The Lich is probably one of the highest forms of Undead, the type of creature
that all necronmancers aspiring to immortality (which pretty much means all of
them) long to become. Surprising to many, liches were not a creation of
Saminga, but a development of independent sorcerors. Saminga himself is said
to wish to limit the creation of liches, as the considerable advantages they
possess when compared to other undead give them a distressing degree of
independence and autonomy.
Becoming a Lich
The road to becoming a lich is not easy. If it were, there wouldn't be any
mummies and vampires around. The rituals for becoming a lich are obscure, not
only due to suppression by those who serve Heaven, but also because those who
know such secrets are loathe to share them. Why help create potential rivals.
So those who seek to become a lich either has to spend a long time retrieving
rare and lost tomes, hoping to find the method, or reinvent it for himself.
Due to this, lichdom is a very exclusive club.
The method of becoming a Lich is actually a synthesis of two rituals. The
first is the creation of a phylactery, which will serve to anchor the lich's
soul to the world. A variation of the Create Spirit Anchor ritual, Create
Phylactery (Focus/6) has a base time of 1 day for each of the subject's Forces,
and an Essene cost of twice the subject's Forces. If one is performing this
ritual on another, then the subject as well as the performer may contribute
Essence to pay the cost. Once the ritual is successfully completed, a link
will have been forged. If the subject dies before the second ritual is
performed, he automaticaly becomes a ghost, without having to make a Will roll
or lose a Force. The phylactery becomes the ghost's corporeal anchor.
Once the phylactery has been created, the second ritual can be performed.
Similar to the Create Mummy ritual, the Create Lich ritual transforms a
subject's living body into an undead vessel, while binding it and his Forces to
the phylactery. If the ritual is successful, then the subject has become a
lich. If something goes wrong, then like in the Create Mummy ritual the
subject has a chance to save himself, but instead of becoming a vampire, he
successfully manages to bind the stray Force and becmoes a mummy.
Lichdom
The biggest advantage of lichdom compared to other forms of undeath is that
the destruction of one's body does not bring about the Final Death of
disbandment. Instead, when a lich is physically slain his soul coelesces
inside his phylactery, which acts like a Heart except on the coporeal plane.
Like a slain celestial, a lich has the chance of suffering Trauma when such an
event occurs. The only way to bring Final Death to a lich is to somehow locate
and destroy his phylactery. As the knot which holds a lich's soul together,
once it is destroyed the lich will dispand, it's Forces scattering to the
Symphony.
Once a lich has recovered from any Trauma it might have suffered, it has the
opportunity to reassemble it's vessel and walk the world again. Like a
celestial in Limbo (see Heaven and Hell), a disembodied lich has the ability to
store excess Essence beyond it's normal Force capacity only for the purposes of
reassembling its vessel.
Note that key word, reassemble. Unlike a celestial in Limbo, a lich is not
free to create any type of vessel it wants, but can only remake its original
undead body. That's because the ritual of transformation irrevocably bonded
the lich's body as well as Forces to his phylactery. When a lich attempts to
regain a corporeal form, it's not creating a new vessel, but merely summoning
the components of it's old one back and reassembling it. This limitation does
come with one advanage. Depending on the state of the lich's slain body, one
might get a discount on the Essence cost to recreate it. A body that has been
left mostly intact only takes 50% of what it would normally cost to recreate.
One that has been dismembered is discounted to 75%. A body which has been
totally incinerated or otherwise scattered to its component molecules costs the
normal amount of Essence to reassemble. When the reassembly takes place, the
remains of the lich fade from wherever they are, and coelesce in the vicinity
of the lich's phylactery.
The other main advantage of lichdom to other forms of undeath is that a
lich is no longer bound to the limits of its potential Forces. Like Blessed
and Damned souls, a Lich has the capacity to grow the maximum number of Forces
a human is capable of having. Thus, an extremely ancient lich can be quite
powerful.
Role in the War
Rare but powerful, Liches tend to be wild cards and loose canons in The War.
The fact they tend to be incredibly selfish and have few moral qualms would
seem to make their very existence a benefit to Hell. But the advantages they
have over other undead make any attempts to work with liches extremely
problematic.
Hell's biggest problem is that there's almost no way to force them to obey.
Their souls are bound to the Corporeal Plane, so there's no threat of
retribution in the afterlife for them. And unlike other undead, slaying them
doesn't destroy them permenently, but merely sets them back. One would have a
way to coerce them if they could gain possession of his phylactery, but it's a
big if. Liches, being the powerful, clever, and ruthless undead sorcerors that
they are, tend to hide their phylacteries where none can find them, guarded by
the most elaborate security arrangements and most potent wards they can muster.
With all the precautions they take, it's a wonder any have been destroyed at
all.
With no reliable way to force cooperation from a lich, Hell is forced to deal
with them on their own terms. Sometimes it works out for a while. Often, the
lich is uppity and follows it's own goals, sometimes to the detriment of many
Princes. One of the most famous examples the latter is the Lich King of Anzar,
who united numerous factions of the Broken Races, as well as enticing or
binding demonlings and even full-fledged demons into his service as part of his
bid to conquer the world. This disrupted the plans of many a Prince, who found
their resources comandeered by this upstart Dark Lord. If he hadn't happen to
have been destroyed by a valiant band of heroes then he might have succeeded,
and would still be controlling beings and resources which belonged to Hell.
With that kind of record, it's no wonder Hell has ambivalent feelings about
liches.
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