and simply unkillable that a whole society becomes dedicated to feed them with souls, and just accept death as a fact of their existence. In exchange the Lich would be actually helpful to said society, sure they are evil and self serving, but as a side effect of their longevity and power, magical studies would just advance quicker in that place. Taking from Guy's idea of the wizarding college led by a Lich: imagine something like Howartz or Vinheim in Dark Souls, an academy for mages with great political influence. The headmaster is a Lich, sure, but lets say the philactery accepts any kind of soul as food. The elder wizards are sacrificed to the headmaster, and they do it almost joyfully, or at least with some dignity, after all they ARE going to die soon anyway, so why not be a service to their glorious institution. This creates an interesting conflict: You have someone who fears death above everything else being fed by generations and generations of people who have already accepted it as a part of life.

Another lich that comes to my mind is Arklam Greeth from R.A. Salvatore's novels on the Forgotten Realms (the setting of D&D) He is (or rather was) the leader of Luskan's mage's tower - forgot its name.

Liches are one of my favorite monsters. I love to camp them up and play up how evil they are, and their backstories are always juicy

I think it would be hilarious to have a villian who is unsure of the specifics to becoming a lich and sends adventurers off to complete the tasks to become a lich unbeknownst to the characters to see if it works. They'd probably have to become an archlich in researching this comment since regular lichs typically require deals with demons that would be hard to hide what is going on... but I think it COOOULD work... maybe...

I once had an idea for a lich that's actually the reclusive baron of an isolated town. The mysterious baron provides the town with protection from external threats while the townsfolk provide him with an occasional soul and security from nosy adventurers. Eventually the Baron ascends to almost mythical status over the generations since he's so rarely see, with some of the townsfolk unsure that he even exists or his protection is needed. Enter the adventurers amidst a growing division between factions loyal to the Baron and those vying for independence (for selfish reasons or otherwise)

I had a lich who was part of an old Egyptian style civilization, the party had to steal some treasure from the old emperor's vault, but the lich himself was just a care taker. The people of the civilization had a huge fear of death, and so every person had their souls bound to a page of a book when they died, and those books filled up a massive library for the Lich to overlook and make sure they'd "live" forever.

Such great story telling! Your hero’s can only be as great as the villain. The layers you add truly make it a three dimensional character and not just a monster. Keep up the great work!

Great content as always!

A very good tutorial coming only a month after my lich villain in My campaign. Surprised how many of your suggestions I had used. Thank you for making me a better GM. I have no doubt I wouldn't have put as much thought into my Lich as I did, were it not for past tutorials.

I've made a homebrew campaign based on cryptids and my big bad is a Lich based on a combination of the Wendigo and the Pied Piper, his phylactery is his pipe. This video has helped me so much!!!!

I love videos like this. Just looking into creatures and powers etc, and going in depth. A good story is a bonus

Love this series, keep it going!!!

I loved this one. I have plans in this vein already, so it was great to hear some of my ideas echoed, to know that I'm going down a entertaining narrative path. :)

The ideas you dropped in this video are absolutely brilliant! Especially the one about the Lich and Vampire Lord coming together to save “the herd”. Epic story-telling just waiting to happen!

Two liches I recommend to take inspiration 1.Sauron: I recommend making the phylactery have special conditions to be destroyed so the players have to figure out how to destroy it while the lich sends everything it has to get it back. 2.Voldemort: having multiple phylacteries can make for a fun world spanning campaign to find and destroy them however I would say the lich would be much more insane after doing this.

Why can’t the lich sacrifice evil people exclusively to its phylactery and remain at least neutral in alignment? Edit: holy shit I had an amazing idea. This lich controls a kingdom and the death penalty is sacrificing to the phylactery. Only evil criminals with be sacrificed.

This video was extremely helpful seeing as my big bad in my campaign is literally a lich. He's locked away the players souls (without their knowledge) as a sort of sacrifice to his phylactery already. This vid made me think of ways to make him more interesting, not just a soul-siphoning maniac. Thanks, and great video!

