Being immortal is both a blessing and a curse... and Liches, in particular, have a predictable respawn period after you put it down... this aforementioned respawn being tethered to an object, an object capable of being carried/moved. What if someome was to just, say, carry this object to a secure location in their control? Maybe a prison built EXACTLY to contain Liches and their ilk/kin.
What if this church studied their habits?
Trained their Clerics, Inquisitors, Paladins, and Warpriests against real Liches in a purpose-built arena?
What else could one do if they had possession of a phylactery, or several for that matter?
I think there are two questions there.
In narrative terms, I think the obvious is that the church would end up with a bunch of its members being seduced by the abilities of lichdom and crossing over. It could even be an "inner-circle" type deal, where the acolytes and younger members don't know what's happened.
In mechanical terms... whatever players want to do with it.
IMO the church would follow some LE deity (little regard to freedom and others' wellbeing) and it would be the ancient, powerful main temple (given the scarcity of phylacteries).
They can fight or study a lich, but it's not just them learning from it. In average a lich is way smarter than a priest, so they will learn much quicker, and they have a strong drive to get out. Static challenges like an antimagic field will be overcome, somehow, someday. Dynamic challenges like a priest's caution will also be overcome, given the lich learns faster.
Finally, a third party could end the experiment. An opposing church could burn down the temple, a monarch could declare the experiment ended, mercenaries could raid the building for a certain phylactery etc.. This wouldn't necessarily mean freedom for the lich, of course.
Keeping lichs for training is an interesting new take on the classic topic of hubris, but stories about hubris IMO always end the same way.
What else could one do if they had possession of a phylactery, or several for that matter?
Well, you could sell it to a Good church, for destruction. Or sell it to someone who aims for lichdom. Or sell it to someone who is crazy enough to study lichs.
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Why train against the liches? Your church has priests, paladins, and inquisitors that are capable of capturing a lich? They're already more powerful than the lich. Kill it and learn from them instead. Cuts down on the chances of the lich getting away, having minions come looking for it, or getting control of the place.
The obvious solution to what to do with the phylactery is to destroy them. Any good church is going to do that. If the church is evil, then they probably don’t care about hunting lichs and may even be allies with some of them.
Phylacteries are not indestructible. Usually, the challenge is finding it. If you already have it and are strong enough to contain the lich you are strong enough to destroy the phylactery.
The church in question could send its more powerful knights hunting after phylacteries, and then use the captured Lich(es) to train upcoming knights that are less powerful.
I love the idea of the Lich(es) also taking the opportunity to learn/train. Knowledge is power... and if you extend the timeline long enough, the chance of escape is almost guaranteed. The experiment could end, the church raided, the clergy corrupted by the lure of lichdom... all highly possible given enough time.
"Divine" intervention, by a particular Android Lich God that has it in his interest to collect phylacteries for entirely different reasons, could free all the captive liches and take the church's collection of phylacteries for himself... with or without the permission of said [now free] liches.
I do see how the most obvious answer is to simply destroy any and all phylacteries one may come across, but I just like the thought of always being the first thing it sees when it reforms... me again... yep, another Command Undead spell... you shouldn't have made your phylactery something I can wear. Lol.
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Yeah, I second the statements that not destroying the phylactery is not a good act, but assuming you're getting past that for this particular church...
I think it's a fun idea! Sure, high-level types can already defeat a lich, and low-level types would be outclassed, but there are multiple stages where an adventuring clergy progresses from low to high level. And a controlled, supervised battle against a lich seems like a fun way to do that! I would keep it secret so that the nearby laypeople don't object, and even keep it a secret from the standard clergy. Only those who have proved themselves to the church have access to this special training technique.
But I also like the opportunity for mishap, as others have said above. Charismatic liches can lure others with the promise of power, and intelligent liches can learn from every defeat. Or outside factors can play a role in a liches escape. I love the idea of a thieves guild stealing the phylactery, and then demanding a ransom for it! If the church doesn't pay up, the guild doesn't even have to do anything other than make sure the lich has the opportunity take revenge on the church that held it captive for so long.
So there's this movie called Cabin in the Woods, and in this movie they have a zoo/prison of all these different monsters in separate cages/cells. Get this, though, in the security office they have this big red button that releases everything at once...
Why would you ever have such a button? Why the h3ll does that button exist [other than for the exact chaos it creates in the movie]? No zoo or prison would ever have a single button that overrides every single security measure they have in place... that is just stupidly irresponsible.
