The eldritch lich is a creation of a Great Old One and the unfettered ambitions of a mage seeking eternal life. Intelligent spellcasters bound to a parasite of the Far Realm, the eldritch lich is a true monster of horror with the potential to be the big bad of a campaign or a challenging boss for high-level characters.
The eldritch lich is available to all D&D Beyond users in Monstrous Compendium Volume One: Spelljammer Creatures. Here’s everything you need to know about it and how you can upgrade it for your game.
- Origins of an eldritch lich
- What’s the Far Realm?
- The motives of an eldritch lich
- An eldritch lich’s lair
- Legendary actions, lair actions, and regional effects
- Minions of the eldritch lich
- Watch the eldritch lich in action
Origins of an Eldritch Lich
Becoming a lich isn’t for the faint of heart, and that’s even truer for the eldritch lich. Where your typical lich turns to Orcus, the Demon Prince of Undeath, to achieve immortality, an eldritch lich seeks to extend its life in another way.
The eldritch lich lends its ear to secrets whispered by Great Old Ones. These mysterious entities preside over the reality-defying Far Realm and are best known for bestowing warlocks a modicum of their power in exchange for servitude. For select wizards and warlocks, a Great Old One can offer the gift of immortality, but the cost for it is high.
The eldritch lich is plagued by whispers from the Far Realm, to which it is always responding. In this way, the eldritch lich appears to have less agency. The lich is also bound to a parasite from the Far Realm. This is the means through which an eldritch lich achieves immortality. Defeat an eldritch lich in combat and the parasite will suck the corpse back into the Far Realm, where the lich will be resurrected.
All that said, an eldritch lich can never enjoy the pleasures of solitude. But maybe that isn’t so bad. Perhaps it's the extrovert of liches?
Hold Up, What’s the Far Realm?
Do you like your eyeballs where your eyeballs are, and your feet where your feet are? Best to stay out of the Far Realm, then. It is a place beyond the known multiverse where matter has a tendency of getting warped and mixed up. Mind flayers and beholders are creations of the Far Realm, or are simply shaped by it. It’s not entirely clear, but that’s the point.
The Far Realm is largely a mystery to us mere mortals. It is a place of impossible geometry and unspeakable eldritch horrors. It’s where mortal creatures learn truths that destroy them and where Great Old Ones settle down for a cup of tea after tormenting its warlocks.
The Motives of an Eldritch Lich
Hearing and answering to unceasing whispers from the Far Realm, it’s unclear what an eldritch lich is ever working toward. That’s partly what makes these liches such terrifying creatures. But for DMs seeking to include an eldritch lich in their campaigns, it’s helpful to determine the lich's motives, even if they would largely remain a mystery to the players.
Here are two ways to determine the motives of an eldritch lich.
Forbidden Knowledge
What better way to pass eternity than with a good book? The eldritch lich may be obsessed with a certain field of knowledge, exploring ancient ruins for lost texts and hunting down scholars in search of answers to strange questions.
Roll on the table below to find what subject the eldritch lich is researching.
Eldritch Lich Field of Study
d6 |
Subject |
1 |
Forbidden or lost magic |
2 |
Creation of life |
3 |
Gods and godhood |
4 |
Ancient civilizations |
5 |
Wars and war tactics |
6 |
The arts |
Even seemingly innocuous research, such as on the arts, could lead to deadly scenarios. Like an archfey, an eldritch lich may kidnap bards and keep a collection of them for entertainment. Worse, the eldritch lich may discover a way to extract the talents of these bards. In such a case, there’s no greater introduction to an eldritch lich than for a party of adventurers to walk in on one playing the organ with its tentacles.
Twisted Aspirations
Eldritch liches don’t need to worry about feeding souls to a phylactery to maintain its immortality—its Far Realm parasite sustains it indefinitely. Thus, an eldritch lich can concern itself with greater matters, like fulfilling whatever twisted dreams the Far Realm has pressed onto it.
Roll on the table below to determine what horrific goal the eldritch lich is pursuing.
Eldritch Lich Goal
d6 |
Goal |
1 |
Open a gate to the Far Realm |
2 |
Help a yggdrasti bear fruit |
3 |
Sow chaos on a realm |
4 |
Rewrite one moment in time |
5 |
Expose a civilization to the Far Realm |
6 |
Destroy liches |
Don’t worry about your eldritch lich having sound reasoning for whatever goal it pursues. To sow chaos is as good of a reason as any for a creature of the Far Realm. No matter its goals or motivations, an eldritch lich intends to live for eons, so it may busy itself with setting into motion events that will only bear fruit centuries later. This makes the eldritch lich a great villain for a time-hopping campaign.