I feel like particularly long-lived liches have another potential struggle: Ennui. The idea that after 10,000 years, a lich stopped to reflect on why he was doing things, and with his long perspective determines that with his immense power he could want for nothing, that he will never have to struggle to survive... that everyone who could have possibly wronged him had died thousands of years ago and that after conquering all of existence, all that is left for him is to sit on his massive throne of golden skulls and... exist. It's, in a way, like getting a tattoo. It's a decision you make for your future self that you have no idea if you'll regret it or not.

A noble family where the greatest rulers are turned into various different undead or immortal beings depending if they fulfill their roles to the ones that came before or they have specific skills for the type of transformation

I absolutely love this channel

Having a time portal open up and give them the opportunity to change history is brilliant! I might actually do that. Thanks so much! At first I was going to do the typical "He's evil because I want you to hate him" thing but having the party look for clues as to who he was before he became a necromancer could be super cool. Crap, now I have to think of a proper backstory. LOL Ok! Here is what I came up with: Tenebris Dominus - Real name is Lok-Ros Nezid. As a necromancer, he’s ruthless and manipulative. He has no problem doing anything to get what he wants. He was once a butler and bodyguard to a beautiful princess. He served her faithfully and they fell in love. They knew their love was forbidden so they tried to keep it secret. A few of the servants knew of this but none said a word. One day, the princess was assassinated by her younger sister in an attempt to usurp the throne. The event happened when the princess wanted “a walk in the forest”. With the two of them alone, they were ambushed. The butler was knocked out with a poisoned dart. When he came to, the princess was dead. Her porcelain skin now black and cracked, and the forest was on fire. The guards arrived and the butler was blamed for the crime. The younger princess claimed the two of them had been having unprofessional relations. She claimed he clearly had gone mad and wanted to form a death pact but the guards stopped him before he killed himself as well. When the servants were questioned about this in court, they were forced to tell what they knew and thus damned him to execution. Mad with grief and fury, he used his power to escape. He vowed he would find a way to bring his beloved back to life. No, he would do more than that. He would gain such power as to be her equal and worthy of her love! This set him on the path to necromancy and ultimately his path to becoming a lich. His phylactery is the handkerchief he always used to wipe her tears. The heart he's going to use as the container for the potion is the younger princess, now queen. I think I'm going to start off the story with her kidnapping. The ritual needs to happen during the night of the blood moon, which happens once every 100 years. This will occur during what is normally the winter solstice. The winter solstice with a blood moon is referred to as the Blood Solstice. Oh! I just had another idea. Maybe the younger princess killed her sister because her sister is known for flights of fancy and is just plain idiotic. She would have made an absolutely terrible and weak ruler and would have run the kingdom into the ground. Under the younger princess's rule, the kingdom was peaceful and thrived and beloved by all her servants.

The one time I've seen a lich done in an interesting way (also the one time I've seen a lich in pen and paper style, rather than video games where they're nigh universally just a throwaway baddie to smash) was "Mr. Rattles." It's an Age of Sail campaign, and the lich is a member of a pirate crew, primarily acting as their consultant for all things arcane. Assuming the DM is following the phylactery feeding rule, one can presume that he's doing his harvesting somewhere out of the way - with high level magic you don't need to be eating people who are in easy reach, you can warp to another city, grab some hapless mortal, and warp yourself back. And he's actually not evil, at least not in the classic, overt sense. He's been an ally of the party thus far, though there's always the possibility that will change.

Thank you! I found it inspiring.

The Horned King from the Black Cauldron is a great example of a Lich

The story you worked out about the lich wanting more knowledge. Is very similar to part of my Warlock backstory that i'n trying to write up right now.

I love the concept of a lich, the idea of someone whos willing to watch themselves rot and become something inhuman so that they can live forever/gain power/whatever, imagining the kind of mind that could do that, that could even consider the option is so interesting

This was Licherally the best video over Liches I've ever watched.

