bb@lanl-a.UUCP (10/27/83)
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Liches are nasty, but some are nastier than others. Laura makes
several good points about liches having gobs of magic of their own,
a well fortified & guarded lair, unknown spells, etc... In my
campaign there is a lich that fits that description to a T. My
players only met an undead servant of his and a small army of
5000 zombies and suffered much hardship defending a city from
them (level losses, disastrous expenses dealing with mercenaries, etc).
They decided to flee the country that surrounded the desert the lich
resided in and did so after destroying the servant and scattering
the army by bringing down a dam at a critical moment. They
barely came to the attention of the lich.
However, it seems reasonable to me that liches of far weaker power
and in far weaker positions could exist. Also, restrictions on
liches not mentioned in the MM will also serve to make them available
as opponents for weaker pcs, and less fearsome in general. The
big point about liches is that they are dead. Being dead gives them
some advantages and powers not associated with the living but being
dead also has its problems. A lesser lich might find it impossible
to stand the light of the sun like a vampire, might be confined to
a certain area or territory that it cannot leave without being
destroyed. Such conditions might be part of the magic that created
it, esp. if the magic used to create the lich was the liches alone,
ie, if it didnt get help from greater powers to become a lich. Human
or mortal magic is not nearly as powerful as deity magic, even wish
spells have limits that can translate into restrictions on a liches
power. What would happen to a MU lich whose spell books deteriorate
over the centuries and who doesn't have and can't get the ingredients
necessary to make copies or other magical items? What about a powerful
MU put to the torch but 'saving' himself with a powerful wish to
find himself entombed with none of his magical paraphenalia but the
other powers associated with lichdom? The only spells he knows were
perhaps only those he knew before he was burnt. Another restriction
that some might find useful is that because the lich is dead, any
hurts done to it's body never heal, though hit points might still
go back up. Thus severed limbs do not necessarily reattach, though
they might still retain some semblance of the undead life it once
had. Such a lich would be VERY wary of adventurers getting into
its lair and would perhaps go out of its way to avoid such
encounters. Or perhaps it knows of magic to attach fresh limbs
to its decaying body and is always ready to welcome a fresh load
of spare parts for it.
Because a lich is dead, it has less interest in the living world
unless it has a consuming hatred of all living things, and is much
more interested in the world of the dead, and planes like the
Negative Material. The Sand Lich mentioned above controls a
large desert that was once the center of his empire when he was
a living sorceror king. He and his kingdom were smashed but
he managed to ensorcel an entire region and now rules again.
The human kingdom that surrounds him calls him OverLord and Undying
Emperor, but he just doesn't seem interested in interfering with
human empires anymore. His control over his dead/undead subjects
(at least 500000 died with him when he cast his great changing
spells) is limited by the size of the desert and he raises armies
and such only rarely and for obscure reasons. Qualities such as
curiosity, inventivness, creativity are more related to life and
life forces and the way I see it, a lich would not posess any of
these, or possess less if it had them before it made the Big Switch.
Thus, in my campaign, liches are dangerous threats, but only if
you go looking for them, otherwise you are likely to be left alone.
(Not even my group is powerful enough for liches to appear as
wandering monsters.)
b2 Bryan Bingham ...ucbvax!lbl-csam!lanl-a!bb