So.Why is it that liches are always necromancy based?Primarily my thought is about how liches of the other magical schools (since Liches largely originated from D&D), such as Illusion and Transmutation, would look.Mostly I'm enthrallled by the idea of the figment of a caster who is still the caster, or an Image that retains all the power (and more) of the original.How do you become a Illusion (or Enchantment, or Abjuration) Lich? Are you actually a Lich? Shouldn't you be called something else?What are your powers like? Do you still have a phylactery? Would an Illusion Lich instead have a building or area that acts roughly as it's phylactery, where it can act and manifest (basically like a ghost)? What the hell would an Enchantment Lich look like? Are you basically a mote of magical energy that goes around mind controlling people?I'm just throwing this out there for anyone who would also be interested in such a thing.
>>20267480For an illusion caster, he would likely become a living illusion, his phylactery the only solid thing left and as such his image is projected by the phylactery, very similar I suppose to a "hard" hologram.An Enchantment caster is a little more difficult, I would say the caster physically exists in the minds that believe it to be there, Something like a massive spell that once you enter it's area of influence you can perceive the lich.
Because a lich is a necromancer who raised himself.That's like asking why blue cars are always blue.Illusion school doesn't make things real, Transmutation doesn't make the dead walk.
>>20267626Read the whole post.I came into this thread with the desire to just crap on the thread. But then I read your post in full and... interesting.I wouldn't mind playing as an "illusion-lich" as you describe.
>>20267626Actually, Transmutation is probably the easiest aside from Necromancy.Use magic to extend your lifespan and improve yourself so you become almost unkillable.Eberron did it with the daelkyr (sorta).
>>20267667A transmutation lich would probably look quite alien, having to mutate his body over and over every century or so. What anchors its form together is the phylactery, without which they would likely melt into a puddle of body horror.
Well the rites to become a lich in the classical sense are necromantic, that is, it is a ceremony of necromancy that transforms one into a lich. The wizard, if competent enough, does not necessarily have to be a necromancer though. I've had my players encounter Biomancers turned lich, a cleric to mellifleur who was made into a lich via godsend and used anti-holy magic spells that basically spanked the team paladin. The tiefling diplomancer turned lich was an interesting one. He was undead, but was able to appear perfectly preserved and his phylactery was a broach that also made him terribly charismatic. I also had an alchemist devise his own way of becoming a lich using ancient tomes, he made potions that would give him eternal life - but all of his blood was in jars in a cellar and the jars enchanted so that with each one broken he would grow weaker and eventually die. His blood was glowing purple magic potion shit now. So he had the jars, naturally, hidden all over the place eventually and the party had to hunt them down.
a Lich made with Divination school is alive and can only interact via crystal ball where it speaks and interacts within the mind of the scryer.
OK, these are how I view the various schools of magic as used to extend casters lifespans or take them beyond life.Abjuration: A caster made of force, most likely. An unliving force wall in the shape of a person.Conjuration: Kinda like Enchantment, but only with creatures it calls. So it calls various creatures and inhabits their minds/bodies, parasite style?Divination: Unliving information, perhaps? Maybe a scrying wall with sentience sort of thing. Enchantment: Like Conjuration, but with anything it can get it's hands on. Ear worm style.Evocation: LIVING FIREBALL! Pretty easy.Illusion: I'm thinking kinda ghostly. A living Illusion can't really effect anything, so it seems very much an active sort of liche. You have to convince people to do stuff for you without them figuring out that you are not 'real'.Necromancy: Duh.Transmutation: Body modification at the extreme.
>>20267821I feel like abjuration could bind your soul to an immortal golem.
this thread has great potential...............................
>>20267821I imagine an illusion lich would be able to appear as anything it wishes and be INCREDIBLY convincing, and have an underling like an imp carry around its phylactery so it can interact with the world and gain power through indirect influence - as any true illusionist would.
Necromancy is the school of manipulating death. Becoming a lich is like a necromantic spell, and probably a highly advanced one, so it's not like even a universalist could easily do it, let alone a specialist of another school.
>>20267480Is it sad that I immediately recognized that image and started raging because of how much I hate that game and its devs?>Mostly I'm enthrallled by the idea of the figment of a caster who is still the caster, or an Image that retains all the power (and more) of the original.Honestly, I could see some potential in the latter idea. The Simulacrum spell is a start, at least for some of the schools.
Transmutation would be like an alchemical lich. Sort of like a Frakenstein's monster.
>>20267885http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lich.htm>Craft Wondrous Item feat, ability to cast spells and Caster level 11That's it. You technically don't even need necromancy to do so.
>>20267836That doesn't really seem like an Adjuration thing, honestly. Conjuration seems a bit more appropriate for that, since Adjuration focuses on physical or magical barriers.But feel free to conjecture, this is all just idle thoughts.
>>20267946I was thinking of like...anchoring your soul to an object, preventing it from leaving the plane when you die. Like a ritualistic sacrifice?
>>20267919Yes, but the exact ritual to become a lich is left intentionally vague, to be filled in by the imagination of the DM. I'm just saying, by my interpretation, any type of magic that would allow you to survive death and just keep on going in a state that transcends both life and death would be a necromancy spell. I think if another school wanted to do something similar, it wouldn't be surviving death, but using their own methods to live forever as an incarnation of raw magical power, becoming a similar creature that isn't a lich. An illusionist might cease to exist, his mind, body and soul remaining in the mortal world only as an illusion. An evoker would probably consume his entire essence into a raw manifestation of magical power. A transmuter might appear to be an ordinary wizard, but has changed his form to one that does not age, does not need sustenance, and can change into anything as easily as he could imagine. So on and so forth.
Abjuration is protection spells.So maybe an abjurer is just protected from death? So he's like... alive.
>>20267966>mfw when he states the point of this thread.Yes, that's what we are talking about.Would cheating death through something other than necromancy make you a lich, or something else?
>>20267982So he's just straight up immortal, in other words? Mite b cool
OP is looking for a word that is analogous to Lich, but doesn't mean, "Undead super monster" as far as I can understand.Liches are always Necromancy based because a Lich is a necromantic thing. I mean, it's kind of a tautology, but that's what it is.However, there is some interesting ideas to be explored in the idea of a magic used becoming a walking embodiment of their school.. I think they just need different titles, other than "Illusion Lich" or "Abjuration Lich"
>>20268004Something else obviously, a lich is explicitly undead.
