Could a druid become a lich?
You can't have life without death. It's technically part of nature.
>>46850753
yeah, but death is instantaneous
it's living, now it's dead
it's not drawn out indefinitely as a form of immortality
that shit ain't natural
muy no bueno
>>46850786
I guess that's fair. Still a sweet concept though.
>>46850868
Druids can be evil too, they're just dominantly more neutral.
Hell, Lichs don't even need to be fully evil.
I'm imagining a druid with a vendetta against civilization, so he embraces necromancy along with his nature magic (since folk keep killing his damn forest), and decides life is too restrictive for his goals.
>>46850753
Building on what was said by >>46850786
Death in nature is a transitional state. Through decay (and feeding scavengers), the dead return the nutrients in their bodies to the community of life from which they were first drawn. That carbon and calcium in your body? You don't own that; that's on LOAN son, to be paid back when you die.
Liches are selfish miserly cunts who would break the sacred bonds of interdependence upon which all life depends. THAT is why the undead are the sworn enemy of all druids. Even if a dickhole NE druid found a way into lichdom and decided to take that path, they would totally lose their druid powers in the process, because the small gods of the natural world ain't down with that shit.
>>46850753
Golgari. Look it up.
>>46850753
>In life the Druid tended the forest.
>In death he IS the forest.
Not a conventional sort of lich, no. Undead creatures are about as 'fuck you nature' as 'fuck you nature' can get, especially when some sort of 'negative energy' is attributed to the undead.
The best kind of druid lich concept I cold think of, is if a druid preformed a ritual that involved him being devoured by nature in some way, with said druid incorporating his soul/conscience into whatever consumed him. Could be the roots of a tree, could be a dire ear, could be horde of carnivorous insects, could be anything. For such a thing to be worthwhile, whatever flora/fuana that ate him might be altered/empowered by it, or may become more (roughly) humanoid, with spell-casting. As whatever ate him is in itself eaten, his soul would pass on to that next thing, granting him functional immortality through the natural cycle of life and death.
>>46851630
>dire ear
What happens if you give an ear the Dire template, aside from it becoming bigger, more aggressive and spiky?
>>46851614
>>46851630
Sounds more like a ghost or demon (think Se7en) than a proper lich, but this is still a cool concept.
>>46851681
>Se7en
>"WHAT'S IN THE BOX!"
>"Feesh!"
Or is that another thing with seven in the title?
There was a classic adventure (and Neverwinter Nights module) about an evil druid who cared about some evil tree that created some kind of evil tree monsters. I don't remember if he was a lich or not, but you can possibly play it like that.
>>46850753
I would imagine it being like a "fallen" druid. Like he's got some dramatic, tragic backstory about him starting off as a happy-go-lucky druid looking to care bambi and all his forest friends and shit gets Disney as fuck and he goes crazy.
You could argue he isn't really a druid anymore, but surely he'd still know some of his old druid spells, likely twisted just as he is. He still thinks of himself as the good guy, but has gone right over the deep end like some kind of mix between Captain Planet, the Joker, and Rasputin. His army of the dead are eco-friendly and made from 100% recycled and renewable resources. His domain is protected by cultist wood elf warriors and evil druid extremists, mad fey beasts run amok, twisted vine beasts, hanging trees, and treants who still don't really give a shit beyond liking all the new real estate.
>>46851630
>>46851614
>>46851681
Mabye something like a worm that walks?
>>46850753
Druids aren't Arcane casters. So no.
>>46851849
You aren't an arcane caster.
>>46851849
Wow, you sure blown everyone the fuck away with your sagacious knowledge of a non-specified DnD edition.
Oh wait, you didn't. Because even divine casters can become liches. In most DnD editions.
>>46851835
That, or some mystically-bent Swamp Thing. He feeds the wild, and the wild becomes him. Grafted animal parts optional, but preferred for spooking PC's.
AD&D 2e has bard, cleric, psionicist, and wizard liches, but no druid liches:
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lich.php (wizard liches)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/banelich.php (cleric liches andbig guys)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichbard.php (a unique bard lich, though not a true lich)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichsuel.php (wizard lich body stealers)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichelem.php (wizard liches attuned to Ravenloft's death-themed elements)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichdrow.php (drow liches)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichdefi.php (Athasian defiler liches)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichpsio.php (psionicist liches)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichmast.php (space liches)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/firelich.php (space liches who are fireballs)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lichinhe.php (Red Steel Inheritor liches)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/alhoon.php (illithid liches)
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/baelnorn.php (LG/LN elf liches)
D&D 3.5:
>Each lich must make its own phylactery, which requires the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher.
Nothing is stopping a 3.5 druid from meeting this prerequisite. Druids can be Neutral Evil in 3.5, and the Corrupted Wild Shape feat from Libris Mortis allows undead druids to actually use their Wild Shape class feature.
Pathfinder:
>Each lich must create its own phylactery by using the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher.
Nothing is stopping a Pathfinder druid from meeting this prerequisite. They can also be Neutral Evil.
D&D 4e's Monster Manual 1's "Lich Transformation" allows any ritual caster (or martial practice-user with Use Scroll) of level 14 or above to become a lich. There are no alignment restrictions for druids in 4e, regardless of build or subclass.