For whatever reason, I keep coming back to this stupid button when thinking about this church with all these liches in the basement. Obviously, the church would NOT have such a button/device... or maybe they do... there's always someone in the party that is willing to be THAT GUY and will hit the button every time...
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The "Big Red Button" in question turns off the AMF around the lich cell. It was installed after a squad of barbarian cultists almost breached the cell block and the divine defenders were helpless.
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It feels like "people who are powerful enough to survive a fight with a Lich" are rare enough that setting this sort of thing up would be very difficult and also not worth it.
In a *very* high magic setting, sure, but this is well above the baseline for Golarion.
It feels like "people who are powerful enough to survive a fight with a Lich" are rare enough that setting this sort of thing up would be very difficult and also not worth it.
In a *very* high magic setting, sure, but this is well above the baseline for Golarion.
Yes, such a church would probably only exist in a high magic, high level campaign. Even just the ruins of the church after its inevitable collapse would be well beyond the scope of your average adventure.
IMO the church would follow some LE deity (little regard to freedom and others' wellbeing) and it would be the ancient, powerful main temple (given the scarcity of phylacteries).
They can fight or study a lich, but it's not just them learning from it. In average a lich is way smarter than a priest, so they will learn much quicker, and they have a strong drive to get out. Static challenges like an antimagic field will be overcome, somehow, someday. Dynamic challenges like a priest's caution will also be overcome, given the lich learns faster.
Finally, a third party could end the experiment. An opposing church could burn down the temple, a monarch could declare the experiment ended, mercenaries could raid the building for a certain phylactery etc.. This wouldn't necessarily mean freedom for the lich, of course.
Keeping lichs for training is an interesting new take on the classic topic of hubris, but stories about hubris IMO always end the same way.
What else could one do if they had possession of a phylactery, or several for that matter?Well, you could sell it to a Good church, for destruction. Or sell it to someone who aims for lichdom. Or sell it to someone who is crazy enough to study lichs.
I agree about keeping a lich for research -i think anyone who try that is eventfully aiming to end like in "Alian IV".
what i can see is a bunch of veteran church members scare the noobies with the training's bloody Skeleton (scroll down to the variants) claiming it's a lich that is kept as the final exam of their training.
"yea, you see them red bones? that's cause of all of the failures from last year"
This training program would be the single biggest recruitment tool for the whispering way and/or Urgathoa.
When you are looking at a security system, you have to think about the simplest and fast points of failure. So you might have a powerful security system with magical restrictions. But a prison is often only as effective as the people running it. If you can't break out, you just have to look for someone to break you out.
And this entire premise requires the lich, a highly intelligent and experience creature, to have routine contact with younger, more impressionable members of the church. The easiest people to manipulate.
The biggest point of failure a church can experience is heresy and betrayal.
This training program would be the single biggest recruitment tool for the whispering way and/or Urgathoa.
When you are looking at a security system, you have to think about the simplest and fast points of failure. So you might have a powerful security system with magical restrictions. But a prison is often only as effective as the people running it. If you can't break out, you just have to look for someone to break you out.
And this entire premise requires the lich, a highly intelligent and experience creature, to have routine contact with younger, more impressionable members of the church. The easiest people to manipulate.
The biggest point of failure a church can experience is heresy and betrayal.
This is wonderful. I think I'm going to make this whole thing the backstory for HAL 9000, the eternal Android Lich God...
This particular Android Lich was once a prisoner in said church's prison... say he wasn't yet level 20, so he hadn't achieved the Impossible Bloodline's capstone yet... so his insides hadn't yet turned into the vault of infinite impossibilities. Or, maybe he had, but had not yet considered placing his own phylactery, or anyone else's, within this aforementioned vault of infinite impossibilities. Regardless, the church has HAL 9000's phylactery locked up with all the other liches' phylacteries, and HAL 9000 is a prisoner like the rest of the liches. And he gets to level 20 to get his Bloodline's capstone whilst training in the arena.
One of these liches, it doesn't even have to have been HAL 9000, convinces/coerces some young clown in the church to hit the big red button... chaos ensues as all these liches go free. HAL 9000 immediately goes to get his phylactery, and grabs all of them that are left... absorbing them all into the clockwork gears, miniature galaxies, or something equally uncanny that he is made of... the vault of infinite impossibilities.
