Isn't there something about how polymorph effects require a Con score or something? I dunno... my brain just shut off.
Again I can't help but be drawn back to the very vague "Horrific acts" argument and say "What horrific acts" Is all the books detailing it have no details of things they do then you lose that argument because you have no grounds.
Lich with a Contigent Gentle Repose and so forth could end up Immortal and looking good. Why do I have a feeling if you were dead sexy and a lich not even the Paladins would consider you evil?
Admit it most people think Lich-Evil because their icky and all skeleton like.
I have had a character who was an NPC but totally Human, he was old and withered from age and sure enough at least two of my four players cast detect undead on him because they figured he was a lich or a vampire or something in disguise. WE only think Beautiful things are good and ugly things are evil.
I don't intend to pull large segments out of books, so I hope this doesn't cross a line but will understand if it's deleted, but this is from Undead Revisited.
Yet for most, these pleasures eventually begin to pale. Though they may start out simply seeking more time in which to continue their work, with no true predilection toward evil, in the end, all liches inevitably cycle down into madness or a paranoia that mortals seek to annihilate them—the latter, of course, often being true. Through the endless centuries, the cycle of time speeds ever faster, and the faces of those lesser beings still trapped in death’s plan become a blur, nameless and forgettable, with the lich remembering only those who seek to destroy it. Is it any wonder then that most liches grow to nurture a generalized hatred for life, or that they surround themselves with horrific magic to destroy interlopers?
The thing is, is hew wrong for being right?
It even mentions that he is usually right in that people tend to actively try to destroy him. Is it wrong for.him to want to preserve his existance. If you had a living guy that has had multiple assassination attempts, would he be evil for having multiple wards and protections and traps to stop any further potential threats?
As, for the time thing, how is that different from elves around humans? Unless your saying elves who libe among humans will eventually become evil because of human's short life spans? Or what about dragons?
I don't intend to pull large segments out of books, so I hope this doesn't cross a line but will understand if it's deleted, but this is from Undead Revisited.
Yet for most, these pleasures eventually begin to pale. Though they may start out simply seeking more time in which to continue their work, with no true predilection toward evil, in the end, all liches inevitably cycle down into madness or a paranoia that mortals seek to annihilate them—the latter, of course, often being true. Through the endless centuries, the cycle of time speeds ever faster, and the faces of those lesser beings still trapped in death’s plan become a blur, nameless and forgettable, with the lich remembering only those who seek to destroy it. Is it any wonder then that most liches grow to nurture a generalized hatred for life, or that they surround themselves with horrific magic to destroy interlopers?The thing is, is hew wrong for being right?
It even mentions that he is usually right in that people tend to actively try to destroy him. Is it wrong for.him to want to preserve his existance. If you had a living guy that has had multiple assassination attempts, would he be evil for having multiple wards and protections and traps to stop any further potential threats?
As, for the time thing, how is that different from elves around humans? Unless your saying elves who libe among humans will eventually become evil because of human's short life spans? Or what about dragons?
Honestly, as bad as it sounds I think this does roll down into the Ugly = Evil dynamic. They are skeletal beings who may or may not have committed horrible deeds to gain this semblance of immortality and they are hated for it. If like Cayden Cailen they became gods through good deeds they are beloved for it even if they are horrible as a god, drunk and what not.
If you had a template that gave you all the powers of a Lich but did not turn you into an undead, but instead an Outsider or something. I have no doubt people would say it was fine In Universe.
Ironically enough, it is the PALADIN that says contrary though.
A paladin with this oath vows to restore the natural state of death to any animate corpse she encounters, and destroy the undead energy in the process. While a few paladins who take this oath recognize that not all undead are evil, others are quite willing to purge neutral and good undead along with all the evil ones.
And if ANY undead would be N/G, it would be liches since they have no drive for something evil like vampires, wraiths, or ghouls.
You're playing with words again. Not all undead are the same. Liches are one of the few types that CHOSE THEIR STATE as opposed to having it inflicted upon them.
Along with that choice was the choice to commit the monumental evil acts required to attain lichdom. Also the ongoing existence of being a lich tends to further sever the liches ties to their humanity, not strengthen them.
An non-evil neutral lich would be stretching the limits of plausibility. A good lich absolutely shatters them unless there's some helluva well-written story behind it. For most, the best you can get is a lich who becomes an "evil we can and must tolerate.... for now."
But again, Liches are also one of the few with NO drives or urges. They have no need or urge to feed like ghouls and vamps, they have no overwhelming urge to kill or cause suffering like Wraiths or Morghs.