An Eldritch Lich’s Lair
A good lair can set the tone for an epic boss encounter. Unfortunately, an eldritch lich isn’t likely to be approved for an apartment in Waterdeep or find a home in the asteroid cities of Wildspace. And when you’re dissolving folks into gibbering mouthers, you’re not likely to attract roommates, either. So, you’ll need to get creative here.
When determining a lair for your eldritch lich, consider its goals and interests. An eldritch lich with a love for the art of war may invade the lair of a sapphire dragon in order to access its collection of weaponry and books on the subject.
Roll on the table below to determine the lair for your eldritch lich.
Eldritch Lich Lair
d6 |
Lair |
1 |
A cathedral floating in Wildspace |
2 |
The innards of a massive, rotting creature |
3 |
The ruins of an ancient academy of magic |
4 |
A tower made of living flesh |
5 |
The lair of a dead sapphire dragon or lich |
6 |
A reality-bending library |
The eldritch lich is a creature of true horror, and its lair should reflect that. Just be mindful of what is and isn’t acceptable at your table. Session 0 is the perfect time to ask your players about what genres of horror they’re comfortable with and to what degree.
If body horror is out, for example, then you may lean into the disorientating nature of the Far Realm and two themes of cosmic horror:
- At the darkest edges of the cosmos dwell cruel monsters with no understandable motivations.
- In the vastness of the multiverse, nothing you do has meaning.
Legendary Actions, Lair Actions, and Regional Effects
When the players are ready to confront an eldritch lich, it's important to be prepared with all of the horrors the Far Realm has to offer. The following sections will help you flesh out an encounter with an eldritch lich. Just be mindful that these are homebrew options that contain themes of body horror. Further, any additions you make to the eldritch lich will increase its challenge rating (CR).
Legendary Actions
The eldritch lich can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The eldritch lich regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Nightmare’s Gaze. The eldritch lich targets one creature it can see within 60 feet of it. The target must succeed on a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of the eldritch lich for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Parasitic Tentacle (Costs 2 Actions). The eldritch lich makes one Parasitic Tentacle attack.
Feeding Frenzy (Costs 3 Actions). Each creature poisoned by the eldritch lich’s Parasitic Tentacle takes 13 (3d8) necrotic damage.
Lair Actions
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the eldritch lich can take one of the following lair actions; the eldritch lich can’t take the same lair action two rounds in a row:
Glimpse the Far Realm. The eldritch lich casts confusion.
Deafening Choir. The eldritch lich conjures wailing mouths in a 50-foot square area within 120 feet of it. Each creature within the area must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or be deafened until initiative count 20 on the next round, at which point the mouths disappear.
Terrain of Flesh. The eldritch lich transmutes a square area of ground it can see within its lair. The area can be up to 10 feet on a side. Each creature in the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or fall prone as the area turns into rolling folds of flesh. A creature that enters the area or ends its turn there must make the same save or fall prone. The effect ends on initiative count 20 on the next round.
Regional Effects
The region surrounding a powerful eldritch lich’s lair is corrupted by the influence of the Far Realm, creating one or more of the following effects:
Space Distortion. Within 6 miles of the lair, all Wisdom (Survival) checks are made with disadvantage as space seems to stretch and compress at random.
Bleeding Crop. Plant life within 1 mile of the lair oozes with a purple slime. Crops grown in this area are poisonous and have a random taste.
Confused Beasts. Beasts within 1 mile of the lair become disoriented and travel in random directions. A creature that casts speak with animals or attempts to communicate with beasts in a similar fashion discovers that the creatures speak in gibberish.
If the eldritch lich dies, these effects fade over the course of 1d10 days.
Eldritch Lich Minions
What’s a boss monster without its minions? Although very much undead, the eldritch lich need not rely on the services of zombies and other such creatures. The eldritch lich is tied to the Far Realm, and so it only serves that it’d align with aberrations and other monsters that are hard to make sense of.