>>20268004I thought I made that clear. You can only be a lich through necromancy, cheating death through some other means would make you something else.
>>20268005The only downside is that you have to specialize in abjuration!
This thread's ideas remind me of a neat idea I had for a modern-set game about people who are basically(soulless, usually) shells of larval god beings.I planned on using the DnD school list, but never got far beyond: Necromancer(Vampire; a being that is all soul, interacts with echoes of the dead, lives in warped parody of real world(colored by the dead).), Warrior(Immortal; Schrodinger's cat, except he lives. Except when he dies in the PC's reality.), Illusionist(Fey; Belongs to mirror-world of enhanced sensation. People are featureless mannequins here.), Enchantment(God; A memetic being that exists in an alternate world composed of the collective minds of every living thing. Even trees.).And I didn't get much farther than there. Basically UA without the crazy.
>>20268010Also, I'd love for some brainstorming as to what alternative liches are. Do they even have to have physical phylacterys? An Adjuration lich with a phylactery made up of a complex spellworking, a crystallized spell if you will, that sort of floats randomly around would be interesting, and more unique than just "Same as Lich, see entry X.">>20268017Well aren't you helpful. That was sarcasm, since you can't seem to actually help rather than just shit post the thread.
What would be it considered if you were to take the Markers from Dead Space to be a technologically manifested phylactery for an alien consciousness that needs to draw in organic matter in order to actually complete the manifestation of whatever beings are imprinted upon it?Apologies for any nonsensical crap I might be saying, I'm somewhat drunk.
Transmutation Lich
>>20268055I'm kind of interested in what an Evoker's phylactery would be. Since evocation is destructive force, maybe you need to create something to kill an evokerlich. Some sort of magical prison to capture the energies they release on death, to prevent it from creating a new form.
>>20268055You seem to have forgotten what shitposting is, sir. Why don't you go on a little sabbatical to /v/, or /a/?
Somewhere out there is a league of immortals, where a council composed of the undying specialists of each of the magical schools conspires for universal domination, but never gets anything done.
>>20268094The Olympic torch is an evoker's phylactery.
>>20268071I don't see how that can be used to prolong your life...Well, except for killing the ones who want to kill you.
>>20268094The Evoker's phylactery is himself, and it coalesces back into him after re-death?That is a cool idea.Awww, snap. A Druidish barbarian taking the path of the Evoker Lich (still need better names for these), leading his people though death, charging headfirst into the fray and blowing himself up as his great grandchildren poor in behind the hole he left in the enemies forces.
>>20268141Manifested masters? Manifested master of IllusionManifested master of Evocationect
So as I'm reading (and I love what I'm reading) I'd say a lich is just an embodiment of the school of necromancy, and it'd be cool if other schools had their own ways of becoming the embodiment of that school.So, my ideas.Illusion: I personally like the idea of an illusion lich committing their body and soul entirely to a phylactery of some sort, and then that phylactery projecting them physically within like, a mile radius of itself. The Illusion master would have a familiar carry around his phylactery so he is mobile or defend it inside of his keep because as an Illusion he cannot physically hurt someone. The Illusion master can still however, do magic, so he isn't entirely impotent. He can appear as anyone or anything and is beyond convincing. Typically with enormous charisma as well. Huge bonuses to intimidate/charm etc etc. I would call an 'Illusion Lich' something like a Phantom Lord or an Immortal Projection. Abjuration: Since this is a school about defense, to embody this school a wizard would cast the most masterful of abjuration rituals and become basically unstoppable. A master Abjurer might be called a Juggernaut or Wallmaster and his/her power comes from being able to raise mystical walls, shields, and wards with astounding ease and any strike directed at him is entirely negated or deflected. Their phylactery however, cannot be touched by them. Only others can make contact with it. Usually the phylactery is a tower shield, or another piece of armor, bearing the crest of the school or of the wizard himself/herself>cont'd
>>20268131If you would die of sickness, you transmute into a healthy person. If you would die of grievous wounds, you transmute yourself whole. If you would die of old age, you transmute into a young man (or woman, fuck it, i'm a wizard). Transmuters have the easiest route to immortality.The phylactery would be an image or statue of the transmuter as he truly is, and to destroy him, you must change the image into a dessicated corpse.
>>20268186Magic painting that the caster can never look upon, or be cursed to take the form it shows (I.e. the true age and state of the caster).
>>20268186>The phylactery would be an image or statue of the transmuter as he truly is, and to destroy him, you must change the image into a dessicated corpse.So the Transmuter is more-or-less a Dorian Gray.
"Evocation spells manipulate magical energy or tap an unseen source of power to produce a desired end."If this is the case then an evocation-lich could simply be using a magic to prolong his life, in the same way the holy grail would but with energy. Of course the energy cannot be sustained at long periods to keep the entirety of the human body working without concentration from the necromancer so slowly the vital organs and skin begin to deteriorate. The brain, however is vital for the wizard's survival and so it remains.In some cases an evocation-lich keeps the brain protected by various forces to prevent it from being destroyed and in other cases the brain is encased in enchanted metals.
>>20268179implying anyone making an immortal version of themselves is evil.An illusion lich could EASILY be an immortal index/AI/library.
I love this idea so much. The concept that Necromancy was the only path to eternal life always sat wrong with me. Compared to the other schools Necromancy does not have nearly as much reality altering power yet it sits on a pedestal as the gateway to immortality.
>>20268179Transmutation: I feel as though a master transmuter must be fluid, constantly changing form and thus he becomes formless once he performs the oldest of transmutation rites. These masters of transmutation are called Changemasters or Shiftlords. Upon finishing the ritual a transmutationist will burn his body and as it becomes ash it leaves behind a dark form (alot like aku only less easterny) that can rapidly change between many different shapes and likewise change the shapes of other things. The wizard's phylactery is the last of his humanity, and without it he dissolves into formless magical waste. Only the anchoring of his soul can keep his now formless figure in checkEvocation: The master Evoker essentially infuses his body with the elements and primal magical energies becoming an arsenal of doom. His body is eternally ablaze, or surging with electricity, or misty with frost and ice, or glowing with raw magical power. The inside of his body is totally empty, filled instead with immense energy that shines through his eyes and mouth. From his hands, chest, and eyes he can let loose an array of fury and literally have his entire figure become thrashing loose energy to converge again elsewhere. When his body is destroyed it quickly regenerates around his essence. The phylactery of an ascended evoker, called by most a Devastator, Havocmaster, or Walking Cataclysm, must always be a weapon or something otherwise used to destroy and then must actively be used to destroy. Typically it will be a wand or staff carried by the Devastator himself, but it could be a mighty sword or something similar.>cont'd
I think the Illusion Lich should appear to be a reality shifter, he appears to create anything from nothing and have giant ass things appear behind you for no reason....But in reality the illusion magic being worked affects all 5 senses and can be used for finely acute, highly detailed and specific tasks.