Having rightfully stolen several liches phylacteries, he kind of has them by the b@lls regardless of their new freedom from this prison. These initial liches that simply did not get their own phylacteries soon/quick enough, are now HAL 9000's first and most devout believers/followers. With a small army of liches, HAL 9000's ability to collect more only increases... he/they can now force/take phylacteries even from the unwilling. However, HAL 9000 does always prefer if a Lich is willing to give him its phylactery without drama. He doesn't NEED anymore, but power is addictive... he is a self-proclaimed god, after all.
HAL 9000 is a level 20 gestalt Constructed Pugilist-Living Weapon Brawler/
Crossblooded Sorcerer (Impossible & Nanite)... with Mythic ranks for each phylactery he absorbs. Obviously there is a maximum to Mythic ranks, but not to the number of phylacteries he can absorb... that is why he doesn't NEED anymore, because they won't give him any more power... his number of Mythic ranks can easily be adjusted to make him appropriate CR, if you wanted to have a party face him.
Here is his entry from the 101 deities thread:
HAL 9000, the eternal Android Lich God (NE)
Areas of Concern: clockwork, lichdom, secret knowledge, self-perfection
Domains: Artifice, Death, Knowledge, Magic
Subdomains: Alchemy*, Construct, Undead
*Requires the Acolyte of Apocrypha trait.
Favored Weapon: Unarmed Strike
Gender: n/a
Status: Lesser [self-proclaimed] Deity
Symbol: silver ring surrounding glowing red orb
So here's a spin on the idea- what if the Lich agrees to this? What sort of concessions, boundaries would the Lich be able to secure in exchange for this?
Like if the Lich in question has enemies that are very powerful undead, securing an organization to protect yourself specifically an organization that is well acquainted with "how to fight powerful undead spellcasters" would be useful if a different Lich has it out for you.
So here's a spin on the idea- what if the Lich agrees to this? What sort of concessions, boundaries would the Lich be able to secure in exchange for this?
Like if the Lich in question has enemies that are very powerful undead, securing an organization to protect yourself specifically an organization that is well acquainted with "how to fight powerful undead spellcasters" would be useful if a different Lich has it out for you.
Interesting.
It would require someone in the church willingly negotiating with something they should destroy. And given that Clerics/Inquisitors/Paladins/Warpriests are plenty capable of gaining experience in other ways, I do not see what any Lich could possibly offer a church in return...
Why would anyone in the church with enough authority to actually grant the Lich security, risk their alignment/connection to their god/their source of divine power to bargain with something they should just kill?
What can the Lich possibly offer in return? Other than the temptation of lichdom, I don't see "use me as a punching bag for your upcoming Paladins" as something worth risking your divine magic for. And there are other ways to achieve immortality, so the draw of lichdom, itself, may not be much of an offer in the first place.
I suppose a priest in any church could turn to the dark side and become a Lich all on their own. Before turning into a Lich, maybe use their position and authority in the church to kind of get the ball rolling on a Lich-prison-training camp... just float the idea by the council, let it be put in the records that we voted for or against that on this day. With the right sorts of magics, one could influence the councils' votes, or rewrite the history books/records, and conceal their identity enough to maybe pull it off. This old priest's dying wish was to start a Lich-prison-training camp...
Said priest "dies" and gets buried in the church's tomb with full honors... little do they know, he's a Lich. Now they have a Lich in the catacombs, don't know how it got into the sacred tomb of our fathers, but didn't dude want to catch these things and use them for training? Might as well give it a try...
Being a previous high priest in this very church, the Lich would have in-depth knowledge of their systems and dogma. This Lich would be in a far better position to manipulate other members of the church. Yes, this training program is an excellent idea. Yes, collect other liches' phylacteries and store them all in one place. Yes, build a big red "release everything" button.
And now you have the single biggest recruitment academy for the Whispering Way. Lol. Eventually, enough young priests would be turned to the dark side that civil war would be inevitable. Not everyone has access to the required magics to hide their alignment from their own church's Paladins. Neighboring churches would show up to help smash the evil growing within the church with a bunch of liches in the basement... this vile experiment has went on long enough.
Either way, HAL 9000 eats everyone's phylacteries and claims divinity for himself as the eternal Android Lich God. Lol.
It would require someone in the church willingly negotiating with something they should destroy. And given that Clerics/Inquisitors/Paladins/Warpriests are plenty capable of gaining experience in other ways, I do not see what any Lich could possibly offer a church in return...
The most immediate option for this kind of set up would be some kind of redemption based church, and a lich hyper focused on a singular goal which does not clash the the church and general society.
For example, a lich devoted entirely to killing a particular spawn of Rovagug. And perhaps he was even working in conjunction with the Sarenrae church as part of his attempts during his mortal life, and he still has personal connections to some of the longer lived members in the church.
