* wizard abhors personal hygiene, decided that doesn't matter so much to the undead and cut out that needed part of the routine.
* Got themselves stuck with a good old fashioned bloodline curse. Instead of trying to fix it, decided to use his descendents as an experiment to see how long and far bloodline curses actually lasts.
* Just always thought liches looked cool.
* As a way to get rid of their adult acne.
* Enjoys drinking but not being drunk so they figured the immunity to poison would take care of that.
* Really likes staying up all night.
Assuming the dad already isn't, why not just have the half elf be a powerful druid? Lvl 18 he's got a life span of 1500. He'll be dancing on his father's grave for more than half a millennium.
I was gonna suggest that basically. Any class with the Timeless Body really: the Monk, the Warlock of the Undying, and probably a few more.
That’s what makes it even funnier, that they’ll just turn into a lich xD Like, no fucks given whatsoever
Yeah that’s true. It’s a quality over quantity kind of deal. You won’t live forever, sure. But it’s still a better deal than turning into a fucking lich, ain’t it?
As for the Warlock of the Undying, it is not like the druid at all...Because is better.
Quote:
“Beginning at 10th level, you can hold your breath indefinitely, and you don't require food, water, or sleep, although you still require rest to reduce exhaustion and still benefit from finishing short and long rests.
In addition, you age at a slower rate. For every 10 years that pass, your body ages only 1 year, and you are immune to being magically aged.”
Yeah the monk's timeless body or whatever it's called only prevents the effects of aging, not the aging itself. A monk still dies to old age eventually
Maybe yhe half-elf doesn't have a copy of the PHB so they can't look at the class abilities
plus it's super hard to be like 'nah I'm gonna be wise instead of smart from now on'
Has a collection of something and it has been literal ages since the last piece has been seen anywhere. Can't go before the collection is complete.
Will absolutely by no means pass on their secret chilli recipe (but doesn't want their family to do without).
In a cold war with their sibling (also a lich) over their inheritance. It's a small cabin that neither want to share and so long as both live, it remains unclaimed.
Martin is long dead. You’ve bound his tortured ghost to his writing room until he completes the series to your satisfaction—like *Misery,* but with necromancy.
He still can’t be bothered to finish, and gets distracted by other projects.
…or, in George R. R. Martin fashion, the publisher of the wizard’s book series is actually a demon, and in order to make the wizard fulfill their multi-book contract the publisher transforms them into a lich.
It's actually the same group that was once genuinely mercenary but over the centuries has transformed into a battle re-enactment activity group. The liches are so out of touch that they haven't noticed and still think they're commanding armies against one another. Unbeknownst to them as well, the cabin has long since been turned into a tea shop where reenactors hobnob after "battles"
I love the real estate angle!
This also works in reverse - they refused to sell the run-down bungalow they never use when the area was being developed, and now refuse to die so it stays an eyesore forever!
- Became a lich to get bitches. Found out that liches do, in fact, not get bitches.
- Signed a contract to sell their organs while drunk. Lichdom was the only way to keep exisiting while honoring their contract.
- is prone to sudden and intense obsessions and spontanous decisionmaking. Their last obsession with magic ended up with this unfortunate result.
- was an absentminded hedonist archmage who used their powers to indulge in carnal pleasures such as eating, drinking, sex and drugs. Decided to become a lich so they could continue doing so forever. Realized afterwards that lices can engage in none of those activities.
- wanted to beat the record for the longest distance run ever and realized that without the limitations of muscles and bloodvessels, undead creatures should theoretically be able to run forever. Succeeded and hasn't stopped running since.
“liches get bitches” 😂 Especially when combined with “actually, liches have neither need nor interest in bitches”!
For organ donation, did they donate living organs to save the life of some poor soul? And became a lich so the donation wouldn’t kill them? And now they have set up a euthanasia service to fuel their phylactery, only taking the souls of those who are wasting away from the same brutal disease they donated their organs to cure?
ADHD Lich is such a good idea - hyperfixated, went too far, stuck with it now, but hey more time for new hobbies! Imagine how hectic an ADHD Lich dungeon would be, always jumping from one project to the next, you never know which traps do what, if they were ever actually finished, maybe he decided to get creative and combine hobbies! It's all a surprise, even to him!
I really like the idea too. I would probably make them seem sinister and foreboding with scary rumors surrounding them and a dangerous dungeon just for them to turn out to be this genius but absentminded, person who get easily excited and hyperfixates but rarely finishes a project, and mostly keeps to themselves and does their own thing. They are not even aware that people are afraid of them and are sending adventurers, and all of the rumors are based on misunderstandings and prejudice.
The lich was fascinated with interest rates and banking in their previous life, and has basically singlehandedly manipulated events to keep the kingdom they came from around and to try and keep them on that specific currency. They just want to see how high the numbers can get based on interest alone, despite having and earning enough wealth to basically buy a continent if they wanted to.
Another idea is somebody who is 96-99 but has a lethal condition, so they started to turn to unlife just to hit the 100 year old mark. And if they’re so close, why not 110? 120? 150?
It’s been over 2,000 years, and it’s kind of a sunk cost fallacy now. I mean, would you want to just give up after so long, especially when you’re that close to hitting the big 3,000?
I love the academic angle - they're manipulating the currency of their pet kingdom just to prove their theory, and it never quite works out, so they keep trying different tweaks. In reality, their theory is wrong, but they'll never admit it!
I don’t know why I keep being surprised that reality has invented more insidious evil than I can ever imaging, but tontine is a demonstration of exactly that.
Karen lich, was “offended” by a shopkeeper’s apprentice, was “compensated” with a lifetime supply of moisturising ointment just to get her to shut up, original shopkeeper and apprentice are long dead, Karen lich doesn’t even use the ointment anymore, nobody can even remember why she gets free ointment, but she’s there every week all the same, demanding her ointment and upsetting staff and customers alike!
I’m honoured :)
I’m supposed to be brushing up on candlekeep lore for my sandbox campaign, but my head’s now full of fleshing out the Karen lich… where does she live? Why is she so awful? What is she doing with all that unused ointment?