>>20268231The evocalich is a walking vortex of magical energy. It doesn't need any physical bits within that vortex. What its phylactery does is gives that pile of magical energy a set of instructions to reform itself with if dispelled. Destroy the phylactery and the wizard's soul no longer has any template to rebuild itself if you break it.This also means that there's probably some way to turn an evocalich into a magical reactor core.
>>20268362>This also means that there's probably some way to turn an evocalich into a magical reactor core.Like some souped-up version of Calcifer.
>>20268262Becoming a god has always been the best path to eternal life anyway.
For the Evoker Lich: there's a fire-themed prestige class for the psionic equivalent of Evokers. At 10th level, they get a thing where when they die, if there's a fire nearby, their soul enters the fire. After like a week, they pop out fully-formed.Seems like an Evocation Lich's body would just be in a constant state of flux. Isn't there some sort of Living Spell creature in one of the books? So like someone else said, you'd probably have to build something to kill one. Maybe like a magical Faraday cage, since just casting Antimagic or Disjunction seems too easy.Conjuration lich would probably store its soul in its own special demiplane, then "summon" a simulacrum of its body to wherever it wants. Conjuration is the school of things like Teleport and Plane Shift, after all. The way to kill one is probably to close off a permanent, unmovable portal to that demiplane.
>>20268482We can call the conjuration lich a "disjointed".
You'd think Transmutation would be a sure path to Worm That Walks-dom.
>>20268521Transmutaliches think that Worms that Walk are scrubs.
>>20268362The phylactery is a very necromancer thing to do and I personally feel that it's a bit more fitting to have an actual brain in a jar controlling some mass of energy somewhere rather than soulbinding. And of course because it's a brain in a jar it would require science to keep it alive. Another way to limit the evocation-lich is maybe saying that taking forms that are non-physical such as a force volcano causes loss of identity and can cause confusion and eventual insanity. Because of this, Evocation-lichs often continue to use their body (albeit due to their mastery of evocation is protected by various forces and elements)It is only after much study and mental conditioning, they must also find a source of energy in which to tap the ridiculous amounts of evocative power that they need to sustain this form (which often means utilising catatonic spellcasters) that the evocation-lich can take the form of a evocation-demilich, completely discarding his body in favour of energies.Their brain makes a progression to being a force-based soul but this is similar to the necromongers in the Chronicles of Riddick, only half-force and still half-physical
Divinalich is a memetic hazard that possesses anyone unfortunate enough to come across it. The trick to killing it is that you have to let it possess a body while you destroy all other instances of it; if you just destroy all instances of it when it isn't embodied, then it can still infect somebody who scrys backwards in time to when it was intact, or somebody who inadvertently makes a new copy of it.
I can give you a bit of perspective... in a setting I was working on, I had the first lich. Essentially he had replaced all of his flesh and organs with magical machinery. He looked like a mechanical lump with a skull in it. He was floating within giant rotating metal panels inscribed with mystic runes and was served by a hundred mechanical skeleton-robots that, thanks to his vast magical power, disguise themselves as regular humans to manipulate the outside world to a limited degree.And that is how an enchanter/artificer would become a lich.
It always bugs me how liches and the like are usually portrayed as being inherently evil. I mean, the pursuit of immortality is inherently a selfish goal, but is it necessarily evil? Or is it the way they get there that makes it inherently evil? And do such evil acts constitute evil even if the knowledge and power gained from them is to be shared with others at large?
Abjuration- A human-shaped void in the universe, through complex spell-weaving, the abjurer removes themselves to outside of time and space. The phylactery binds them to a single universe and allows them to interact with it; destruction forever exiles them from any universe. The abjurer's phylactery is a metaphysical bridge that exists on the seam of existence and and non-existence.Conjuration- The anti-Lich, based off of healing, they are the positive counterparts to regular liches. They have phylacteries similar to regular liches.Divination- Becomes able to access and channel any of its own temporal states. The diviner summons their own information from the past or future and applies it to their current physical body, so the diviner is constantly refreshing their body to a different state. Their phylactery is time crystallized into a ball.Enchantment- A sentient memetic virus, it continues to live by infecting and and overcoming host bodies, due to its nature it can inhabit many different bodies at once. Their phylactery is some form of information on any substance. To propagate its immortality, victims must contract the virus, done so by looking at whatever form of information is imprinted on the phylactery.Illusion- The lich of illusion lives from the illusions of others. It takes the form of whatever it likes, but is always somewhat ghostly, and connected to its phylactery. The phylactery of an illusion lich is metaphysical and exists in the minds of those who have knowledge of it. It is from that knowledge or belief that the lich propagates from, its shape always tied (in obvious or not so obvious ways) to the specific mind that it came from. It is literally, living through legend.
>>20268642So, it was like he made a magical supercomputer, then uploaded his soul to it?
>>20268582Remember, destroying a phylactery doesn't kill the lich. If an ascended evoker needs a functioning brain, that's one other way evocation is the weakest school.
>>20268694More like he built a giant supercomputer to sustain his mind and soul, and then an even bigger supercomputer to make sure his magical power didn't just slip out and kill him.Because that's how magic in my setting works. If it becomes too powerful, it grows sentience and fucks off.
How about a psionic lich that keeps its phylactery as a meme in the corner of the minds of 1,000,000 people?
A thought on the illusion lich;Perhaps, as would befit the school, the immortality gained from becoming an illusory lich is illusory in itself. When you die, whether by adventurers or natural causes, you really have died; your soul is sent to wherever it's supposed to go, your body decays, etc etc.However, but a few days later, you are appearing back in town again, hale and hearty. Despite all the evidence of your death, including the exhumation of your rotting corpse, you stand before the frightened masses, defying everything they believed in. "You" look like you. "You" sound like you. "You" even, if "you" deign to let others come close, feel like you. Most importantly, "you" think and behave exactly like you. For all outside intents and purposes, "you" are you. So what if, technically speaking, you're dead and that thing claiming to be you is just an illusion you set up? Your legacy will live in, in the deeds of the illusion, and the massive joke you play on the world every time you utter;>Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
>>20268774>live inLive ON, god damn it.
>>20268681I think the phylactery of an Enchantment Lich should be a symbol, a symbol of living if you will.
>>20268698You're right. But a phylactery is soulbinding and innately something that is only something a necromancer could do. I suggested having the brain needing to be preserved because I couldn't think of a non-cliche way of letting the soul live on without 'his soul lives as energy' which is shitty and cliche.
>>20268625>Pontypool is really about two Divinaliches just trying to settle down and have kids.Well, that explains the ending, at least.
If a litch is not a necromancer it is not a litch.
>>20268833Way to read the thread before posting.
>>20268833
>>20268774This made me think of the Nasuverse. Specifically, how Servants/Counter-Guardians relate to their real versions sitting on the Throne of Heroes.So in this case, the "phylactery" is that real version. Which knows everything that any illusory version of it has ever known. Kill it and you kill the illusolich, but actually killing it is the sort of thing that an epic-level party would struggle with.
A conjuration lich would be a singularity.Or perhaps a sphere of annihilation, it's hard to tell really.
>>20268774Thoughts? Is the idea dumb?
soooo, i'm more of a warrior kind, and don't know shit about magic and liches and that shit, but why any other non- necromantic lich has to have a phylactery-like-binding-object?
>>20268848I did, you people are just making stuff up.This would be okay because of the fantasy if they were not all contradictions.Its like me making a ranger that uses fire magic instead of a bow, but he still is a ranger just because I could not think of a new name for the class.
>>20268791His soul is energy. His phylactery is the spell circle that lets that energy return to being shaped like his soul after death, rather than just turning into an undifferentiated, non-sentient, non-sapient blob of magic.
>>20268791But souls are energy. Incorporeal creatures can have souls.
>>20268898It's important to remember that there are three 'major' forms of Undeath:Liches, Vampires, and Ghosts.Liches tie their energy into an object, Vampires get their energy from a source (blood), and Ghosts tie their being into a place (primarily).So an Undead Illusion thing like you described could easily fall under the "Tied into Place" dealy.
I actually had a race of sentient undead in a campaign setting that could be described as abjuration liches.In this setting, negative and positive energy were still opposites, but instead of cencelling out they repulsed each other. On top of that, living beings could only efficiently wield positive energy - converting to negative energy without help was extremely inefficient. Basically, this group figured the soul of the body consisted of positive energy, and so a sufficiently complex and powerful "shield" of negative energy could be constructed to prevent the soul from ever leaving the body. Even as their body would fail and rot away, their soul would remain trapped in the form, animating their corpse and later their skeleton. They were fully intelligent and not proper undead, and once they got good enough at the procedure they "awarded" the procedure to people whom were especially good at one thing, so they could do it forever.so Abjuration-Lich = trapping the soul in the body with a shield that prevents it from ascending to the afterlife, even after the body rits away.
>>20268913From a meta standpoint? Because unkillable monsters might work for Call of Cthulhu, but one of the cornerstones of D&D is that literally anything is at least theoretically killable.From an in-game standpoint? You need to have something that convinces the soul to stick around after death and reform a body around itself; otherwise, your "immortality" only lasts until some jackass murders you so they can loot your workshop.
>>20268897Whenever I think 'conjuration lich', only one guy comes to mind.
>>20268898See >>20268891; I figured it was pretty cool, so I brought up an example of something similar to build off of.
>>20268932Yes, but an unbound soul has either passed on or is a ghost and therefore doesn't have any physical control or is able to use magic. The only way to keep a soul somewhere is binding it to something, and since an evoker can't do that it must be kept in a jar.
>>20268967So Igor is a conjuration lich who gives specific random teenagers access to his summon library?
So, a druid lich becomes an enormous tree that is able to connect with the spirit energy of animals in the forest and other trees in the forest and manipulate them. But overall, a druid lich just wants to be 'one with nature'. Someone who would intrude upon his forest though, and do wrong to the creatures that reside there, is surely asking for a gruesome death.
>>20268983See >>20268926 for how to do this. If the evocalich gets killed, the energy that makes up his soul is pulled back to his spell circle phylactery and then automatically recast as the living spell that is the evocalich. If the phylactery is destroyed first, there's nothing to recast the spell and the soul is dispersed along with the rest of the evocalich.
>>20268917Well if you read the thread you should have realized in this instance lich is being used in place of a better term. The discussion is the equivalents for other schools of magic.
>>20268988Nah, Igor's more like a golem or servitor who collects grimoires for him.But yes, I kind of see a Liminalich(original name do not steal) as essentially gaining an understanding of the planes and the essence of outsiders to be able to essentially create an Outsider version of himself that will gain some of his powers and memories upon death.And while the conjurer is still alive, he gets to summon himself and scare the bejesus out of peasants. Everyone wins.
>>20269007Druids don't become liches. The druid route to immortality is reincarnation.Think like Exalted; a druid that wants to make herself immortal turns herself into the equivalent of an Exalt shard, which finds another person to bind itself to upon the death of the current druid.
>>20269042Such a being would be viewed by many deities with even more contempt than necromantic liches, as they'd be essentially bypassing the setting's normal systems of incarnating as an otherworldly being while allowing retention of power and knowledge.Liminaliches are frequently known to enter generations-long feuds with Inevitables or other agents of the natural order.
>>20269043Or go the animal man route and hive mind small furry animals into becoming part of you.Or becoming an avatar of beasts and going the Transmutation route.Honestly, there are a tone of ways for a druid to imortalize themselves, not just reincarnation.
Someone who makes themselves immortal via a different path than the specific, necromatic, method used to create liches is not a lich any more than a candy bar made of marzipan is a snickers.
>>20269115So what are they called then?
Yes, but an igor isn't a lich in any right. It doesn't use magic, it uses science and alchemy and other people's body parts.
>>20269130So is it an artificer Lich with flesh-grafter leanings?
>>20269102Well, yes. But the important part is that druid "immortality" shouldn't look like wizard immortality, given that druids are all about drawing power from nature and a big part of nature is the bit where things die and their bits are reused to make other things.A different way to put it is that after 1000 years of wizard immortality, you're still fundamentally the same person you were at the start of those thousand years. After 1000 years of druidic immortality, you're a different person who still remembers who they were a thousand years ago and probably has a few similarities to them without actually being them.
>>20269015I just realized Contingency is evocation, so that fits really well.
>>20269125Fuck if I know, try making up a new word rather than perverting the meaning of an older one for convenience.
>>20269313Or you are a treant, and are the exact same person you were a thousand years ago, just more tree like.It's kinda difficult to force magic users into a box, unless they want to be in it.So while you may have the idea that Druids must use Reincarnation for immortality, I have the idea that druids can eat the psyches of little fluffy woodland creatures, or turn into a tree, or eat biomass, or become an aspect of the ultimate predator. That's the purpose of this thread, to show alternative idea's to the traditional lichdom.
>>20269165>>20269125Which really raises the question about what defines a non-necromancer lich. I'd personally say that it requires some sort of soul-binding but my earlier posts disagree with that. Maybe it could be something about total resurrection once the body is restored such as from the phylactery.An igor just isn't like a lich
>>20267480>IllusionYour lichhood is the result of an illusion so convincing that it becomes real -- the bluff to end all bluffs. Unfortunately, it can never be done the same way twice. The trick is that your lichdom is essentially fooling the universe. Do it repeatedly and the universe catches on. This is also the only surefire way to get rid of an illusory lich, assuming you ever figure out they're faking it to begin with.>TransmutationThis one, I have no idea. Maybe something about organs in phylactery jars.
>>20269348So we should all do what we are doing now, but do so faster, for your convenience?Because I thought that we were exploring alternative names, we just hadn't come up with any good ones yet.Or did you not read the thread at all?
>>20269435Divinilich is not a new word any more than marzipanchocolate-bar.
>>20269402I'm going more by what the basic thematics of the class are.So while yes, it's possible that druids could have a form of immortality that looks like wizard immortality, I wouldn't expect it to be at all common. It's just not the sort of thing that druids are good at.On a somewhat different subject, your examples made me think of Blacklight as another form of druidic immortality.
>>20269491I'd rather think up what to make the candy bar from first. We can worry about what name to market it under later.
>>20269491In which case, there are no words that do not already have meanings, which means you should probably go and kill yourself. Maybe you'll come back as a linguistilich, so you can take your revenge on all us puny mortals who have defaced your precious English language by using words in ways you do not approve of.>>20269431I still think that Transmutation is just life extending grafting taken to the next level.
>>20269572Undeath through meaning (through the communication of language)? Isn't that essentially what we decided a Divinilich was earlier, a memetic virus?Dear god, it's a disinformation campaign to keep us from knowing the truth!
>>20269621Honestly, I assumed that that would be a better fit for a Enchantmelich.Memetic virus seems to say "Mind control" more than "Divination."
>>20267480I'm pretty certain I read somewhere that Liches are based on Necromancy due to the soul-binding thing needing massive skill in that kind of thing as well as the need for a massive power source in the form of the Negative Energy plane. On this note, I did a series of 3.5 stats for Not-Negative-Energy Liches. I'll post them on request, because fuck going through my goddamn files and typing them out if noone wants them.
>>20269644An enchantmelich is Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. Except they intentionally tried to become one, of course.
>>20269661You could just grab the files and put them on dropbox or Google Docs. Probably faster for everyone involved.That being said, I be interested over here in such stats.
>>20269661Just do it already, you fucking tease.
>>20269672Now, I would argue that he's more of a very weak Adjurationlich, since he's so heavily tied to the physical forces.He's basically a ghost, possessing a suit of armor using magical symbols, right?
>>20269661I'd just like to point out that what is true in one campaign world is complete and utter bullshit in another.That being said, please post! More stuff is good.
Names are needed? Here are the ones I already/will in the future use/think are alright>Illusion: Phantom Lord, Immortal Projection, Living Legacy>Transmutation: Changemaster, Arch-Shifter>Evocation: Devastator, Volatile Essence, Ethermaster>Divination: Farseer, Worldgazer, Master of Eyes>Abjuration: Juggernaut, Wallmaster
>>20269707I'd have thought an abjuralich would be a wizard who has some sort of spells up that actually block the concepts of Death, Aging, Injury and so forth.
>>20269757That feels closer to Transmutation to me, honestly.Abjuration seems like it would be forcefully binding (but not Binding, with a capital B, since that's Conjurations thing. Probably closer to trapping) things in place, like the soul.So the difference would be Transmutation improves the self so that you don't worry about Aging and death, Adjuration traps the body and spirit in a permanent lockdown (and when that doesn't work, makes a force construct to inhabit), and Conjuration prevents the spirit from leaving, and binds outsiders to you so that you can shore up your physical form.
>>20269679>>20269680Well, you've made your point. Time to nail them all to my Pastebin. Warned, there's all sorts of shit there....Well. Erm... fuck. Yeah, they're already there. Shit, this is odd. Look, just have the damn things.Pic related, it's the URL of the thing.
Can we have a bump to keep this thread going? We most certainly can!
>>20269797Transmutation could be you moving your ability to die into some part of your body, which you then remove and hide. The heart is a classic one, but really it could be pretty much anything.
>>20269894LOL STEALING THIS AND THROWING INTO CAMPAIGN>well you have finally found the liches phylactery>"what does it look like?">It's a penisMy players' faces will be perfect
>>20269922This explains a lot about Rasputin, really.
>>20269922Why don't you stick the ideas from >>20269800in as well? Could make for a brilliant scene in whichthey find the penis and it's black. Goddamn shadowliches
>>20269965So the shadow of a penis?
>>20270062"I AM A SHADOW, THE TRUE SELF.""You're a penis.""YOUR TRUE SELF IS MARA. DEAL WITH IT."
I can help but notice that everyone seems to be overlooking the other big part of abjuration, dispelling. And why do the evocation ones all sound like phoenixes?
>>20270802I'm not sure how you'd combine dispelling with a persistent magical effect you need active to keep your soul anchored to the Material Plane if you snuff it.