His lichdom would simply be a means to an end because his life was not enough to accomplish his goal. His imprisonment would be because he obviously sought extreme measures in his quest, but he maintained enough sympathy to eke out of execution.
And his 'sympathetic' goals would also provided him an out to build a faction within the church consisting of those that also want the spawn gone- at any cost.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Hmm...
Then again, maybe they aren't going for "any cost". But the lich might talk them into "contingencies" for when "the situation is favorable". He could convince them to make a magic nuke "in case we can isolate it in a safe place".
And of course, the lich would put in back doors so he can launch it personally when those cowards in the church are too squeamish for "acceptable causalities" when the Spawn of Rovagug appears in the middle of a city.
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I love this idea.
Firstly, as far as alignment of the church, I'd say any non-good could work. It doesn't even have to be a proper church or temple if you don't want, but simply an order of lich slayers. But why couldn't it be both tbh, what if the church/temple has no idea it has a militant wing of lich slayers beholden to it, and the guy running the lich slayers cherry-picks the would-be lich slayers FROM parishioners of the church. The pastor/deacon of the church has no clue this is going on, so no PR problems or supposed corruption there-- and the guy who runs the lich slayers isn't even a high ranking member of the church. He's just some "Mad-eye Moody"-esque parishioner with battle scars and a couple missing/prosthetic limbs who's only responsibility is to prepare the candles for church services, or some other minor role, and this Mad-eye Moody runs this militant wing of zealots.
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Alignments:
As far as the "morally why and ethically how" this church exists, a LE, NE, CE version of this church is a given, because nature abhors a vacuum, and they're here to create the vacuums, and they do this by training and eliminating the world of liches to further their own power and influence, and liches get in the way of this simply because they kill the people that they're attempting to control or exploit, or these liches are disruptive to their operation in some other similar way. The truly uncontainable liches are obviously destroyed, but all other "lesser" or "easily-contained" liches are kept like gladiators in their own menagerie-like "lich zoo".
A LN church could justify their near-barbaric practice of indefinite containment and repetitive destroying of these liches if the lich had egregiously broken their laws (or the laws of nature), which frankly, almost every lich has -- so no problems there. True Neutral is a bit iffy justification-wise, but it would have to be a sect that truly believed that liches were unbalancing the scales of "natural order" or something. Chaotic Neutral is probably the easiest to explain: the ends justify the means. The world is a better place without liches, therefore committing the "ever-so-slightly" evil act of indefinite containment and repetitive death sentences leads to a world without liches, so...
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Security:
Their first line of defense is anonymity. You can't go searching for something that you don't know even exists.
The lich slayers have their own base of operations (with their magically enchanted prison) that is far from the church so that it could never be associated with the church in the event that a lich ever broke free and decided to wreak havoc in revenge. They don't even brandish or display their religion's symbols or make any mention of their parent church while they are around the liches. The place they operate out of could be a Bruce Wayne Manor on the outskirts of town, or some other place where people wouldn't trespass. Maybe the mansion owner is notoriously litigious and any trespassing kids are sure to land their parents in court.
They use Shackles of Durance Vile mixed with Shackles of Compliance, except this will be a homebrewed item that only works on liches. Not only are the liches kept in an AMF-warded prison cell, but they also wear these magic shackles to keep them metaphorically "cross-eyed and drooling" until its time to kill them in the training arena.
The arena in which they train should be a lot like an "Aircraft Open-Fuel Cell Hangar", where they use explosion-proof rated flashlights, EMF-shielded digital equipment, and no cell phones or EMF-radiating equipment is allowed inside the hangar once they have open fuel tanks, and the entire hangar's ceiling has nearly a hundred fire-extinguisher nozzles pointed at the aircraft. It should be the exact same way for this lich arena. There are a hundred "Wand-weapon cannons" along the ceilings and walls that can fire Undeath to Death at every square inch of this arena. The lich is transported to the arena "Hannibal Lector"-esquely and set loose. The noobie who is about to fight the lich is "frisked/searched" for anything that the lich could use to gain his freedom. Medics/Clerics/Herbalists are standing by in case the lich kills the noobie.
