Do liches automatically become skeletons or can they remain looking like they normally do?
its for science
>>44149141
being dead tends to lend itself to skeltization, i don't think it's normally "automatic" in the sense that it happens instantaneously though. Unless it's like, a WormThatWalks in which case it sorta is by necessity but that'd make the lich the worms not the skeleton they leave behind. Unless you then animate the skeleton. I think I want a WormThatWalks with his own animated skeleton as his personal attendant.
>>44149167
So it's impossible to look human as a lich without any spells or items then?
Liches are immortal undead. To become a lich, your body dies and you become a skeleton.
What edition?
some liches are dusty mummies
>>44149141
>Do liches automatically become skeletons or can they remain looking like they normally do?
Depends on your setting and how your GM chooses to characterize them.
There's nothing wrong with the idea of becoming a liche being a process of stages rather than a hard and fast binary situation. Maybe it's a slow process that a Necromancer or Wizard experiences. There bodies slowly breaking down and failing, with magic picking up the slack until at some point you can recognize them as little more than magically animated skeletons. Eventually the oldest would be cohesive dust, suspended by their force of will and power beyond space.
>>44149206
OP's question is whether the sloughing off of squishy bits is instantaneous upon lichification.
>>44149242
> "You foolish heros could neve"
> the skeleton in front of you crumbles to dust than reforms itself
> "Sorry I forgot to exist for a few seconds"
>>44149141
I know in D&D you don't have to instantly be a skeleton, I remember reading about one lich who used alot of gentle repose and shit to keep looking like they were alive.
It's just that if you stop the upkeep, your body eventually starts to necrotize because it's dead.
>>44149308
Ha. Awesome.
>>44149203
In many settings, yes, they will begin to decay
In yours maybe not
The best example I could find was Arlkem Greeth, the master of the Arcane Brotherhood.
Unlike most notable liches, his transformation was relatively recent, only within the last decade, and while he was a withered old man that was more corpse than alive even before his transformation, the only clear sign for some years after his transformation that he was undead was that his eyes had rotted out, leaving him with empty sockets with small motes of light within.
He had spent most of his life resisting and finding ways to slow down his aging, even to the point of using wish spells, so he might have taken steps to extend the duration of his time as a flesh-covered lich, or the body might last longer than a typical corpse because of the transformation, but it's clear that the transformation into a lich doesn't immediately turn them into a skeleton.
Another example of a lich that appears somewhat normal is Szass Tam, who is an older lich that turned undead centuries ago, but he magically disguises himself as a gaunt human. His real form is that of a burnt, withered corpse, but his disguise is almost perfect, with originally very few people knowing his secret until his disguise faltered during the spell plague.
So, it seems that it's largely up to the individual lich, whether they disguise themselves, extend their time as a rotting corpse, or simply allow their flesh to rot away quickly and become skeletal.
>>44149308
I like the idea of a pile of dust animated like particles of light in a hologram with an ancient fading will holding it all together so it "glitches" while multitasking or mentally encumbered
Mummification is a good option if you have the patience and the materials to do it right. Stuff yourself with preservatives, rub yourself with disinfectant all over and only take the wrappings off temporarily whenever you're preparing for human interactions.
Hell you could even use the wrappings to hide your identity whenever you're not liching it up, as long as you remember to disguise the smells.
I'm sorry, I have no idea where that undead mummy you're looking for went, perfectly normal human wizard here, don't be alarmed by my complexion, I'm not sick I just don't get a lot of sun.
It obviously depends on the GM and setting in question, but a dead body will decompose over time. If you can prohibit or slow the decomposition process, then you should be able to be a fleshling lich. There's thisWesnoth campaginabout such liches who used a poison which perfectly preserves their corpses so they still look human.
If you're powerful enough to become a lich you're probably powerful enough to have a lacky that can cast Gentle Repose on you while you're between states.
>>44149141
In the Forgotten Realms, the oldest known Lich who hasn't stolen someone else's body, is a skeleton.
The second oldest is a massive fat man with horribly pale skin, who doesn't go outside.
No seriously, the dude weighs like 500+ lbs.
A lich can retain whatever they want, they just have to be willing to put in the work.
>>44149851
Or just, y'know, make a ring with polymorph self on it.
If a wizard is capable of making chimeras out of already living material, hybridizing entire species and making them not-sterile and able to survive, CREATE life from border-line fucking nothing, a Lich, a god-damn immortal wizard, is more than capable of either making his flesh incapable of rotting, or just making a new suit of flesh to wear.
>>44149242
Immortals Handbook akalich
Honestly, I'm surprised by the number of liches that represent themselves as dusty old flesh stretched over bones. I'm not saying they need to keep their old flesh, or even find a new body, as it's not necessary for a lot of things a lich might want to do, like study piles of lore for an age or two or carefully construct some terrible or beautiful work of art or spellcraft. Why don't they do the same thing that any self-respecting necromancer does with their personal skeletal servants before animating them; carefully clean and bleach the bones to make them as precise and clean as possible? You don't want to damage the things you plan to work on for eternity.
>Party enters the second to final room in the lich's lair
>The walls at both ends slam shut, and magic and gas begin pumping into the unusually clean looking room
>They barely manage to survive, but those who didn't use magic to guard themselves notice that they are entirely clean and smell like lemons
>The door at the end of the room opens up
>The lich's lair is entirely sterilized, covered in white tile being carefully maintained by several pristine skeletons
>Tomes are all carefully organized, and near the door is an area where the skeletons appear to be doing basic cleaning and restoration work on newly retrieved tomes
>The lich himself notices their presence, and scolds the ones who warded the sterilization airlock, having a team of skeletons mop behind them and the dirt they tracked
Clean freak liches.
>>44149308
>the party is investigating the ancient library of a long forgotten lich who vanished ages ago
>Fighter is bored, kicking some dust piles around
>sneezes
>a small dust tornado forms, forming in the shape of a skull in front of the Fighter
>it hovers closer to him,a sense of dread and take filling the Fighter, paralyzing him, can't even hell for help
>after a moment, it speaks in a gravely dusty voice, eldritch whispers just outside the range of hearing
>"Bless you "
>it vanishes as suddenly as it appeared
>no one else saw it, or believes him when he says he saw a dusty ghost skull
>>44149141
Lichification isn't one spell, but more a group of spells and rituals. And even then there are different paths to the same end.
Quick and dirty lichdom uses the power of a patron and fucks you over somewhat. The better variants are careful and use only the caster's power so there's no debt and could easily involve some preservation.
Basically, if you're a lich you're a powerful spellcaster. If they put the effort in they could reshape themselves into a catgirl. But if you're willing to become an undead to never relinquish your power, you probably stopped giving a shit about mortals and you look like a goddamn spoopy skeleton.
Well, a lich is nothing more than the intellect of a mage that is being chained to existence by using a phylactery. Unless the lich uses some method of preservation to keep their original bodies intact, it will eventually devolve into a set of dry bones. And even if it does, the lich now has the issue that his body will see some wear and tear after the decades go by, even if he does not see combat.
I imagine that a lich periodically looks for suitable bodies/bones to replace the ones he has.
>>44149476
I remember reading that Napoleon himself was very slowly poisoned with cyanide to avoid raising suspicions. Since his body is so polluted with poison, his body has not decayed. It can actually work.
>>44149141
The Forgotten Realms had elves that become lich to oversee and protect future generations. They were called Baelnorns and they had a more dusty zombie-like look.
>>44150748
I forgot the picture from the 3.5 monster manual.
>>44150498
>A group of bard skellies are playing muzak in one corner
>The lich rattles with his most amicable "service with a smile" rattle
>"I apologize, young adventurers! You see, we weren't quite ready for you to come this early, we weren't expecting you for another fortnight! Please have a seat, I'm just about finished with the transmogrification of my newest zombie squad. Now, since you're here, I can have my inernal assistant go over the post-life service plans! We're running a special on draugr and dire wraiths this week!"
>A zombie shambles in. "Doctor Litchstein, your five o'clock needs an earlier appointment if youcan find a time to schedule her in."
>Dr. Litchstein groans. "Revenants. Always need to have their demands heard first. I'm sorry. I'm really just not ready for you today. Come by tomorrow?"
>>44149141
Negative energy obliterates flesh, so they are in the early weeks at least looking like a rotting corpse or maybe a guy with severe gangrene.
>>44149141
Well, I was under the impression that the flesh (and eventually the bones) rot away on their own as time goes along.
>>44150598
Damn that image and its reigniting of my Undead fetish.
One question I have is why would a Lich be evil? Other then the not caring about harming people and previously being an evil git. Its always struck me as odd.
You will live forever with all your arcane knowledge intact. Wizards that simply extend their lives tend to go hermit in a tower far away from people. your only contact with the outside world would be to find new books to read, your backlog is so bad that you trend toward ancient forgotten tomes.
>>44151129
Not all liches are evil. See baelnorn and archlich.
>>44150818
Im surprised /tg/ hasnt tipped over from writting about evil baelnorn yet.
>>44151129
Because the adventurers already broke into the liches home might as well keep the crime spree going with murder and theft.
>>44149225
Ur mummy was pretty dusty last night
>>44151129
Not all liches are evil.
The problem with most liches is that they were once men who were too greedy in their search for power, which leads to making a deal with a malevolent god, as >>44150541 kindly explained. This robs them of their sense of decency. However, there are things called archlichs, which are lichs that studied hard and eventually reached lichdom by their own merits. These retain most of their humanity.
>>44151076
>Negative energy obliterates flesh
Wait, how do vampires retain their bodies then?
>>44151129
It's always been implied, if somewhat vaguely, that the process of becoming a lich included some act of unspeakable evil.
In 4e it specifically said most liches are evil because the easiest and most common way to become a lich includes making a deal with Orcus. However, it also had the epic destiny of Archlich, which was someone who was magically knowledgable enough to do it without Orcus's help, and therefore didn't need to be evil.
>>44151246
The life energy they drain from humans
>>44151076
>Negative energy obliterates flesh
That's not true. Negative energy destroys life. In fact, since a lich's physical form is filled with negative energy, it should actually be prevented from rotting due to negative energy killing off bacteria. No bacteria, no rotting. That's why liches never look like zombies but do sometimes look like mummies. Their flesh dies and dries up, eventually turning to dust, but doesn't actually rot.
>>44151151
And dry lich. Can't be Good, but not necessarily Evil.
>>44149141
I mean, you just die from some elixir which contains strong poison and stay dead for some time before your soul enters the phylactery, of course some rotting is possible. Liches probably have spells that slow their decomposition, but I'm sure most of the really old ones don't care about it. Just think, all you do is sit in some tomb for 1000 years and read books, it's not like you have a nose and can smell the rotten flesh.
I strongly suggest every lich to burn their flesh though. Because skeleton liches are the best in the world.
+old-school
+hygienic as fuck
+can spook people like a skeleton
+arrows, bolts, and bullets pass through
+-constant bone puns
+-can't drink coffee that effectively anymore
+-probably can't wear all those clothes you wore when you were fat
-no facial muscles means no facial expressions
-can't bone the ladies anymore
-dude, really, stop with those bone puns already
God, I have such an urge to play a lich in some form of media.
Is there a game that lets you play as a lich?
>>44151582
Well, you can always ask your DM to play a lich in standard 3.5/PF/4/5. In 4e it's even an official 30 level destiny, as some anon already said.
Also, GURPS, FATE, or what have you.
If you're talking about video games, I'm searching for them myself.
>>44151635
Yea, videogames.
I don't really have a group that's suitable to playing a lich.
>>44149141
I would assume that since they're just magically animating a body that they turn into skeletons, but it does beg the question couldn't a lich animate a cannon golem if they wanted to.
>>44149206
That's not even "their" body anymore though, because their soul resides in a McGuffin.
>>44151756
In my personal headcanon, the only reason why liches regenerate their skeletons with their phylactery after they are destroyed, and can't actually make a giant adamantium golem to reside in, is because some methaphysical link to their old bodies. Maybe they make a blueprint of their body inside the phylactery or something.
>>44151265
I committed the unspeakably evil act of convincing someone to do pic related.
Am I a lich now?
>>44151850
I see a bunch of broken discs.
What's happening.
>>44149141
Depends on the age of the lich.
Typically how it works is, the Lich gains magical immortality at some point in their life, but their body decays at the normal rate.
There are two ways of doing it. The lich can be young, and simply just be a VERY old man, maybe with a tad bit of necrosis, or if somehow the lich earned his magical immortality very early in his biological mortality (Perhaps a longer lived race for the Lich) he woul still be young, but I don't think he'd be as powerful as a lich with all of his body rotted off, because the latter has probably been at this shit for a lot longer.
In my setting, it depends on the ritual you use. One involves burining yourself alive in a small box, which leaves only bones. Another involves imbibing magical preservatives and fasting and leaves you with a dessicated, dried out body.
Do women become liches, I mean it's the best way to stay thin
>>44151380
What's a "dry lich?"
>>44152006
I don't see why not.
>>44152036
I want to protect that scowl.
>>44149141
>>44149203
Just cast Gentle Repose once a day. Problem solved.
>>44152136
>wasting a spell slot for that
Pfffft.
>>44152136
Well, it lasts one day per level, and a lich will typically be a high level caster. Probably best to make a bunch of scrolls or potions in advance.
>>44152136
Or cast permanent Gentle Repose once.
Or maybe find out how some of those vampire fucks stay so fresh-lookin'. Maybe a vain lich would find a way to duplicate the effect without having to waste time extracting the vital essences from blood.
>>44152211
REEEEEEEEEEE
FUCKING NORMIES GE THE FUCK OUT OF MY ANTISOCIAL TOMB
>>44152235
That's Sandro. Sandro is not antis- oh, I thought you meant asocial, carry on.
>>44152036
What makes you think that's a woman?
>>44152024
A lich that's mostly foam.
>>44152319
>>44152211
Oh yeah, I forgot about permanence.
>>44152211
I had a Bard that would eventually go the Dorian Grey route of immortality(literally, Dorian Grey was an actual person in the DM's setting, even if it was used as a joke).
Unfortunately, the game died due to scheduling conflicts shortly after(ad, as the DM told me later, he was really starting to fucking hate Pathfinder), so this never ended up happening.
>>44152319
Instinct. I immediately felt the desire to be abused by her.
>>44152352
So many of my groups have ended in that manner.....
>>44152235
pls no bully mr. skellybones
On a related tangent, how could a child hypothetically attain lichdom? The amount of knowledge/artifacts attained would surely push them into their mid-30s at the very least.
Is it possible to undergo the ritual on someone else's behalf? Could a well-meaning (and half-mad) wizardly father damn his own soul so his child would no longer suffer from some horrible disease in undeath?
>>44151915
real classics (original ones, bought years ago during their premiere) getting broken just because some /v/ retard wanted to complete the /v/ingo
>>44152785
>Family bond
The Mages daughter/son falls ill and for reasons of time or availability turns to necromancy to save his child.
>Curiosity Killed the cat, Necromancy Brought it back.
A Necromancer prepared his ritual site for ataining lichdom but was unable to complete the ritual for whatever reason. Little Timmy ignoring his mothers warnings to stay away from the dark forest goes exploring only to stumble upon the site activating it and either by some higher powers intervention or dumb luck attains lichdom.
>Efficiency is the goal of life, perfection is the goal of death.
Pedophile Lich forces lichdom upon her favored servants so they wouldn't become lankey ungainly adult skellies.
In any case, if child liches are a possibility in the setting it should have a higher risk factor of resulting in a demi-lich rather then a full fledged lich.
>>44150498
In general terms, I think the easiest way to put it is they forget because they are doing what they want to at the moment, so things like routine maintenance just become nuisances they don't need.
>>44153152
>In any case, if child liches are a possibility in the setting it should have a higher risk factor of resulting in a demi-lich rather then a full fledged lich.
Wait, isn't a Demi-Lich more powerful than your standard Lich?
>>44151129
Think of it this way: you always could use more undead minions to assist in your experiments and meat to test your newest discovery on. Liches far enough gone likely see people like science facilities see test animals.
They remain looking like they normally do but purple.
>>44153759
>what weebs actually believe
Do you not have your own board to shit on?
>>44153759
curse these sexy monstergirls. They tempt me so.
>>44152364
Found it.
This image is for you.
>>44153612
No, the listing for Demi-lich in D&D is from a High level splat/encounter and the reason its considered a Demi-lich is because its just the skull.
The prefix Demi- means Half, and is used to intone something is less then full. For example a Demigod is less then a god.
Demilich can also be used to represent failed attempts at lichdom. Either the lich is bound to its body with no phylactery or it lost its mind or memory, or some other form of failure like only the skull or other bone remains as apposed to the full body(fun to use in place of intelligent items) or a loss of magical ability. Often the result of hasty mages cutting corners to attain immortality.
>>44152364
Here you go anon.
Over time skin rots and fades away. When you are a several hundred year old wizard who has sold their humanity for power, appearances may not matter as much any more.
How about porcelain facade? who needs flesh with all its imperfections when you can have smooth alabaster goodness for all of time.
>>44153822
Don't be such a square
>>44153980
>not wanting to look like this
>>44153612
Not in 5e, at least. In 5e, liches need to feed a soul to their phylactery ever once in a while to refresh their soul. If they don't, their mind and body eventually fade away, leaving them a mostly mindless floating skull. That's what most demiliches are.
The soul trapping super-lich demilich is a rarer variant, included alongside the more common one.
>>44154040
I'd rather look like golem tbqh with you family
Toned, athletic clay body is the hot shit
>>44153906
Huh, who would have guessed T-Swift was a lich.
>>44153822
hey the entire site is devoted to Chinese art, so long as its /tg/ related its good to go.
Could you love a lich?
>>44154117
idk, could it love me back?
>>44154135
Yes. It loves you earnestly, but is still evil.
>>44154239
Been there, done that
love can do strange things to you
I always liked the idea of a Calavera style lich- the minions keep repainting him/her.
Fugging a lich counts as necrophilia right?
>>44149141
You just want to fuck a lich
>>44154334
There's a feat for that.
>>44154334
I guess. I would consider having sex with an intelligent undead very different from normal necrophilia.
>>44150507
>My new recurring character
>>44154370
You can complain about 3.5 for a lot of reasons, but you can't say it wasn't thorough.
>>44149141
Depending on what canon you want to accept, yes, eventually a lich, no matter what steps she takes to prevent her decay, will dessicate into a skeleton, and that skeleton will, over centuries to millennia, crumble to dust, leaving only a skull. During this process, the lich will feel a compulsion to place magical gems into its eye sockets and into the sockets of its teeth. At this point, it has become a demilich.
I am quite fond of the idea that a demilich, should it not be found and destroyed, will eventually crumble away in several more thousands of years, becoming a dark spectre from which only the light of its soul gems gleam. This spectre quite closely resembles the lich at the height of its mortal power. It is now an akalich. An akalich on your particular material plane is Bad News Bears.
>>44152328
That's pretty good there.
Why do liches bother with corporeal forms, anyway? Most of what they do is accomplished with spells, from floating books around to blasting pesky adventurers.
>>44159851
frees up the spell slot for something else. The Lich is basically an awakened Skeleton+ while an incorporeal form would benefit from defense and mobility it loses out on being able to touch things. same goes for why stick with the skeletal body rather then building a massive and powerful construct since the Phylactery is the only important element.
It might also be a conflict with the reconstitution spells. When you destroy a Lich it reforms at its phylactery, maybe an incorporeal Lich would suffer from an issue of misfires of this spell.
>>44159851
Because otherwise you're a flotating soul. And bad things can hurt your soul, capture, and destroy it. When you're a lich, your soul is safely inside your phylactery. It's like using drones instead of human pilots.
Depends on setting, and if we're talking about D&D in particular, edition.
A lich could keep themselves unliving freshly dead so long as they cast Gentle Repose on themselves regularly in most editions, but most liches don't give a damn about personal appearance enough to care.
>>44159851
Regarding D&D pre-5th edition: the greatest of liches don't. Why do you think they collapse into demiliches later in life? They neglected their body so much traveling around in astral form that it collapsed into dust, until only one piece is left.
(This is still partly applicable in 5th edition, but only applies to the liches who followed Acererak, who manage to retain sapience in demilich form.)
>>44151129
Aside from the acts of unspeakable evil that are entailed in making a normal/classic lich, the lich is also likely to have a lesser value of sentient life.
After centuries of unlife, watching lesser beings come and fade, sentient life will start to seem lesser. And at that point killing humans or elves or halflings are whatever is akin to killing animals. Some people might enjoy it, but almost everyone does it because it needs to be done for food or clothes or whatever else is necessary.
>>44153831
>>44161290
Fall down a staircase and break your typing fingers.
>>44161290
This is a thread about powerful spellcasters who used unholy rituals to forsake earthly pleasures and bind their souls to their phylacteries to become immortal.
In other words, get the fuck out to /d/ with your shit.
>>44161277
I'd like to see a lich start out really humble and passive in his undead army amassing at first. Start with corpses, scour battle fields, wander about collecting the dead while trying not to disturb people, going as far as to compensate them for their trouble and loss. Then without realizing it he becomes an established part of commerse over several generations. People are willing to go a few extra steps to turn tragedy into extra cash. Suddenly he's so reliable as means of income in the traditions and day to day practices of a community, and multiple communities at that, that they can't actually afford to let him stop amassing his undead empire. They forms cults and wage wars to maintain their flow of dead for income. They compete with neighboring towns and kingdoms for his business. All the while he's unaware that the social and economic landscape has been changing, as he just sorta keeps his nose buried in his necomantic studies. He effectively becomes an evil overlord by mistake.
>>44149141
If it's a 3.5 game, no, it's not always
There's an NPC bard character who went lich and kept her skin
>>44161322
But Anon, that poster didn't type anything.
>>44151668
Dominions 4 is the best lich simulator. Pick Middle Ages Ermor and master lich as your pretender and plunge the world to darkness.
>>44149141
The reason liches are skeletal is because an integral part of lichdom and it's brand of eternal life requires reformation of your body around your phylactery when it is destroyed.
What do you think is more likely?
Extreme blasphemous necromantic power and rituals causing the reformation of a perfect and complete human being? Or a skeleton?
Once your body dies you come back skeletal and "Wrong" like most of the Undead. I would normally say that you'd be just as healthy and normal looking until the first time you died as a lich... except for the fact that you die as a part of the process as near perfectly reconstructing your soul out of negative energy from it's positive energy state, near perfectly meaning that you're probably also insane because you forgot a few pieces behind.
Now keep in mind this is just staple DnD. Everything else "Depends on the Setting." Of which as GM/DM you can easily say "It's this intead."
Me personally? If you wanted liches that look normal and can blend into human society? Do it in a means like Dark Souls 2 hollows but massively slowed down.
You start off just as beautiful as you ever were as a fully human looking person. But if you die? You come back to your phylactery a little worse for wear, the longer it has been since you joined lichdom, the worse it progresses each death. For someone who's a newly made lich? It only looks like sags and wrinkles at first, on the surface it only looks like aging despite your eternal life, you can still blend in with society since anyone else would probably gain a few grey hairs from the stress of being ripped out, screaming, from death's haversack by even normal church-ordained means.
A lich that was cautious and never died could retain his youth eternally. But once you breach your natural time of your natural lifespan, the phylactery's reconstruction of your body starts to mirror the fact that you should be dead.
>>44149141
I want to see a setting which has a lich who tans his own skin and then wears it as full-body armour.
>>44154117
http://pastebin.com/TXDdLXxK
>>44153894
if we're talking 3.X here, the srd has a demilich template that can be applied to any lich, and pretty much improves them in every way, with epic feats, epic DR, etc. its not just that particular listing bruh
Demilich = epic soul sucking death lich skull thing, naming conventions be damned.
or at least it used to.