For the Illusion based Immortal, I believe the 'phylactery' should be the actual belief in that being as an immortal. As long as there is one person who believes that they are immortal, they will exist and be so. The more people who believe this, the more powerful he becomes. When no one believes in him anymore, he is permanently dead. For Divination immortality, I imagine a person who is tied to a series of golem-like constructs; they spend nearly the entirety their time, mentally, on some extra-dimensional plane where time is non-linear and blurred together. They cannot manipulate the flow of time, but with time and talent, they can read it well enough to send out their 'bodies' to have some affect over it.Enchantment immortality seems like it'd be pretty close to regular lichdom; an enchanted object that will always reform the caster after a certain amount of time has passed since he has been separated from it. On the other side of things, since it would be enchanted to contain his lifeforce, separation would be a slow, agonizing death, after which he will be reformed in the location of the phylactery.
>>20271828I also have another path to immortality, with a shrodinger's cat kind of twist. Though I'm not sure what type of magic it most fits. When the person decides they want to perform the ritual, the first thing they must do is seal themselves off in a room disjointed from normal time and space, for some amount of time. They must not interact with anything during this time, spending months, perhaps years, in meditation; the passage of time has to be extremely blurry for them though. Eventually they leave and go about their life. When they grow old, they perform a ritual to conjure up a link to that room, They meet their old self, nearly mindless in meditation, perform a body/mind swap, walk out with their fresh "young" body, and leave their old body to shit there for eternity. When they grow old again, they do the same thing; this time, however, they link to one minute further in the past, and swap minds/bodies again. Rinse, repeat.
Abjuration:You could have a "phylactery" that is basically an outlet plugged into the positive material plane that funnels its energy to the lich, making him deathless.Or the abjuration lich has made a phylactery that projects a plane-warpingly powerful selective transastral barrier that the liches soul rebounds from upon his death.Or both.
>>20268017>>20268025seems like bullshit to me? what about chrono liches?
Abjuration: The caster binds their life force to a suit of armor and become a type of constructConjuration: The caster binds their life force to an outsider, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two.Divination: The caster binds their life force to mirrors.Every mirror.Enchantment: The caster become a mental, mimetic virus, infecting others with his existence through the use of a symbolic medium (Yellow Sign). He can only be destroyed by erasing his memory.Evocation: A living maelstrom of energy, transforming the caster into an elemental.Illusion: The caster dies, but creates a perfect duplicate of himself that persists and carries on his memories, legacy and power.Necromany: Lich as written.Transmutation: The caster becomes an abomination of stolen body parts, replacing them as needed with fresh samples.
Divilichs just possess everything?
>>20273359>mirrors mirrors mirrors mirrorswhy didn't I think of that?
Being a lich ain't easy.
>>20273359Sounds about right. Some of them are even doable with a recognizable caster emerging from the process. But they all run into the brain uploading/Star Trek transporter problem of continuity of consciousness.Most of what you suggest could work. At the end you would exist. It would have your memories and think like you, yadda, yadda. But it wouldn't be you. It would be a magical copy.Only necromancy assures true immortality. You never die as a lich. Those other methods? You could still live and there would be a copy you out there. Cool for them, sucks for you, because you are still going to die.
>>20274192meh. all you have to do is do it gradually, so that continuity of conciousness is assured. besides, you don't really have that problem because it's magic. you don't create a copy and destroy yourself, you just transfer yourself to another medium. you would be fine, as long as you were careful.
>>20274205in the same way that you don't 'die' if you hop dimensions, you wouldn't have to 'die' if you just hopped mediums. high level casters have little trouble stepping outside of time and space, merely hopping into a different body shouldn't be difficult.
Have we come up with any more names for these different types of Liches?Lich is based on the German word for corpse, so anyone want to try and do some translations?
I actually thought up a Lich king who was a master of Transmutation. He was so obsessed with the transition of things that he wondered what it would be like to be between death and living.
I think the earlier talk in this thread about necromancy-specialisation playing an essential role in the creation of a phylactery-like object is a little overstated. Consider that several other specialists from different schools would likely require at least basic necromantic knowledge as part of their own studies.An evoker manipulates the raw magical energies around them. Positive and Negative energy, both being forms of readily-available magical essence with pronounced leanings towards good or evil magic respectively, would be foolish for an evoker to ignore completely and not gain at least a rudimentary understanding of as a potential trump card or to increase their versimilitude.An illusionist who specialises in phantasms attacks the mind and soul directly with their all-too-real figments, and so too could benefit from a rudimentary necromantic education.So too could the conjurer, as an understanding of life and undeath energies as well as the nature of the immortal soul can only be of benefit to one seeking to summon and bind immortal extraplanar beings who may very well be made up almost entirely of such energies.Really, necromancy's broad coverage of many different possible effects as well as its potential applications when its principles are applied to other schools of magic means that, D&D's mechanics aside, any sufficiently leveled Wizard would likely possess the degree of knowledge required to experiment with alternate means of achieving immortality via a confluence of necromancy and their favoured school.
My Lich isn't necromancy based. He's a master of the "Prismatic Arts"
>>20274771PRISMATIC CORE ONLINE.
Seriously, like 200 posts in this thread and no mention of tulpa?
>>20274829Tulpas and egregores are borderline, given that they tend to develop their own personalities and autonomy over time and that, depending on the belief, the death of the original may result in the destruction of the thoughtform.For psionicists, the 'Uncarnate' PrC has existed for a while as a psionic route to immortality.
As I see it, divinatory immortality would probably end up like Quantum immortality. In any situation where you could potentially live, you do, regardless of how unlikely. Thematically it fits too, as users of this path would end up as elderly immortals, a common portrayal of Seers.
>>20275014...So a divinatory Lich has Spideysense?
>>20274783Is that the Shredder?
>>20275154Sort of, and to others it would seem like they had absurd luck, never dying as long as there is a chance of survival no matter how slim.Mind you this wouldn't prevent broken bones, diseases, or other debilitating events, so you could potentially end up very messed up but unable to die. Of course the person using it would probably be experienced in other schools of magic too, so they won't have to worry too much about that.
I don't really understand why these are all vastly more powerful creatures than liches. By logical extension, necromancy would in fact make you a sentient vortex of death.
>>20275650Because so far, these are the ways we can think of to use those fields of magic for immortality.If you can think of a similarly-powered one to lichdom, then by all means put it up, or at least make some suggestions.
>>20275650Because the basic template for a lich is thusly:I'm an immortal zombie but i can still think and cast.The ideas here are routes to immortality using other schools of magic to their fullest potential.4e has an epic destiny that is a kind of good aligned lich. It actually has an effect that makes it have a life-death vortex. Interestingly there is a level 17 ritual that turns the caster into a basic lich. The fluff states that the lower level ritual basically trades your soul to the devil for lichdom, while the epic path is the true peak of necromancy, and is appropriately powerful.
