Investigation into Liches: Not a Lich of Knowledge

Liches are the ultimate masters of undeath, usually a wizard, but also possibly a sorcerer or cleric. Liches are feared by mortal beings for their malign magic, their intelligence, and their willingness to embrace undeath for a chance to live forever (or rather, exist forever).

The process of achieving lichdom requires that the spellcaster construct a powerful magical artifact, a phylactery, in which the lich stores its life essence. As long as this phylactery is unharmed, the lich is immortal and reassembles if it was ever vanquished (this happens within 10 days after its apparent destruction). For this reason, liches take great care in protecting their phylactery from harm, they are known to employ decoys, traps, and other defences.

The most common physical form for a phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases are transcribed. Other forms of phylacteries exist, often small or tiny trinkets such as rings, amulets, or similar items. It can also take other shapes if the lich expends more gold and effort to make such alterations.

When the phylactery is created, the spellcaster transfers a bit of life force into the creation. While crafting the phylactery is taxing the physical strength of the caster, the materials and components can easily exceed 120,000 gp. Overall, creating a phylactery was a very daunting task for anyone of arcane power.

Liches are generally gaunt and skeletal with withered flesh stretched tight across horribly visible bones but can vary greatly in appearance depending on their age. Some appear as skeletons dressed in regal finery, yet others might appear to be nothing more than lepers. Bright pinpoints of (usually crimson) light burn in the empty sockets of those whose eyes had been destroyed or otherwise lost or were so old they had simply rotted away. The origin of a liches’ power can be determined by their eye colour, with dark crimson light being the most common one, corresponding to the ritual of Orcus, the Demon Lord of undeath. Eyes of light crimson are the second most common one, corresponding to powers granted directly by Bane, the Black Lord. There have been few sightings of other eye colours such as purple, grey, yellow and even blue, it is unknown what origin these colours correspond to.

Liches are great masters of necromancy and usually command many lower undead beings, the amount of undead a lich commands is only limited by the amount of corpses they can find, and what standards the lich might have. Most liches take a liking to skeletal undead, but there have been cases where cadaverous, spectral and (very rarely) sanguine undead have been favoured. A lich usually takes an appearance similar to their favoured undead.

A lich often haunts the abode it favoured in life, such as a lonely tower, a haunted ruin, or an academy of black magic. Alternatively, some liches construct secret tombs filled with powerful guardians and traps.

Should you face a lich in battle you best flee if you are caught unprepared, if you’re lucky the lich deems it unnecessary to pursue you. But if you draw a lich’s ire, escape is nigh impossible due to them having access to the Dimension Door, Fly and Greater Invisibility spells.Should you seek to battle a lich it pays to be prepared. A lich is fairly frail physically, but it has more than enough tools to end the life of any miserable creature foolish enough to cross it. A lich’s spellcasting is its most powerful tool, having spells such as Power Word Kill, Power Word Stun, Dominate Monster, Finger of Death, Disintegrate, Globe of Invulnerability, Blight, Dimension Door, Greater invisibility, and possibly many more at its disposal (remember, liches retain their spellcasting when attaining lichdom). Access to spells such as Death Ward and Counterspell is essential to any who dare fight a lich. Even if you come prepared for the spells, a lich can still harm you with its paralyzing touch, leaving you paralyzed and allowing its undead minions to chop you to bits.There is no way around it, a lich will usually never leave its lair, forcing you to fight inside it. While in the Lair the Lich can cause a targeted flood of negative energy to harm a living creature for massive damage and even use the spirits of the dead to restore his own magical energy. If you thought a single instance of Finger of Death was to be feared, wait till multiple instances start going out and those who fought alongside you will start fighting against you.Even if you survive the battle against the lich and destroy its physical body, as long as its phylactery is intact the lich will regenerate. To permanently slay a lich, both the lich and the phylactery must be destroyed in a very narrow timeframe, as the phylactery can create a new lich and the lich can create a new phylactery.

Despite all this, there have been instances of foolishly brave but very lucky Paladins defeating a lich without too much trouble, while the phylactery was (by dumb luck) destroyed by another group of disrespectful tomb robbers adventurers in a narrow timeframe. Causing the lich to be permanently destroyed.

