Ashiel wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
I'd like to point out that the lich must perform an act of great evil. However, that act is largely up in the air. Evil is defined as hurting, oppressing, or killing. It's very possible that a would-be lich might have to do something like kill twenty sentient creatures before their ritual or whatever to finalize the process.
Which would make you a bad person if you captured a bunch of brigands and used them for your ritual. However, it would be an act of great evil that most people wouldn't care about. In fact, some might even be happy that the brigands are gone.
And that's just if the GM is going with the fluffy lore in the Bestiary and not allowing liches that don't conform to the fluff.
Usually with something like this...killing 50 corrupted persons won't do. The requirements usually wind up requiring the sacrifice of a group of fairly innocent souls. Price of magic and all that.
I'm supposed to accept that on your authority, why exactly? The ritual is explicitly left up to the group in question.
Hell, in a number of campaign settings (including The Forgotten Realms), there are good-aligned liches, which implies that while the ritual may be unique to each lich, there are apparently alternatives to lichdom.
In fact, in Neverwinter Nights, there's a mage who became a lich using the instructions given to him by a balor. The balor instructed the lich to fireball a room full of children as part of the ritual, but later you find that the balor actually lied and that wasn't even needed to become a lich. He just tricked the mage for the lulz (the mage was a sorcerer IIRC, so he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box).
And if you don't consider murdering 50 people an act of great evil, well...I question your value of life, even unwanted or unwelcome life.
Agreed. I don't remember reading it requires an act of great evil. Hell i recall, and this may be 3.0/3.5, reading that in extremely rare cases a good cleric or wizard may become a lich, usually to provide as an eternal protector or some object or place. Again and DM could make the lich process be whatever they want as I also think it is most often different for every individual.