Goon Balloon (CR 1/8)
For a low CR option, look no further than goon balloons, or as I like to call them, doom balloons. Also introduced in Monstrous Compendium Volume 1: Spelljammer Creatures, goon balloons are beach ball-shaped and have numerous unblinking eyes that speak to its greatest weapon, an eye ray attack.
Higher-level characters may not feel threatened by a goon balloon, but when the monster dies, it bursts with a gas that threatens to poison nearby creatures. Such a condition can help protect the eldritch lich and its more powerful minions.
Gibbering Mouther (CR 2)
An eldritch lich can use its parasitic tentacles to turn other creatures into gibbering mouthers, so it only stands to reason that an eldritch lich will keep such aberrations as pets. Imagine the horror on your players’ faces when they realize that the very minions they fight are mutated adventurers that the lich controls!
Puppeteer Parasite (CR 3)
Another addition from Monstrous Compendium, a puppeteer parasite is a thematic fit thanks to its psionic ability to cast suggestion. As the characters are wracked by the indecipherable whispers of an eldritch lich, so too will they struggle with orders psychically made by the puppeteer parasite.
Star Spawn Mangler (CR 5)
The star spawn mangler is a thematic fit for eldritch liches that terrorize the dark depths of Wildspace. Star spawns sometimes serve as foot soldiers for truly ancient evils. The eldritch lich can serve as a general to one in a war set in the Spelljammer setting.
Build Your Combat Encounter in Seconds
D&D Beyond users can use Encounters to prepare and run combat. The tool calculates encounter XP and combat difficulty for you. When you're in combat, character information like hit points automatically update. DMs can also roll directly from monster stat blocks, making it easier to run combat encounters. To use Encounters, you'll need to sign up for a free account.
Watch the Eldritch Lich in Action
The eldritch lich is an abomination of reality. Its motives are confounding, its lair betrays logic and sense, and it aligns itself with monsters that offer the tiniest glimpse into the horrors of the Far Realm. For these reasons, the eldritch lich makes for a horrifying and memorable encounter or big bad.
To see the eldritch lich in action, check out this one-shot adventure run by D&D Beyond's own Joe Starr:
Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.
Hold up... people thought this needed an UPGRADE?!
We also have a paladin lich (Death Knight) and cleric lich (Mummy Lord). Problem is that lichens are supposed to have to dig up arcane rituals, something sorcerers never had much use for. On the bright side, artificers can become lichens. In Infernal Machine Rebuild (minor spoiler) we meet a younger version of the lich Thessalar (he invented Owlbears and the thessalhydra), and he’s an artificer.
One thing that I think is missing of a lich in a spelljammer setting is the manipulation of the atmosphere.
If I am a lich, I don't need air, neither do my undead. So I would create a poisonous/hazardous environment so people invading my space need to be prepared and extra careful. And boarding a target vessel puts them on a clock until my toxins flood their ship.
Good question! So, you are correct that initiative is only rolled once. But combat follows the initiative order round by round. For example, let's say we roll initiative:
Combat kicks off with Player A. After them, the DM uses a lair action. Let's say the lair action has an effect that lasts until initiative count 20 on the next round. Then, Player B goes and finally the eldritch lich. After the eldritch lich's turn, we jump into a new round of combat, kicking off with Player A. Once Player A has gone, the effect of the lair action we used goes away and the DM chooses a new lair action to use. After that, Player B goes again, then the eldritch lich, etc. etc. until combat is over.
I hope this helps!
"In such a case, there’s no greater introduction to an eldritch lich than for a party of adventurers to walk in on one playing the organ with its tentacles."
Ahh yes, the Organ
If you rolled an initiative higher than 20 then you simply get to act before the lair action triggers.
If the lich uses this action outside of combat it triggers initiative, if you roll higher than 20 then you get your turn first, if you did not notice the lich using then you are surprised and take no action but you get to act before the next lair action in the next round.
COOL! Def including it in my campaign
I'd like to add to what everyone else has said and directly address the "character rolls a 20 on initiative." The PHB states that in the event of a tie, which this would count as, the DM can make a decision on what order the tied initiative counts go. HOWEVER, as stated above, a lair action automatically loses the tie against creatures that end up with a 20 on initiative, so it will always occur after said creatures have acted.
YES YES YES!!!! i love it!!
and yes my name is dnd bart
for druid we also have the devkarin lich
Love the article! One thing though: regarding the Eldritch Lich goals, how exactly would helping a yggdrasti bear fruit be as much of a problem as the others?
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