If ANY undead would be able to become G or N it would be the lich. And the paladin specifically calls out that TJERE ARE G and N undead. Otherwise it would never mention it like the Oath vs Corruption or oath va fiends.
What word twisting is there? Hm? And there is no.mention of these "unspeakable evil acts" For the lich. Also, liches CAN BE FORCED INTO BEING A LICH. Lich is not always 100% voluntarily done.
Ironically enough, it is the PALADIN that says contrary though.
A paladin with this oath vows to restore the natural state of death to any animate corpse she encounters, and destroy the undead energy in the process. While a few paladins who take this oath recognize that not all undead are evil, others are quite willing to purge neutral and good undead along with all the evil ones.
And if ANY undead would be N/G, it would be liches since they have no drive for something evil like vampires, wraiths, or ghouls.
You're playing with words again. Not all undead are the same. Liches are one of the few types that CHOSE THEIR STATE as opposed to having it inflicted upon them.
Along with that choice was the choice to commit the monumental evil acts required to attain lichdom. Also the ongoing existence of being a lich tends to further sever the liches ties to their humanity, not strengthen them.
An non-evil neutral lich would be stretching the limits of plausibility. A good lich absolutely shatters them unless there's some helluva well-written story behind it. For most, the best you can get is a lich who becomes an "evil we can and must tolerate.... for now."
Again what are these monumental evil deeds you keep referring to? Can you list them?
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In Pathfinder, the ritual to become a lich is unique for every single different person. As a result, you can't just "list" the evil deeds a person needs to do in order to become a lich. They're different for every person. We chose to go with this because it opened up a HUGE range of story possibilities, helps make every lich unique, helps to explain why it's so hard to become a lich (If every person has their own unique formula that must be researched, then you can't just use the formula some previous lich used), and finally, because it was different than the D&D version of drinking an evil potion (which we didn't want to use because a lot of that flavor text was not open content and we didn't want to rob from D&D's hard work and we wanted to make our liches different and our own).
There's plenty of examples for how liches in our world got to be what they are, along with the vile acts they had to do in order to become liches. For example, one of the very first lich transformations we detailed was back in "The Skinsaw Murders" in the 2nd Pathfinder AP volume...
There are other examples spread throughout our adventures, but Carrion Crown has the most, in that it also includes a big article about liches.
Lol sneaky TOZ
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Personally, I think a "good lich" should be its own unique creature, if you want to go that route. If you are trying to reconcile such a concept with Golarion lore, you would need to give the creature its own unique flavor. In fact, they would be rare and unique enough (like outsiders that converted to opposing alignments) that it might be better to just build each one from scratch.
That was sort of my point it's unique and requires different things. So maybe it does not require killing hundreds of people. Perhaps it requires sin eating. Devouring others pains and negative energy that turns you into a lich through the evils and pains you have removed from others.
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Okay, I'll bite!
In my campaign I had a baddie trying to become a liche. He had a list (which the PCs found) which detailed the things he needed to do in order to build up to the ritual. Some of them included:
- Defile the corpse of a saint
- Collect various bits of undead viscera, like vampire blood, and zombie guts, etc.
- perform several grisly ritual murders
- poison a large gathering of people and raise them as zombie servants
- defile countless graves in order to collect a vast number of corpses
- turn said corpses into an undead colossus and use it to murder more people
He never did complete the list. Those were the bits that he DID do. The party never wanted to get into how and why this was going to result in his lichedom.
But in the interest of playing devil's advocate, I'll draw up some items I would expect to find on a list of things one would do to become a "good" Liche. Now given that an evil liche is basically after a selfish goal (indefinite avoidance of death for personal reasons) then a "good" liche should have an ultimately selfless goal (indefinite avoidance of death for the greater good?). So here are some ideas:
- take a vow of poverty
- take a vow of chastity
- perform numerous acts of astounding charity
- mortification of the flesh: hairshirts, self-flagellation, etc.
- Give up all vanity - no nice clothes, shave your head, don't bathe, etc.
- fasting should definitely be involved
- You need to do some miracles. Healing a plague, destroying a mighty undead, converting a devil to the side of good, that kind of thing
- Basically sacrifice yourself somehow for the greater good. If your death isn't heroic enough, you fail and just die.
- Ultimately if you succeed, you inhabit a shrine and spend the rest of eternity helping heal the sick while you contemplate the gods.
How's that sound?
