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Become a Lich with none of the nasty costs?
Sign me up in a heartbeat, especially if it's 3.5 or PF rules. There's a few spells that enable Undead to become temporarily living (one was even posted here). They are mostly to disguise they are Undead, but they also allow them to do things living creatures do, like eat, sleep, etc.
Besides, if I've got levels in Wizard, that means Magic Jar, and that means all those limitations are actually temporary inconveniences. Magic Jar means I can possess someone else's body for a time to do those things. It doesn't even have to be malicious. It can be totally consensual. Here, you want me to double your strength for a day or turn you into an animal for 24 hours so you can see what it's like to fly like a bird or swim like a shark? Well, first you gotta let me borrow your body and hit an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Liches don't even have to be skeletal. This process sounds right efficient, so you'd be keeping the look of your 'original' body if you wanted to. Tammy's use of Gentle Repose will keep you looking as young as your original death. Even then, it really doesn't matter that much. If you want to look pretty, there's two entire schools that can help you accomplish that--Illusion and Transmutation.
As for what 'good' you can do in the world, hey, take them Magic Item Crafting Feats and start producing things that horribly violate physics. Using a bit of conversational ideas over in a Starfinder thread, that means you can help NASA or its European Equivalents by producing Decanters of Endless Water for a perfect 100% efficient reaction-mass drive for spaceships. Want to end world hunger or eradicate plagues? Well, you're basically a one-being harbinger for the Tippyverse, in reality.
I know a friend who'd be happy being a Ghoul if it meant he could be undead in reality. Being a Lich? That's a no-brainer. ;)
What's there to ask? It's simple. You become immortal, someone else dies. How you provide that someone is up to you.I would only take the deal if I could get a whole bunch of questions answered first.
Thinking about the scenario, two major questions are the availability of metamagic feats and material components.
I was talking about the original. I wouldn't take yours under any circumstances.
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I think the only reasonable answer to immortality for a human is to periodically forget that you are immortal. Maybe even regress to the intellect of an animal and enjoy every day's events as they happen
This is a long-pondered extremely fascinating question about humanity and immortality: how would we cope with infinite memories?
The ultimate truth is, no matter what we do, there is a literal physical limit to how much our brains will hold, data-wise. As no other human lives for literal infinity in a terrestrial body, this really isn't a factor in our lives. Once you hit infinity, however, it eventually will.
In order to deal with a finite, limited physical capacity, I'd tend to guess that, indeed, at some point or another some of the older memories just have to kind of... go. How they "go" could well vary - perhaps they're forgotten entirely, perhaps they're simply "indexed" more "efficiently" (maybe even so that similar events start blending into each other), or perhaps a person just starts living in an extremely large "circle" pattern (step 1-> step 2 -> step 3 -> ... step nine trillion nine hundred ninty nine billion nine hundred ninety nine million nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninty nine -> step 1 ->...) with your life falling into a large roughly repeating pattern; or perhaps there's something else I've forgotten.
This is, ultimately, the dirty "downside" to having an infinite lifespan: limited mental capacity, due to hardware limitations - and the inescapable truth is that those hardware limitations are unavoidable in a physical universe (though with the propper tech it could be hypothetically so large as to be irrelevant compared to the span of the universe).
That said: you're a lich. You have just embarked on a career that literally allows you to store information on nothing whatsoever. No brain? Just a skeleton? No nervous system or information drive? No problem!
Just by being an undead - a creature is capable of independent sentient mobility, and entirely ignore entropy*, and runs off of an entirely non-corporeal energy source. Storage capacity is no longer an issue.
... and yet, a lich isn't automatically Mr. Perfect Memory, either (that'd be a cassisian angel). A lich can be forgetful or have something slip it's mind. I'd expect such a thing to start relatively quickly in some cases ("Wait: did I read this book already? I know I've read five thousand seven... something on the topic, but I'm not sure if I've read this one or it was that other one... hold on... or was it this third one...") as overly similar experiences do blend together, to some extent.
As a complete aside, I'd have to carefully weigh the "one person dies" thing. Probably could still morally justify it, but it'd be harder. I also don't think I could do it if I had to kill the person: not only because of the fat guy/train scenario (though there's that), but also because of the fact that I'm not super healthy...
Also; everyone, we've been overlooking a serious and easily super-legitimate reason for the weird person who offered us lichdom to do so in the first place, and it's the same reason we'd be able to be convinced: they're lichens and need peers/company. They need a society. Voila: instant "selfish" but non-sinister reason. Why us (i.e. the person in particular)? Why not? I may find it weird that I was chosen, but there are plenty of weird things ancient people did.