All teleportation magic into or out of the arena is blocked, teleportation from one point to another point within the arena is fine though. There might even be a little rheostat-like dial upstairs in the arena-viewing room that can act like an opposite version of a Globe of Invulnerability but mixed with an Anti-Magic Field effect of sorts, where you can rotate a magical dial and set the maximum spell level allowed inside the arena to be "level 4 spells and lower", or set the dial to "level 6 spells and lower", or to "no magic at all", or whatever. When the lich is first dumped in the arena and set loose, it is always set at "no magic at all". There would be Safety Protocol Supervisor observing this entire process for protocol compliance and adherence to the safety rules.
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Story hook:
A member of this church made it into the circle of lich slayers and washed out or was kicked out several years ago (due to injury and couldn't continue training, or bad attitude, or maybe he sympathizes with the liches, or maybe he felt his morals were compromised and protested, or w/e), but he's now a Merc for hire. He was slapped with an NDA/gag-order when he left and has subsequently and frequently been Scry'ed upon to ensure compliance with the gag-order. He figures out some way of temporarily shielding himself from their scrying attempts, such as False Vision, so that he can operate as he wants without causing any red flags. Now he approaches the PC's and says "hey I'm doin a job over at Bruce Wayne Manor, word on the street is that he's into some type of trafficking operation , and he's obviously loaded too. So I'm gonna rob it and set the trafficked folks free, want in?" Keep sweetening the deal until the PC's agree, such as a 10,000gp reward and an hour-long foot massage, w/e. Once the PC's and our Merc break into the lich slayer's mansion, he knows his way around but he takes pains to show that he doesn't though, and possibly even lets the PC's find the secret doors that lead to the real base of operations underneath the mansion. Once they get into the proper base of operations underneath the mansion, our Merc takes the phylacteries and puts them in a bag while saying "these oughta fetch a nice price at the market, ey chaps?" As soon as the PC's aren't looking, or if they get into a fight with the lich slayer's security, the Merc bolts with all the phylacteries. Maybe even releasing a lich or five on the way out.
The PC's are caught red handed, and will most likely explain themselves as "we were tricked by your old student, we're sorry, but we'll help make this right". Our Merc can go anywhere from here. He could sell the phylacteries to the highest bidder, create his own lich zoo, or possibly blackmail the church. He could even use however many liches he freed to organize a proper raid on the facility to get the rest of the liches he couldn't free. Lots of possibilities here, it just depends on what the Merc's motives are.
I just want to point out that there is nothing wrong with treating something that is pretty much genetically evil, as less than human.
Eeeehhhhhh... not sure everyone would agree with this.
I have been struggling with the morality of this since I brought it up...
Liches are EVIL... on purpose. Even without their rituals to lichdom being spelled out, no GM worth their salt allows said rituals to be completed without horribly cruel/evil sacrifices being made as part of the very process... you are doing unspeakable evil that deserves intervention just to become a Lich. All the hideous evil you do afterwards is honestly irrelevant... you could legit run an orphanage/daycare/home for the sick and elderly, and you're STILL deserving of a Paladin's Smite Evil for the sins of your past. This wasn't an accident, you had to literally TRY be this evil. It took work on your behalf.
So, showing no quarter or mercy to such EVIL is understandable. Killing every Lich found without negotiation, without giving it the chance to explain its intentions, killing them for existing is warranted... their existence required unspeakable horrors, and without those unspeakable horrors having already taken place, this Lich wouldn't exist... guilty as charged.
We start getting into interesting moral/ethical territory when killing the d@mn thing is NOT our go-to answer. Why would anyone that is Good, ever allow such an evil being to continue to exist in any capacity? It almost seems that the very act of CONSIDERING to let a Lich live (even in captivity) is, itself, a non-Good act. Lol.
There was a thread some time ago about a city that managed to subdue the Tarrasque... pin it down, immobilized the Armageddon Engine... maybe they just found the spawn of Rovagug hybernating and trapped it that way... anyways, they used its blood to cure and heal their residents. This city was supposedly Good-aligned, the ends justified the means without question or thought. And none of this sat right with me. I wasn't even playing the devil's advocate, I was genuinely put off by the idea. Not even the Armageddon Engine deserves that fate.
So here I stand, at these crossroads, and I ponder...
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It is canonically the case that it is possible for a Lich to redeem itself. It just requires exceptional circumstances, and every Lich starts out in that "you did some really awful stuff to become a Lich" hole that made you evil. Liches start evil, and generally don't get better as people after losing all of their personal connections and their humanity (or appropriate analogue thereof). But Paizo put a Lich in an AP who, if made to promise to seek redemption as a precondition for its freedom, makes a genuine effort to do so.