D&D 5e's Monster Manual stipulates that liches must be wizards, and thus druids cannot be liches.
>>46852036
Priests can become archliches, and druids are priests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
This would be the perfect way to explain a Druid Lich having a phylactery.
>>46852036
That's interesting. Thank you for pointing all that out and providing answers.
Also that picture is kind of hot.
>>46852110
I do not believe 2e ever delved too deeply into archliches:
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/lich.php
>Archlich
>From time to time, sages have heard rumors of liches having alignments other than evil, and even lawful good liches apparently have existed. There have even been reports of priests who, in extreme circumstances, have become liches. These reports have recently been verified, but the archlich is as rare as Roc's teeth.
I would not know where to find any further lore on what can become an archlich, but it would indeed seem that a druid, as a priest, could potentially qualify as one.
yes
>>46850753
I once had an idea for a 'lichdom' esque form for Druids, where they basically surrender their flesh to bind their soul to nature itself, turning them into an amalgamation of man and plantlife like a hunched man with a small tree growing out of his back and his body a mixture of fungus and flowers and the like) and turning his body into a home for fauna of different kinds (mostly bugs) Like a lich has a phylactery, this druid form would have a 'true' seed that the druid must plant and tend to, and should his body be destroyed he would regrow from that 'true' plant. In the same vein that lichdom is a complete violation of the soul and pretty much a horror show of magic, life and undeath all in one, this druid form would be overstepping a line that mortals should never trespass, binding the raw, unbridled might and breadth of nature to a single soul and dooming that very soul to forever be lost in the flow of nature itself should that very tiny link it has to it's mortal coil ever be destroyed
>>46852152
Your PDF-fu is weak. TSR 9280 SJR1.
>>46852231
rero rero rero~
>>46851431
I feel like a druid lich would be a druid whose gone a bit wrong in the head and instead of respecting and communing with nature, like the lich denies unlife, the lich druid would deny natures rights and attempt to command it utterly
The idea of a druid that turns into undead versions of animals has always interested me to be honest. It's one of those things that is clearly a great idea aesthetically, but because it conflicts with some peoples ideas of druids or undead they'll argue against it till the ends of the earth.
>>46852400
>chose skeleton as race
>wildshape into skeletons of animals
It'd work in 5e if you could talk your DM into allowing a skeleton race homebrew a la "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source" but I'm not sure about other editions.
>>46852351
So, to sum it all up.
You get a relatively sane person going "Fuck Nature, it's god damn horrible and done literally nothing for me that didn't require it being carved out through the sweat and tears of either myself or someone who is going to die early from act."
>>46851903
>Party first encounters him, he is still mostly human, with some animal bits to make him stronger
>They beat him and corner him, but he commands swarms of bugs to devour his body, the party think him gone
>They continue to encounter him, each time his body has been bent and mutated into something more and more horrifying, a twisted joke of nature, and each time he escapes by feeding himself to the world
>His master plan is to find something akin to Pando and feed himself to it and in turn become the largest living piece of nature the world has ever seen, and through it, dominate all of nature
>>46852466
That, or a more yandere version "I love Nature, I love it so much that I hate seeing it hurt itself, eat itself, burn itself, torture itself in endless ways, it's so cruel to itself, it's just not fair. So I will take the reigns, I will dominate Nature in it's entirety and do the thinking for it, and then Nature will no longer be so harmful to Nature."
>>46852241
I will concede that, yes. 18th-level druids (as priests) can indeed be archliches, although they will need assistance in creating the potion, as a druid's spheres do not cover the required spells by default.
>>46852500
So, to sum it all up.
"Man, fuck mice, ants and cockroaches."
>>46852488
>Pando (Latin for "I spread"), also known as The Trembling Giant, is a clonal colony of a single male quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) determined to be a single living organism by identical genetic markers and assumed to have one massive underground root system. The plant is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000,000 kg (6,600 short tons), making it the heaviest known organism. The root system of Pando, at an estimated 80,000 years old, is among the oldest known living organisms
Those fucking names
>>46852547
What would you name a plant whose size and age are equally unfathomable mindfucks?
>>46852241
>spells regenerate 144 turns later
How oddly specific
>>46852601
Something unspoken in mortal tongue
>>46852601
As Pando's example, and numerous other examples seem to show, Latin usually works best.
>>46852628
That's an answer for "in which language," not "what."
>>46852651
"Look at this crazy shit" in Latin
>>46850753
obviously a druid can become a lich. the question is whether a lich can remain a druid or not.
Liches do necromancy, and necromancy usually deals in undeath, which is inherently unnatural in most settings.
You could have a druid lich, but he would probably have to be insane, fallen from grace but going with it, or a lich but somehow not of his own will.
Pathfinder has the Siabrae, who are pretty much druid liches.
And are awesome as fuck.
>>46850753
sounds like the Golgari
>>46852547
I now have my groups next BBEG, a druid that worked a ritual to turn an ancient tree into his phylactrie and has spent the last handful of centuries spreading his influence across the whole of the surrounding woods. His body IS the forrest, the animals within his agents. Have fun dealing with a spooky, sentient and angry forrest.