Of course, there could be another reason, still non-malevolent: they could have found a way to derive a kind of lich-battery. PF-style infinite clean energy. Why not use it themselves? Have you seen the convoluted elements found in PF? It could be some kind of thing like that - can't do it to themselves because "reasons" just like a genie.
Now: could these be sinister things? Yes, of course. But they aren't inherently so. There are probably other reasons.
* Limitations apply. Ask your psyche counselor about your prone to boredom today.
I was talking about the original. I wouldn't take yours under any circumstances.What's there to ask? It's simple. You become immortal, someone else dies. How you provide that someone is up to you.I would only take the deal if I could get a whole bunch of questions answered first.
Thinking about the scenario, two major questions are the availability of metamagic feats and material components.
For those who are still wondering.. The scenario is taken from the Babylon 5 episode "Deathwalker". The eponymous villain of the week was going to take the process and openly sell it to the government and population of the alliance as an act of revenge for the destruction of her homeworld with the heroes realising that they had no legal recourse to stop her.
In the end, as she was departing, her ship was destroyed by Kosh's ship with the latter intoning. "You are not ready for immortality."
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In order to deal with a finite, limited physical capacity, I'd tend to guess that, indeed, at some point or another some of the older memories just have to kind of... go. How they "go" could well vary - perhaps they're forgotten entirely, perhaps they're simply "indexed" more "efficiently" (maybe even so that similar events start blending into each other), or perhaps a person just starts living in an extremely large "circle" pattern (step 1-> step 2 -> step 3 -> ... step nine trillion nine hundred ninty nine billion nine hundred ninety nine million nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninty nine -> step 1 ->...) with your life falling into a large roughly repeating pattern; or perhaps there's something else I've forgotten.
The Twelfth Doctor accidentally makes someone immortal in Earth's Middle Ages. As her brain is still that of a mere Human, she comes up with the problem of memory limits early on. She tries some strategies to retain her memories, then ultimately realizes that she's only going to keep the ones worth keeping and forget the ones that don't matter.... like her original name. (She ultimately just calls herself... "Me".)
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Tammy's ready for immortality.
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Just try getting older. A human's memory is good for perhaps 30-40 years, then starts fading. I remember my teen years, my college years, and so forth, but they're so distant they've taken on a surreal quality. I really remember very little of my childhood from a visceral, emotional state. I can recall where I was and what I did and so forth, but it's very difficult to "relive" what it was like to be there, unlike more recent times where it's very easy to remember, "Oh, this is exactly what everything felt like when I broke my arm 14 years ago..."
So I'd say visceral, concrete, "So real you can relive them any time you want" memories last 20 years. Some last longer, but certainly not all. Up to 40-50 years you still remember, but a lot of the feeling attached to them has faded.
I'd guess that memories over a century old would just kind of get dumped, sort of like your childhood by the time you're in your 30's.
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As specified, an undead no longer has biological processes. They would clearly be retaining memory by means other than the encoding and deciphering of brain folds.
While we could speculate on what means they may use, and if any limits apply to those means, we cannot speak with clarity on the matter.
I certainly wouldn't want such a secret openly available. Deathwalker was likely correct about the effects of such a process.I was talking about the original. I wouldn't take yours under any circumstances.What's there to ask? It's simple. You become immortal, someone else dies. How you provide that someone is up to you.I would only take the deal if I could get a whole bunch of questions answered first.
Thinking about the scenario, two major questions are the availability of metamagic feats and material components.
For those who are still wondering.. The scenario is taken from the Babylon 5 episode "Deathwalker". The eponymous villain of the week was going to take the process and openly sell it to the government and population of the alliance as an act of revenge for the destruction of her homeworld with the heroes realising that they had no legal recourse to stop her.
In the end, as she was departing, her ship was destroyed by Kosh's ship with the latter intoning. "You are not ready for immortality."
I'd equally work against a secret process.. Right now as it is, the only thing that makes the owning class tolerable is that death is the equaliser they have with us. Give them immortality and we'd never be rid of them and their power would continue to grow asymptotically. Immortality Research is one area of research that I would oppose uncategorically.... even if it's to preserve an Einstein or Hawking.... come to think of it..ESPECIALLY if it's to preserve an Einstein or Hawking.
I was talking about the original. I wouldn't take yours under any circumstances.What's there to ask? It's simple. You become immortal, someone else dies. How you provide that someone is up to you.I would only take the deal if I could get a whole bunch of questions answered first.