>>44149242
One of the campaigns I'm in has different tiers of Liches. Common Liches are the usual skeletal variety because they screwed up the ritual in the most common fashions. The body dies without the soul in it and the flesh rots away. They go through this process every time their physical form is destroyed: new body forms, biologically dies, flesh rots away. Common Liches are common, for liches.
Real Liches got the ritual mostly right and maintain a normal living body motivated by their soul which resides in the phylactery. They're somewhat uncommon.
True Liches performed the ritual perfectly and don't so much have a body as a flesh puppet. It works and functions like a normal living body, can biologically expire and rot away, but true liches can power through most bodily difficulties with sheer willpower. They can also drop the body and form another whenever they will it, as opposed to other liches that are bound to the physical form until it's destroyed. True Liches are rather rare.
Hollow Liches fucked it up and don't have a body. They're ghosts with a phylactery, when something kills their spirit form they reemerge from their phylactery. Also not very common.
False Liches managed to make themselves into their phylactery. Some of them got the flesh included, some didn't. They die when they're killed.
>>44149141
Arazni kept her skin around so theres that.
I like to say liches are just people telekinetically holding their bodies together in my own settings. Seams may show, and look scary, but it's also not inherently evil this way and not usually a skeleton.
I think one thing people overlook about the whole skeletal lich thing is that well a Lich in game terms was a reasonably powerful spellcaster.
Spellcasters could easily construct some pretty powerful illusions or transmutations to cover the fact that they're dead.
The lich that just hangs around some burnt out castle or ruin probably wouldn't have any desire to do so.
When you have ones like >>44149351
>Arlkem Greeth who are political figures with an agenda then they have to have a mortal face.
Another fine example of this is Azalin.
If you look into Ravenloft lore when he arrived into Barovia Strahd and Azalin worked together trying to GTFO.
Strahd knew something was up with Azalin but he appeared human in all aspects.
It wasn't until their experiment failed (and the device they used exploded)
Needless to say in game terms the magical explosion knocked both of them out oh HP.
When Strahd finally came back to he thought Azalin was dead. Nothing left but a shattered and charred skeleton.
Then Azalin's bones started doing a T1000. After that his organs reformed along with his skin. Even his robes and other belongings.
Azakin was still out for the count. His power was so immense as a lich that his magic pulled his body back together and whatever enchantment he devised to keep his mortal form kicked back in.
Then Strahd knew 100% what he was dealing with.
>>44149242
I like to think of it in the binary situation, where as the person dies magic blasts out of the body blowing everything but the skeleton all over the place
>>44152211
>a vain lich would find a way to duplicate the effect
>without taking blood or blood-equivalent
That seems perfectly in-character for a vain lich. Also a great way to make the lich more obviously evil, and provide some ways for the party to find it.
>young women have been disappearing lately
>the town guard has made several arrests, but the disappearances continue
>a local gang is rumored to bring suspicious packages out of town
>slavers who secretly deal with the gang visit a strange cave in the mountains
>the lich has wardrobes stocked with an alarming quantity of female clothing, shoes, and jewelry. All in different sizes and styles.
>the lich's personal chambers contain a bathtub and some sponges. They are stained red, and must have been filled with blood more often than with water.
>the lich's library contains literature about vampires, necromancy, the preservation of dead tissue, and cosmetic enhancement
>the lich's journal contains many hypotheses on the efficient transfer of life-essence, complaining frequently about the cost of "subjects"
>>44150598
Duane from unsounded does this pretty neatly. He keeps up his appearances via glamours, and every now and then he finds new body parts to replace his old ones.
>>44152785
>posting an edited version of the Fool's Idol
Why remove 2 of her arms?
>>44152785
>Kid gets sick
>Daddy turns kid into a dreadful undead
I'd accept it, but not for a lich (vamps, ghouls, and skellies are okay though), and only if the undead kid winds up being a monster. And no, you can't play as the kid.
>>44149141
maybe liches stop eating and so their bodies decay except for their bones because their not replacing biomass
>>44151568
>can't bone the ladies anymore
But you can.Seriously, a lich is a fucking archwizard, why can't he install a polished ivory dildo where it belongs and rig his mind to aquire pleasure by using it?
>>44169928
Because he's not a pathetic manchild.