I thought about Miragul from the Everquest games, (this is my understanding of him anyways), he is a kind of reverse lich almost. Instead of letting his body live forever, he had his entire soul, knowledge and mind put into a phylactory. So you as the player enter a representation of his mind with frozen memories mixed with a lab and library, shadows of the past twisted and distorted into horrific nightmares. Always found that to be rather interesting.

My current story uses a lich as the last of a forgotten order that protects a seal that binds a bunch of devils/demons from entering the Material Plane, of course the "Never Seen" BBEG wants his minions released upon the world and is having difficulty doing that. So they are after the lich and mainly the seal.

Great video! Im a little disappointed that dracoliches where not mentioned here, but i hope that means that we will see those in another video.

Maybe make a website were fans can submit monsters of there own creation to showcase there idea. Love this channel, keep doing you Guy!

Liches are by far my favourite thing in fiction of all genres. There's something so great about someone who's lived that long while retaining the normal amounts of free will not seen in other undead. What have they been doing to pass the time? What are they planning to do in the future? What gave them the passion to become a Lich in the first place? At every part in their story they give incredible flexibility in their design while always being somewhat interesting. I have come to realize that they seem to be far more restricted in traditional stereotypes than they really should be. For example when it comes to combat powers they're quite often always wizards or other pure spellcasters, but when you have someone that experienced they really don't have to be, what if there was one who used his endless days while waiting on his plans to practice archery and became a Ranger, or martial arts and became a sort of Monk... There was a friend of mine running a campaign who's main bad guy was a wild-west styled Lich, a gunslinger who's firearms shot magically enchanted bullets. ------ My absolute favourite use of Liches? That would definitely be a campaign which I actually played in a while back. In it, Liches were said to not have to bind their soul to a physical object, only normal Liches did that... no.. the most powerful of them could bind their souls to ethereal concepts to become gods, avatars of that concept which they'd become. The Grim Reaper was a Lich who's phylactery was the very concept of death itself. He couldn't be killed while "death" existed, a paradox which made him effectively completely immortal except to ONE thing.... if someone could supersede him they would replace him. As it happened, someone was trying to do so and it was causing massive chaos in the world as the old, frail and somewhat cranky but infinitely experienced previous Grim Reaper was battling with the up and coming new Grim Reaper. We, the players, ended up siding with the new replacement and helping her gain the old one's position, because the older one had started to kill people (seemingly) randomly before 'their time' and was in desperate need of demotion.

Love this. Happy to say that I’ve just got my PCs to slay the necromancer who will eventually become a lich - so this is perfect timing for me.

Interesting perspective of the Lich☠️👍🏼👍🏼💯

OOTS!!! OOTS HAS PROBABLY THE MOST WELL KNOWN LICH OF ALL TIME.

The only lich I have in my current campaign is one of the player's dad. He's not even an antagonist. His dad is just really spooky and powerful. He didn't become a lich to live forever or gain ultimate power. He became a lich because it was too hard to survive in the places he was exploring if he needed to breathe and eat.

I actually got a pretty neat story just handed to me, courtesy of my old GM. My wizard was a Dhampir, who hated all undead, but Vampires more than anything else. He hated undead so much that after he was adopted into a traveling Wizard's school (my mother died in childbirth, as often happens for Dhampirs) he vowed to destroy all vampires. He found the secrets of Necromancy, and through that began his journey to remove the world of all vampire scum, time goes on, blah blah blah, we defeat some other Necromancer that wanted to "tame" a tarrasque and use it for his own (it didn't work), then we defeat this young tarrasque. After this time, we are looking through the old necromancer's library, and we find a book. Specifically, I find a book, it calls to me. It is an ancient remnant of a long once thought dead lich. He guides me along my way to lichdom, and near the end of our campaign, I become one. So really, I only ended up having to make my journey after our party's campaign.

As a new GM, these videos are so helpful!!

