April 22, 2024 • 45 mins
Ever wondered if the mystical liches of yore are facing an existential crisis of overexposure in modern fantasy? Tune in and we'll be your guides through the shadowy corridors of lich lore, from their haunting origins in Dungeons & Dragons to their complex roles in today's gaming narratives. We promise you'll emerge with a newfound appreciation for these arcane undead, as we unravel their evolving portrayal across the decades and celebrate their spine-chilling contributions to the genre. We pay homage to the likes of Szass Tam and Acererak, whose stories not only define what it means to be a lich but also challenge adventurers at every turn.
Have you ever considered the macabre intricacies of a lich's phylactery or the diverse paths to achieving this fearsome form of immortality? Our conversation dives into the dark arts, dissecting how these soul jars are more than mere containers but the linchpin to a lich's everlasting reign. We also speculate on the tantalizing possibility of lichdom extending beyond necromancers, imagining a bard whose eternal essence is bound to their last haunting melody. The episode wouldn't be complete without examining the divine disdain and dragon dealings in lich creation, ensuring that the whispers of their power reach every corner of the multiverse.
Comparing liches to other formidable foes, we touch on the emergence of Mind Flayers as formidable nemeses and discuss how their alien intellect adds a fresh layer of dread to the fantasy realm. For those behind the DM screen, we share our best tips for crafting encounters with these immortal villains that preserve their enigmatic aura. Plus, we consider how the allure of lichdom could play out for player-characters, exploring the narrative potential of such a transformation. Join us for this bone-chilling episode and be sure to check out our additional content for dungeon masters and players alike, available through our Patreon community.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you are interested in seeing more content like this check out our YouTube! We also post weekly game articles on our Patreon and have an active Discord community.
Social Links:
Youtube
Discord
Patreon
X
Instagram
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This may be a very hot take, but I think liches are
something that's becoming waytoo popular in most forms of
media.
Not that they're not good, butI definitely think they're
starting to be a little overused, and I know that that's kind of
a weird take from me, someonethat likes dragons, because
dragons are your stereotypicalmonster.
But overall I think they'restarting to reach this point
(00:26):
where they're no longer D&D'slike exclusive and premiere,
like end game boss, like theyused to be.
What are your kind of thoughts?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
well, I think, uh, I think part of the problem with
liches is that it's a very easygo-to in terms of creating a
dangerous villain that can be ajack of all trades yeah, and I,
I think it.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I think it definitely has a lot of merit to being and
I mean, they've been aroundsince first edition being your
end boss.
There are some that are justnamed characters that are very,
very prevalent in the story.
Um, I know the ruler of thay isa is a lich, and I wrote his
name down because I'm gettingbetter.
It's uh, snaz tam, I think.
(01:11):
What, however you pronouncethat, sazaz?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
tam.
Is it sazaz tam?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I think it's sazaz tam, but I'm not confident in
that time to roll it back andwatch the dnd movie and figure
it out from there, because hewas the villain in that movie
too and he's probably myfavorite villain merely because
you can see how dangerous alower tier lich can be.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
If you even want to spoil it this is heavy spoilers
for the dnd movie but if youwant to uh see how dangerous a
lower tier lich is, then youhave the D&D movie.
That really exemplifies howcunning and how intelligent they
can be.
And that isn't even the mainguy.
(01:55):
Zaz Tam is somewhere out thereand he has so much influence
that you see him, but onlymerely in the shadows.
I think the thing that makeszaz tam so interesting is they
build him out really well inthat movie while not showing you
almost anything about him.
(02:16):
But you see his influence.
It's that influential dangerthat you can only see him in the
shadows, and it's only his cold, the dead, undead eyes yeah,
and I definitely see where hehas had a lot of impact.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I mean, any named lich has had massive impact in
the dnd world.
So, like another one is of khan, I think is pronounced is how
it's pronounced.
But like he started out infirst edition as two magic items
the hand and the eye and whatwas really interesting about it
when it was a magic item was, inorder to use the eye, you
literally had to carve out yourown eye and put his eye in its
(02:53):
place, or cut off your arm anduse his arm, and it would give
you a lot of powers, but youwould lose a piece of your
humanity, which is where it hadreally nice trade-off from a
story perspective is you startedto lose your humanity, but he's
been around since first editionand now he's a bad guy in one
of the pre-made campaigns, whichis really interesting to think
about.
That.
They've kind of gone fullcircle with that, that lich and
(03:17):
another important thing aboutlike what.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
What defines a lich is two things.
A lich is two things.
One is that, for all intentsand purposes, they are wizards.
They are wizards who havereached such an insane level
that death is almost meaninglessto them.
However, it's that almost thatmakes them interesting, because
(03:47):
other villains might be flawedor they might have good goals in
mind, but by being a lich, youare an undead creature and you
slowly, just like if you use theeye or the hand, you slowly
lose your humanity.
You go crazy.
You slowly lose your humanity,you go crazy.
(04:07):
And through that insanity, youare still a powerful wizard, but
you are willing to do more andmore worse things, and that is
why they are typically seen as alate game, final boss, big, bad
end game villain and I see them.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I see them in that way very much.
They're.
They're very nice, uh, end gamemonster, especially if paired
with a horde.
Now they do struggle with thething of like you do have to you
do have to play them with alike a, an army, because while
they are very cunning and verystrong, they fall into the
spellcaster issue if they havenearly no hit points, and I
(04:47):
talked about this in in thevideo that dropped on friday.
But liches are one of thosehumanoid monsters that I think
are a great example of somethingthat's often overlooked in the
community, that is, monstersvery much are meant to reflect
player characters.
They're supposed to be a level18 caster and thus they have the
same spell slots as a level 18character.
So if you want a bigger,stronger lich and you don't feel
(05:08):
like digging for a stat block,you can build out a level 20
wizard.
They just have less spellsavailable to them so that it's
easier to run combat, and Ithink that's something that's
often the community overlooked,because there's this very either
you swear by it or you hate itmentality around building
monsters as player characters,because definitely, if you go
(05:29):
look it up on reddit, there'ssome polar opinions in there and
dnd beyonds the same way.
Um.
So, with that being said, Ithink they are.
They're great, they're a greatthing to use, but you have to be
aware that they are, at the endof the day, based on a player
character and uh, you have.
They have to have at least oneminion with them, otherwise it's
(05:51):
just like if you tossed yourwizard into the middle of a pit
of goblins.
It's not gonna.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
It's not gonna go great you gotta think about that
turn economy you gotta thinkthey.
They can't just do it on theirown.
They're very dangerous on theirown.
But you got to also keep inmind the strength of your own
party.
If you're going to throw one in, if you don't think that, if
you know that the enemies arethey're able to handle, higher
(06:17):
to your enemies.
You got to keep that in mind.
You can't liches aren't just aone one and done they're oh well
.
Well, it's a lich, they're goingto be able to.
It's going to give them achallenge, no matter what.
It depends on yourcircumstances.
It also depends on your own.
You know train.
It depends on the setting.
(06:37):
It depends on yourcircumstances that you want to
throw in and you can make some.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
You can make that circumstance a lot better and
more in favor of the lich, or doother things like minions yeah,
and I would say like a rule ofthumb that I've kind of like
started to coin in some of myblog posts and my my videos is
kind of like for buildingmonsters, it's the rule of two
um.
And the reason I think that'sreally important is if I'm
(07:04):
having a level 15 party fight aone lich with no army, I'm going
to want them to be a level 15or 16 party, because a two level
disparity in D&D is justabsolutely massive.
It's way bigger than you thinkit's going to be, whereas if
you're going to have a level 18party fighting it, it has to be
(07:24):
a level 20 lich or you're goingto have to have multiple level
15 liches or level 14 liches sothat you don't overwhelm them.
Turn economy.
I I found that two level gaps,if you're building them out as a
player character, is a good, agood rule of thumb.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
In my personal experience I found that's
usually making it challengingand then I can affect the number
a little bit and tweak it sothat it's either more enemies or
less which makes sense for you,considering that you like to
turn enemies, monster, statblocks and turn them into player
characters to better flesh themout and give them some
(08:01):
abilities that the playercharacters might have.
This makes sense that you wouldwant them two levels ahead of
the party.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, and definitely part of the reason I'll even
write.
I have been looking for D&D tomake me a new character sheet.
I do want a new character sheet, but at the end of the day I
think I will.
Often when I make a video witha custom monster in it or a blog
post, I'll put them into themonster stat block because
that's what people are used to.
(08:28):
But a big advice I have for alot of newer DMs and something I
do for myself it's a lot easierto remember your villains, like
personality traits, if youbuild it out on the character
sheet, and sometimes it can beeasier for me to remember
certain checks.
So that's why I usually take mybig bad and at least move them
over to a character sheet.