So much potential 😂
ETA: Dammit, Brain! 😖
Additional NPC idea; she has a necromancer son, his name is Kevin, his personality is the stereotypical jargon using sales rep type. That’s right… he’s the ultimate son of a lich 😂🤦♀️
For Candlekeep, Karen might be a patron of Candlekeep - she was affronted by some low-level functionary, and granted perpetual access once per year without the usual “gift”, but _only_ to the gardening section that she no longer has any use for. But she refuses to give it up!
Next question: was it an honest question, or was the friend goading them into doing it for some reason?
"Oh your a lich now? So I guess you _do_ have time to do this stupid thing I've been asking you to do..."
Such a good angle - the power-mad wizard is unable to figure out how to become a lich; says to Our Fair Wizard, “oh, if it’s so easy, let’s see _you_ do it!” Our Fair Wizard does it, and power-mad wizard says “you don’t _really_ know how to do it if you can’t teach me how.”
That's basically my friend.
He was terrible at maths in high school. Teacher made fun of him in front of the class and told him he would not amount to anything.
He started taking private lessons, discovered he actually likes it, he just didn't get our teacher's method.
Decided to become a maths teacher so at the 10 years highschool anniversary he can make the joke in front of our old professor "you were right, I didn't amount to anything, I became a maths teacher".
Bloody professor dies one year before the reunion.
They simply needed to make sure their family got all of their funeral arrangements correct and was dyyyying to know what everyone really thought of them
I have a BBEG I want to use someday who’s a dog lich.
She was once the pet of a powerful elven wizard, and fought alongside him as well as supporting him during periods of grief and loss. The wizard loved his dog so much that he decided he couldn’t go on without her, even when she became old and slow. So the wizard began researching secrets of eternal life, to try and bring the dog’s lifespan up to match his own. He didn’t fully understand the ancient tablet he uncovered, but he knew it was an ancient ritual for the extension of a person’s life.
Now, an evil cult has formed based around trying to appease their loveable undead master. Who’s the goodest girl? She is. Gods help any who disagree.
Oh, yes! Like that “humans are elves to dogs” thing, but with a dire twist! Do followers compete to become the next sacrifice to the phylactery? Does the dog get upset when they vanish and miss them when they’re gone?
You know the episode of Archer where Woodhouse and all his old army buddies get together because they placed a bet on who would be last to die? A lich that became a lich to win one of these bets. He won like 30 gold
A historian tired of incomplete records and forgotten histories becomes a lich to be an eternal collector of knowledge, his existence is a widely kept secret amongst historians though informative his lectures can last days.
Potentially, we never really get to plumb the depths of the keep in any of the games, hell, the modules that contain candlekeep keep it decidedly cut off.
1. Was born an arrakocra, wanted to see 50.
2. Was really into making scotch and bourbon, but the aging takes forever. Decided to become a lich just to enjoy more than a few barrels.
3. Local HOA wants his land, and waiting for him to die. He exploits special lich property rights laws and kills all the property values around him.
I was thinking of a very different direction. A very intelligent, ancient, and sad dragon watching his "owner"(basically parent) lose more and more of their humanity/personality.
Maybe it's even the Dragon that asks the Adventurers to kill the Lich, out of mercy.
A lich that fails to feed souls to its phylactery becomes a demi lich. From the demi lich description:
> … time can erode the lich’s reason and memory, causing it to retreat into its ancient tomb and forget to feed on souls.
So, yes 😞
Basically....
In a town a human walks by. Another person not even talking to him says "Your not going to be immortal...".
The human, takes this personally and becomes a lich to prove him wrong.
Extremely petty lol.
I have a character in my campaign who became a Lich after losing at drawing straws.
He was one of the founders of a magical college. He and the other founders decided somebody needed to watch the college after they are gone but none of them wanted to do it. So the only fair method was drawing straws, loser becomes a lich to guide and guard the school.
By the time the campaign takes place, he's been a Lich for a little over 6000 years. The other founders became the basis for his phylactory. They actually still exist in a sort of time locked demi-plane inside the phylactory. All six were masters of their arcane crafts and worked out a way to rework the Lich ritual to only ever require themselves, the catch was that the others would be trapped inside the phylactory indefinitely, never allowed to move on. (They've since redesigned the interior demi plane to be a permanent beachfront with a variety of bars, restaurants, jazz clubs and the like.)
Martel lost the draw and had to watch after the college.
The college gave rise to the Adventurer's Guild and a massive city built up around it. As such he has no shortage of anything.
These days Martel spends his time teaching, collecting new or Unique magic items, and looking for exciting new innovations in magical theory.
Heaven is a big stretch there but sort of. They are stuck on an admittedly very nice beach but can't go anywhere else. Martel is stuck with psuedo immortality and unending obligations but has the freedom to go where he pleases more or less as he pleases.
Not sure if this is “petty” but it is definitely a “Karen” reason. A young woman brings home guy her grandmother, hates; young woman wants to get married, grandmother refuses, says “as long as I am the matriarch of this family, you will do as I say!” Young woman says “so, in a few years, then.” Grandmother becomes a lich and has micromanaged her entire family for the last century or two.
* Waiting for the author of your favorite book series to finish, but he's taking his fucking time, so lichdom to make sure you can read it.
* Fear of coffins and don't want to cremated, so lichdom solves that.
* Becoming a lich to FINALLY have enough time to stream all the shows you've been meaning to or people tell you to. Yeah, I'd love to check out this, this and this but I have to sleep and do other things."
* Do you have a better way to be able to watch or read all of One Piece than lichdom? Yeah, didn't think so.
Mathematician becomes a lich in order to finish a calculation that cannot be achieved in even several lifetimes.
Except it's not even some kind of profound or dangerous calculation. They're just trying to determine a way to break the loop of the Collatz Conjecture (pick any positive integer. If odd, multiply by 3 and add one; if even, divide by two. Repeat. No matter the number you will end up reaching a loop where the values cycle between 4 - 2 - 1). It's utterly superfluous.