Below you see many names of notable liches, you notice a specific few…

Szass Tam

Szass Tam was the Zulkir of Necromancy in Thay, its most influential Red Wizard, and—observers said—the true ruler of Thay. A lich for the last four hundred-odd years, Tam achieved his present power through great arrogance, the skills and preparation to back up his overwhelming ambitions, and the brilliant schemes of one of the most cunning and intelligent beings in all Faerûn.

In order to learn more about the ways of magic in the time of the Spellplague, Tam summoned Bane, sacrificing many powerful spellcasters to Bane in the ritual. Bane made a bargain with the lich: he would reveal to Tam his knowledge about the chaotic magic, grant the lich the ability to raise more dead for his cause, and augment the lich's powers. Tam, in turn, agreed to surrender his soul after 1000 years had passed when his quest of conquering Thay was completed.

Tam was eventually caught up in a war for Thay against the other Zulkirs and after brutally slaughtering them and all their armies in a prolonged war, Szass Tam grew bored of Thay and left. Szass Tam’s current whereabouts are unknown but Malark Springhill (his right hand man) claims that Szass Tam had found ancient Netheril writings, and was seeking more.

Zacharias The Martyr

Zacharias was a crusader against the forces of evil in the times that outsiders freely walked the material plane. In order to serve the crusade and the forces of good forever, Zacharias was known to search for the secrets of immortality. Zacharias eventually died and became a martyr, sacrificing himself and his pupils to hold a horde of demons at the ancient fort of Drezen. Unbeknownst to his fellow crusaders, Zacharias had found immortality in lichdom. In his newfound immortality Zacharias found the struggles of mortals pitiful and decided that they were no longer worth his time. Zacharias sought out Szass Tam but found him and his ‘’benign’’ servants and ‘’maniacal’’ lust for power pitiful as well.

Zacharias is known for having found a way to greatly accelerate the process of achieving lichdom. Ever since, he has wandered the Planes helping those who he deems worthy to attain lichdom. The exact method and what it entails is not known but the amount of liches following him speak for themselves. Zacharias eyes are filled with purple light, and the eyes of those he grants lichdom are filled with a desaturated purple light.

Hidden into this page, behind some additional paper and an illusion spell you also find this hand-written note:

Mortals who think they are worthy should seek the ancient fortress of Drezen, where master Zacharias now makes his home.

The Lich of Mulsantir

This creature goes by many (fake) names, names he has been known to use are: Ren Verring, Charlie Whitechapel, Bodin Greenpants, Max Aldermire, Jack Frost, Zachariah Mancer and Ergio the Dum-az.

When he was still a mortal this one was once a student at the Academy of Thay, particularly gifted at Necromancy and Abjuration. He was very strange, for he was no ordinary student, he seemed to be a mixture of a sorcerer and a wizard, as some spells took him a long time to understand while others came naturally. A (non-consensual) blood test once revealed that he does have copious amounts of energy originating from the Negative Energy Plane coursing through him.

This creature eventually rose through the ranks of the Red Wizards and became the Zulkir of Abjuration, but left the academy when Szass Tam came into power. We can only guess from the fragments of Scrying what exactly happened to him. One time he was in Hades, another in Mechanus and then once more in Limbo, he traversed all the outer Planes. But somewhere along the line he had most definitely achieved lichdom, as he had fallen countless times but seemed to rematerialize somewhere else on the material plane every single time. Perhaps a moving phylactery? We never found conclusive evidence… The time he spent in the material plane he actually spent making merry, he even married mortals and conceived children the natural way (something impossible for ordinary liches), sometimes even settling down for 20-odd years. The colour of his eyes seem to be blue, the source of his power is currently unknown.

Currently he has taken up residence in Mulsantir, where he reigned as lord (after killing all those who would oppose him) but due to the recent events with the elementals, he seems to be staying put.

But there is a reason we haven’t apprehended him yet and forced him to give us his secrets, for he is a most fearsome combatant. He seems to command Azure coloured mists that spawn spectral undead and render creatures blind. The mist can be combated by breaking the pots that emit them, but know that the lich himself can also emit the Azure mist. He has also been known to cast spells known to Wizards, Sorcerers, Warlocks and Clerics, what kind of abomination of a spellcaster has he become? Aside from that he wields a fearsome necromantic blade, known to conjure tangible (illusionary?) reflections of him which fight alongside him. And on top of all that, he has the full arsenal of ordinary liches at his disposal… Make no mistake, unless you have the power of a demi-god, fighting him only results in your corpse and soul joining his undead army…