I won't do it for every monster, but definitely for the ones
that are important dragons,liches, any of the, any of the
(08:52):
like really thought out onesthat I'm planning on doing a
story piece with.
That is something that I makesure that is in there at all
times.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Personally, and one.
One problem with liches thatwhen you do kind of put them
into a stat block it helps with,is the fact that it's D&D will
say a monster.
Is this difficulty?
But that's if you are playinghim somewhat optimally.
(09:23):
It's very easy when you havejust spells to forget all of the
spells.
Like if you look at the unicorn, there are so many different
spells that can be very helpful,but you have to remember them.
You have to remember them offthe top of your head If you're
not like staring at it, or ifyou're trying like staring at it
(09:44):
, or if you're trying to makecombat run faster or it's very
just easy in general, just to belike, oh, I could have, I could
have had the, the unicorn dothis and this would have made
the fight more fun, morememorable, and it's tougher that
way.
But when you build it as like aplayer character sheet, it's
(10:05):
because you're interacting withit more than just staring at an
image it's harder to forgeteverything it can do yeah, and I
would say a big important thingto remember when you're
building them out is just likein the player's handbook.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
You have to remember to actually sit down and look at
that stat block and make theconscious decision to go okay, I
can have every single spellprepared Wizards are able to do
that.
I should not have more thanfive level three spells prepared
, and that is where you have tolimit yourself and pick and
(10:40):
choose, because if you takeevery spell you can and every
spell that could be helpful,you're going to run into
paralysis.
Your dnd players only have toconsider what they're gonna do
on their turn.
They don't have to think aboutlike anybody else.
They don't have to payattention during other people's
turns as much.
They can kind of brain brainoff and think about what they're
(11:01):
going to do in the next turnorder.
You don't have have that luxury.
So a big thing that I recommendDMs do is cut the spell list to
the same number that liches inthe book have and do one, maybe
two, but do not exceed five in aspecific slot because you'll
just forget them.
You're going to spend yourentire combat like trying to
(11:22):
decide what the lich is doingwhile your players are beating
on it and you're going to bereally, really confused, and
that's something I did.
So that that's speaking frompersonal opinion.
I sat there for like 20 minutesduring the lich's turn trying
to figure out what I was goingto cast, and that's.
That's not fun for your players.
So keep it, keep it minimal.
Um, I mean, they have a.
(11:43):
If you, if you're running alevel 21, I oftentimes won't
give them level 20 spellsbecause I think they're too
strong, and so when I'm runninga lich, especially a strong lich
, I'll actually cast a fireballwith a level 20 spell slot,
which is, that's a personalthing of like I'll use a low
level spell and I'll cast itwith a very high level spell
(12:05):
slot, because there's no pointto giving a lich a level, a
level nine spell.
You're just going to use powerword kill and one of your
players is going to be gone,that's.
That's like really the only onethat's super effective, unless
you're going to make a gate andhave him run away from the
players in which then why?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
and that's.
That's neat.
Also, a lot of liches.
Some might tend to just runaway but other ones are gonna
say I die, oh no, because lichesare tough to kill.
But I really like your idea ofusing some of the lower tier
spells, especially somethinglike fireball or the thunderbolt
(12:46):
spell, because those are spellsthat the party will both have
and they'll notice.
They will see the gravity ofhow magically powerful this guy
is based on how many die you arerolling at such a high level
there's a, uh, there's a tiktok.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I came across the other day where they were like,
uh, dragon's breath weapon doesit was like a psychotic one.
Uh, it does like 120 damage andthey're like I succeeded the
save and they go.
That was halved and I'm justlike you can doing it with like
a save throw.
One can be really funny forthat reason of just like if
somebody saves, you just tellthem the saved amount.
(13:28):
They're gonna be like, oh good,it's half that.
Then you just turn the coin onthem and I feel like that's a
really funny moment for me as adm and that's more of me looking
for my enjoyment out of thegame.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It's the prequel meme of oh I, I get to have that
right.
Yeah, I get to have that rightand that's so funny, but also
especially with those two spellsin particular that you said
that those are two spells thatreally scale well late game
because they as older spells,wizards wants those to be in the
(14:03):
power creep regardless of thedirection they go.
So those are really good spellsto do that with, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, I think liches are a lot of fun for that.
They have so muchcustomizability.
And I mean, personally, myfavorite lich is probably Saztam
from the Sword Coast, butthat's just because I like the
setting of the Sword Coast.
Do you have a particularfavorite, one of all time?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Well, vagna definitely comes to mind, but
Vagna comes to mind in sort ofthe same vein as Saztam, but
also differently.
Saztam is very much a buildingup villain and very dangerous
and very neat because of howlittle you see of him, but yet
(14:55):
you feel his influence.
So much Vakna, you feel hisinfluence, but this, this goes
back into the old D&D lore wherethere was a magic council that
were all of the wizards fromGary Gygax's original game when
(15:16):
he was first helping to buildFirst Edition, and this is where
, like Tensor was on that, Ithink Mordenkainen was on that
as well yeah and it's a fewother of his like characters,
like I think there might havebeen like a warlock one or sort
in a sorcerer.
You know every different classhe he had to make.
He had to make a character foreach class and to play test it
(15:38):
and they all became a part ofthe council.
Vacna shows up for the firsttime and obliterates all of
these old council members.
These are very, very powerfulwizards.
So vacna became very infamousbecause you could see how
(16:00):
powerful those guys were andcompare it to him.
So, that being said, I think indnd lore, vekna is a pretty
cool guy, especially since he'sone of those characters that
only until fifth edition did weget a stat block for.
Yeah, whereas characters thatlike if you listen to our
(16:22):
dragons episode, we have vaguelya stat block for tm, and like
bahamut the gods, but we haven'thad an official official
release since.
Was it second, third edition?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
uh, the last time we got bahamut was second edition,
a second edition before.
He was a god same with tmat,because tiamat's really
interesting of.
She is the protector of thefirst layer of hell and she
doesn't have five heads anymore,she has an, it would seem,
described as seemingly aninfinite number, and they're all
(16:57):
different colors and they canchange what colors they are and
her scales shine with differentcolors.
She is every single dragon nowand that's not something that
they really want you fighting,because if you're in the Nine
Lairs of Hell and you'refighting the actual Tiamat, not
just one of the avatars like wesee in the Rise of Tiamat,
(17:17):
there's no way you're going tosurvive.
She's surrounded by otherancient dragons.
I think she keeps 22 of them onstaff at every point, so you're
fighting 22 ancient dragons anda god themself.
I don't think that's somethingwhere the average party, I don't
even think a level 20 party canreally survive that.
So it's very heavily impliedthat you're gonna have to sneak
(17:39):
past tm at.
But you could always go back tothat second edition stat blocks
.
I just feel like it's a littleoutdated with her current lore
and that's very intentional.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It's very intentional to make some very powerful
beings, whether they are humansor whether they are gods or
dragons or liches, to make itvague and obscure so that you,
we don't truly know, you can'tquantify.
Oh well, my character can.
(18:09):
My character has killed Vecnabefore in a campaign.
So that's really why stuff likethat happens.
But in fiction in general, onethat I think people kind of
sometimes forget about or don'tapply the same kind of thought
as to what a lich is to othercharacters outside of D&D, and
(18:32):
that is Voldemort.
So if you look at Voldemort,lax humanity slowly has molded
into this dark, undead creature.
It is also an undead being.
If you look at Vecna and thenyou look at Voldemort, I mean
even visually they both don'thave noses and I think that's a
(18:57):
very intentional thing that they, if you are a lich, you don't
get a nose.
You just there's no noses, it'sa no nose club, you just
breathe through holes.
That's it.
Yeah, that loss of empathy, thatloss of care, that intense,
(19:34):
extreme power, that rise topower to the point that you
yourself, when you startedbecoming a wizard, and yourself
now, there are very twodifferent people if it's even
the same body, two differentpeople, if it's even the same
body, because one thing that wasmentioned before is that liches
have this, this object.
Typically it's a jar.
Do you remember the name of it?
The phylactery, the phylactery,um, the phylactery.
This is basically the lich'sway of getting out of bad
(20:00):
situations.
In a dire circumstance, theycan die, but then their soul, or
whatever parts of their soul,or even maybe half of their soul
, will then go to a phylactery,and then that phylactery opens
up, and now they are effectivelyin a new body.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, An important note about the phylactery, too,
is that's part of the ritual tobecome a lich is you have to
make a phylactery and itactually has to constantly be
fed in order for the lich tostay alive.
And this comes back to how torun a lich.
The reason for them to leavetheir giant castle on the hill
is they have to collect souls tokeep the phylactery alive.
And this comes back to how torun a lich.
The reason for them to leavetheir giant castle on the hill
is they have to collect souls tokeep the phylactery alive.
(20:44):
So their goal and why they'releaving is just to collect more
souls, because what happens whenthey die is they may die.
Their soul goes into thephylactery and it repairs them
from the energy of the soulsthat they've collected in the
phylactery.
So if a lich has just beenkilled, they're gonna have to go
(21:04):
out and harvest as many soulsas possible immediately after so
would you consider strad thevampire from curse of strad a
lich, or is he purely just avampire?
I would.
So this is this is kind ofinteresting.
I like to run strad as thoughhe is a vampire that is
(21:24):
approaching the end of his lifeand is looking to become a lich.
That's how I personally like torun him, but if we're just
looking objectively speaking, Iwould say he is a vampire in and
of itself, because vampires anddnd use people's souls to keep
them alive more than blood, likeyou see in other other medias.
(21:45):
So I would say, personally, Ilike to run him as though he's
trying to be a lich, but he isnot a lich, and I think that's
important to like set aside assomething that is distinct,
because he is a very powerfulcharacter and he's one that
you're gonna see a lot I thinkan interesting idea as dungeon
(22:08):
inspiration, um, is the ideathat since it's a wizard, well
that doesn't mean that that as awizard you necessarily have to
fully research necromancy,especially if you consider how
much time has passed in the 5esetting.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We already know how you become a lich.
So at this point, if, let's say, you do use the forgotten coast
or the forgotten realms and asa setting or just do this as in
general for your game is, youcould have a wizard who, let's
say, he specializes in, we'lljust throw a random one in there
(22:52):
, like like a psionic wizard orsomething, yeah, um, and that
that's really their forte.
But they do enough research asthey have become a level 18,
level 20 wizard.
Oh well, let's just become alich and we can just keep going.
And so maybe you would designyour lich to specifically have
(23:15):
spells that are, while he is anundead creature, a humanoid,
most of the spells that he hasare actually geared towards his
main focus of research yeah, andan important thing to remember
is fizbin, for example, who isbahamut, the platinum dragon's
(23:35):
avatar.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Um avatar states in the Fizbin's Treasury of Dragons
book that he finds anyincarnation of a reincarnated
dragon to be an abomination.
Same is true for Tiamat.
They both think they'reabominations that shouldn't
exist.
But that's not to say that ablack dragon would not study it
(23:58):
and potentially turn themselvesinto a lich or help a human
become a lich.
So let's say that you don'thave any experience in
necromancy, but you're a wizard.
They could always have paid fora dragon to help them or for
one of the red wizards of Thayto help them.
There are other routes for thembecoming a lich than them
(24:20):
themselves doing it.
I think that's important toremember if you want to break
from that and have a veryspecific character, be a lich in
the late game as a fight.
There are ways to do it.
It just requires a lot morethought on the lore side of
things, which I mean.
That's not a bad thing.
I like creating lore, lore, sothat's where I'm going to spend
(24:42):
more time on that, whereas otherpeople may not.
And that's really importantbecause if you think of it that
way, then because becoming alich requires a ritual that
requires more than one persontoo.
If you're looking at it fromthat perspective, then the mayor
(25:03):
, the king who's been justcaught or unveiled by your party
as interacting with a redwizard of Thay then there's a
lot more suspicion on that kingand it's a lot bigger concern
Because while in 5e all licheshave to be wizards, there are
(25:24):
other people on the internet Iknow, I know pointy hat, the
youtube channel pointy hat.
He has been going through makingliches for every single class
so that every single class canturn themselves into a lich, and
I think that's really cool,especially as a base idea,
because if they had the help ofa wizard, it would be a lot
easier for them to become.
That's a nice lore reason whereyou can tie it in, because I
(25:46):
know, I think one of the firstones he ever did was a bard that
could be a lich, and that onewas really cool because in order
to be a lich, there has to besomething that's held on to that
a large amount of people holdonto from you, or a memory or a
thought of you, in order to stayalive on top of the phylactery.
His idea for a bard was reallyunique because it was a song.
(26:09):
As long as people rememberedyour song, you stayed alive, and
that's really kind of a uniqueidea and I think there's lots of
avenues for having liches ofother classes hear me out star
spangled banner is a lich song.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
You just, you just turn a country's uh, you, you,
if you're a bard you're gonnawrite national anthem.
You just turn that into somehowincorporating your ability to
turn into a lich and you areunkillable.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I mean that would actually be really cool because
I know some people like to docampaigns in like colonial
America or in like Civil WarAmerica.
That would be a really uniquething to do.
There was a TV show and I knowit's, it was fairly popular on
fox.
It was called uh, what was it?
Sleepy hollow I think it waswhich was a supernatural show
(27:06):
about a time trial, about like aguy from the revolutionary war
who woke up in modern day andthey explored all of these ooky
spooky things around, like thefounding fathers and whatnot and
like.
It was very much a very likeooky spooky, heavily like
Christian mythology show and itwas kind of it was okay.
(27:27):
It wasn't my favorite show ofall time, but it was okay and if
you look at it from kind ofthat perspective, you could do
something cool like that of justlike placing yourself in
medieval france france'soriginal national anthem, the
guy who created still alive anddo like a fantasy france or a
fantasy america.
(27:48):
That could be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I think that that holds a lot of merit and could
be interesting yeah, and andanother like idea that you could
do is which different mediumshave played around with this
before.
But maybe the Lich's body isunable to move, but he still
affects the world via justmerely casting magic alone.
(28:13):
And his range, since he'sbecome so powerful, not just his
castle, but perhaps an entirenation sauron the dark lord.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I'm sorry, what did I say?
Uh, anyways, no, that's.
That's something you definitelysee in lord of the rings,
because I would say sauron's inthat category.
He is a necromancer, hisphylactery would be the one ring
, um, and he has split his soulup into multiple pieces, um, and
used, like both psionic andnecromantic powers, to make
people wither, lose their mindif they're touching it, and have
(28:45):
this impulse to bring it back.
And then he also created thenazgul, using the same rings and
enslaved them to help him.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I think that sauron is one of the original liches
from fantasy, uh, and I thinkthat that's like a really good
way to look at it is thosewraiths it's interesting how,
with all of like the what weconsider fantasy liches, how,
whether they're in dnd or not,with zaz tam vankna, voldemort
(29:15):
or saauron, they all have suchboth minor and major influence
around the world that almost tome sounds like a way of
quantifying what makes a lich alich is that their danger is not
just from their magicthemselves but their ability to
(29:37):
control others.
You know, people are scared ofvoldemort.
The, the nazgul are seenthroughout the entire lord of
the rings they have.
They're prepared for the age oforcs.
There's different groups whoare terrified of the ring.
Yeah, and they always.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
You always know, throughout the entire series
that he is watching yeah, he'swatching at all times and he can
see everything and invadepeople's minds the same way that
I think I think that's actuallythe one that, uh, quantifies a
little bit more is whetheryou're going with pointy hats
idea of a bard, or like anartificer, or even like he did
(30:22):
one for a druid, where their,their phylactery literally
becomes the forest they'reprotecting and so they're
trapped in the force.
I thought that one was reallycool.
No matter what media you lookat, yeah, they have influence
over the world, but no matterwhat, every incarnation of a
lich that I've seen be made in.
One of the quantifying thingsis the ability to control
others' minds, the ability topeer into dreams or, in some way
(30:46):
, shape or form, get intoothers' heads, and I think that
that is the more quantifyingthing for a lich is.
A lich is an undead monster thathas access to another being's
mind and memories.
That has access to anotherbeing's mind and memories, and
that's a lot scarier.
I think that's a lot scarierquantifying thing because I
can't even like even Voldemort.
Voldemort invaded people'smemories.
(31:07):
He invaded Harry's mind and hisdreams.
If you think about Sauron,frodo was constantly being
horrified.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You put that ring on and you see that imagery of the
eye and he knows roughly whereyou're at yeah and then, as will
, they will follow, they willcome and even golem.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Think about it.
Golem still had dreams fromsauron long after the ring was
separated from him by uh,frodo's grandfather.
Uh, uncle, uncle, can't.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Bilbo was his uncle, I think I'm pretty sure it was
his uncle I can never rememberthat family tree.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
But, like again, even if you're looking at the hobbit
, it's like it is alwayssomething that I think.
I don't think I've seen a lichin pop culture and please,
people leave comments and chat.
There's a different mentality,but like I don't think I've seen
one, I would be interested inseeing a version now here's an
interesting thought, because wetalked about the hand and eye of
(32:06):
vakna.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I think you used vakna's like old name at the
start of the episode.
Um, in the deep lore I thoughtyou said like thay or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Uh, well, the red, well, the Red Wizards of Thay
are separate.
Those are under Sastan.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
So, with Vakna and the eye and the hand, how they
affect you as a person, wouldyou consider and this is
probably the inspiration forthose two items is it's the ring
of Sauron and it corruptedGollum to such an extent.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Now I think let's hate liches.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
So we were talking about how cool they could be and
how they could be a big badendgame and how they talk about
death a lot but big bad end gameand how they talk about death a
lot.