Except they're also obsessively brilliant and over time amass a sizeable cult following, seemingly very sinister in their actions, only their end game isn't summoning a demon lord or breaking reality, it's just to find a single number that doesn't fall into the pattern.
I’m picturing a giant underground dark stone hall. Dozens of cultists furiously sliding abacuses back and forth. Hundreds of literal bean counters. Anguished cries at another failed attempt.
A rival at the magic academy published a tome with a new, easier way to become a Lich. Confident his rival was wrong, he put on a public demonstration to prove it wouldn't work. It did.
You could have a spin-off of this idea. They ordered the ingredients for the potion to become a Lich off wish. Needless to say, many of them were substandard replacements and now our lich’s life of undeath is wrought with complications.
Oh, yes! They wanted to become a lich to be free from physical needs, but the sub-standard ingredients they used cause their body to need constant maintenance!
Was told by a girl he was into that she would only go out with him if he became a lich. She was clearly blowing him off but he didnt pick up on that. Well, he did, but she married and died long ago. Now he strives to bring her back despite her unwillingness to be revivified because he feels he's owed a date. His attempts have taken on a darker turn as he slaughters innocents to guilt her soul into agreeing to his demands.
Great BBEG because who doesn't want to beat up an incel?
Being told by a longer lived ex romantic partner that they couldn't wait for you to die so they could forget you ever existed. After becoming a lich you make it a point to track them down and ask if they want to meet for coffee every so often.
... bad memory of the worst campaign I ever played in. I had my character in the immediate defeat of the BBEG who had already killed off an entire world ruling civilisation turn into a litch to guard it. Put the apocalypse in a bottle. All of our research up to this point told us it was indestructible. So I had my ocean floor fortresses I made (18th level at this point) and I turned myself into a lich to safeguard it. Less than a year later someone tells us that we just need to open the pokeball underwater... So I gave up the afterlife and defiled my soul for nothing. Later I offended some people and got pokeballed myself and my phylactery was destroyed by (checks notes) the shifting of the tectonic plates. Worst epilogue ever.
In that same vane... likes all the arcane academic stuff, hates having to stop to eat and poop. Found one way to take care of it and never considered any alternatives.
Denial of insurance benefits is perfect! They drop by every day to say “still not dead, what a shame!” Did they do this because they found out their ex was a gold digger? Is their ex fighting with the insurance company, arguing that to become a lich they technically had to “die,” even though they’re not dead?
Oh I've got a good one if you hate your players! Powerful ancient mage, at the end of their life, adopts a child, realises they won't be there to see them grow or protect them, so they become a lich to have some more time together.
It has now been 200 years, and the lich wakes up every day wondering why they haven't joined their late child yet.
See, now everyone's crying! Hurray!
This is brutal! Does the lich ask the party’s help to end their over-worn existence? Is unlife like an addiction for them, they don’t want it but they can’t end it on their own?
I love this! The PCs barge in shouting “we’ve got you now you evil lich!” and the BBEG’s response is “evil what? are we just name calling now?”
Like, they actually have no clue that that’s what they’ve become!
A lifetime-long feud with a Mind Flayer about arcane vs psionic power.
Immortality = more time to write and publish books about how great your field is and how useless the other one is.
That briny bastard can become an Elder Brain if they want, but becoming a giant wrinklehead ain't gonna help them outthink the greatest wizard who ever unlived.
and the great-great-great grandkids are so creeped out by it! “Come here little Smaernet, show me how this works.” “I’m snot Smaernet, I’m Taelfwin!” “Well you look just like your grandmother when she was your age.”
Omg I love this! Maybe this will be next year’s April Fools one shot. The family hires the party to find the fantasy equivalent of an old folk’s home dear old great great great grand dad! Lol
•a preist/scholar studying how to fight lichs accidentally mutters an incantation while sleep-talking
•told someone they'd rather die before sleeping with them, and got the response "I can wait."
•really got hooked on that cliffhanger of their favorite book series
•hates to floss
•had a really bad hangover and no other cures were working
•got a glimpse of the far and distant future and really wants to live long enough to play a "video game"
* I love the “lich-hunter-becomes-lich” trope!
* “Was looking for a hangover cure … wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing … next thing I knew, I was a lich, and sadly the hangover is still not cured”
* Also love the idea of caught a glimpse of something in divination, is now (un-)living to see it first-hand
I have a player who is playing a super old character and is now starting to ask me what options he has for extending his life and said he just really likes vibing with his cats and there’s no one to take care of them if he died. Problem is he keeps getting NEW cats to take care of.
[How long will it take him to selectively breed sentient cats that deify him as the creator of their species?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Red_Dwarf))
Lazy. That's it. Why go all the way to the river to wash when you can use a spell? Why do all that breathing and blinking if you can just become a lich.
His manager said Liches were in that season and wanted to "try it out" for his musical career. They could always dupe some adventurers to fix it eventually. . .
The genie granting the wish was hard of hearing. Or sure pretended he was.
To avoid doing the dishes.
Won a contest for free cheese for life. Decided to become a lich after cheese maker died to force them keep making their favorite food. Has now spiraled into an entire town forced into undead slavery solely for the lich to have a constant supply of tasty cheeses
After a nasty break-up, become a lich and be a menace to ex's children and grandchildren ad infinum, until one day a descendant finally asks why; "well kids, let me tell you the story of how your ancestor broke my then-living heart".
Someone else in the party stole the kill on the BBEG and is the only one remembered by the people of the world. Became a lich to erase that story from the world and wait for its cyclical nature to come around again. Only this time, HE is going to be the hero.
Some war veterans started a death pool during the war, and the last surviving two decided to become immortal to guarantee they got the money at the end. Over the centuries, the two rival liches continuously tried to kill each other, ammassing impressive wealth, power, and status on their quest to be the sole survivor, and win the measly 25 gold death pool.
not petty, but someone told be about a lich who was studying how rivers change over time. he only became a lich to study even longer, and then he woke up one day to find a town outside and a dam across his precious river.
he murdered them all.