Also - a good liche wouldn't worry about looking good. A good liche would worry about DOING good or BEING good.
Sounds like cool idea, the positive energy version i mean. More!
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Sounds like cool idea, the positive energy version i mean. More!
There are lots of things you could throw in, just keep the overall arc simple:
A Liche slowly destroys himself (becoming undead) in pursuit of personal power.
A "good" liche would slowly destroy himself (becoming... what?) by abnegating his personal power. (Becoming a vessel or conduit for the gods or for positive energy?)
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Isn't a corpse animated by positive energy usually just called "living"?
Isn't a corpse animated by positive energy usually just called "living"?
No more than an undead is called dead...
Maybe... negadead? Ultraliving? Man i have crappy naming ideas...
Isn't a corpse animated by positive energy usually just called "living"?No more than an undead is called dead...
Maybe... negadead? Ultraliving? Man i have crappy naming ideas...
I shall name it Tammy, he will be the spunky one that always gets in over his head :-)
Not alone in that my friend.
Are we ever gonna get another take on the Sin Eater? I like the Inquisitor's Archetype fine but I would love a more Shamanistic view of it. One where you devour the negative energies from an undead foe to purify it. Or when you render a foe helpless you can eat their sins and negative emotions to force an alignment shift on them toward neutral or good.
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Are we ever gonna get another take on the Sin Eater? I like the Inquisitor's Archetype fine but I would love a more Shamanistic view of it. One where you devour the negative energies from an undead foe to purify it. Or when you render a foe helpless you can eat their sins and negative emotions to force an alignment shift on them toward neutral or good.
Maybe. It's a concept that is very much "of interest" to lots of folks here. We'll see.
Are we ever gonna get another take on the Sin Eater? I like the Inquisitor's Archetype fine but I would love a more Shamanistic view of it. One where you devour the negative energies from an undead foe to purify it. Or when you render a foe helpless you can eat their sins and negative emotions to force an alignment shift on them toward neutral or good.Maybe. It's a concept that is very much "of interest" to lots of folks here. We'll see.
That is all I can ask. I would love to play one, and it would give a good excuse to go Lich with it as well (Tie in with the thread) someone so dedicated to absorbing all that negative energy it corrupts his form and turns him into a lich (By filling his body with negative energy) and yet he still works to purge the evils of others through taking it into himself. That would be an interesting story for a Paladin to run up upon. An Undead who was selflessly taking into themselves the sins of those around them to redeem them of their evils.
That is all I can ask. I would love to play one, and it would give a good excuse to go Lich with it as well (Tie in with the thread) someone so dedicated to absorbing all that negative energy it corrupts his form and turns him into a lich (By filling his body with negative energy) and yet he still works to purge the evils of others through taking it into himself. That would be an interesting story for a Paladin to run up upon. An Undead who was selflessly taking into themselves the sins of those around them to redeem them of their evils.Are we ever gonna get another take on the Sin Eater? I like the Inquisitor's Archetype fine but I would love a more Shamanistic view of it. One where you devour the negative energies from an undead foe to purify it. Or when you render a foe helpless you can eat their sins and negative emotions to force an alignment shift on them toward neutral or good.Maybe. It's a concept that is very much "of interest" to lots of folks here. We'll see.
That sounds badass.
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That was pretty much the plot of a Highlander episode.
(Though that's not a bad thing at all...)
How about a werewolf lich?
Totally works.
One of the nastiest villains I ever saw was an Antipaladin Werewolf Nightmare Creature Grave Knight.
That was pretty much the plot of a Highlander episode.
(Though that's not a bad thing at all...)
Well kind of, Coltec (Yes I know his name!) was a sin eater who hunted evil immortals to absorb their evil quickening and yes when he eventually absorbed enough evil their evil overtook him.
Perhaps that could even be a Plothook, this 'good lich' asks the party to find a sacred device to pour this excess evil into to seal it away forever. If they fail they must kill him before it could overtake him.
Actually, is there anything preventing a Vampire from adding Lich template?There is, unfortunately:
“Lich” is an acquired template that can be added to any living creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature), provided it can create the required phylactery.DAMMIT!
How about going from Lich to... no... that doesn't work either.
Oh well.
Obsidian Apocalypse Page 155
Calix Sabinus
Male human vampiric lich aristocrat 2 / necromancer 20
/ eldritch knight 10
CR:35
It took him a lot of effort to get there but he is pretty much the Big Bad of the setting.