Thinking about the scenario, two major questions are the availability of metamagic feats and material components.
The original seems to be whatever strings you might think are attached to the deal, don't exist.
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Depends on the person as far as the second deal. I get to pick, right?
Edit: Actually, going by exact wording, I don't even need to kill somebody. Somebody just has to die.
Can I just find someone dying of a terminal illness or injury and use the moment when they naturally expire?
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Deathwalker had the idea that there was a non-replaceable organ in the sophont body that was needed for the serum.
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Hmmm. It would take a very special person for me to rip a vital organ from their still living body.
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I dunno. I would ask a terminally ill person if I could have that organ when they die. You know, body kept alive despite brain death and all that.
Depends on the person as far as the second deal. I get to pick, right?
Edit: Actually, going by exact wording, I don't even need to kill somebody. Somebody just has to die.
Can I just find someone dying of a terminal illness or injury and use the moment when they naturally expire?
Since the process requires the donation of an organ, presumably the donor has to be fairly healthy to count. So we'll put in the caveat that the donor has a fairly decent chunk of a normal lifespan ahead of him otherwise.
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This is really tough to consider. Not that it's a hard choice, but that I'd possibly really have to consider it is tough.
I've always been fascinated with necromancy in a fantasy settings/stories/video games (not in real life, not into hoodoo or anything).
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Which wraps us around to Larry Niven and organlegging.
I've played and GMed Shadowrun. I'm not endorsing the evilness of organlegging, but there are much worse things.
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...As a complete aside, I'd have to carefully weigh the "one person dies" thing. Probably could still morally justify it, but it'd be harder. I also don't think I could do it if I had to kill the person: not only because of the fat guy/train scenario (though there's that), but also because of the fact that I'm not super healthy...As I hinted above, it's both much easier to justify morally and practically if I can just designate someone: say a clear mass murderer on Death Row or some known terrorist higher up.
I'd be much less happy with either "Some random person will die." or "You have to kill them yourself", since my access to and ability to kill people I'd be fine with seeing die is very limited.
I'm a pragmatist. If I'm being truly honest with myself I could do it if:
Now before I get called a sociopath you have to
In retrospect I've removed the post. It's not a reasonable conversation to have.
Though I'm not really understanding what you're trying to convey you're correct in that the end result is selfish. The overall arcing discussion has to do with the ends justifying the means. Once I get this selfish thing (immortality), I'll be able to (though not forced to) do good with it.
As this is a totally fantastical thing that will never actually happen, it makes agreeing to do so at any cost much more justifiable. It's distinctly possible that i'd feel very very different if I were in the moment.
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Tammy's fantastic.
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Heck, i would take it with all the drawbacks in the book.
You could even add vampires's drawbacks and i still would take it.
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...As this is a totally fantastical thing that will never actually happen, it makes agreeing to do so at any cost much more justifiable. It's distinctly possible that i'd feel very very different if I were in the moment.
Yeah, I said I'd take the Dorian Grey immortality at the cost of another's life, and I don't think I change my answer. Even if the sacrifice was an irredeemably evil person, I know it's still a totally, selfishly evil act. It'd probably start me down the path to accepting and rationalizing more evil acts, and damnation in whatever afterlife exists. I'd like to believe I'd have the ethics and willpower to say No to the initial deal... I'd like to, but I fear I wouldn't, not really. I know what that implies both about hypothetical me and real-world-right-now me, I'm not happy with it, but there it is anyway.
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Yeah, I said I'd take the Dorian Grey immortality at the cost of another's life, and I don't think I change my answer. Even if the sacrifice was an irredeemably evil person, I know it's still a totally, selfishly evil act. It'd probably start me down the path to accepting and rationalizing more evil acts, and damnation in whatever afterlife exists. I'd like to believe I'd have the ethics and willpower to say No to the initial deal... I'd like to, but I fear I wouldn't, not really. I know what that implies both about hypothetical me and real-world-right-now me, I'm not happy with it, but there it is anyway.
That's why I gave the original option of lichdom a pass...I know myself enough to know that my becoming that powerful at so little cost and effort would only have deleterious results for literally everyone else even tangentially connected with me. I wouldn't start out simply atomizing people who annoyed me, but I'd get there.
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Yeah be tempting to be Dr. Manhattan about certain things.
Except clothing. I'd still wear clothing.
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Yeah be tempting to be Dr. Manhattan about certain things.
Except clothing. I'd still wear clothing.
Yeah, I don't want to see me nekkid either.