But I think liches are similarto something like the.
Nagas is something where theyare tied to the, the lore, and
(33:14):
if you want to run a lich that'simpactful, you have to at least
incorporate some of that loreand some of that mechanics and
really flesh out that lich.
I think that what a problemthat a lot of campaigns run into
is.
They will say here's acharacter and they are a lich,
(33:37):
good luck.
And I don't think that's asimpactful and I think that's
part of the reason why liches ingeneral are starting to kind of
get, would you say, like a badname or, I think, just an
overused, over generic.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I think they have become the boring.
I don't want to fight thisanymore, and unfortunately,
that's the truth.
What's kind of funny is nowit's starting to swap roles with
my mind flares again,especially because of uh,
because of a certain netflixshow a certain, uh, a certain
game too, oh, well there's gatetoo.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I didn't even think about that one mind.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Flayers were really, really overused for a long time.
They were the dnd monster upthere with beholders and dragons
, um, and then 5e came aroundand people started using them a
lot less, even though there's alot of really cool monsters
around them, like the uh, theelder dragon, which is has an
(34:40):
elder brain grafted into adragon's back and it breathes
psionic tadpoles.
That thing is horrifying there'sa beholder tied to them as well
, or maybe I'm thinking of theum uh, that's a, so that's a
little different and and we'llmention that one a little more
in the beholder episode butroughly beholders reproduced by
dreams and they have thisinstinct to kill each other on
(35:02):
sight, which is why the world'snot flooding with them.
But if a Beholder hasnightmares of a mind flare, it
will create a mind flareBeholder.
Same thing with the DracoBeholder or whatever.
It is, again, really reallycommon.
And there's a lich beholder too, and the lich beholder I want I
(35:23):
wrote this down to mention inthe beholder episode that'll
come out next week the the lichbeholder is trap.
It's a really big trap becausethey only have four eye stocks,
um, but they have a lot lowernumber of rays, so there's a 1
in 4 chance to vaporize one ofyour players.
So for a CR5 monster thatshouldn't be a thing.
(35:44):
So we'll get a little more indepth on that next week.
But I definitely think that MindFlayers have kind of taken the
Lich's place a little bit andit's kind of funny that they've
kind of swapped roles.
And I think the important partis, if you're going to run a
lich and you don't want it to becliche, you need to sit down
(36:04):
and build the lore out and maybeconsider doing like a barbarian
one and go I mean, I know I'mplugging on the youtube channel
go to pointy hats video on that.
Like he did a really good jobof building those out and I
think they're a lot of fun forvillains.
Now would I ever give them to aplayer as an option to play and
turn themselves into a lich ina high level campaign?
(36:26):
Probably not.
Um, I think it's a really greatepilogue.
I don't think it's something Iwould let them play with, though
for a long period of time,because I feel like once you've
become a Lich, there's no dangerleft to fight.
I think that that would be likeif that's their end goal of the
campaign, they can work towardsbecoming a Lich within the
(36:47):
party and they can work with theparty towards their goals.
Just like usually at mosthigh-level campaigns, you're
ending it off by everybodyhelping each other get to their
final goals.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I think that's fine, but actually letting them turn
into a lich and keep playing asa lich I would not do because I
this is one of those, like Iwould say, a critical role style
.
Well, hey, we, we finished thegame and and this one character
wants to become a lich.
Well, if we're going to do likea one-off, that's like set five
years in the future, well then,yeah, you get some lich stuff.
(37:18):
You know this.
This, this isn't going to be adanger filled session
necessarily.
This is going to be a fun, youknow, one-time reunion tour and
we're not really set for anybodydying.
But you're going to experiencesome challenges for sure yeah,
and that's that.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
That just comes down to how I like to run my
campaigns personally.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I did have a player once who this was a DM, who they
were running a wizard, and theDM would subtly, over the course
of the game, hand themnecromancy spells to kind of get
them towards that track, and soyou saw the hints of it and you
saw them.
You know, using stuff likeChill Touch and using stuff like
Inflict Wounds, what are someother?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Oh, False Life.
False Life is a great one.
Scorching Chromatic Ray has onethat's uh necrotic damage.
That is specifically for liches.
Uh, there's I'm trying to thinkof some higher level ones.
Turn undead is a cleric one,but that's more to like stop the
undead.
It's a class ability, but Ihave seen it used by
(38:38):
necromancers as well.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
If you have emphasis over the undead, then it would
make sense that you would beable to both give them undead
life and taketh away that undeadlife.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That's actually something that I didn't even
think to write down.
In older editions of D&D therewas a god whose clerics would
commonly become liches.
I can't remember the god, butit's the god of death.
It was very common for him tobring his followers back to life
and they would live on asimmortal things.
(39:11):
It's a little different than alich, because of the fact that
they don't have a phylactery,they don't have to go through
the whole thing, they don't havecontrol over people's minds
that they don't have aphylactery, they don't have to
go through the whole thing, theydon't have control over
people's minds and like they'revery narrow, but it is an undead
that retains its memory andretains its mind.
It's the only time where youreally see that, other than
Naga's, that cycle of rebirth- Ihave a really really, really
(39:35):
hot take here.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
This is the hottest take of the episode.
Like we are about to fight asolar dragon level of hot take
okay oh god say, say the hottake, I'm ready.
So so naruto?
Oh god, no.
Anytime they use a chakra ninjaability to bring back someone
(40:00):
from the dead, including aformer hokage, we're gonna have
to scrap this whole episode.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
It's all right, I apologize everybody in short, uh
, no, in short, no, because inmy mind, part of being a lich is
intentional and also those arefor very short times.
I would view that very similarto like uh, the ring that allows
you to the ring, or thetalisman that lets you ask three
(40:35):
questions and then they dieagain.
I would.
I would view it in the same way, because in naruto it's a very
brief time that they come backto life, unless you're referring
to madara, specifically madaraduring the war, or maybe madara
I would consider, because heplanned everything, got himself
reincarnated, stole the eyes ofthe renegade and forcefully
(40:59):
rebirthed himself.
So would I consider madara alich?
You could make the argument tome that madara is a lich.
If you're trying to say thatminato, naruto's dad, is a lich,
you're wrong.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
No, he's not no, yeah , no, that's the one I'd say no
to.
He's the zombie that the Lichbrings back.
It is the caster of theninjutsu that would.
I feel like it's adjacentBecause is there a cost to the
thing we?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
are going really off track.
In short, naruto has a reallynice explanation of all of it,
where you have to be able toaccess the person's soul, it's
for a limited time and it doeshave costs involved and because
of that, I would say that thatperson doing that ninjutsu is a
(41:55):
necromancer.
I would not say that they are alich.
But, madara, you could make anargument that Madara is an
example of a lich that kind ofis separate from all of the
other ones we've talked about inthis episode, because he did it
through a very different means,but I would consider him more
along the lines of what like anaga is, rather than a lich.
(42:18):
Um, because and I'll get moreinto this on the nagas they they
go through a perpetual cycle ofdeath and rebirth, like a
phoenix does, and I would.
I would say you could make anargument.
The modder is either of those,but at the end of the day,
modder is something different.
So, whatever you wanna,whatever you want to say he is,
(42:41):
you can say he is.
He's one of those ones where Idon't really know where I'd
place him.
But if we're talking about theHokages no, I would not say any
of the Hokages that were broughtback in Naruto would be liches,
and that's a good thing in myopinion.
I think it's good that showsdeviate from the idea of a
generic lich.
(43:02):
I think they are very overusedat this point and I think Harry
Potter did it really well.
If you consider Voldemort, Ithink Lord of the Rings was the
original, so I think Sauron wasincredibly well done.
What's a more recent one thathas one in it?
Uh, other than dnd adjacent?
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I can't think of one off the top of my head um, there
was one in stranger thingswasn't there, but that's dnd
adjacent isn't it?
I would say that's dnd adjacentum, doctor who has a couple of
them that are liches that Iwould consider liches that are
pretty good.
New Doctor who, specifically,has some really good new ones,
(43:46):
but other than that, I would say, overall different.
Now let's get off on anotherside tangent, because I feel
like it, before we wrap theepisode With your hot take about
the Hokageage's, would youconsider the dinosaurs from
jurassic park liches no,absolutely not would you?
Would you consider?
Speaker 2 (44:07):
the scientists are not liches either oh okay,
because they're not undeadthey're not undead, they're they
.
They are crazy merely by theirown humanity, like they still
have humanity they stillrecognize.
At the end, oh, we should nothave tempted the fate of the
natural world and think we couldcontrol it.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
No, oh, I thought of another one that is not D&D
adjacent but does have lichesthat are done very, very well
Fallout.
