When a wizard, sorcerer, psychic, or priest whose power and abilities enable them to prolong or transcend their own mortality they become a Lich. Liches wield unimaginable power, often guarding some specific source from which they draw the energy to maintain their immortality. Whether it is a vast library of arcane knowledge or a singularity of psychic chaos, the Lich has learned to siphon energy from fonts of magic, that would destroy a lesser creature or drive it mad.
Random Sources of Lichdom
1. A vortex to a deep realm where elder entities slumber
2. An unfathomably large Library of Arcane Knowledge
3. Ground Zero of a Magical catastrophe or cataclysm
4. A vault of powerful magic items and prison for powerful magical beings
5. An extremely powerful artifact, possibly sentient
6. The nexus of colliding forces, possibly planes of existence, temporal power, or divine power.
7. An ancient battle field of a tragic magical conflict
8. The collected relics of a divine entity
Lichdom is not by itself inherently evil, however over time, possibly millennia or more, the energy a lich uses to sustain its existence may cause it to become alien from mortal thought or be driven mad by its altered reality. Eventually the Lich may operate with complete ambivalence, or malice, toward the normal reality that its action become evil or unfathomable to humanity. As the Lich retreats into its own existence the consequences alter the physical, and metaphysical world around it. Regardless of the Lich's motivations they are formidable opponents. Able to use low level spellcraft at will and largely immune to the same, a lich's power is derived from its source. A lich feeding off of a font of Chaos is likely to suffer from power surges and unintended effects. A lich drawing from Infernal artifacts will, quickly, have to deal with all of the hellfire that comes with them.
Inadvertent consequences
1. A psychic Lich broadcasts its telepathy as a low frequency static for d100 miles allowing everyone to read the thoughts of others as normally as speaking revealing everyone's secrets and desires.
2. All spell books and scrolls that come within 10x d100 miles disappear and are replaced by nearly identical copies containing hand written editorial notes and suggestions in the page margins.
3. Radiation from the Lich's source leaks into the surrounding environment causing odd mutations to animals and plants including sentience.
4. The dead reanimate going about their lives and the grave yards empty when the Lich performs certain irregularly scheduled experiments, only to collapse again when the Lich has finished.
5. Constant visits from magical tourists up end the local economy as adventurers and onlookers continually poke around an increasingly annoyed Lich and its domain.
6. Time becomes convoluted as events from the past present and future occur repeatedly within the region around the Lich.
A Lich's powers can be shared to its minions and thralls, allowing the lich to gain control over them as well as using them as a conduit for the lich's abilities. The connection often creates side effects for the conduit that will alter their physiology and psychology.
Conduit Side Effects.
1. The Conduit ages +/- d10 years
2. Mark of Power, some aspect of the Lich's power source permanently marks the conduits form
3. Continued use, of the same conduit may grant them permanent magical or psychic abilities
Armor -3(22)
HD 18D8
INT 22
MOVE 12(30)
ToHit 10(+10)
Atx, touch 2d8 damage type by type of Lich, spellcasting 20+ level caster.
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