>>20275678So they aren't actually lich analogues.
>>20275741Which Epic Destiny is that?
>>20275822Archlich.
When I think of Druidic Liches all I can think of is this.
>>20276168So that would make Alan Moore a wizard who grants other people lichdom?Yeah, I can totally see that.
I find it interesting that really only 4 of the schools actually create true 'immortality.'Adjuration, by trapping the soul.Conjuration, by binding the soul after death (since most souls become outsiders, and thus can be bound).Necromancy, buy preventing the soul from leaving in the first place.Transmutation, by preventing the body from ever dying.
Is the point of this thread to create other schools of magic's version of a lich (immortal spell caster that rejuvenates if destroyed) or is it to create means of immortality through the use of schools of magic that are not necromancy an involve undeath?Do all these not-liches have the rejuvenation ability or some form of non-necromantic phylactery to use?
>>20276644The answer to your questions is a resounding Yes.The purpose of the thread is everything you stated and more, since some people will want liches but from different schools of magic, others will want immortal spellcasters who use magic to extend their lifespans, and some people who get bitchy about the use of the word lich for anything but necromancy.
>>20276168Well now I want to be a druid/dryad lich.
>>20276644The lich in my campaign gained immortality through a deal with devil. His phylactery is a giant prism that will rejuvenate him so long as light hits the prism. And like traditional liches, won't really die until the phylactery itself is destroyed.See, not a single thing there to do with necromancy.
>>20276168Standing ground.
I cast a spell of greater bumping
>>20277367On that note, I'd love to play a game in the setting of Urak sans Balrok. All that political scheming alongside dungeon crawling and element based cultures. There's even some fun interplay, too. Dark Elves who've defected to Earth because the Dwarven life of a day's hard work followed by lazing about and drinking some ale is too goddamn tempting to pass up, pyromaniac dwarven rogues who live alongside Fire Giants, all that Jazz. You even already have a country map and starting relationships of the different nations made up for you, as well as enough leeway to change things up if you feel so inclined.
>>20278096No one? Just me? Th-That's okay, I guess. I-It's not like LoM is one of my favorite games of all time or anything...
>>20273359Abjuration:A Bounded Juggernaut is a specially prepared suit of armor that an Abjurer has laced and engraved many magical runes and sigils into, creating a receptacle for it's eternal soul long after it's mortal body has failed. By binding and sealing the anima of himself into the armor, a type of construct is created that is extremely resistant to physical damage and hosts a plethora of defenses, specifically against the magic of other mages, all the while retaining the mind and magical capabilities of the original spellkcaster. While destroying a Bound Juggernaut is as simple as destroying it's armored body, the composition of the metal is still notoriously impervious to harm and eventually reanimates even after destruction.Of course, killing the Juggernaut is the first difficulty.
>>20279066Conjuration:A Thrall Souled is a conjurer who has permanently bound their own life force with that of an outsider, willingly or not. Through a series of complex bindings and rituals, both the caster and the chosen outsider share a single soul ensuring the survival of one in the case of the others destruction and immortality for the conjurer. Often times this partnership is one sided, but many evil outsiders are willing to join with a caster as it offers a permanent position on the material plane as well as offering the outsider a means by which to escape from the normal hierarchy of power present on it's home plane. The only way to sever this connection is to kill the spell caster first then permanently destroy the outsider while on it's home plane.
>>20280100Divination:By freeing their soul and connecting it to the flow of knowledge throughout the universe, a Diviner can make himself into a Living Repository, an entity connected to thought itself. Usually linked to some form of scrying device such as a mirror or crystal ball or, in rare cases, a repository of knowledge, from a single book to an entire university, a Living Repository can move itself freely from any reflective surface to any other such surface. Existing only as a wisp of cloud or an ethereal cloud of lights, what the Living Thought loses in interacting with the material world it gains by moving a step closer to Omniscience.
Necromancy?In my lich thread?
>>20280827Enchantment:By becoming an idea, the Memetic can hide among the multitude, becoming a thought, a phrase, an action or maybe even just a symbol, passing from person the person by word or sight. Lacking a body, but sble to control their host at a whim, the Memetic can spread himself through many minions and servants, keeping his presence and manipulation secret the entire time. The Memetic is notoriously difficult to destroy, for what can kill an idea?
>>20281611It's more likely than you'd think.
Depending on what the source of magic IS in your campaign, we can get some very interesting lich subtypes. For example, I'm in a game where magic has been described as "Living Energy". So, we have strange vampire/lich hybrids that feed off magic instead of blood.
As I see it, the standard lich has four main themes that define it:1. Powerful magic.2. Loss of humanity, both literally and figuratively.3. Theoretically eternal "life".4. The ability to unconditionally* return to existence when destroyed. (*Unless a specific and highly difficult task is performed beforehand, which the lich will take great pains to make as unlikely and dangerous as possible.)#1 is still a given since the variant lich would be based on mastery of another spell school, #2 isn't especially important because it's a long-standing thing with necromancy and therefore probably not mandatory for other schools, and #3 is pretty much the only reason anyone becomes a lich in the first place. Which means that one of the main things to do for each alterna-lich is deciding on a school-appropriate way to handle #4 such that it's still very hard to permanently kill one, but not completely impossible.Personal favorites so far:Abjuration - Wards the soul so it can't move on to the afterlife. Possess someone, use their body (a la Joseph Curwen). Killing it requires undoing the spell somehow.Conjuration - Your phylactery is now the demons.Enchantment - The "memetic phylactery" thing is pretty great, though depending on how it's done the lich could be literally unbeatable.Transmutation - I like the idea of the caster becoming a living conglomeration of spare parts. But how would it survive if the adventurers have enough sense to destroy the body completely?
Bear with me folks, but I have an idea for some names for these "Non-Necromantic Liches".Lich is derived from the German word leiche, for corpse, so why not make words derived from German words for similar aspects of the other forms of immortal casters?For example, Gespen for the illusory "Lich", being a shortened version of Gespenst, a German word for ghost.Aenderun, for the transmutant "Lich", is a shortened version of Änderung, German for the noun form of the word change.Does anyone like this train of thought, and shall I continue in this line of naming?