The Fallout game franchise hassome really well done liches
that are completely separatetheir own ideation, but they're
really well done.
Liches that are completelyseparate their own ideation, but
they're really well done.
Um, and with that I thinkthat's kind of the, the, the
overarching like view of lichesand kind of I think we got into
(44:48):
a lot of really good ways to runthem.
Uh, if you enjoyed this video,make sure that you check out our
youtube channel.
We try to put out uh videos aswell as this podcast, uh, weekly
to kind of help give peopleinspiration for things to run in
their campaigns.
And if you liked this, feelfree to check out our other ones
.
And then we appreciate ourpeople over on Patreon, where we
do release articles ondifferent topics in D&D and give
(45:10):
pamphlets for people to kind ofgive out to their players and
try to help out other DMs.
So with that, I hope you have agreat rest of your day and we
will see you in the next one.
This may be a very hot take, but I think liches are
something that's becoming waytoo popular in most forms of
media.
Not that they're not good, butI definitely think they're
starting to be a little overused, and I know that that's kind of
a weird take from me, someonethat likes dragons, because
dragons are your stereotypicalmonster.
But overall I think they'restarting to reach this point
(00:26):
where they're no longer D&D'slike exclusive and premiere,
like end game boss, like theyused to be.
What are your kind of thoughts?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
well, I think, uh, I think part of the problem with
liches is that it's a very easygo-to in terms of creating a
dangerous villain that can be ajack of all trades yeah, and I,
I think it.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I think it definitely has a lot of merit to being and
I mean, they've been aroundsince first edition being your
end boss.
There are some that are justnamed characters that are very,
very prevalent in the story.
Um, I know the ruler of thay isa is a lich, and I wrote his
name down because I'm gettingbetter.
It's uh, snaz tam, I think.
(01:11):
What, however you pronouncethat, sazaz?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
tam.
Is it sazaz tam?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I think it's sazaz tam, but I'm not confident in
that time to roll it back andwatch the dnd movie and figure
it out from there, because hewas the villain in that movie
too and he's probably myfavorite villain merely because
you can see how dangerous alower tier lich can be.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
If you even want to spoil it this is heavy spoilers
for the dnd movie but if youwant to uh see how dangerous a
lower tier lich is, then youhave the D&D movie.
That really exemplifies howcunning and how intelligent they
can be.
And that isn't even the mainguy.
(01:55):
Zaz Tam is somewhere out thereand he has so much influence
that you see him, but onlymerely in the shadows.
I think the thing that makeszaz tam so interesting is they
build him out really well inthat movie while not showing you
almost anything about him.
(02:16):
But you see his influence.
It's that influential dangerthat you can only see him in the
shadows, and it's only his cold, the dead, undead eyes yeah,
and I definitely see where hehas had a lot of impact.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I mean, any named lich has had massive impact in
the dnd world.
So, like another one is of khan, I think is pronounced is how
it's pronounced.
But like he started out infirst edition as two magic items
the hand and the eye and whatwas really interesting about it
when it was a magic item was, inorder to use the eye, you
literally had to carve out yourown eye and put his eye in its
(02:53):
place, or cut off your arm anduse his arm, and it would give
you a lot of powers, but youwould lose a piece of your
humanity, which is where it hadreally nice trade-off from a
story perspective is you startedto lose your humanity, but he's
been around since first editionand now he's a bad guy in one
of the pre-made campaigns, whichis really interesting to think
about.
That.
They've kind of gone fullcircle with that, that lich and
(03:17):
another important thing aboutlike what.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
What defines a lich is two things.
A lich is two things.
One is that, for all intentsand purposes, they are wizards.
They are wizards who havereached such an insane level
that death is almost meaninglessto them.
However, it's that almost thatmakes them interesting, because
(03:47):
other villains might be flawedor they might have good goals in
mind, but by being a lich, youare an undead creature and you
slowly, just like if you use theeye or the hand, you slowly
lose your humanity.
You go crazy.
You slowly lose your humanity,you go crazy.
(04:07):
And through that insanity, youare still a powerful wizard, but
you are willing to do more andmore worse things, and that is
why they are typically seen as alate game, final boss, big, bad
end game villain and I see them.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I see them in that way very much.
They're.
They're very nice, uh, end gamemonster, especially if paired
with a horde.
Now they do struggle with thething of like you do have to you
do have to play them with alike a, an army, because while
they are very cunning and verystrong, they fall into the
spellcaster issue if they havenearly no hit points, and I
(04:47):
talked about this in in thevideo that dropped on friday.
But liches are one of thosehumanoid monsters that I think
are a great example of somethingthat's often overlooked in the
community, that is, monstersvery much are meant to reflect
player characters.
They're supposed to be a level18 caster and thus they have the
same spell slots as a level 18character.
So if you want a bigger,stronger lich and you don't feel
(05:08):
like digging for a stat block,you can build out a level 20
wizard.
They just have less spellsavailable to them so that it's
easier to run combat, and Ithink that's something that's
often the community overlooked,because there's this very either
you swear by it or you hate itmentality around building
monsters as player characters,because definitely, if you go
(05:29):
look it up on reddit, there'ssome polar opinions in there and
dnd beyonds the same way.
Um.
So, with that being said, Ithink they are.
They're great, they're a greatthing to use, but you have to be
aware that they are, at the endof the day, based on a player
character and uh, you have.
They have to have at least oneminion with them, otherwise it's
(05:51):
just like if you tossed yourwizard into the middle of a pit
of goblins.
It's not gonna.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
It's not gonna go great you gotta think about that
turn economy you gotta thinkthey.
They can't just do it on theirown.
They're very dangerous on theirown.
But you got to also keep inmind the strength of your own
party.
If you're going to throw one in, if you don't think that, if
you know that the enemies arethey're able to handle, higher
(06:17):
to your enemies.
You got to keep that in mind.
You can't liches aren't just aone one and done they're oh well
.
Well, it's a lich, they're goingto be able to.
It's going to give them achallenge, no matter what.
It depends on yourcircumstances.
It also depends on your own.
You know train.
It depends on the setting.
(06:37):
It depends on yourcircumstances that you want to
throw in and you can make some.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
You can make that circumstance a lot better and
more in favor of the lich, or doother things like minions yeah,
and I would say like a rule ofthumb that I've kind of like
started to coin in some of myblog posts and my my videos is
kind of like for buildingmonsters, it's the rule of two
um.
And the reason I think that'sreally important is if I'm
(07:04):
having a level 15 party fight aone lich with no army, I'm going
to want them to be a level 15or 16 party, because a two level
disparity in D&D is justabsolutely massive.
It's way bigger than you thinkit's going to be, whereas if
you're going to have a level 18party fighting it, it has to be
(07:24):
a level 20 lich or you're goingto have to have multiple level
15 liches or level 14 liches sothat you don't overwhelm them.
Turn economy.
I I found that two level gaps,if you're building them out as a
player character, is a good, agood rule of thumb.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
In my personal experience I found that's
usually making it challengingand then I can affect the number
a little bit and tweak it sothat it's either more enemies or
less which makes sense for you,considering that you like to
turn enemies, monster, statblocks and turn them into player
characters to better flesh themout and give them some
(08:01):
abilities that the playercharacters might have.
This makes sense that you wouldwant them two levels ahead of
the party.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, and definitely part of the reason I'll even
write.
I have been looking for D&D tomake me a new character sheet.
I do want a new character sheet, but at the end of the day I
think I will.
Often when I make a video witha custom monster in it or a blog
post, I'll put them into themonster stat block because
that's what people are used to.
(08:28):
But a big advice I have for alot of newer DMs and something I
do for myself it's a lot easierto remember your villains, like
personality traits, if youbuild it out on the character
sheet, and sometimes it can beeasier for me to remember
certain checks.
So that's why I usually take mybig bad and at least move them
over to a character sheet.
I won't do it for every monster, but definitely for the ones
that are important dragons,liches, any of the, any of the
(08:52):
like really thought out onesthat I'm planning on doing a
story piece with.
That is something that I makesure that is in there at all
times.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Personally, and one.
One problem with liches thatwhen you do kind of put them
into a stat block it helps with,is the fact that it's D&D will
say a monster.
Is this difficulty?
But that's if you are playinghim somewhat optimally.
(09:23):
It's very easy when you havejust spells to forget all of the
spells.
Like if you look at the unicorn, there are so many different
spells that can be very helpful,but you have to remember them.
You have to remember them offthe top of your head If you're
not like staring at it, or ifyou're trying like staring at it
(09:44):
, or if you're trying to makecombat run faster or it's very
just easy in general, just to belike, oh, I could have, I could
have had the, the unicorn dothis and this would have made
the fight more fun, morememorable, and it's tougher that
way.