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I'm cool with no clothes, rules are for mortals and peasants.
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The Twelfth Doctor accidentally makes someone immortal in Earth's Middle Ages. As her brain is still that of a mere Human, she comes up with the problem of memory limits early on. She tries some strategies to retain her memories, then ultimately realizes that she's only going to keep the ones worth keeping and forget the ones that don't matter.... like her original name. (She ultimately just calls herself... "Me".)
Since that character was played by Maisie Williams, it was amusing that A Girl had no name. :)
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Unless I had total control of exactly what I looked like (including the option of, "like me, but without having gained all this weight") I'd probably feel ashamed of how I appeared, in general; that said... I would totally take that preservation over the rot. (I'd also take a continuous alter self effect).
And, of course, as should be obvious by this post, I've finally come to the conclusion that, unless there's a hidden weirdness I'm not seeing, I'd probably take the deal.
With spells and effects, there isn't really a reason that I wouldn't be able to live exactly as I am now, only without many of the problems. Beyond that, I'd be able to - and therefore be obliged to - do far too much good to avoid doing so.
Unfortunately, starting as an 11th level character with nothing to my name but my phylactery and current existence (and, of course, spells), I'd have to be careful about what, exactly, I'd do. I'd have to work really hard - I could revolutionize the world for the better, but it'd take some time and effort and chicanery.
If, on the other hand, "the other specifics of which are up to you" could be interpreted in multiple ways: I get WBL that the phylactery doesn't count against; that I get whatever I want that an 11th level character could hypothetically acquire through reasonable means or conceits (which varies greatly by table and personal taste, sooooooo...); or, literally, "whatever I want" which, I'm pretty sure, isn't what the OP meant*, but which, of course, is my most preferred. 'Cause with that, I'd be pushing out perfect awesome starting immediately, and just gaining from there.
Still, as an immortal, I can afford to be patient.
Make no mistake. It's going to suck. Also, people are going to hate me. Buuuuu~uuuut, it's actually pretty legitimate and important for me to do so, and my faith dictates no less: that I do the right thing, even when people hate me for it.
Speaking of my faith: the largest struggle I had was whether or not I'd end up "in the right place" when the inevitable happens and everything else (including me) eventually ends (as it will).
The short version is... yes. For two reasons.
First, according to lore in semi-canonical sources, liches have ended up in planes appropriate to their alignment after their destruction. The abyss for CE liches, the hells for LE liches (one of which you even fight, after it's been banished there by destruction, in Hordes of the Underdark), and so on.
Second, and far more important to my faith, is, found here (or here):
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
... and here:
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
With that as my resource, I'm sold - since I have absolute confidence that nothing can either separate me from the love of God, nor can snatch me out of His hand, I've nothing to fear.
This, then, becomes something of a sacrifice, but mostly a massive boon, with the power, authority, and resources to make things better for everyone.
As to class, I'd have to choose carefully: God isn't given stats or domains to define in game terms; I don't worship nature; divination, sorcery, and witchcraft are expressly forbidden; and similar other restrictions exist in various place - hence no easy answer for a cleric, druids are out, diviners, sorcerers, and witches are out - leaving only arcanists, oracles, summoner, and wizards.
In all cases, I'd avoid anything with a familiar (so bonded items or bust), and probably summoner would run afoul of that same scripture, despite being literally available, so that's probably out.
I don't want to be cursed, so oracle's out.
I lllllllllllllllllllllllllove arcansists, but, uh... they're just the inferior choice, over-all.
So, in the end, I'd go with wizard, focusing on abjuration, conjuration, enchantment, and transmutation; maybe a universalist, or maybe a specialist of one of those guys.
Final answer. :)
(I'd much rather have some form of immortality other than lichdom, though.)
*
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A lich, having cheated Death once, will be obsessed with its own destruction no matter how small the risk. It will spend its immortality making sure nothing ever ends it
Unless it's an angsty Brad Pitt as Louie kind of lich, that misses the pleasures of life and feels oh so empty, but can't quite convince themselves to end it. They'll welcome the end, so long as they don't have to DIY.
Or a nihilistic lich that sees entropy as the ultimate fate of all things, and just wants to destroy as much as they can before entropy claims them as well. They'll embrace the end when it happens, they know it to be inevitable.
Or the martyr lich, who gives up everything -even their very humanity- in a bodisatva like manner so that they can better help others. They'll face an ending if it means saving someone else.
Or the knowledge seeking lich, who wants more time to find the answers they require. Once their answer is found, and their place in history secured, they may lose any sense of purpose and seek an end.