>>20281768Evocation:A Malestrom is an Evoker who has transformed himself into an elemental made up of equal parts of each element. Fire, Water, Earth and Air all make up a body composed of energies held together by the casters will alone. With abilities common to each of the elementals associated with it's composite parts and it's own impressive magical power, few things in the world are as terrifying or as destructive as a wrathful Maelstrom.
>>20286241Sounds awesome. I say go for it.
>>20286256Alright then.Befel, for the conjuror "Lich", being a modified form of the word Befehl, for command.Makt, being a modified form of macht, for power, or force, could serve as a name for the Evoker "Lich".An abjurer "Lich" could be named an Einet, a modified form of einheit, the German word for entity.A diviner "Lich" could be called a Wisse, a shortened form of wissen, the German word for knowledge. Lastly, an enchanter "Lich" could be a Zusats, a modified for of the word zusatz, meaning addition in German.So, /tg/ what do you guys think?>>20286241(Above is a link to my first post for convenience)
Guys, guys, about the whole phylactery thing!The D&D Lich is based completely upon the Slavic mythical/folk tale monster/villain named the Koschey Bessmertniy (Koschey the Immortal). Described as a thin, greedy, skeletal man (Although classically not an actual skeleton), his defining feature was his immortality. To kill him, the hero had to find his death, which is usually hidden in a needle, in an egg, in a duck, and so on for a few layers. When the needle is broken, Koschey dies.The phylactery doesn't make much sense otherwise, so I suggest instead we use a critical weakness, as >>20286076 suggests.For example, an Einet (Abjuration Lich) would simply wreathe himself in a plethora of barriers, protecting him from death, aging, sickness, elements, good, evil, harm, and so an and so forth to infinity. Even if the outer layers break (Such as the one for harm), deeper ones (Protecting him from death itself) are all but impossible to breach. However, no protection is perfect, and there will always be one critical vulnerability, one point that, when struck, causes a cascading unravelling of all the barriers. Such point, or rather, event, can be anything: splashing by water, decapitation, physical injury to the heel and so forth, to name a few examples.
>>20286944Sounds great!The Gespen, or illusion Lich, could have a phylactery hidden under multiple layers of illusions, and there could be a certain belief or lack thereof that could render it's illusions useless to that believer (or non-believer) and allow them to reach and destroy the phylactery.
The Befel creates a recursive loop that summons himself to himself and binds himself to his own will. This locks him in a semi-corporeal state that is very difficult to affect in any way. He's simply not really there.He, like all things summoned, can be banished through an elaborate ritual, maybe the one he used to gain his immortality, but in reverse.
Oh, and there seems to be two trains of thought being followed here: one about achieving immortality through the eight D&D schools of magic, and one about becoming a pure manifestation of that school. Let's just establish those are different things to prevent arguments.
>>20286241>Gespenst meaning Ghost>More closely related to Illusion than NecromancyWas
>>20287053My reasoning was that an illusory Lich would take on an ethereal form, making it more similar to a ghost, while the Lich is the continuation of the corpse from which it takes it's name.
>>20286944I imagine an Einet's greatest enemy would be anti-magic fields. Simple ones produced on the fly by the local wizard may not have much effect, but the ancient wellweathered varieties found in many ancient ruins could be his undoing.
>>20267618>would likely become a living illusion, his phylactery the only solid thing left and as such his image is projected by the phylacteryOh my yes, that sounds most delightful m'boy.
>>20268319>The inside of his body is totally empty, filled instead with immense energy that shines through his eyes and mouthAnd that, Ladies and gentlemen, is how the first Elementals were born.This is now your setting, all Wizards slowly transcend humanity and become Primordial forces.
>>20287166Good god yes.I like this idea.
>>20287166So, if we were to create a rough pattern out of this, it would be...Necromancers > UndeadAbjurers > ConstructConjurers > Outsider (Alignment-based?)Diviners > Humanoid [unchanged]Evokers > Outsider (Elemental)Enchanters > FeyIllusionists > Abberation (Living Phantasm)
Zusats (Could someone pick a better word? That just sounds silly) becomes a memetic entity that must maintain a subtle balance to survive. Its essence is distributed among everyone who's been exposed to the meme, but the more people are exposed, the thinner and less powerful it becomes. When it possesses only a small group, it can control each and every one of them, directly. But as the meme spreads, its power over each individual lessens. It can implant suggestions, and in such way alter the gestalt, but it is no longer capable of direct action.It can be destroyed by eradicating all memories of it, but that is rarely feasible: it will utilise its control over its last few remaining carriers to pass itself on and restart the cycle.While it does not destroy the Zusats, spreading it is probably the more reliable way to control it. At first it will gain power, but as a certain number of carriers is exceeded, it will start dwindling.And when finally the meme is powerless, it must be kept wide-spread, lest it regains power as it is slowly forgotten.
IMO just call it ascension, so an ascended pyro Mage is the living embodiment of fire, etc.
>>20267480I've always wanted to play a lich who preserved his body and used all his time to pursue becoming the perfect melee fighting machine. There's just something downright whack about an undead person who spent eternity cherry picking fighting techniques to become the most dangerous meleee fighter in the realm.Unfortunately, D&D and its ilk do poor in portraying this kind of character.
>>20287281>But as the meme spreads, its power over each individual lessensThat doesn't make much sense. I'd rather it just be a powerful mental suggestion, and the more often you do as it says the more control the being has over you.So you'd have a group of people who find themselves doing a certain thing every now and then without thinking about it, but one guy starts obsessing over it. He'd be where the meme is focused.
>>20279066It is not bad, but thematically the Abjurer is all about doing with magic what others do with armors and shields and such. So for him to ensconce his soul in a magic armor just feels wrong for me.
>>20287389It's called a Necropolitan Warblade.
>>20287793Op here, I still say that Einets (Adjuration Lich) should just be a force construct made of various bindings and Force energy.
>>20268917>making stuff up>contrary to authentic, real liches based on fact and not fiction
>>20286387I am German and i think this sounds horrible.But again: people here don't speak english that often...and like english names that sound awfull..so...
>>20291395But they are not supposed to be German words, bro. They are fantasy words derived from German words.
>>20291441Yeah but for example, in germany they call mobile phones °handy° it sounds akward.Stay with it, it just looked a bit funny if you disconnect it from the original meaning ( like handy).