You should write a book on how to be a great DM, Guy! I'd literally buy it, with real dollars! SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

A human skeleton mage who shapeshifts into a wolf skeleton mage? :)

Im in an evil campaign and I have a cleric (undead lord) that is in the process of learning how to become a lich, this video helped me with some issues and gave me some great ideas. I really appreciate the insight and knowledge that you provide. To clarify the system is Pathfinder, and the race I am using is a custom race that I got the OK from the GM before we started. It is a variant of damphir, since I didn't want to play a half vampire so I made my own Half-Undead race from scratch. It is a very balanced race (12-14 rp[race points]) with a history woven into realm. If any one is interested I can upload a copy for you as well.

Great video. gives me a lot to think about with liches This post will be long, but i'd like to share my take on the creature for next week: werecreatures, specifically werewolves. First of all, i do have a differentiation between simple "weres" and "lycanthropes." Weres can not control their change (or phasing/phase), nor can they control WHEN they change. Lycans can control both when and where they phase, as well as retain full cognitive function while transformed. Weres CAN NOT go hybrid in my settings, and lycans must train their control over their phasing to be able to stop their transformation mid-way, thus attaining a hybrid form. With Weres/lycanthropes I always do research on the animal itself before implementing them in my settings. I first think about what animal i'm looking at and how it functions in the wild when it is its own creature. I then try to imagine how it's animalistic behaviors combine with human behaviors to create a kind of society (or lack thereof) among other weres/lycans of its species. For wolves specifically, I like to combine things from stories and other forms of media that i like to make a comprehensive creature that seems like its been in the world a VERY long time. I'll be focusing more on Lycans here, because weres in my setting have all but died out. A Lycanthropic wolf in my setting is still very much human, but with the instincts and desires of a predator. They have a hard time outside of pack structure (in world society for example) because most don't realize that when they turn away from them or when they run or even certain things they might say could trigger the lycan's predatory instincts and make them want to hunt and kill. A lycan living in society that does no belong to a pack would struggle to keep their instincts in check daily. In lycanthropic society, one refers to their animal instincts as their "Beast." The Beast is not the person, but more a personification of the more basic instincts a were/lycan gets from the animal they transform into. To a werewolf, Pack life is much more different than life in society. There's a pack structure that is supernaturally enforced by the members within it. A dominant lycan can issue commands to others, and if the person giving the order is more dominant than the person being spoken to, the submissive wolf is compelled to carry out the act. Mechanically this is usually an opposed roll (will or wisdom depending on what system you're using). Alpha wolves aren't such because they're the most physically strong, but because they can (and are willing to) impose their will upon others. Unlike in the wild, a female does not get her dominance from her mate, but inherently possesses her own. There's more i have to share, but i don't want to give away all my lore :P

A bunch of interesting ideas. I especially like the last one where liches and vampires work together to keep the living alive so they can stay undead. But a player being able to be a lich, and even time travel to stop a lich from becoming one, also intriguing concepts.

I have a campaign running where the lich is the Headmaster of the arcane university, and became a lich because they were convinced their is no worthy successor. The players know this and are distrustful, but he runs the only institute of knowledge in the world so the players now run the university's on-site pub the Learned Chimera

KonoSuba has at least 2 liches, and they're both really nice people. KonoSuba is actually something I'd highly recommend. It reads like a D&D campaign where three partymembers get overpowered classes, but they play up the gimmick to the point where they're arguably more of a hindrance than a help. Meanwhile the last partymember has a low level character with a couple of utility spells, but he's the only smart one. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

The bit about Liches and Vampires joining forces to protect life reminded me of a bit from the BBC series Ultraviolet. There the vampires (ostensibly) fund all sorts of medical research to ensure that their food supply remains healthy.

Big fan of the videos. Fellow DMs probably won't like me saying this..but my current game has 3 Lich players. In the late game it's gotten very..incredibly evil.

Great video :)

Could a phylactery feed on the souls of condemned criminals, if the lich has a contact inside the kingdom's court system?