I guess what I'm saying is that liches aren't two dimensional. They're former humans, and just as prone to variance and quirks.
Edit: #NotAllLiches
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A lich, having cheated Death once, will be obsessed with its own destruction no matter how small the risk. It will spend its immortality making sure nothing ever ends itUnless it's an angsty Brad Pitt as Louie kind of lich, that misses the pleasures of life and feels oh so empty, but can't quite convince themselves to end it. They'll welcome the end, so long as they don't have to DIY.
Or a nihilistic lich that sees entropy as the ultimate fate of all things, and just wants to destroy as much as they can before entropy claims them as well. They'll embrace the end when it happens, they know it to be inevitable.
Or the martyr lich, who gives up everything -even their very humanity- in a bodisatva like manner so that they can better help others. They'll face an ending if it means saving someone else.
Or the knowledge seeking lich, who wants more time to find the answers they require. Once their answer is found, and their place in history secured, they may lose any sense of purpose and seek an end.
I guess what I'm saying is that liches aren't two dimensional. They're former humans, and just as prone to variance and quirks.
Edit: #NotAllLiches
Actually, I was thinking of a Lich created by the OP's process. That is who choose to become a Lich in full knowledge of everything it entails.
What led me to believe what I wrote was a previous post saying that there was no meaningful difference between life extension and immortality. I considered this and realized that all natural processes take into account the inevitability of destruction. Even the universe itself is bound to end.
Someone who chooses to become immortal would naturally try to ensure that nothing threatens this desired state. For the very same reasons that made him choose immortality to begin with.
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A lich, having cheated Death once, will be obsessed with its own destruction no matter how small the risk. It will spend its immortality making sure nothing ever ends itUnless it's an angsty Brad Pitt as Louie kind of lich, that misses the pleasures of life and feels oh so empty, but can't quite convince themselves to end it. They'll welcome the end, so long as they don't have to DIY.
Or a nihilistic lich that sees entropy as the ultimate fate of all things, and just wants to destroy as much as they can before entropy claims them as well. They'll embrace the end when it happens, they know it to be inevitable.
Or the martyr lich, who gives up everything -even their very humanity- in a bodisatva like manner so that they can better help others. They'll face an ending if it means saving someone else.
Or the knowledge seeking lich, who wants more time to find the answers they require. Once their answer is found, and their place in history secured, they may lose any sense of purpose and seek an end.
I guess what I'm saying is that liches aren't two dimensional. They're former humans, and just as prone to variance and quirks.
Edit: #NotAllLiches
Actually, I was thinking of a Lich created by the OP's process. That is who choose to become a Lich in full knowledge of everything it entails.
What led me to believe what I wrote was a previous post saying that there was no meaningful difference between life extension and immortality. I considered this and realized that all natural processes take into account the inevitability of destruction. Even the universe itself is bound to end.
Someone who chooses to become immortal would naturally try to ensure that nothing threatens this desired state. For the very same reasons that made him choose immortality to begin with.
What I'm saying is: not necessarily. People could choose the immortality for different reasons. I would seriously consider it myself, not because I seek endless life but out of a mix of curiosity and a lack of self-preservation. Also because I wouldn't miss sleep or breathing. I'd still know that all things end, and I certainly wouldn't believe myself an exception. What good would immortality be if one spends it hiding away from everything?
Then again I'm a bit strange, so maybe most immortals would be paranoid recluses that obsess over preventing destruction. I doubt it though. Being as they were once human, and how rubbish humans can be at taking even basic steps preventing threats to their lives... I think these immortals would run the gamut from careful to careless.
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Would I be a lich? Maybe. Would I go for the old AD&D Baelnorn lich? Absolutely yes without a second thought. I always wondered why it never came back.
PF has decided that all undead are totally evil, so a non-evil undead is a no-go. That's why it (even on a conceptual level) never came back.
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Cept JUJU
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"So, sign on the dotted line and you'll have a literal eternity to regret that you'll never have another cup of coffee!"
Yeah, no thanks. I'd rather be actually dead than be undead.
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Wait, no coffee?! Why did it take me this long to sign up!?
EDIT: a more appropriate alias.
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"So, sign on the dotted line and you'll have a literal eternity to regret that you'll never have another cup of coffee!"
Yeah, no thanks. I'd rather be actually dead than be undead.
But you won't NEED coffee. You won't need sleep, and you'll never be tired.
Plus you have an eternity to learn how to remove even those tiny drawbacks so you can drink coffee for fun.
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Not like you'd suffer withdrawl...