On the Demilich it says
Becoming a Demilich
Most demiliches achieved their state through apathy, not volition. For each decade that a demilich fails to stir itself to meaningful action, there is a 1% cumulative chance that its corporeal body decays into dust, save for the skull. Any return to activity resets the chance of transformation to 0%. Once the lich's body decays, the lich's intellect returns to its phylactery as normal. However, the skull rejects the return of the lich's consciousness, keeping the lich trapped in its deteriorating phylactery for 1d10 years. If during that time the lich's remains are destroyed or scattered (for example, by wandering adventurers), the lich's phylactery forms a new body and the intellect leaves the phylactery as normal, returning the lich to life. But if the lich's remains survive unperturbed, the phylactery's magic fails catastrophically, releasing the lich's soul and causing 5d10 points of damage to the phylactery. Regardless of whether or not the phylactery physically survives, the energies released by its failure channel into the lifeless skull of the lich, allowing the last remnants of the lich's soul to transform it into a demilich. The lich's soul itself either is utterly destroyed, reaches its final reward or punishment, or is condemned to wander the edges of the multiverse forever.
Vordakai has apparently been sleeping for thousands of years.
I know. I just want an explanation to remain constant.
Perhaps his sleep is actually a deliberate and special way to avoid such a fate—something he personally concocted as a way to go "dormant" and slow the degradation process.
That would work.
He is a cyclops from an ancient/lost civilization, so it's entirely possible that the degradation of their liches is entirely different than "our" liches.
Perhaps his sleep is actually a deliberate and special way to avoid such a fate—something he personally concocted as a way to go "dormant" and slow the degradation process.
This explanation actually makes a fair amount of sense, considering that Vordakai was trapped by the wards and unable to leave, and may indeed have been aware that if he simply whiled away the centuries waiting for adventurers to wander in and break the seals, he might degrade into a demilich. Placing himself into an intentional torpor would bypass the chance of becoming a demilich, especially if that was the whole point. Alternatively, he may have spend a few centuries researching spells, crafting magical items, etc... and expending a lot of the wealth he had available in the process. He's supposed to have atrophied and lost a lot of spellcasting levels after all, so he's well below his original wealth-by-level. Perhaps he cannibalized various magical items he possessed in order to craft items that attempted to bypass the wards and enable his escape, then cannibalized those items to produce whatever allowed him to slumber for centuries without becoming a demilich.
Alternate idea...his tie to the artifact could negate it.
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I just went and checked... and it has been at least 4,000 years (or longer) since the last major cyclops civilization in Iobaria, since Orlov was founded in the ruins of a Cyclops city 3,960ish years ago. In reality, the ruins probably date all the way back to Earthfall, and that's probably approximately how long ago the original Vordakai died. How long Vordakai the lich actually managed to remain active, given that he made it to at least level 18, possibly 20, and became a lich, is uncertain, but he's probably been asleep for a minimum of 4,000 years, not just 'a thousand'. Indeed, he may even remember ancient human empires like Thassilon, which fell during his lifetime, but have no memory at all of the oldest modern empires, like Taldor. If he's been asleep long enough, Aroden might have arisen to godhood and died all while Vordakai slumbered, and that puts some real context on how out of the loop he is.
Nice idea. If I ever run Kingmaker again, Big V becomes an awakened demilich.
~squiggle~
My understanding was that Big V was not a normal lich.
That he used some long forgotten cyclops method to achieve lichdom, thus he is not a normal lich and not subject to whatever normal restrictions they have, like devolving to a demi-lich.
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A bejewelled floating cyclopean skull slurping souls is too tempting to resist.
;)
~squiggle~
Creative Director
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The real-world reason for this is, of course, the simple fact that when we published Vordikai's stats and history, we didn't yet have an official Pathfinder demilich stat block, and since that stat block didn't yet exist, we didn't know that in the future we might develop the demilich in a way that might call Vordikai's existence into question.
Had we done Vordikai's stats today, we would have inlcluded a line of text in his history that said something like "Due to the unusual nature of how Vordikai's spent the last several thousand years, he has avoided transformation into a demilich." I probably would go into one more sentence-worth of flavor description about that "unusual nature" but that'd just be flavor—it wouldn't change his stats or otherwise affect game play. Any of the reasons folks have come up with in this thread work fine if you don't wanna come up with your own or aren't comfortable hand-waving it away as "strange magic from the ancient past."
In any event, the fact that we started that bit about becoming a demilich with the word "most" leaves PLENTY of wiggle room for exceptions like Vordikai.
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There's also the text on page 37 of the module:
You could easily claim that the aura affects things inside the tomb as well as the walls of the tomb itself. The ancient undead cyclopses didn't decay into skeletons, and Vordakai's corporeal body didn't crumble to dust.
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Creative Director
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There's also the text on page 37 of the module:
** spoiler omitted **
You could easily claim that the aura affects things inside the tomb as well as the walls of the tomb itself. The ancient undead cyclopses didn't decay into skeletons, and Vordakai's corporeal body didn't crumble to dust.
This is a really cool and elegant solution.
(Rubber stamp sound of approval!)