Dungeons and Dragons Lore: Lich

Powerful magic users who transform themselves into undead, the lich is an iconic and very powerful foe not only in Dungeons and Dragons, but across a great many forms of story telling, from novels to computer games.

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[davidblac]

HAHAHHAHA HOLY SHIT! THATS MY ARTWORK AT 23:14! Thank you so much, I'm not worthy of being among all these other awesome artists but holy fuck! You go Ephira, my tragic Lich Queen lass! <XD Also amazing work on the video man, brings back some of my inspiration for the Undead. I'm a huge fanboy for Liches, as you can tell. Oh and btw if im not mistaken, the word actually originates from German as "Liche".

[NuclearCharm]

"If it was easy to kill a high-level necromancer, you didn't kill him" -Zee Bashew

[oinkleberry]

"NEVER nerf the Lich."

This is undeniably a profoundly important statement that DMs must absorb before considering the use of a Lich in a campaign. Nerf the Lich and you have done nothing but spare the PCs from mistakes that should justifiably lead to their deaths. If you must do a thing to save your PCs, neither your nor they are ready for such a archvillain.

[Comicsluvr]

You have my respect, making a noble effort to properly pronounce all of those names. I also appreciate the fact that you outlined alternate forms of Liches, proving that they're not just cookie-cutter.

[victorvaldez]

Someone actually told a story that included a GOOD Lich as a the final "Boss" as the players were simply being Chaotic Neutral (because the DM had banned Evil aligned characters, ) Murder Hobos. If you look up "Narrated D&D Story: How My Players Learned What Chaotic Neutral Means, " for the full story.

The TLDR of it is the elder Wizard of the realm used tamed zombies as farm workers as a desperate last effort to save the area after a devastating plague ravaged the land, without the manpower of which the remaining the living would starve.  He spent decades researching how to bring the zombified plague victims ALL the way back meanwhile their loved ones still treated them as alive.  He also trained other village elders to create zombies as manpower over the sheer devastation of the plague was too much for him to do alone The characters never listen to any of this & simply kill the monsters and "evil cultists" in every town they come to.  It's only at the end that they find out "Are we the baddies?" because they never listened to any of the HUGE clues the DM dropped.  There are juicer details if you look it up.

[Mister-Thirteen]

I've often looked at the Arch-Lich as just doing the job properly and not taking the shortcut of bartering with malevolent powers.
A true mastery of the Nercomancer's craft that makes the Lich into a conduit between creation (positive energy) & entropy (Negative energy)
No need for the meddling forces of the divine or fiendish pantheons.

[nvfury]

My longstanding Lich NPC, Memnoc, laughs.

He is a fun loving guy, with a habit of using created bodies like most people use outfits, different ones for different uses. He also enjoys hanging out in planar bars and gaining interesting/unique ideas for magic items. Like the Iron Golem stove/chef he created for his favorite bar.

[azmiraclegirl]

When I was about 8 and playing 1st edition with my dad and sister, our main villain was a lich and my dad described it as a "atheist mummy" which I feel still holds fairly true lmoa

[mister_r]

Liches can use soul larvae (buying them from nighthags in hades) to fuel their philacytery.

[DarthRamzes]

"Never nerf the Lich!"
Curse of Strahd sweats profusely.

[tombrazzel]

I've been binge watching this channel for the last 2 weeks now and let me tell you, I've never seen so many different intros for the same channel in my life lmao.

[MultiGG]

"There is only darkness for you and only death for your people. These ancients are just the beginning. I will command a great and terrible army and we will sail to a billion worlds. We will sail until every light is extinguished. You are strong child, but I am beyond strength. I am 'The End.'"

[vechcron]

It's 2023 and I'm still rewatching this little gem

[tomsawyerpiper]

“In life, he sought a means by magic and medicine to extend his life. Far outliving his piers, he soon became the subject of the paranoia of the villagers. Whispers wafted through the the little town, of the strange mage who’d lived a hundred, a thousand years. In truth, the odd little man had lived no more than one hundred and eleven years, but such details were lost in the frantic gossip of the crones and the terror they inspired was truly frightening. Finally, after baring the scorn of the villagers for half a century, the queer little mage gave the denizens of the town a true reason for their estrangement. In the dead of night, the village was razed from the ground. Little is know of their fates, but rumors are heard of a terrible evil that dwells in the hills around the spot where the bloody raid was carried out. There are also some who’ve claimed to smell death itself when crossing that countryside. But who can say for sure?”

[madmarduk]

I had a high level PC that turned Lich hunter. He didn’t destroy them though. He collected phylacteries and through them the lich’s that they were bound to. The more he collected the better he got at finding them. Nothing like forcing a cosmically evil monster to do good.

[Zarnirox]

I love that lich at the end with all the cats. That's the kind of lich I'd be.

[victorvaldez]

I'd consider Lisle Von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini, ) in the film "Death Becomes Her" (1992) to be a kind of a Lich, as she is basically an undead spell caster.

[sagesheahan]

For me, the worst Lich on Toril was always Szass Tam. I bet I COULD find a worse Lich, shit maybe you AJ could?

However! For my first campaign that I ever ran, I created a character that was an instant hit with all of the players. They were at level one, and were sent to a graveyard inside the city of Waterdeep to retrieve a lost family heirloom from a mausoleum dungeon, and to find out why ghouls were coming from said graveyard as well.

Once they entered the bottom room of the main crypt, a dark violet robed figure holding a black obsidian staff a head taller than itself, topped with the skull of a goat, turned to face them. Green flames flashed from the eyes of the semi-rotted face of what seemed to be an elf, a brass crown ringed with rubys sitting at an angle on his head. It looked more like staring into the emotionlessness of a skull who's eyes were alight with only the magic that drove him. 11:32

And it slowly grinned, it's lips long rotted away so he seemed to instead just smile broadly, opened his arms wide at the party and replied in a raspy hollow echoing voice that seemed to be coming from every direction:

"Adventurers!!! Juuust the kind of talent I needed! I! Am Typhis Ausarmeneskek!!! High Mage of Myth Phelgodin, servant Arch-Lich of Kelemvor and incinerator of all things that go.. BOOOM!!!"

On the last word, Typhis swung around and blasted apart the tomb he was in front of him apart with a surge of black and green fire from his staff. The tomb was instantly fragments across the room, the party shielding themselves from the pelting gravel.

As the party regained their senses, Typhis glided to the broken tomb, bent down slowly and grabbed something from the rubble. The turned back to the party and held out an an exquisitely beautifully made sword sheathed in dragon leather and inlaid with electrum. The family heirloom the party had been sent to find.

As the party stood there unsure what to do, Typhis boomed: "Well?! This IS what you were looking for it isn't? What?! Is my cheek hanging of me again?"


Typhis Ausarmeneskek is a Grey Elf Baelnorn Arch-Lich. In 3.5e, when I made him, he was level 34. If I made him 5e he'd be CR 25, maybe 26. He is a seeker of other liches, so as to kill them on behalf of the Lord of the Dead, with whom he made a deal for his own lichdom to carry out that duty. He created the mythal over Phelgodin and didn't die because, lich. He bound a soul to the vampire Aloysius Aurelius. And along with insight from Mystra and Kelemvor, was gifted knowledge on how to create phylcateries using only ones own soul, not an innocent one sacrificed to power them. And yeah, he has more than one phylactery. Each one of the high council of Phelgodin is in possession of one of them. In case his insanity goes too far or his alignment shifts.

The point of this character was just to get the party off and going down the rabbit hole. Little did I know, the whole time anything went sideways or bad the party would they start asking, "where the fuck is Typhis?!"

The problem when you make a good lich that's allied to the party is, everyone expects him to do all the heavy fighting. He is a famous and beloved character in my games though. If, a tad reckless and a bit schizophrenic...
Having your soul split into 20 different places leaves you feeling all over the place, ironically.

[wintermute]

How They Do It: liches

"...first they take the Dingelbop and it's smoothed out with a bunch of sleem..."

[Parasmunt]

The Lich has been such a good creation they are often found as the end boss in D&D games or fantasy books. It's a powerful evocative image, the one who sought to defy death, pervert natural order etc. They vie with the dragon for the role of popular ultimate evil in fantasy settings.