DM's Rule 0 means It's Ok as long as it's fun (for me....the players can suffer undying misery)
If ANY undead would be able to become G or N it would be the lich. And the paladin specifically calls out that TJERE ARE G and N undead. Otherwise it would never mention it like the Oath vs Corruption or oath va fiends.Sure, just blithely ignore the fact that in order to choose the path, you were a mass murdering SOB who killed tons of innocent people in horrific ways to get there to start with. You're talking about someone who was essentially a sociopath on the order of Jeffrey Dahmer or Hannibal Lector combined with a megalomanical power fixation to boot.
Those kind of people don't simply wake up one morning and decide to become angels. In fact, they never do.
You keep blindly stating they are all evil and all must perform evil deeds but Jacobs has said its personal and unique. So they do not HAVE to commit evil act.
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You keep blindly stating they are all evil and all must perform evil deeds but Jacobs has said its personal and unique. So they do not HAVE to commit evil act.If ANY undead would be able to become G or N it would be the lich. And the paladin specifically calls out that TJERE ARE G and N undead. Otherwise it would never mention it like the Oath vs Corruption or oath va fiends.Sure, just blithely ignore the fact that in order to choose the path, you were a mass murdering SOB who killed tons of innocent people in horrific ways to get there to start with. You're talking about someone who was essentially a sociopath on the order of Jeffrey Dahmer or Hannibal Lector combined with a megalomanical power fixation to boot.
Those kind of people don't simply wake up one morning and decide to become angels. In fact, they never do.
It's personal and unique, but as long as the goal is "lich" then yes... it has to be an evil act.
Something that doesn't is not a lich; it might be identical in all ways to the lich template otherwise, but it'd be thematically different enough that it should have a different name. Even if that name is "good lich" or "exalted lich" or whatever. That way, the core concept and theme of the lich itself remains intact.
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It's personal and unique, but as long as the goal is "lich" then yes... it has to be an evil act.Something that doesn't is not a lich; it might be identical in all ways to the lich template otherwise, but it'd be thematically different enough that it should have a different name. Even if that name is "good lich" or "exalted lich" or whatever. That way, the core concept and theme of the lich itself remains intact.
Thanks, this seems MUCH more reasonable than just forcing them to be evil. This would make it merely a cultural convention of labeling, but not a weirdly biologically forced/fixed alignment thing without any associated details.
I can definitely live with that.
It still does "force them to be evil" by your definition. Of course, if you want to be a lich, you aren't being forced to be evil at all. You already ARE evil.
A non-evil version of a lich would be a different creature, is what I"m saying.
I understand that. So calling them Good Lich, Arch-Lich or whatever is just to say the oiginal normal Lich is always evil. Then shouldn't they be called Evil Lich?
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I understand that. So calling them Good Lich, Arch-Lich or whatever is just to say the oiginal normal Lich is always evil. Then shouldn't they be called Evil Lich?
Nope. Because "evil lich" is the baseline. No need to call that out anymore than that, since it's intended to be the assumption. It's only if something deviates that you'd need a qualifier to call out the deviation.
But frankly, my preference would be that a non-evil "lich" would be a unique creature hand-crafted for the adventure, and NOT a generic monster or template. In this case, it wouldn't need a name at all, other than it's actual given name.
Which will be Tammy :-)
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For new players coming into the game, it might be a good idea to include some text in there indicating why they are evil or what type of evil acts are required or even typically required for the transformation into a lich. Right now other than being spooky there isn't really anything called out in the Bestiary entry that sounds intrinsically evil. Not even the insert the soul into an item, since there are other examples of not-intrinsically evil ways of putting a soul into an item.
I've looked up the 2nd edition entry on liches and it had some extra lines explaining the evil things required to become a lich. Not all players have that background and as such it shouldn't be surprising to see people asking "why exactly is this evil based on the information provided." Without rationale for something being good or evil, the labels become substitutable with Team Green and Team Purple.
New players already have a mountain of information hitting them, and the nitty-gritty details like this are not going to be a significant part of what they'll need to worry about. Something like this is more or less by definition an "advanced topic" in and of itself, really. And after all, the template DOES say "Any evil" in it, so that's pretty blatant right there.
Maybe if I had a time machine and could go back to fix the text before the Bestiary was printed, I'd double down on the evil stuff for the lich (I'd more or less assumed that the fact that it's alignment of "Any evil" was enough, but maybe not), but it's in print now and I"m really NOT a fan of constant tinkering with text each time we reprint. Fixing errata is one thing. Tinkering and fiddling with text to fix problems that aren't really problems is another.