Once in my game that I called the Undieing Party there was a litch that was a massively hedonistic man in life. After learning how to become a litch he took over a kingdom and threw parties all the. The people worked hard to keep the party going so travelers and merchants would stop by and spend their money. Every so often a person/brigand/thief would come and break some arbitrary law where they would be brought before the litch and be taken to be sacrificed later. The players were so confused because the DND thing to do was kill the litch but the people were happy and safe and the kingdom was thriving. Later they found out that the economy could not sustain itself but that was far down the line. The litch was played like John Belushi and Caligula had a child... and he was drunk off his A$$. It is so funny when your monsters are seen as reasonable but immoral so the players don't know what to do. On one side he is evil and feeding on soles but only the people that break his laws and I had set it up that this place was well known. Some stories flat out told them what they were getting into. It was hard to judge the litch is all I'm saying. Plus he was a riot.

If we're talking about Liches in literature there is one that is really good if you go by the books ‎The Chronicles of Prydain (you might know it better by one singular book in the series thanks to Disney, The Black Cauldron), the Horned King is a brutal and cunning character with a lot of mystery behind him. Then in classical mythology and folklore, there is Koschei The Deathless as well. Loads of good places to find inspiration for this kind of character archetype. :)

I would like to have my adventuring party to witness the evolution of the lich becoming a lich, a guy man who inadvertently absorbs a life and gets a taste for it until THAT becomes his driving force.

It's rare but a lich can also be subservient to a greater big bad. This generally works when they have a mutually beneficial relationship. Such as say a noble family that has been feeding a lich's craving for knowledge in exchange for a favor or task now and then. This allows the lich to have their desires maintained without being exposed but also not being in charge. This also can happen if said family were the keepers of the phylactory regardless of their relationship to the lich. I've also added a flavor effect for the lich. The roll the lich makes when killed is for when their power resolidifies in their reincarnated flesh, but should they sit and wait for the full 10 days as a choice their new body regenerates into the full form they'd had when they were turned. This allows a lich to retain a viable flesh that can 'pass' and be maintained with gentle repose, giving them a more versatile role for parties turned off by the rotting corpse form of lichdom. A minor alteration that gives more story potential.

Now i feel bad for already having my charakter turned into a Vampire.His storry would fitt perfectly into a lich ending. He started as a rouge who got charged to "public service" after being cought by a archmage trying to steal his stuff. In order to be of actual use, he got a example of "Magic for dummys" and a four months crashcourse (Still in prologe)... befor heading out to gett something of fitting value (Interesting magicky stuffs) to pay his debt. Within the first adventure we lost our original GM and al his preps and notes. The solution from the new GM was to throw our chars into a rift in spacetime and cattapult us into the far far future (funny how little the world changed). My charakter was now trapped in the far future with no whay to return to his family, but he picked up on magic quite a bit. I planed to make him lose sight of his goals while he amasses VAST MAGICAL POWERS, but were not THAT far into it jet. He accidentaly managed to catch a case of Vampirism tho... he's still adjusting. Happy gaming.

I'm currently playing a sort of demi-lich. She's becoming a lich but isn't fully aware. She's a grieving widow trying to revive her husband (who is cursed so revives havent worked) and she "just needed more time."

Glinda: Are you a good lich, or a bad lich? Dorothy: Who, me? Why, I'm not a lich at all. I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas.

Thanks a lot for your amazing work, and i would love to hear about dopplegangers

I probably should have realized this earlier, but I suppose that Voldemort could qualify as a Lich

I would say that Sauron is a lich. The one ring is definitely a phylactery, with it's own evil quirks and the lich of the story wants it back to restore it's power.

Sevetar, Hero of Shadowdale, Arch-Lich of Rappan-Athuk, Lord of Underdale and Chosen of Myrkul. One of my greatest characters of all time. Played from 7th to 21+ lvl.

You could easily do "Death Becomes Her" type jokes with liches as they have to deal with the side effects of rigor mortis. Maybe even doing the same, using knowledges of taxidermy, morticians, makeup, etc, to cover up the rigor mortis of their zombie servants.

love it, in the campaign I'm running at the moment the party joined a senior wizard in hiding to recover an artifact that the wizard didn't want to fall into the wrong hands. They got it, (system's D&D, book was the book of vile darkness), but after studying it for some weeks the player's likewise had the sense it was an incredibly evil and a corrupting force, so I enabled one of the players to temporarily destroy it with his radiant light artifact. at least. Well the wizard was understandably fuming about this and left the party. I'm planning on bringing him back as a Lich at some point, given that he was interested in reading the book to learn about a prophecy about the destruction of the plane - well he might not live long enough to see that, so he wants immortality. This isn't to say his goal is completely noble, after all if he wants power himself he can't very well lord over a plane that's been destroyed.