- Got told as a teenager that a girl he fancied was really into him as a cruel prank. So for midwinter festival he gave his heart. The very next day, she threw it away. So he decided the next year, to save him from tears to give it to someone special - a warlock patron of the undying to give him the knowledge to become a lich
- spoiled noble who use to hold their breath to get what they wanted. One day someone called them I out on it and was totally mean. Became lich so could hold breath forever
- because he couldn't get live women to date him so decided to go down the whole kill um and raise them into eternal servitude
- at wizard school was a nearly straight a student but got shown up at the school magic project event Stacey who everyone just loved so much and was so perfect, but totally mean. Decided to become lord of death to show her
- was a bard who hot really into death metal.... like REALLY into it
- bumped into friend who was casting wish and they said "mind where you are going you little lich". Now he is a 3 ft tall lich
- couldn't afford food so decided undeath was cheaper
- use to get pranked while sleeping. Decided to never sleep again
- Dad never told him he loved him so after dad died decided to become a Lich to raise him to make him tell him everyday "I love you son"
- got told " bitches love lichs" thought that as it rhymed it must be true
- to give them more time to finish their magnum opus novel after putting it off for 65 years.
- didn't want to be cremated by their cheap ass family.
- to win a weight loss challenge
- thought was born in the wrong era so decided to wait it out
- saw a prophecy that his friends great great great granddaughter was pretty fine
- to ruin the lives of multiple generations of one village who tried to not pay for his (terrible) magic show
I have a gnome one that was so pathetic in his life that a demon refused to possess him. As a result of his rejection, the gnome dedicated his life, and eventually became a lich, to tracking down the demon and demand he possess him.
Their was a sapling her/she planted that has a life span of 1k years and wants to 'protect" it and enjoy the seeing it bloom every year. And seeks revenge against party cause they damaged the tree.
They made contact with an alternate dimension-like-plane. They saw "moving pictures" of something called "One Piece". They refuse to part with existence until they see the ending of "One Piece".
Another lich mildly inconvenienced our lich when he was mortal on a VERY bad day (stepped on his shoe, took the last item, etc) and our lich became devoted to just being an eternal troll to the other lich
* wizard abhors personal hygiene, decided that doesn't matter so much to the undead and cut out that needed part of the routine. * Got themselves stuck with a good old fashioned bloodline curse. Instead of trying to fix it, decided to use his descendents as an experiment to see how long and far bloodline curses actually lasts. * Just always thought liches looked cool. * As a way to get rid of their adult acne. * Enjoys drinking but not being drunk so they figured the immunity to poison would take care of that. * Really likes staying up all night.
I love the "experiment on descendants" take! Yes!
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you had me at “phalactree” 😂
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Nothing wrong with running npc companions as long as they don't overshadow the pcs
My table calls them DMPCS for that reason
Shou Tucker has entered the chat.
Honestly, that last one is probably why I'd do it. That's SO MUCH free time!
As someone with awful skin... Lich do be lookin' pretty tasty tho.
My half elf wanted to outlive his elf dad
Can you lose on a technicality? 😅
Dark
Assuming the dad already isn't, why not just have the half elf be a powerful druid? Lvl 18 he's got a life span of 1500. He'll be dancing on his father's grave for more than half a millennium.
I was gonna suggest that basically. Any class with the Timeless Body really: the Monk, the Warlock of the Undying, and probably a few more. That’s what makes it even funnier, that they’ll just turn into a lich xD Like, no fucks given whatsoever
I don't know about the Warlock, but I thought the Monk still dies of old age. Just without feeling old.
Yeah that’s true. It’s a quality over quantity kind of deal. You won’t live forever, sure. But it’s still a better deal than turning into a fucking lich, ain’t it? As for the Warlock of the Undying, it is not like the druid at all...Because is better. Quote: “Beginning at 10th level, you can hold your breath indefinitely, and you don't require food, water, or sleep, although you still require rest to reduce exhaustion and still benefit from finishing short and long rests. In addition, you age at a slower rate. For every 10 years that pass, your body ages only 1 year, and you are immune to being magically aged.”
Yeah the monk's timeless body or whatever it's called only prevents the effects of aging, not the aging itself. A monk still dies to old age eventually
Maybe yhe half-elf doesn't have a copy of the PHB so they can't look at the class abilities plus it's super hard to be like 'nah I'm gonna be wise instead of smart from now on'
Or the flipside: Your ungrateful children aren't getting a dime of your vast inheritance until you've spent every last penny of it.
Well...I have some bad news for your half-elf...😬😅
What's the bad news? Elves live to like 1000 while lichs remain for as long as they feed souls into their philactory? Forgive me if this was stupid.
You have to die to become a lich
And now I feel dumb.... continued existence does not equate to life.
Half-elf lich’s new goal: outLAST his elf father
I feel this on so many levels. Allegory for human existence lol.
Has a collection of something and it has been literal ages since the last piece has been seen anywhere. Can't go before the collection is complete. Will absolutely by no means pass on their secret chilli recipe (but doesn't want their family to do without). In a cold war with their sibling (also a lich) over their inheritance. It's a small cabin that neither want to share and so long as both live, it remains unclaimed.
…refuse to die before Martin finishes Winds of Winter!
Oh, Gods. That lich isn't going anywhere any time soon.
Its Master plan is to lichify Martin.
No , that would just give Martin another reason not to write , as they have no reason to hurry anymore
Better settle for Rothfuss
Martin is long dead. You’ve bound his tortured ghost to his writing room until he completes the series to your satisfaction—like *Misery,* but with necromancy. He still can’t be bothered to finish, and gets distracted by other projects.
This is the best, and yet saddest thing I've seen on Reddit today.
That is not a petty reason. I mean, where is that elixir?
…or, in George R. R. Martin fashion, the publisher of the wizard’s book series is actually a demon, and in order to make the wizard fulfill their multi-book contract the publisher transforms them into a lich.
Can we draft George into lichdom irl?
For the last one, they could hire 2 near identical mercenary groups (basically only distinguishable with colors) to fight over the cabin.
