Liches be Trippin'

♪ I’m in the mood~ For dancing ♪

Quarantine Warm-Ups

1. Feel the rain

2. Hold frogs

3. Walk in creeks

4. Mud

5. Lay in grass

You have encountered a dreadfull lich, and after a devastating battle that left two of your companions unconscious on the stone floors, you alone are awake to gaze defiantly into the dead sockets that glow with eerie green flames. You are bleeding profusely from terrible wounds and your legs are shaking, but you are resolved to smite this evil. Before you can muster the strength to raise your warhammer to strike, the lich extends his skeletal hand. You close your eyes, knowing the terrible powers that can burst from those fingertips and await your immenent demise. Seconds pass. You cautiously open your eyes to see that instead of emerald flames the lich has merely extended his hand to shake yours. 

The lich’s dry raspy voice breaks through the somewhat uncomfortable silence: “Well that was the most fun I’ve had in ages, studying the arcane is so terribly dull without decent subjects to test my new designs on!” he points at a couple of ashy heaps scattered around his laboratory, and you surmise that these too were once adventurers seeking to slay this undead fiend. He continues: “Say, wouldn’t you and your sleepy palls like to work for me? I’m working on increasing my powers, and I could use some capable minions to do my bidding. If not, I could always eat your souls I guess,” He sighs deeply.” It’ll be ages before someone interesting stops by again. what do you say, future minion?” He extends his hand hopefully again, in an almost friendly way. You stare dumbfounded at the powerful wizard. Will you …

> Shake his hand

or

> Refuse his offer

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Part of this Blog is to document my D&D drawings, but I’m also DM’ing a bunch of D&D 5e Campaigns, and sometimes I like to create my own homebrew content. My Campaign setting is called Ilrut, and I will be tagging all my homebrew content with “Legends of Ilrut”.This is not playtested material in any way, but feel free to use it if you like it. 

For a fullsized PDF: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/5feGuBrr

“Lichdom is a state of being. The most sophisticated form of undeath. While lesser necromancers busy themselves with other people’s souls, liches turn inward, manipulating their own soul to gain power and extend their life.

"To become a lich, the necromancer must press their soul through an arcane vessel called a phylactery. This requires a lifetime of study, mind you, and fierce power of will.

"Souls contain tremendous power, but they place certain checks on mortal will. Divesting the two—soul and mortal form—removes these boundaries. The effect is a virtually limitless magical horizon.

"The process extracts a heavy toll, of course. Traveling through the phylactery can tear a lich’s psyche apart, resulting in madness. Long separation from one’s soul can lead to apathy and megalomania, as well. In almost all cases, lichdom becomes a curse in very short order.”

[Alchemist Duties]

Aside from necromancy Gulveig takes alchemy, and enchanting far more seriously than dragon related things. Gulveig constantly puts being dragonborn on the back burner, or blatantly dismisses it as a whole. Outside of gameplay wise the only shouts she uses is following :

Soul Tear

Call Dragon

Marked For Death

Storm Call

Lich portrait. Last post of 2019. Earlier in the year I found a book of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories on the bookshelf. I flipped through it, rediscovering an artist named Harry Clarke. This illustration is heavily influenced by his artwork. Wishing you all a rad 2020!

I had the idea for a non-magic stage magician who kinda bumbled his way into lichdom by accident and sleight of hand.

In some settings, liches can be made by accident or turned by someone else; it can happen to someone killed by a gigantic wave of negative energy.  Some settings might allow them to happen by a mage who simply forgot to die.  Alignment restrictions also vary by setting.

In Pathfinder there is this curse for oracles that might seem to match what you’re looking for: