First I will write the questions themselves, and then I will give a detailed explanation. I - If the magician was initially evil and had practically no empathy and hatred for human needs/pleasures - should lichdom not change him much?
II - Is it not necessary to make deals with someone to become a lich? Szass Tam and Larloh didn't seem to make deals with anyone to become a lich, and they would hardly want to obey anyone.
Detailed explanation:
I have seen a lot of discussions about Lich and his influence on the mind, the information in them varies greatly, so it would be interesting to collect as much data as possible or some additional ideas. Now, if we have a magician who during his lifetime was mainly engaged in scientific research, consider human needs (ranging from food, ending with sexual) base and experienced incredible disgust in their relation. At the same time, he was LE - because he always kept his word (although he gave it very rarely), tried not to kill valuable (from the point of view of interest/science) people whenever possible and could even feel sympathy / affection for intelligent people /scientists/historians. For the same reason, he could help protect the city where there was a magic academy/historically valuable texts and buildings. History and magic are his main interests, and he doesn't care about human life. Of the people close to him, he had one comrade-a warrior with whom they were like brothers. They understood each other well, and in the rare sorties of this magician, the warrior always accompanied him and the trust between them was absolute. He also had a favorite cat. Apart from these 2 creatures, he no longer felt empathy/affection for anyone. And so, at one point he found a way to become a lich and the process was successful. Should his character change?
I will explain: I have read about many liches in the DnD and they are all very different. for example, Szass Tam was quite cultured, polite, adequate, and even thought of finding a worthy "friend" who would share lichdom with him. At the same time, lichdom also implies the preservation of the magician's mind, do I understand correctly? Otherwise, it would be possible to become a vampire, but many do not like it, so as not to be at the mercy of their passions.
If you are the GM, you can do whatever you want. If you want to make lawful good lich sustained by people's happiness and hope instead of their suffering and souls, go right ahead.
If you want an alternative way to achieve basic immortality where you do not die of old age, there is an epic boon for that. I agree that being a lich has its perks, but you will lose out on access to the Wish-Simulacrum engine that gives you infinite wishes and a powerful minion army.
In my opinion lichdom requires first off souls for powering the ritual to become a lich (if not granted by an abyssal or infernal or whatever pact) and then constant flow of souls to keep your lich form "alive".
Extinguishing souls for your own good is problematic. There migth be very very rare cases in which this is part of some kind of lichdom for a greater good (elven Baelnorns e.g.).
For the psychological site, yes, liches keep their mind. However (at least in my opinion), becoming a lich removes basic functions like smell and taste. Over the centuries this kind of sensory reduction and somehow emotional isolation will have at least some detrimental effects on the lich. I would imagine, that many liches start to show increasing mental detoriation bordering on becoming completely mad. Becoming a lich, also does not improve your memory, so you learn new things all the time and you have new experiences, but you also start to forget what was before. You can write everything down of course, but that does not prevent the general problem.
Overall, lichdom is very very special and has tons and tons of very intricate layers.
In my opinion lichdom requires first off souls for powering the ritual to become a lich (if not granted by an abyssal or infernal or whatever pact) and then constant flow of souls to keep your lich form "alive".
Extinguishing souls for your own good is problematic. There migth be very very rare cases in which this is part of some kind of lichdom for a greater good (elven Baelnorns e.g.).
For the psychological site, yes, liches keep their mind. However (at least in my opinion), becoming a lich removes basic functions like smell and taste. Over the centuries this kind of sensory reduction and somehow emotional isolation will have at least some detrimental effects on the lich. I would imagine, that many liches start to show increasing mental detoriation bordering on becoming completely mad. Becoming a lich, also does not improve your memory, so you learn new things all the time and you have new experiences, but you also start to forget what was before. You can write everything down of course, but that does not prevent the general problem.
Overall, lichdom is very very special and has tons and tons of very intricate layers.
In the case of my character, he doesn't care about sacrificing souls.
He just really wants immortality and to be a powerful necromancer magician + hates human physiological sensations. But, he does not want to be dependent on God, because he does not respect their aspirations. The same Larloch only wanted to study magic and did not touch the servants of Mystra. Here he has a similar situation, but he is just worried/ worried that his mind is in order, nothing more. Purely a desire not to die mentally.
Thank you for your reply. What you wrote sounds reasonable.
Given the requirements for lichdom described in the rules, it probably has no real effect on their mind. Liches are terrible because only terrible people would become a lich.
Amusingly, my computer keeps wanting to autocorrect "lich" to "rich", and it's kind of similar. Ultra-rich people very frequently seem to not really have any desire to do anything with their money, except acquire more money and the power to defend their wealth and make it easier to get more. (People being people, they're usually more complicated than that, but that's beside the point.) This is because you can't become that rich by accident. Anyone who'd say "I have enough money, time to take it easy" stopped way before then, when they were merely absurdly wealthy.
Similarly, you can't become a lich by accident. It requires a willingness to do terrible things in the pursuit of arcane power and knowledge (or eternal life, or whatever particular obsession drove you to become a lich). If doing terrible things bothered you, you'd've stopped. If arcane power wasn't that important to you, you'd never have reached the point where lichdom was an option.
Of course, this is about the new-made lich. Once you've isolated from humanity for hundreds of years, you're going to be pretty weird.
I don 't envision it as an instant flip of personality or anything. But given what you have to do to become a lich, you'd have to be a terrible person to do so. Or in the BEST case scenario, have an outlook of 'I'll only use bad peoples souls and use my power for the greater good' I suppose but I would still view becoming a lich in and of itself an evil act unless the DM allows for alternative methods of becoming a lich and maintaining it that doesn't require devouring souls.
Let's say hypothetically though that someone was made a lich against their will and is just stuck in that state. I imagine that over time, being undead and isolated from people and the dark deeds required to continue your existence would, over time, whittle away ones morals. Again assuming the DM hasn't made alternative means to make 'ethical lichdom' possible. Similar to how I would handle a vampire. Vampires don't instantly flip on a dime but now you need blood to survive, that craving, that thirst is always going to be there. And as the years pass it's going to be harder and harder to look humans as people rather than food. With even willingly given blood tempting you to take more and potentially kill by accident. It's a slippery slope.
Jl8e and nys pretty well cover it. The only “good lichs “ I know of are the Elven Baelnorns and that ritual involves the Seldarine so it’s out as you have no interest in being linked to gods- especially good gods. Do you keep your mind? Basic answer is yes, of course anyone considering lichdom is already out of their mind n at least a few senses 😁😈. In essence as a high level mage you have 2 choices for immortality - 1) lichdom, 2) the epic boon of immortality - and to get that boon you basically have to do something of extreme value for someone significantly more powerful than a L20 mage, ie a deity or Patron level NPC. Now it sounds like right now you are LE but the eternal quest for souls to maintain your lichdom is going to corrupt you to CE over time as the 2 interests of being hidden away to focus on your magic and getting souls to maintain your lichdom are mutually exclusive. You might want to take a look at the description of the Archlich as that is where you end up sooner or latter.
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First I will write the questions themselves, and then I will give a detailed explanation.
I - If the magician was initially evil and had practically no empathy and hatred for human needs/pleasures - should lichdom not change him much?
II - Is it not necessary to make deals with someone to become a lich? Szass Tam and Larloh didn't seem to make deals with anyone to become a lich, and they would hardly want to obey anyone.
Detailed explanation:
I have seen a lot of discussions about Lich and his influence on the mind, the information in them varies greatly, so it would be interesting to collect as much data as possible or some additional ideas.
Now, if we have a magician who during his lifetime was mainly engaged in scientific research, consider human needs (ranging from food, ending with sexual) base and experienced incredible disgust in their relation. At the same time, he was LE - because he always kept his word (although he gave it very rarely), tried not to kill valuable (from the point of view of interest/science) people whenever possible and could even feel sympathy / affection for intelligent people /scientists/historians. For the same reason, he could help protect the city where there was a magic academy/historically valuable texts and buildings. History and magic are his main interests, and he doesn't care about human life. Of the people close to him, he had one comrade-a warrior with whom they were like brothers. They understood each other well, and in the rare sorties of this magician, the warrior always accompanied him and the trust between them was absolute. He also had a favorite cat. Apart from these 2 creatures, he no longer felt empathy/affection for anyone. And so, at one point he found a way to become a lich and the process was successful. Should his character change?
I will explain: I have read about many liches in the DnD and they are all very different. for example, Szass Tam was quite cultured, polite, adequate, and even thought of finding a worthy "friend" who would share lichdom with him. At the same time, lichdom also implies the preservation of the magician's mind, do I understand correctly? Otherwise, it would be possible to become a vampire, but many do not like it, so as not to be at the mercy of their passions.
This is mostly up to your GM.