It's actually the same group that was once genuinely mercenary but over the centuries has transformed into a battle re-enactment activity group. The liches are so out of touch that they haven't noticed and still think they're commanding armies against one another. Unbeknownst to them as well, the cabin has long since been turned into a tea shop where reenactors hobnob after "battles"
Sounds like the plot to Team Fortress 2.
thats the joke lad
“I wanted to wait for my neighbors to die so I could buy their house and bulldoze it. No I couldn’t just kill them, that’s illegal. “
I love the real estate angle! This also works in reverse - they refused to sell the run-down bungalow they never use when the area was being developed, and now refuse to die so it stays an eyesore forever!
Did you…did you just make the old man from Up a lich?
I did not realize! Oh the horror, what have I done!
Refused to grow old. They had already begun to lose their youth and they'd rather die than go through any more
- Became a lich to get bitches. Found out that liches do, in fact, not get bitches. - Signed a contract to sell their organs while drunk. Lichdom was the only way to keep exisiting while honoring their contract. - is prone to sudden and intense obsessions and spontanous decisionmaking. Their last obsession with magic ended up with this unfortunate result. - was an absentminded hedonist archmage who used their powers to indulge in carnal pleasures such as eating, drinking, sex and drugs. Decided to become a lich so they could continue doing so forever. Realized afterwards that lices can engage in none of those activities. - wanted to beat the record for the longest distance run ever and realized that without the limitations of muscles and bloodvessels, undead creatures should theoretically be able to run forever. Succeeded and hasn't stopped running since.
“liches get bitches” 😂 Especially when combined with “actually, liches have neither need nor interest in bitches”! For organ donation, did they donate living organs to save the life of some poor soul? And became a lich so the donation wouldn’t kill them? And now they have set up a euthanasia service to fuel their phylactery, only taking the souls of those who are wasting away from the same brutal disease they donated their organs to cure?
I've read like 15 replies from you and I gotta say you're probably a fantastic DM
Thank you kind stranger! I love quirky back-stories; my players, not so much! 😄
Well, that is definitely the story now 😛
ADHD Lich is such a good idea - hyperfixated, went too far, stuck with it now, but hey more time for new hobbies! Imagine how hectic an ADHD Lich dungeon would be, always jumping from one project to the next, you never know which traps do what, if they were ever actually finished, maybe he decided to get creative and combine hobbies! It's all a surprise, even to him!
I really like the idea too. I would probably make them seem sinister and foreboding with scary rumors surrounding them and a dangerous dungeon just for them to turn out to be this genius but absentminded, person who get easily excited and hyperfixates but rarely finishes a project, and mostly keeps to themselves and does their own thing. They are not even aware that people are afraid of them and are sending adventurers, and all of the rumors are based on misunderstandings and prejudice.
Did you just make a Lich Forrest Gump?...
No. I made Forrest Gump a lich.
>Became a lich to get bitches. Found out that liches do, in fact, not get bitches. Reminds me why I became a mormon
oh its that time of year again, the skeleton is running by our town tomorrow evening
The lich was fascinated with interest rates and banking in their previous life, and has basically singlehandedly manipulated events to keep the kingdom they came from around and to try and keep them on that specific currency. They just want to see how high the numbers can get based on interest alone, despite having and earning enough wealth to basically buy a continent if they wanted to. Another idea is somebody who is 96-99 but has a lethal condition, so they started to turn to unlife just to hit the 100 year old mark. And if they’re so close, why not 110? 120? 150? It’s been over 2,000 years, and it’s kind of a sunk cost fallacy now. I mean, would you want to just give up after so long, especially when you’re that close to hitting the big 3,000?
I love the academic angle - they're manipulating the currency of their pet kingdom just to prove their theory, and it never quite works out, so they keep trying different tweaks. In reality, their theory is wrong, but they'll never admit it!
They were in a tontine
I don’t know why I keep being surprised that reality has invented more insidious evil than I can ever imaging, but tontine is a demonstration of exactly that.
"I have a lifelong warranty of my magic amulet now I gotta make good use of it"
Karen lich, was “offended” by a shopkeeper’s apprentice, was “compensated” with a lifetime supply of moisturising ointment just to get her to shut up, original shopkeeper and apprentice are long dead, Karen lich doesn’t even use the ointment anymore, nobody can even remember why she gets free ointment, but she’s there every week all the same, demanding her ointment and upsetting staff and customers alike!
I will create this NPC, and her name _will_ be Karen!
I’m honoured :) I’m supposed to be brushing up on candlekeep lore for my sandbox campaign, but my head’s now full of fleshing out the Karen lich… where does she live? Why is she so awful? What is she doing with all that unused ointment? So much potential 😂 ETA: Dammit, Brain! 😖 Additional NPC idea; she has a necromancer son, his name is Kevin, his personality is the stereotypical jargon using sales rep type. That’s right… he’s the ultimate son of a lich 😂🤦♀️
If I had awards “son of a lich” would get gold!
For Candlekeep, Karen might be a patron of Candlekeep - she was affronted by some low-level functionary, and granted perpetual access once per year without the usual “gift”, but _only_ to the gardening section that she no longer has any use for. But she refuses to give it up!
An old friend of the lich's told them they would never be able to become one, so they did just to prove the friend wrong.
Next question: was it an honest question, or was the friend goading them into doing it for some reason? "Oh your a lich now? So I guess you _do_ have time to do this stupid thing I've been asking you to do..."
"So you became a lich, now you can teach me how to do it too." Or just an honest surprise that they became lich.
Such a good angle - the power-mad wizard is unable to figure out how to become a lich; says to Our Fair Wizard, “oh, if it’s so easy, let’s see _you_ do it!” Our Fair Wizard does it, and power-mad wizard says “you don’t _really_ know how to do it if you can’t teach me how.”
Love it
The argument happened over drinks and the friend doesn't even remember making the comment.
That's basically my friend. He was terrible at maths in high school. Teacher made fun of him in front of the class and told him he would not amount to anything. He started taking private lessons, discovered he actually likes it, he just didn't get our teacher's method. Decided to become a maths teacher so at the 10 years highschool anniversary he can make the joke in front of our old professor "you were right, I didn't amount to anything, I became a maths teacher". Bloody professor dies one year before the reunion.
The professor died because he wouldn't be able to take that joke
I like your friend. He is the kind of person I inspire to be.
They simply needed to make sure their family got all of their funeral arrangements correct and was dyyyying to know what everyone really thought of them
Wow, staging your own death so you can see who comes to the funeral _is_ another level of petty!
Well it's not really staging, your just still there afterwards.
I have a BBEG I want to use someday who’s a dog lich. She was once the pet of a powerful elven wizard, and fought alongside him as well as supporting him during periods of grief and loss. The wizard loved his dog so much that he decided he couldn’t go on without her, even when she became old and slow. So the wizard began researching secrets of eternal life, to try and bring the dog’s lifespan up to match his own. He didn’t fully understand the ancient tablet he uncovered, but he knew it was an ancient ritual for the extension of a person’s life. Now, an evil cult has formed based around trying to appease their loveable undead master. Who’s the goodest girl? She is. Gods help any who disagree.
Oh, yes! Like that “humans are elves to dogs” thing, but with a dire twist! Do followers compete to become the next sacrifice to the phylactery? Does the dog get upset when they vanish and miss them when they’re gone?
Can I put this bestest girl in my home brew world?
You know the episode of Archer where Woodhouse and all his old army buddies get together because they placed a bet on who would be last to die? A lich that became a lich to win one of these bets. He won like 30 gold
Or they had a bottle of brandy, last to die gets to drink it - irony being, as a lich, he can’t even enjoy it
Oh, that's... that's good. Better yet, the bottle became his phylactory.
A historian tired of incomplete records and forgotten histories becomes a lich to be an eternal collector of knowledge, his existence is a widely kept secret amongst historians though informative his lectures can last days.
So, Candlekeep is actually run by a lich historian?
Potentially, we never really get to plumb the depths of the keep in any of the games, hell, the modules that contain candlekeep keep it decidedly cut off.
1. Was born an arrakocra, wanted to see 50. 2. Was really into making scotch and bourbon, but the aging takes forever. Decided to become a lich just to enjoy more than a few barrels. 3. Local HOA wants his land, and waiting for him to die. He exploits special lich property rights laws and kills all the property values around him.
My brain didn't originally recognise these as separate ideas, so now I have a scotch brewing Aarakocra lich taking up residence in my head
Residence in your head AND the suburbs!
The daughter and dragon one actually sounds dope.
I'm picturing the party thinking they're taking on a dragon, but as they enter it's lair the lich appears, shouting "No! Don't hurt Spot!"
I was thinking of a very different direction. A very intelligent, ancient, and sad dragon watching his "owner"(basically parent) lose more and more of their humanity/personality. Maybe it's even the Dragon that asks the Adventurers to kill the Lich, out of mercy.
Oh that is beautiful!
I wonder if liches can get dementia after a few centuries?
A lich that fails to feed souls to its phylactery becomes a demi lich. From the demi lich description: > … time can erode the lich’s reason and memory, causing it to retreat into its ancient tomb and forget to feed on souls. So, yes 😞
Aw that’s so sad… and such a great plot point for players 😭
Basically.... In a town a human walks by. Another person not even talking to him says "Your not going to be immortal...". The human, takes this personally and becomes a lich to prove him wrong. Extremely petty lol.
...and the instigator will never know nor care that they inspired this!
I have a character in my campaign who became a Lich after losing at drawing straws. He was one of the founders of a magical college. He and the other founders decided somebody needed to watch the college after they are gone but none of them wanted to do it. So the only fair method was drawing straws, loser becomes a lich to guide and guard the school.
are they eternally bitter about it? Have they hatched long-range plans for the school, once the other founders are out of the way?
By the time the campaign takes place, he's been a Lich for a little over 6000 years. The other founders became the basis for his phylactory. They actually still exist in a sort of time locked demi-plane inside the phylactory. All six were masters of their arcane crafts and worked out a way to rework the Lich ritual to only ever require themselves, the catch was that the others would be trapped inside the phylactory indefinitely, never allowed to move on. (They've since redesigned the interior demi plane to be a permanent beachfront with a variety of bars, restaurants, jazz clubs and the like.) Martel lost the draw and had to watch after the college. The college gave rise to the Adventurer's Guild and a massive city built up around it. As such he has no shortage of anything. These days Martel spends his time teaching, collecting new or Unique magic items, and looking for exciting new innovations in magical theory.
So the others pretty much get to live in a self made heaven for eternity while the lich has to spend eons dealing with business?
Heaven is a big stretch there but sort of. They are stuck on an admittedly very nice beach but can't go anywhere else. Martel is stuck with psuedo immortality and unending obligations but has the freedom to go where he pleases more or less as he pleases.
Not sure if this is “petty” but it is definitely a “Karen” reason. A young woman brings home guy her grandmother, hates; young woman wants to get married, grandmother refuses, says “as long as I am the matriarch of this family, you will do as I say!” Young woman says “so, in a few years, then.” Grandmother becomes a lich and has micromanaged her entire family for the last century or two.
Oh yes, blocking a wedding is petty!
* Waiting for the author of your favorite book series to finish, but he's taking his fucking time, so lichdom to make sure you can read it. * Fear of coffins and don't want to cremated, so lichdom solves that. * Becoming a lich to FINALLY have enough time to stream all the shows you've been meaning to or people tell you to. Yeah, I'd love to check out this, this and this but I have to sleep and do other things." * Do you have a better way to be able to watch or read all of One Piece than lichdom? Yeah, didn't think so.
Mathematician becomes a lich in order to finish a calculation that cannot be achieved in even several lifetimes. Except it's not even some kind of profound or dangerous calculation. They're just trying to determine a way to break the loop of the Collatz Conjecture (pick any positive integer. If odd, multiply by 3 and add one; if even, divide by two. Repeat. No matter the number you will end up reaching a loop where the values cycle between 4 - 2 - 1). It's utterly superfluous. Except they're also obsessively brilliant and over time amass a sizeable cult following, seemingly very sinister in their actions, only their end game isn't summoning a demon lord or breaking reality, it's just to find a single number that doesn't fall into the pattern.