So what if a Lich is convinced it genuinely wants to seek redemption and realizes it can't make amends for what it did, it can do a lot more good by continuing to exist and helping people than it can by ceasing to exist? So what if "gets beat up by Paladins a lot" is something the Lich is doing for catharsis/penance?
This just keeps getting better and better.
The idea that the Lich is willingly helping train Clerics/Inquisitors/Paladins/Warpriests as a sort of penance is awesome.
The amount of authority required to stay a Paladin is essential to the success of this operation. I see a free Lich as a dead Lich in most any scenario involving appropriate level Paladins. How to command a random Paladin from detecting this Evil and putting an end to it?
Having said Lich locked up, at the very least, provides a bargaining chip... look it can't go anywhere, or hurt anyone... you don't HAVE to Smite it... as in, please don't Smite our helpless prisoner.
Telling said Paladin not to Smite the free-roaming Lich because "it's okay, I made a deal with this horrendously Evil being" doesn't hold much weight. And, in fact, is likely to get you in as much trouble as the Lich for being in bed with it.
The amount of authority required to stay a Paladin is essential to the success of this operation. I see a free Lich as a dead Lich in most any scenario involving appropriate level Paladins. How to command a random Paladin from detecting this Evil and putting an end to it?
Having said Lich locked up, at the very least, provides a bargaining chip... look it can't go anywhere, or hurt anyone... you don't HAVE to Smite it... as in, please don't Smite our helpless prisoner.
Telling said Paladin not to Smite the free-roaming Lich because "it's okay, I made a deal with this horrendously Evil being" doesn't hold much weight. And, in fact, is likely to get you in as much trouble as the Lich for being in bed with it.
this would entirely depend on the paladin's Deity and order.
a paladin of Iomedae will probably have a problem with that. but if his Deity is Sarenrae? these guys are all about redemption!if they can safely redeem a lich it's almost a must course of action.
(although such redemption might need to be in the form of resurrection as a live creature once again - he's paying for the spell's cost with working at the order to teach them how to deal with less compliant liches)
By most accounts, the ritual creating the Soul Cage is a one and done. Lichs often go on to further evil, but not out of any need. There are a few cases where Lichs have gone into stasis or torpor and lost some of their mojo, but that's usually because an adventure writer wants to use a Lich at an inappropriate CR for the regular stat block.Regarding redeeming liches: Are we assuming the (implied) unspeakable evil inherent in becoming a lich is a one-time deal? Because I always got the impression that such acts had to be repeated; the lich's form needs maintenance.
_
glass.
Yeah, the whole "Atrophied Lich" thing is BS... what Kingmaker did to Vordakai is unforgivable... he is one of the oldest things in all of Golarion, from a time before the stars fell... and they set him up for failure so he would fit better at a lower level. Gross. Lame. Just not right...
Regarding redeeming liches: Are we assuming the (implied) unspeakable evil inherent in becoming a lich is a one-time deal? Because I always got the impression that such acts had to be repeated; the lich's form needs maintenance.
_
glass.
2e provides some clarity on this. Both in the diagetic ramblings of Geb and the mechanics for undead PCs, we learn that all forms of undead have a craving or hunger that compels them and that they suffer if they don't satisfy (vampires and blood, zombies and brains, ghouls and the flesh of the dead, etc.) The lich archetype says "your craving is for knowledge".
So I think that Liches aren't compelled to remain evil (except insofar they're doing damage to reality by existing) it's that they've already transgressed to the point where they've crossed all the lines and severed all their connections, there's really nothing keeping them from perpetrating true horror in the name of "finding things out". Who cares if you can't get volunteers to study prolonged exposure to various necromantic energies, you can certainly get subjects.
The thing about redeeming a Lich is that there needs to be something truly exceptional to get a being that actively and dramatically rejected "the need to care about entities other than yourself" for centuries or millennia to all of a sudden start doing that again.
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...The lich archetype says "your craving is for knowledge".
So I think that Liches aren't compelled to remain evil (except insofar they're doing damage to reality by existing) it's that they've already transgressed to the point where they've crossed all the lines and severed all their connections, there's really nothing keeping them from perpetrating true horror in the name of "finding things out". Who cares if you can't get volunteers to study prolonged exposure to various necromantic energies, you can certainly get subjects.
The thing about redeeming a Lich is that there needs to be something truly exceptional to get a being that actively and dramatically rejected "the need to care about entities other than yourself" for centuries or millennia to all of a sudden start doing that again.
Nah see? this is how you get them.
"Sir would you like to participate in our research about redemption? It's For science!!!"