But when you build it as like aplayer character sheet, it's
(10:05):
because you're interacting withit more than just staring at an
image it's harder to forgeteverything it can do yeah, and I
would say a big important thingto remember when you're
building them out is just likein the player's handbook.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
You have to remember to actually sit down and look at
that stat block and make theconscious decision to go okay, I
can have every single spellprepared Wizards are able to do
that.
I should not have more thanfive level three spells prepared
, and that is where you have tolimit yourself and pick and
(10:40):
choose, because if you takeevery spell you can and every
spell that could be helpful,you're going to run into
paralysis.
Your dnd players only have toconsider what they're gonna do
on their turn.
They don't have to think aboutlike anybody else.
They don't have to payattention during other people's
turns as much.
They can kind of brain brainoff and think about what they're
(11:01):
going to do in the next turnorder.
You don't have have that luxury.
So a big thing that I recommendDMs do is cut the spell list to
the same number that liches inthe book have and do one, maybe
two, but do not exceed five in aspecific slot because you'll
just forget them.
You're going to spend yourentire combat like trying to
(11:22):
decide what the lich is doingwhile your players are beating
on it and you're going to bereally, really confused, and
that's something I did.
So that that's speaking frompersonal opinion.
I sat there for like 20 minutesduring the lich's turn trying
to figure out what I was goingto cast, and that's.
That's not fun for your players.
So keep it, keep it minimal.
Um, I mean, they have a.
(11:43):
If you, if you're running alevel 21, I oftentimes won't
give them level 20 spellsbecause I think they're too
strong, and so when I'm runninga lich, especially a strong lich
, I'll actually cast a fireballwith a level 20 spell slot,
which is, that's a personalthing of like I'll use a low
level spell and I'll cast itwith a very high level spell
(12:05):
slot, because there's no pointto giving a lich a level, a
level nine spell.
You're just going to use powerword kill and one of your
players is going to be gone,that's.
That's like really the only onethat's super effective, unless
you're going to make a gate andhave him run away from the
players in which then why?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
and that's.
That's neat.
Also, a lot of liches.
Some might tend to just runaway but other ones are gonna
say I die, oh no, because lichesare tough to kill.
But I really like your idea ofusing some of the lower tier
spells, especially somethinglike fireball or the thunderbolt
(12:46):
spell, because those are spellsthat the party will both have
and they'll notice.
They will see the gravity ofhow magically powerful this guy
is based on how many die you arerolling at such a high level
there's a, uh, there's a tiktok.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I came across the other day where they were like,
uh, dragon's breath weapon doesit was like a psychotic one.
Uh, it does like 120 damage andthey're like I succeeded the
save and they go.
That was halved and I'm justlike you can doing it with like
a save throw.
One can be really funny forthat reason of just like if
somebody saves, you just tellthem the saved amount.
(13:28):
They're gonna be like, oh good,it's half that.
Then you just turn the coin onthem and I feel like that's a
really funny moment for me as adm and that's more of me looking
for my enjoyment out of thegame.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It's the prequel meme of oh I, I get to have that
right.
Yeah, I get to have that rightand that's so funny, but also
especially with those two spellsin particular that you said
that those are two spells thatreally scale well late game
because they as older spells,wizards wants those to be in the
(14:03):
power creep regardless of thedirection they go.
So those are really good spellsto do that with, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, I think liches are a lot of fun for that.
They have so muchcustomizability.
And I mean, personally, myfavorite lich is probably Saztam
from the Sword Coast, butthat's just because I like the
setting of the Sword Coast.
Do you have a particularfavorite, one of all time?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Well, vagna definitely comes to mind, but
Vagna comes to mind in sort ofthe same vein as Saztam, but
also differently.
Saztam is very much a buildingup villain and very dangerous
and very neat because of howlittle you see of him, but yet
(14:55):
you feel his influence.
So much Vakna, you feel hisinfluence, but this, this goes
back into the old D&D lore wherethere was a magic council that
were all of the wizards fromGary Gygax's original game when
(15:16):
he was first helping to buildFirst Edition, and this is where
, like Tensor was on that, Ithink Mordenkainen was on that
as well yeah and it's a fewother of his like characters,
like I think there might havebeen like a warlock one or sort
in a sorcerer.
You know every different classhe he had to make.
He had to make a character foreach class and to play test it
(15:38):
and they all became a part ofthe council.
Vacna shows up for the firsttime and obliterates all of
these old council members.
These are very, very powerfulwizards.
So vacna became very infamousbecause you could see how
(16:00):
powerful those guys were andcompare it to him.
So, that being said, I think indnd lore, vekna is a pretty
cool guy, especially since he'sone of those characters that
only until fifth edition did weget a stat block for.
Yeah, whereas characters thatlike if you listen to our
(16:22):
dragons episode, we have vaguelya stat block for tm, and like
bahamut the gods, but we haven'thad an official official
release since.
Was it second, third edition?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
uh, the last time we got bahamut was second edition,
a second edition before.
He was a god same with tmat,because tiamat's really
interesting of.
She is the protector of thefirst layer of hell and she
doesn't have five heads anymore,she has an, it would seem,
described as seemingly aninfinite number, and they're all
(16:57):
different colors and they canchange what colors they are and
her scales shine with differentcolors.
She is every single dragon nowand that's not something that
they really want you fighting,because if you're in the Nine
Lairs of Hell and you'refighting the actual Tiamat, not
just one of the avatars like wesee in the Rise of Tiamat,
(17:17):
there's no way you're going tosurvive.
She's surrounded by otherancient dragons.
I think she keeps 22 of them onstaff at every point, so you're
fighting 22 ancient dragons anda god themself.
I don't think that's somethingwhere the average party, I don't
even think a level 20 party canreally survive that.
So it's very heavily impliedthat you're gonna have to sneak
(17:39):
past tm at.
But you could always go back tothat second edition stat blocks
.
I just feel like it's a littleoutdated with her current lore
and that's very intentional.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It's very intentional to make some very powerful
beings, whether they are humansor whether they are gods or
dragons or liches, to make itvague and obscure so that you,
we don't truly know, you can'tquantify.
Oh well, my character can.
(18:09):
My character has killed Vecnabefore in a campaign.
So that's really why stuff likethat happens.
But in fiction in general, onethat I think people kind of
sometimes forget about or don'tapply the same kind of thought
as to what a lich is to othercharacters outside of D&D, and
(18:32):
that is Voldemort.
So if you look at Voldemort,lax humanity slowly has molded
into this dark, undead creature.
It is also an undead being.
If you look at Vecna and thenyou look at Voldemort, I mean
even visually they both don'thave noses and I think that's a
(18:57):
very intentional thing that they, if you are a lich, you don't
get a nose.
You just there's no noses, it'sa no nose club, you just
breathe through holes.
That's it.
Yeah, that loss of empathy, thatloss of care, that intense,
(19:34):
extreme power, that rise topower to the point that you
yourself, when you startedbecoming a wizard, and yourself
now, there are very twodifferent people if it's even
the same body, two differentpeople, if it's even the same
body, because one thing that wasmentioned before is that liches
have this, this object.
Typically it's a jar.
Do you remember the name of it?
The phylactery, the phylactery,um, the phylactery.
This is basically the lich'sway of getting out of bad
(20:00):
situations.
In a dire circumstance, theycan die, but then their soul, or
whatever parts of their soul,or even maybe half of their soul
, will then go to a phylactery,and then that phylactery opens
up, and now they are effectivelyin a new body.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, An important note about the phylactery, too,
is that's part of the ritual tobecome a lich is you have to
make a phylactery and itactually has to constantly be
fed in order for the lich tostay alive.
And this comes back to how torun a lich.
The reason for them to leavetheir giant castle on the hill
is they have to collect souls tokeep the phylactery alive.
And this comes back to how torun a lich.
The reason for them to leavetheir giant castle on the hill
is they have to collect souls tokeep the phylactery alive.
(20:44):
So their goal and why they'releaving is just to collect more
souls, because what happens whenthey die is they may die.
Their soul goes into thephylactery and it repairs them
from the energy of the soulsthat they've collected in the
phylactery.
So if a lich has just beenkilled, they're gonna have to go
(21:04):
out and harvest as many soulsas possible immediately after so
would you consider strad thevampire from curse of strad a
lich, or is he purely just avampire?
I would.
So this is this is kind ofinteresting.
I like to run strad as thoughhe is a vampire that is
(21:24):
approaching the end of his lifeand is looking to become a lich.
That's how I personally like torun him, but if we're just
looking objectively speaking, Iwould say he is a vampire in and
of itself, because vampires anddnd use people's souls to keep
them alive more than blood, likeyou see in other other medias.