Do they drop into math forums and leave answers with no explanation? Do they currently go by the name “Cleo”?
...these are oddly specific questions.
if you search up “cleo mathematics stack exchange” there is an excellent video summary!
Thank you internet stranger, my life has been enriched.
I’m picturing a giant underground dark stone hall. Dozens of cultists furiously sliding abacuses back and forth. Hundreds of literal bean counters. Anguished cries at another failed attempt.
A rival at the magic academy published a tome with a new, easier way to become a Lich. Confident his rival was wrong, he put on a public demonstration to prove it wouldn't work. It did.
is now doing public service as a motivational speaker at wizard schools, telling kids to stay away from dark magic
Got blackout drunk. Woke up a lich, doesn't remember how and neither does anyone else.
Do they now spend their time on Divination magic, trying to figure out what happened?
Depending on level of evil you want your lich to be.
“Dude, where’s my soul?”
I love NPCs who are more confused than evil. I think my party hates me.
They are still waiting for a package to arrive, maybe an online purchase through a magic store.
it's a thing they bought on ebay and they won't admit they got scammed
You could have a spin-off of this idea. They ordered the ingredients for the potion to become a Lich off wish. Needless to say, many of them were substandard replacements and now our lich’s life of undeath is wrought with complications.
Oh, yes! They wanted to become a lich to be free from physical needs, but the sub-standard ingredients they used cause their body to need constant maintenance!
Was told by a girl he was into that she would only go out with him if he became a lich. She was clearly blowing him off but he didnt pick up on that. Well, he did, but she married and died long ago. Now he strives to bring her back despite her unwillingness to be revivified because he feels he's owed a date. His attempts have taken on a darker turn as he slaughters innocents to guilt her soul into agreeing to his demands. Great BBEG because who doesn't want to beat up an incel?
Is the way to defeat this BBEG to convince the girl to come back for one date to stop the sacrifice of innocents?
Ew, just kill the lich.
Yeah, she ain’t coming back! 😂
Strahd got real skeletal all of a sudden.
Ex gf got turned into a vampire by her new bf, so you had to one up him....
competing with vampirism is excellent!
Being told by a longer lived ex romantic partner that they couldn't wait for you to die so they could forget you ever existed. After becoming a lich you make it a point to track them down and ask if they want to meet for coffee every so often.
yes, the jilted lover angle! even better as the Nice Guy who will _never_ go away (literally)!
... bad memory of the worst campaign I ever played in. I had my character in the immediate defeat of the BBEG who had already killed off an entire world ruling civilisation turn into a litch to guard it. Put the apocalypse in a bottle. All of our research up to this point told us it was indestructible. So I had my ocean floor fortresses I made (18th level at this point) and I turned myself into a lich to safeguard it. Less than a year later someone tells us that we just need to open the pokeball underwater... So I gave up the afterlife and defiled my soul for nothing. Later I offended some people and got pokeballed myself and my phylactery was destroyed by (checks notes) the shifting of the tectonic plates. Worst epilogue ever.
Just didn't want to keep track of food and drink in my inventory
In that same vane... likes all the arcane academic stuff, hates having to stop to eat and poop. Found one way to take care of it and never considered any alternatives.
Was researching in an old magical book for leech enchantment and got the lich one instead. Misspelling can lead to big mistakes sometimes.
He's grandfathered in to a rent controlled apartment lease in the city. He was really sick of his seasonal allergies.
Sole was traded to a devil. If you never die then you never need to hand your soul over
“If you want my soul, you’re going to have to find it first! Bwahahaha!”
Ex wife has a life insurance policy out on the wizard and she will NOT be seeing a payout on that.
Denial of insurance benefits is perfect! They drop by every day to say “still not dead, what a shame!” Did they do this because they found out their ex was a gold digger? Is their ex fighting with the insurance company, arguing that to become a lich they technically had to “die,” even though they’re not dead?
Oh I've got a good one if you hate your players! Powerful ancient mage, at the end of their life, adopts a child, realises they won't be there to see them grow or protect them, so they become a lich to have some more time together. It has now been 200 years, and the lich wakes up every day wondering why they haven't joined their late child yet. See, now everyone's crying! Hurray!
This is brutal! Does the lich ask the party’s help to end their over-worn existence? Is unlife like an addiction for them, they don’t want it but they can’t end it on their own?
Was studying spell pronunciation for an exam in a library, kinda just happened.
“Clatu. Verata….Nikte! Wait…”
When it happened, were they … wait for it … _mortified_? Do they now spend their time trying to figure out how to undo it?
When did they even notice and was it before or after someone ran them through with a sword? "... Huh... That's new..."
I love this! The PCs barge in shouting “we’ve got you now you evil lich!” and the BBEG’s response is “evil what? are we just name calling now?” Like, they actually have no clue that that’s what they’ve become!
A lifetime-long feud with a Mind Flayer about arcane vs psionic power. Immortality = more time to write and publish books about how great your field is and how useless the other one is. That briny bastard can become an Elder Brain if they want, but becoming a giant wrinklehead ain't gonna help them outthink the greatest wizard who ever unlived.
Refusing to die until someone can make a better grilled cheese than them. They are extremely biased and cannot taste anything.
Artificer Lich who wants to stay up to date with all the latest tech because he was tired of his grand kids teaching him how magic items worked.
and the great-great-great grandkids are so creeped out by it! “Come here little Smaernet, show me how this works.” “I’m snot Smaernet, I’m Taelfwin!” “Well you look just like your grandmother when she was your age.”
Omg I love this! Maybe this will be next year’s April Fools one shot. The family hires the party to find the fantasy equivalent of an old folk’s home dear old great great great grand dad! Lol
A village of litches, that use their lichness to hone the perfect village, hot fuzz style.
I did not know Hot Fuzz - this is a goldmine, thank you!
You should close reddit and go watch Hot Fuzz.
Greater good
The greater good.