If you are the GM, you can do whatever you want. If you want to make lawful good lich sustained by people's happiness and hope instead of their suffering and souls, go right ahead.
If you want an alternative way to achieve basic immortality where you do not die of old age, there is an epic boon for that. I agree that being a lich has its perks, but you will lose out on access to the Wish-Simulacrum engine that gives you infinite wishes and a powerful minion army.
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In my opinion lichdom requires first off souls for powering the ritual to become a lich (if not granted by an abyssal or infernal or whatever pact) and then constant flow of souls to keep your lich form "alive".
Extinguishing souls for your own good is problematic. There migth be very very rare cases in which this is part of some kind of lichdom for a greater good (elven Baelnorns e.g.).
For the psychological site, yes, liches keep their mind. However (at least in my opinion), becoming a lich removes basic functions like smell and taste. Over the centuries this kind of sensory reduction and somehow emotional isolation will have at least some detrimental effects on the lich. I would imagine, that many liches start to show increasing mental detoriation bordering on becoming completely mad.
Becoming a lich, also does not improve your memory, so you learn new things all the time and you have new experiences, but you also start to forget what was before. You can write everything down of course, but that does not prevent the general problem.
Overall, lichdom is very very special and has tons and tons of very intricate layers.
In the case of my character, he doesn't care about sacrificing souls.
He just really wants immortality and to be a powerful necromancer magician + hates human physiological sensations. But, he does not want to be dependent on God, because he does not respect their aspirations. The same Larloch only wanted to study magic and did not touch the servants of Mystra. Here he has a similar situation, but he is just worried/ worried that his mind is in order, nothing more. Purely a desire not to die mentally.
Thank you for your reply. What you wrote sounds reasonable.
Given the requirements for lichdom described in the rules, it probably has no real effect on their mind. Liches are terrible because only terrible people would become a lich.
Amusingly, my computer keeps wanting to autocorrect "lich" to "rich", and it's kind of similar. Ultra-rich people very frequently seem to not really have any desire to do anything with their money, except acquire more money and the power to defend their wealth and make it easier to get more. (People being people, they're usually more complicated than that, but that's beside the point.) This is because you can't become that rich by accident. Anyone who'd say "I have enough money, time to take it easy" stopped way before then, when they were merely absurdly wealthy.
Similarly, you can't become a lich by accident. It requires a willingness to do terrible things in the pursuit of arcane power and knowledge (or eternal life, or whatever particular obsession drove you to become a lich). If doing terrible things bothered you, you'd've stopped. If arcane power wasn't that important to you, you'd never have reached the point where lichdom was an option.
Of course, this is about the new-made lich. Once you've isolated from humanity for hundreds of years, you're going to be pretty weird.
I don 't envision it as an instant flip of personality or anything. But given what you have to do to become a lich, you'd have to be a terrible person to do so. Or in the BEST case scenario, have an outlook of 'I'll only use bad peoples souls and use my power for the greater good' I suppose but I would still view becoming a lich in and of itself an evil act unless the DM allows for alternative methods of becoming a lich and maintaining it that doesn't require devouring souls.
Let's say hypothetically though that someone was made a lich against their will and is just stuck in that state. I imagine that over time, being undead and isolated from people and the dark deeds required to continue your existence would, over time, whittle away ones morals. Again assuming the DM hasn't made alternative means to make 'ethical lichdom' possible. Similar to how I would handle a vampire. Vampires don't instantly flip on a dime but now you need blood to survive, that craving, that thirst is always going to be there. And as the years pass it's going to be harder and harder to look humans as people rather than food. With even willingly given blood tempting you to take more and potentially kill by accident. It's a slippery slope.
Jl8e and nys pretty well cover it. The only “good lichs “ I know of are the Elven Baelnorns and that ritual involves the Seldarine so it’s out as you have no interest in being linked to gods- especially good gods. Do you keep your mind? Basic answer is yes, of course anyone considering lichdom is already out of their mind n at least a few senses 😁😈. In essence as a high level mage you have 2 choices for immortality - 1) lichdom, 2) the epic boon of immortality - and to get that boon you basically have to do something of extreme value for someone significantly more powerful than a L20 mage, ie a deity or Patron level NPC. Now it sounds like right now you are LE but the eternal quest for souls to maintain your lichdom is going to corrupt you to CE over time as the 2 interests of being hidden away to focus on your magic and getting souls to maintain your lichdom are mutually exclusive. You might want to take a look at the description of the Archlich as that is where you end up sooner or latter.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.