(21:45):
So I would say, personally, Ilike to run him as though he's
trying to be a lich, but he isnot a lich, and I think that's
important to like set aside assomething that is distinct,
because he is a very powerfulcharacter and he's one that
you're gonna see a lot I thinkan interesting idea as dungeon
(22:08):
inspiration, um, is the ideathat since it's a wizard, well
that doesn't mean that that as awizard you necessarily have to
fully research necromancy,especially if you consider how
much time has passed in the 5esetting.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We already know how you become a lich.
So at this point, if, let's say, you do use the forgotten coast
or the forgotten realms and asa setting or just do this as in
general for your game is, youcould have a wizard who, let's
say, he specializes in, we'lljust throw a random one in there
(22:52):
, like like a psionic wizard orsomething, yeah, um, and that
that's really their forte.
But they do enough research asthey have become a level 18,
level 20 wizard.
Oh well, let's just become alich and we can just keep going.
And so maybe you would designyour lich to specifically have
(23:15):
spells that are, while he is anundead creature, a humanoid,
most of the spells that he hasare actually geared towards his
main focus of research yeah, andan important thing to remember
is fizbin, for example, who isbahamut, the platinum dragon's
(23:35):
avatar.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Um avatar states in the Fizbin's Treasury of Dragons
book that he finds anyincarnation of a reincarnated
dragon to be an abomination.
Same is true for Tiamat.
They both think they'reabominations that shouldn't
exist.
But that's not to say that ablack dragon would not study it
(23:58):
and potentially turn themselvesinto a lich or help a human
become a lich.
So let's say that you don'thave any experience in
necromancy, but you're a wizard.
They could always have paid fora dragon to help them or for
one of the red wizards of Thayto help them.
There are other routes for thembecoming a lich than them
(24:20):
themselves doing it.
I think that's important toremember if you want to break
from that and have a veryspecific character, be a lich in
the late game as a fight.
There are ways to do it.
It just requires a lot morethought on the lore side of
things, which I mean.
That's not a bad thing.
I like creating lore, lore, sothat's where I'm going to spend
(24:42):
more time on that, whereas otherpeople may not.
And that's really importantbecause if you think of it that
way, then because becoming alich requires a ritual that
requires more than one persontoo.
If you're looking at it fromthat perspective, then the mayor
(25:03):
, the king who's been justcaught or unveiled by your party
as interacting with a redwizard of Thay then there's a
lot more suspicion on that kingand it's a lot bigger concern
Because while in 5e all licheshave to be wizards, there are
(25:24):
other people on the internet Iknow, I know pointy hat, the
youtube channel pointy hat.
He has been going through makingliches for every single class
so that every single class canturn themselves into a lich, and
I think that's really cool,especially as a base idea,
because if they had the help ofa wizard, it would be a lot
easier for them to become.
That's a nice lore reason whereyou can tie it in, because I
(25:46):
know, I think one of the firstones he ever did was a bard that
could be a lich, and that onewas really cool because in order
to be a lich, there has to besomething that's held on to that
a large amount of people holdonto from you, or a memory or a
thought of you, in order to stayalive on top of the phylactery.
His idea for a bard was reallyunique because it was a song.
(26:09):
As long as people rememberedyour song, you stayed alive, and
that's really kind of a uniqueidea and I think there's lots of
avenues for having liches ofother classes hear me out star
spangled banner is a lich song.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
You just, you just turn a country's uh, you, you,
if you're a bard you're gonnawrite national anthem.
You just turn that into somehowincorporating your ability to
turn into a lich and you areunkillable.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
I mean that would actually be really cool because
I know some people like to docampaigns in like colonial
America or in like Civil WarAmerica.
That would be a really uniquething to do.
There was a TV show and I knowit's, it was fairly popular on
fox.
It was called uh, what was it?
Sleepy hollow I think it waswhich was a supernatural show
(27:06):
about a time trial, about like aguy from the revolutionary war
who woke up in modern day andthey explored all of these ooky
spooky things around, like thefounding fathers and whatnot and
like.
It was very much a very likeooky spooky, heavily like
Christian mythology show and itwas kind of it was okay.
(27:27):
It wasn't my favorite show ofall time, but it was okay and if
you look at it from kind ofthat perspective, you could do
something cool like that of justlike placing yourself in
medieval france france'soriginal national anthem, the
guy who created still alive anddo like a fantasy france or a
fantasy america.
(27:48):
That could be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I think that that holds a lot of merit and could
be interesting yeah, and andanother like idea that you could
do is which different mediumshave played around with this
before.
But maybe the Lich's body isunable to move, but he still
affects the world via justmerely casting magic alone.
(28:13):
And his range, since he'sbecome so powerful, not just his
castle, but perhaps an entirenation sauron the dark lord.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I'm sorry, what did I say?
Uh, anyways, no, that's.
That's something you definitelysee in lord of the rings,
because I would say sauron's inthat category.
He is a necromancer, hisphylactery would be the one ring
, um, and he has split his soulup into multiple pieces, um, and
used, like both psionic andnecromantic powers, to make
people wither, lose their mindif they're touching it, and have
(28:45):
this impulse to bring it back.
And then he also created thenazgul, using the same rings and
enslaved them to help him.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I think that sauron is one of the original liches
from fantasy, uh, and I thinkthat that's like a really good
way to look at it is thosewraiths it's interesting how,
with all of like the what weconsider fantasy liches, how,
whether they're in dnd or not,with zaz tam vankna, voldemort
(29:15):
or saauron, they all have suchboth minor and major influence
around the world that almost tome sounds like a way of
quantifying what makes a lich alich is that their danger is not
just from their magicthemselves but their ability to
(29:37):
control others.
You know, people are scared ofvoldemort.
The, the nazgul are seenthroughout the entire lord of
the rings they have.
They're prepared for the age oforcs.
There's different groups whoare terrified of the ring.
Yeah, and they always.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
You always know, throughout the entire series
that he is watching yeah, he'swatching at all times and he can
see everything and invadepeople's minds the same way that
I think I think that's actuallythe one that, uh, quantifies a
little bit more is whetheryou're going with pointy hats
idea of a bard, or like anartificer, or even like he did
(30:22):
one for a druid, where their,their phylactery literally
becomes the forest they'reprotecting and so they're
trapped in the force.
I thought that one was reallycool.
No matter what media you lookat, yeah, they have influence
over the world, but no matterwhat, every incarnation of a
lich that I've seen be made in.
One of the quantifying thingsis the ability to control
others' minds, the ability topeer into dreams or, in some way
(30:46):
, shape or form, get intoothers' heads, and I think that
that is the more quantifyingthing for a lich is.
A lich is an undead monster thathas access to another being's
mind and memories.
That has access to anotherbeing's mind and memories, and
that's a lot scarier.
I think that's a lot scarierquantifying thing because I
can't even like even Voldemort.
Voldemort invaded people'smemories.
(31:07):
He invaded Harry's mind and hisdreams.
If you think about Sauron,frodo was constantly being
horrified.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You put that ring on and you see that imagery of the
eye and he knows roughly whereyou're at yeah and then, as will
, they will follow, they willcome and even golem.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Think about it.
Golem still had dreams fromsauron long after the ring was
separated from him by uh,frodo's grandfather.
Uh, uncle, uncle, can't.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Bilbo was his uncle, I think I'm pretty sure it was
his uncle I can never rememberthat family tree.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
But, like again, even if you're looking at the hobbit
, it's like it is alwayssomething that I think.
I don't think I've seen a lichin pop culture and please,
people leave comments and chat.
There's a different mentality,but like I don't think I've seen
one, I would be interested inseeing a version now here's an
interesting thought, because wetalked about the hand and eye of
(32:06):
vakna.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I think you used vakna's like old name at the
start of the episode.
Um, in the deep lore I thoughtyou said like thay or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Uh, well, the red, well, the Red Wizards of Thay
are separate.
Those are under Sastan.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
So, with Vakna and the eye and the hand, how they
affect you as a person, wouldyou consider and this is
probably the inspiration forthose two items is it's the ring
of Sauron and it corruptedGollum to such an extent.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Now I think let's hate liches.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
So we were talking about how cool they could be and
how they could be a big badendgame and how they talk about
death a lot but big bad end gameand how they talk about death a
lot.
But I think liches are similarto something like the.
Nagas is something where theyare tied to the, the lore, and
(33:14):
if you want to run a lich that'simpactful, you have to at least
incorporate some of that loreand some of that mechanics and
really flesh out that lich.
I think that what a problemthat a lot of campaigns run into
is.
They will say here's acharacter and they are a lich,
(33:37):
good luck.
And I don't think that's asimpactful and I think that's
part of the reason why liches ingeneral are starting to kind of
get, would you say, like a badname or, I think, just an
overused, over generic.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I think they have become the boring.
I don't want to fight thisanymore, and unfortunately,
that's the truth.
What's kind of funny is nowit's starting to swap roles with
my mind flares again,especially because of uh,
because of a certain netflixshow a certain, uh, a certain
game too, oh, well there's gatetoo.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
I didn't even think about that one mind.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Flayers were really, really overused for a long time.