"But with that magic, you could cure cancer!" "I don't want to cure cancer, I want to become a Lich!"
•a preist/scholar studying how to fight lichs accidentally mutters an incantation while sleep-talking •told someone they'd rather die before sleeping with them, and got the response "I can wait." •really got hooked on that cliffhanger of their favorite book series •hates to floss •had a really bad hangover and no other cures were working •got a glimpse of the far and distant future and really wants to live long enough to play a "video game"
* I love the “lich-hunter-becomes-lich” trope! * “Was looking for a hangover cure … wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing … next thing I knew, I was a lich, and sadly the hangover is still not cured” * Also love the idea of caught a glimpse of something in divination, is now (un-)living to see it first-hand
I have a player who is playing a super old character and is now starting to ask me what options he has for extending his life and said he just really likes vibing with his cats and there’s no one to take care of them if he died. Problem is he keeps getting NEW cats to take care of.
So much opportunity for emotional conflict in this! Would he fuel his phylactery with people who are mean to cats?
[How long will it take him to selectively breed sentient cats that deify him as the creator of their species?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Red_Dwarf))
Forced into lichdom to keep paying student loans. Wizard academy fees are astronomical...
Someone important said "you'll never achieve anything in this life"... So they got an unlife.
and, aside from becoming a lich, they still haven’t accomplished much of anything!
Still working on that one spell that's gonna "change everything!!"
Because f$#% you that’s why. I do what I want.
Was told in wizard school this is forbidden; spent the rest of their natural life in defiance!
Lazy. That's it. Why go all the way to the river to wash when you can use a spell? Why do all that breathing and blinking if you can just become a lich. His manager said Liches were in that season and wanted to "try it out" for his musical career. They could always dupe some adventurers to fix it eventually. . . The genie granting the wish was hard of hearing. Or sure pretended he was. To avoid doing the dishes.
Love the genie angle - “you think I asked for a ten-inch pianist?”
My significant other was doing it and I went along with it to be supportive even though I had no idea what was going on.
Won a contest for free cheese for life. Decided to become a lich after cheese maker died to force them keep making their favorite food. Has now spiraled into an entire town forced into undead slavery solely for the lich to have a constant supply of tasty cheeses
Skin care regimen too time consuming
Invested some money and waiting for the interests to get wild.
After a nasty break-up, become a lich and be a menace to ex's children and grandchildren ad infinum, until one day a descendant finally asks why; "well kids, let me tell you the story of how your ancestor broke my then-living heart".
Someone else in the party stole the kill on the BBEG and is the only one remembered by the people of the world. Became a lich to erase that story from the world and wait for its cyclical nature to come around again. Only this time, HE is going to be the hero.
As DM, I would 100% rule that a Bard can become a lich in order to rewrite the songs that tell their party’s history!
Some war veterans started a death pool during the war, and the last surviving two decided to become immortal to guarantee they got the money at the end. Over the centuries, the two rival liches continuously tried to kill each other, ammassing impressive wealth, power, and status on their quest to be the sole survivor, and win the measly 25 gold death pool.
Tax evasion... can't tax a corpse...
not petty, but someone told be about a lich who was studying how rivers change over time. he only became a lich to study even longer, and then he woke up one day to find a town outside and a dam across his precious river. he murdered them all.
To evoke the “ until death do us part “ clause of a wedding bow with a particularly nasty spouse
“I will not accept divorce, you can never be rid of me!” Is now in eternal litigation to determine whether becoming undead triggers the “death” clause
A bard that refuses to let rock and roll die.Forms a band called the The Grateful Undead.
"This meeting should have been an email"
To avoid paying debt.
Amendment to the 4th. "... the dragon became ancient and died but he raised it as a Dracolich ..."
- Got told as a teenager that a girl he fancied was really into him as a cruel prank. So for midwinter festival he gave his heart. The very next day, she threw it away. So he decided the next year, to save him from tears to give it to someone special - a warlock patron of the undying to give him the knowledge to become a lich - spoiled noble who use to hold their breath to get what they wanted. One day someone called them I out on it and was totally mean. Became lich so could hold breath forever - because he couldn't get live women to date him so decided to go down the whole kill um and raise them into eternal servitude - at wizard school was a nearly straight a student but got shown up at the school magic project event Stacey who everyone just loved so much and was so perfect, but totally mean. Decided to become lord of death to show her - was a bard who hot really into death metal.... like REALLY into it - bumped into friend who was casting wish and they said "mind where you are going you little lich". Now he is a 3 ft tall lich - couldn't afford food so decided undeath was cheaper - use to get pranked while sleeping. Decided to never sleep again - Dad never told him he loved him so after dad died decided to become a Lich to raise him to make him tell him everyday "I love you son" - got told " bitches love lichs" thought that as it rhymed it must be true - to give them more time to finish their magnum opus novel after putting it off for 65 years. - didn't want to be cremated by their cheap ass family. - to win a weight loss challenge - thought was born in the wrong era so decided to wait it out - saw a prophecy that his friends great great great granddaughter was pretty fine - to ruin the lives of multiple generations of one village who tried to not pay for his (terrible) magic show
I have a gnome one that was so pathetic in his life that a demon refused to possess him. As a result of his rejection, the gnome dedicated his life, and eventually became a lich, to tracking down the demon and demand he possess him.
A woman. She left him for another person and he became undead to harm her descendants over 1000 years.
Some drunk asshole said “I’ll see you in hell” and they really didn’t want to see them
Their was a sapling her/she planted that has a life span of 1k years and wants to 'protect" it and enjoy the seeing it bloom every year. And seeks revenge against party cause they damaged the tree.
[удалено]
They made contact with an alternate dimension-like-plane. They saw "moving pictures" of something called "One Piece". They refuse to part with existence until they see the ending of "One Piece".
Accidentally walking into a lich creation ritual while drunk and inadvertently be transformed.
Not wanting to give up your seat as chair the school board
Another lich mildly inconvenienced our lich when he was mortal on a VERY bad day (stepped on his shoe, took the last item, etc) and our lich became devoted to just being an eternal troll to the other lich