Liches in my world are usually just undead who became the undead by their own will. I do not make them evil in itself. They most often have pacts with a diety (as opposed to a deamon) that keeps them alive and defends them from other deities. Most often though, just like vampire lords in my world, they hide from the mortals, as deities that are very much capable of killing them on a whim, are mostly concerned with mortals... as opposed to Vampires needing to feed off of the living flesh, liches only need to feed off of the magical or divine power to bring nurture to their souls, which makes them more capable of hiding. Most powerful liches though, might want to gain omnipotence and apotheosis, which I didn't have enough sessions in my world, to consider such a storyline... but you just gave me that idea... a Lich that wishes to join the pantheon... I can imagine only one God who would openly oppose said idea, so that could be interesting...

We must not forget the "Crazy Cat Lady" Lich. she who must live forever for her "fur babies" (which are continuing to multiply and will for some reason never die out.)

I'm thinking about having a good lich in my campaign. His backstory would be something like he grew up in a poverty stricken village under the control of a war prone kingdom that could never win a war and only lost more life and lives. So this young wizard does everything in his power to change the fate of his home. Through years of practice and study he joins the military to try to save his village from being overrun. In the inevitable failure he feels lost and powerless. In his grief he meets lolth. She tells him that she can grant him great power at no cost. Being the goddess of spiders and lies she does give him the knowledge to attain unimaginable strength in the form of lichdom. So he builds his phylanctery only killing those who are near death already. The cost she doesn't tell him is his horrid transformation. After his death and undeath he returns to his village only to be greeted with screams of terror. He comes to a pond and notices not only the ghastly new face he dons but also the spider like features he is gaining. Over the next few decades he gains the villages trust, as well as the bottom half of a spider. He protects the village and even helps it gain power as it's own kingdom, in return the village provides the criminal and dying to feed his phylanctery which he has build at the bottom of a large lake filled with and guarded by his undead minions

Hey there thanks for explaining about litches, vampires, and dragons I'm excited to see the episode about lycanthropes but I don't see them having as big of a world power shift as the litch vampire or dragon can, another set of epic influences I could see on a game world would be mindflyers or elder gods/ ancient evils like cuthulu how would the emergance of said creatures in the mind flayer's case, or revival/awaking of an elder god/ evil impact a world

The litch in my game was wise and had seen dragons level entire kingdoms. When his lord wouldn’t listen to him and insisted on going to war with the dragons he went to his hometown, sank the city below the earth, and used his magics to keep everyone alive underground. A few hundred years later the heroes needed to find a legendary artifact that just so happened to be the litch’s phylactery. They lost two party members and a npc companion to retrieve it.

One of my favorite things about liches is that they are cunning. I love that they can subtlely influence a kingdom or a promising young character/npc to further long reaching plans. Most times they just have to sit back and wait.

Can't wait for the Mind Flayers

Larloch the Shadowking rules an entire city of undead has at least 60 liches under his control and his city guard is an army of trolls. He's my warlock undying patron.

I like my Lich to be the pinnacle of undeath, able to invoke any ability of other undead. As strong and beautiful as vampires, as dreadful as a bodak, as tough as a mummy. The requirement in older editions was to be an 11th level caster, and while 5e prefers Wizards of 17th level I cannot picture a pure wizard having the same unholy authority as true necromancers of old. In a Call of Cthuhlu type of game I ran a BBEG of Abdul Alhazred (who we forgot the name of all the time and called him Abduz) who was in essence a lich but not decayed. Possessing arcane might and dark authority in equal measure, he succeeded in being scarier than Nyarlathotep for a while.

What about a lich who uses his magic to lure in unsuspecting people by turning popular stories into amazing illusions that play out for the audience. David Lich.