They were the dnd monster upthere with beholders and dragons
, um, and then 5e came aroundand people started using them a
lot less, even though there's alot of really cool monsters
around them, like the uh, theelder dragon, which is has an
(34:40):
elder brain grafted into adragon's back and it breathes
psionic tadpoles.
That thing is horrifying there'sa beholder tied to them as well
, or maybe I'm thinking of theum uh, that's a, so that's a
little different and and we'llmention that one a little more
in the beholder episode butroughly beholders reproduced by
dreams and they have thisinstinct to kill each other on
(35:02):
sight, which is why the world'snot flooding with them.
But if a Beholder hasnightmares of a mind flare, it
will create a mind flareBeholder.
Same thing with the DracoBeholder or whatever.
It is, again, really reallycommon.
And there's a lich beholder too, and the lich beholder I want I
(35:23):
wrote this down to mention inthe beholder episode that'll
come out next week the the lichbeholder is trap.
It's a really big trap becausethey only have four eye stocks,
um, but they have a lot lowernumber of rays, so there's a 1
in 4 chance to vaporize one ofyour players.
So for a CR5 monster thatshouldn't be a thing.
(35:44):
So we'll get a little more indepth on that next week.
But I definitely think that MindFlayers have kind of taken the
Lich's place a little bit andit's kind of funny that they've
kind of swapped roles.
And I think the important partis, if you're going to run a
lich and you don't want it to becliche, you need to sit down
(36:04):
and build the lore out and maybeconsider doing like a barbarian
one and go I mean, I know I'mplugging on the youtube channel
go to pointy hats video on that.
Like he did a really good jobof building those out and I
think they're a lot of fun forvillains.
Now would I ever give them to aplayer as an option to play and
turn themselves into a lich ina high level campaign?
(36:26):
Probably not.
Um, I think it's a really greatepilogue.
I don't think it's something Iwould let them play with, though
for a long period of time,because I feel like once you've
become a Lich, there's no dangerleft to fight.
I think that that would be likeif that's their end goal of the
campaign, they can work towardsbecoming a Lich within the
(36:47):
party and they can work with theparty towards their goals.
Just like usually at mosthigh-level campaigns, you're
ending it off by everybodyhelping each other get to their
final goals.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I think that's fine, but actually letting them turn
into a lich and keep playing asa lich I would not do because I
this is one of those, like Iwould say, a critical role style
.
Well, hey, we, we finished thegame and and this one character
wants to become a lich.
Well, if we're going to do likea one-off, that's like set five
years in the future, well then,yeah, you get some lich stuff.
(37:18):
You know this.
This, this isn't going to be adanger filled session
necessarily.
This is going to be a fun, youknow, one-time reunion tour and
we're not really set for anybodydying.
But you're going to experiencesome challenges for sure yeah,
and that's that.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
That just comes down to how I like to run my
campaigns personally.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
I did have a player once who this was a DM, who they
were running a wizard, and theDM would subtly, over the course
of the game, hand themnecromancy spells to kind of get
them towards that track, and soyou saw the hints of it and you
saw them.
You know, using stuff likeChill Touch and using stuff like
Inflict Wounds, what are someother?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Oh, False Life.
False Life is a great one.
Scorching Chromatic Ray has onethat's uh necrotic damage.
That is specifically for liches.
Uh, there's I'm trying to thinkof some higher level ones.
Turn undead is a cleric one,but that's more to like stop the
undead.
It's a class ability, but Ihave seen it used by
(38:38):
necromancers as well.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
If you have emphasis over the undead, then it would
make sense that you would beable to both give them undead
life and taketh away that undeadlife.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
That's actually something that I didn't even
think to write down.
In older editions of D&D therewas a god whose clerics would
commonly become liches.
I can't remember the god, butit's the god of death.
It was very common for him tobring his followers back to life
and they would live on asimmortal things.
(39:11):
It's a little different than alich, because of the fact that
they don't have a phylactery,they don't have to go through
the whole thing, they don't havecontrol over people's minds
that they don't have aphylactery, they don't have to
go through the whole thing, theydon't have control over
people's minds and like they'revery narrow, but it is an undead
that retains its memory andretains its mind.
It's the only time where youreally see that, other than
Naga's, that cycle of rebirth- Ihave a really really, really
(39:35):
hot take here.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
This is the hottest take of the episode.
Like we are about to fight asolar dragon level of hot take
okay oh god say, say the hottake, I'm ready.
So so naruto?
Oh god, no.
Anytime they use a chakra ninjaability to bring back someone
(40:00):
from the dead, including aformer hokage, we're gonna have
to scrap this whole episode.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
It's all right, I apologize everybody in short, uh
, no, in short, no, because inmy mind, part of being a lich is
intentional and also those arefor very short times.
I would view that very similarto like uh, the ring that allows
you to the ring, or thetalisman that lets you ask three
(40:35):
questions and then they dieagain.
I would.
I would view it in the same way, because in naruto it's a very
brief time that they come backto life, unless you're referring
to madara, specifically madaraduring the war, or maybe madara
I would consider, because heplanned everything, got himself
reincarnated, stole the eyes ofthe renegade and forcefully
(40:59):
rebirthed himself.
So would I consider madara alich?
You could make the argument tome that madara is a lich.
If you're trying to say thatminato, naruto's dad, is a lich,
you're wrong.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
No, he's not no, yeah , no, that's the one I'd say no
to.
He's the zombie that the Lichbrings back.
It is the caster of theninjutsu that would.
I feel like it's adjacentBecause is there a cost to the
thing we?
Speaker 1 (41:35):
are going really off track.
In short, naruto has a reallynice explanation of all of it,
where you have to be able toaccess the person's soul, it's
for a limited time and it doeshave costs involved and because
of that, I would say that thatperson doing that ninjutsu is a
(41:55):
necromancer.
I would not say that they are alich.
But, madara, you could make anargument that Madara is an
example of a lich that kind ofis separate from all of the
other ones we've talked about inthis episode, because he did it
through a very different means,but I would consider him more
along the lines of what like anaga is, rather than a lich.
(42:18):
Um, because and I'll get moreinto this on the nagas they they
go through a perpetual cycle ofdeath and rebirth, like a
phoenix does, and I would.
I would say you could make anargument.
The modder is either of those,but at the end of the day,
modder is something different.
So, whatever you wanna,whatever you want to say he is,
(42:41):
you can say he is.
He's one of those ones where Idon't really know where I'd
place him.
But if we're talking about theHokages no, I would not say any
of the Hokages that were broughtback in Naruto would be liches,
and that's a good thing in myopinion.
I think it's good that showsdeviate from the idea of a
generic lich.
(43:02):
I think they are very overusedat this point and I think Harry
Potter did it really well.
If you consider Voldemort, Ithink Lord of the Rings was the
original, so I think Sauron wasincredibly well done.
What's a more recent one thathas one in it?
Uh, other than dnd adjacent?
Speaker 2 (43:22):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I can't think of one off the top of my head um, there
was one in stranger thingswasn't there, but that's dnd
adjacent isn't it?
I would say that's dnd adjacentum, doctor who has a couple of
them that are liches that Iwould consider liches that are
pretty good.
New Doctor who, specifically,has some really good new ones,
(43:46):
but other than that, I would say, overall different.
Now let's get off on anotherside tangent, because I feel
like it, before we wrap theepisode With your hot take about
the Hokageage's, would youconsider the dinosaurs from
jurassic park liches no,absolutely not would you?
Would you consider?
Speaker 2 (44:07):
the scientists are not liches either oh okay,
because they're not undeadthey're not undead, they're they
.
They are crazy merely by theirown humanity, like they still
have humanity they stillrecognize.
At the end, oh, we should nothave tempted the fate of the
natural world and think we couldcontrol it.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
No, oh, I thought of another one that is not D&D
adjacent but does have lichesthat are done very, very well
Fallout.
The Fallout game franchise hassome really well done liches
that are completely separatetheir own ideation, but they're
really well done.
Liches that are completelyseparate their own ideation, but
they're really well done.
Um, and with that I thinkthat's kind of the, the, the
overarching like view of lichesand kind of I think we got into
(44:48):
a lot of really good ways to runthem.
Uh, if you enjoyed this video,make sure that you check out our
youtube channel.
We try to put out uh videos aswell as this podcast, uh, weekly
to kind of help give peopleinspiration for things to run in
their campaigns.
And if you liked this, feelfree to check out our other ones
.
And then we appreciate ourpeople over on Patreon, where we
do release articles ondifferent topics in D&D and give
(45:10):
pamphlets for people to kind ofgive out to their players and
try to help out other DMs.
So with that, I hope you have agreat rest of your day and we
will see you in the next one.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!