The lich in my campaign has been brewing since the players first encountered him as Glasstaff in Phandalin. Glasstaff barely escaped death and was very embarrassed, now wanting to gain power he's on his own journey as the campaign grows. Making a deal with Baal, Larno was one of first "boss" battles and will be one of the last boss battles after he finishes his end of the bargin with Baal. The players just don't know what's brewing for them 😏

My current character is a ninety year old man named Lucius Rutilius, and sixty years ago he was on the cusp of Lichhood, eager to rule forever and ever over a kingdom. That was until he found someone who made him happy, and he raised a massive family, growing old and becoming content; that old dark ambition fading away as his life became peaceful. Unfortunately, he became the target of a rabid Inquisitor whose order had been tracking him for decades; and when they tracked him down, they attacked and dragged his family away while he was out. Returning to find his family either dead or missing, Lucius, now an ancient man, had to relearn all he knew and regain his power; ensuring that Lichhood would indeed be his, if only to save those he cares for. He would do anything to ensure that his family is safe, and if he must conquer a good chunk of land to do that, so be it. Is this an ok backstory for a Lich? I know they're supposed to be utterly evil, but is this ok?

My favorite monster and creature to role play. The Undead Lord. The Lich.

I got an idea for a lich character by just watching this. Basically a powerful mage decides to become a lich but somethings goes pretty wrong in the process and their memories get erased. Hundreds of years go by and their skeleton wakes unaware of its origin and it sets out on a journey to uncover the meaning of its existence. Along the way the skeleton befriends a strange human and together they go about learning, fighting and laughing. At some point of course the skeleton realises its abilities to manipulate magic but is still unaware of what it is. It learns what it can about raising the dead but nothing seems to explain how it lives without a caster to have raised it. Eventually however, I want this character to discover what it is but I need to work out the in-betweens and then figure out what it will do with this knowledge. I have a ways to go before this becomes a story

Quite surprised at no mention of Sauron! A powerful being of magic who obtained power and immortality by binding their essence to a single object which, when destroyed, eliminated them forever? Sounds like a lich to me!

Look into werewhat for your werewolf video. I've been thinking of doing a Sith Lich for a Star Wars campaign. Now you've got me thinking bigger picker, why and how did this Dark Lord of the Sith become a Lich? What is the motivatoin behind their end game? Thanks for keeping me thinking and on my toes.

I got a good idea for a lich, instead of being the usual "Ah you have foiled my plans for the last time, and when I'm done I'm going to torture your family to death and raise the whole world as undeads to serve me." Gunther was a professor, a lover of learning and science. However, because he wanted to keep learning he became a lich. However, something went wrong with the ritual which resulted in him waking up as a lich after his country had fallen. While he mourned the loss of his homeland, he decided to continue learning and reopened the college he was a professor for. Ever since he has served as a mentor for any and all who would seek to learn about magic. While he is not evil, many of the people he teaches are either evil or become evil, and because he is a trusting person he doesn't know until it's too late. The players first hear of him through a boy necromancer who resurrected his dead family and mentioned his mentor was Gunther. The players travel to the college and await for his speech. However, if they spared the boy he welcomes the party and invites them to tea. He shows no desire to fight, now will to hurt others unless in self defense of himself or his students. He can sell spells or even give information.

I know liches are traditionally based on magic users, but I've always had this notion in my head of a big beefy fighter lich. Just shooting from the hip here ... think of like a Path of the Zealot Barbarian, a class that already hard to kill and a path that's based around cheating death in a number of ways. The Barbarian lives its life in service of the God of Death, until it becomes so powerful that it feels the only being in existence that can challenge its mortality is its God. So, long story short, the Barbarian slays its God and is gifted/cursed with taking its place. Since the Barbarian isn't any sort of magical or extra-planar being, it's instead given undeath.

my favorite litch story was one where an extremely powerful sapient magical artifact, the remains of a dragon, and a warping of the nature of magic in the world results in a draco-litch

Kobolds: cute, evil, or both?