Legendary Resistance (4/Day). If Vaelith fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead. When he does so, time briefly rewinds around him, creating a ripple of force that deals 10 (3d6) psychic damage to all creatures within 10 feet.
Entropic Reservoir. Whenever a creature within 120 feet regains hit points from a spell or ability, the Lich absorbs temporal residue equal to half the amount healed. The Lich can expend that stored energy to empower a spell, dealing additional necrotic damage equal to the amount absorbed. The reservoir can store up to 100 damage.
Threads of Inevitability. The Lich perceives every possible action within its domain. Once per round, when a creature takes an action, bonus action, or reaction, the Lich may choose to “observe” it—recording the thread of that outcome. At the start of the next round, it can replicate that action as if it were its own (using its own stats and modifiers). The Lich can only maintain one observed thread at a time.
Multiattack. The lich can make two Arcane Bolt attacks or one Soul Rend attack.
Arcane Bolt. Ranged Spell Attack: +15 to hit, range 120 ft., one target. Hit: 27 (6d8) force damage.
Spellcasting (30th level):
Spell save DC 23, +15 to hit.
At-will: dispel magic, counterspell, greater invisibility, chain lightning
5/day: time stop, power word kill, meteor swarm, foresight
3/day: imprisonment, true polymorph, reverse gravity, disintegrate
1/day each: wish (phylactery only), reality break (homebrew), maze
Doom Pulse (Recharge 5–6).
The Lich releases a ripple of collapsing reality in a 30-foot radius. Each creature in that area must make a DC 23 Constitution saving throw, taking 54 (12d8) force damage and becoming unable to regain hit points until the start of the Lich’s next turn on a failed save, or half as much damage with no additional effect on a success.
Eternal Sentence. (Recharge 6)
The Lich targets one creature within 60 feet and speaks a word of temporal judgment. The target must succeed on a DC 23 Wisdom saving throw or be banished forward in time—removed from combat for 1 round. When they reappear, they take 40 (9d8) psychic damage and suffer one level of exhaustion as their body adjusts to the skipped time.
Chronal Drift. The Lich blurs momentarily, becoming partially phased. Until the start of its next turn, attacks against it are made with disadvantage, and it can move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain (taking 5 force damage per object or creature passed through).
Grave Rewind. The Lich targets a corpse or undead within 30 feet and rewinds its time-state to 1 round prior—instantly reanimating it with temporary HP equal to twice the Lich’s proficiency bonus (typically 12–14). This creature acts immediately after the Lich.
Hourglass Swap. The Lich swaps places with any creature affected by a debuff or condition it inflicted within 60 feet. The Lich becomes immune to that condition, and the target instead gains slow (no save) until the end of their next turn.
Paradox Loop. When targeted by an attack, the Lich momentarily reverses its own timeline. The attack is rolled again with disadvantage, and if it still hits, the attacker suffers psychic damage equal to the damage dealt (as the loop collapses inward).
Stolen Moment. When a creature within 60 feet uses a Legendary Action, Lair Action, or Mythic Action, the Lich may interrupt and instead take that action itself, as if it had originated the effect (using its own DCs). The original user loses that action for the round.
End of the Hour. When the Lich drops a creature to 0 HP, it may immediately trigger this reaction: all creatures within 30 feet must make a DC 22 Wisdom saving throw or be frozen in time until the end of their next turn (stunned). This power can’t be used again until the start of the Lich’s next turn.
Legendary Actions. The lich can take 4 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The lich regains spent legendary actions at the start of his turn.
Soul Split (cost 2): Creates an echo of one hero or NPC (CR equal to the target’s). The echo has 50% HP and vanishes if reduced to 0 HP.
Temporal Step (cost 1). The lich teleports up to 60 ft. to an unoccupied space. One creature within 10 ft. of his new position must succeed on a DC 20 Dexterity save or age 10 years. (This has no mechanical penalty, but cannot be reversed except by a wish.)
Mythic Trait (Rewind Eternity): When reduced to 0 HP, the Lich’s phylactery cracks and releases a pulse that rewinds time 1 minute for all creatures except the lich, who regains 280 HP. Each creature must succeed on a DC 22 Wisdom save or relive the last minute again, retaining damage but not expended spell slots. The lich uses this ability once.
Description
The Conductor of Time
Once a mortal archmage obsessed with the geometry of time, the Arcanarch of the Final Hour transcended mortality not through simple undeath, but through temporal ossification—freezing his soul within a moment that never ends. His phylactery is no mere vessel; it is a chronophage engine, an artifact that devours seconds, minutes, and years to preserve its master’s intellect in perpetual recursion. In life, he sought to measure eternity. In undeath, he commands it.
The Courteous Host
To those who enter his domain, the Arcanarch is unsettlingly civil. He greets intruders like honored guests, quoting the etiquette of long-dead empires and insisting upon the decorum of a “duel properly conducted.” Even as he prepares to unmake his foes, his voice remains calm, regretful, almost bored. For him, every possible outcome has already occurred.
Master of Entropy
The Arcanarch does not simply kill—he unmakes. Healing magic feeds his power. Spells unravel at his gesture. Heroes find their victories rewound, their triumphs erased. Every death, every mistake, every heartbeat is catalogued in his impossible ledger, replayed until all potential collapses into a single, predetermined outcome: his victory.
Those few who have witnessed his defeat claim that even then, his laughter lingers — as if time itself is uncertain whether the Arcanarch has truly fallen, or if this too is just another iteration in his endless experiment.
Lair and Lair Actions
Lair Action (Initiative 20, losing ties):Reversal Pulse: All spells cast since the last lair action are reversed—healing becomes damage, buffs become debuffs (DC 22 Wis save negates).
Memory Erasure: One random PC forgets their last action (they lose it).
Phylactery Phase Shift: The phylactery teleports to a random visible point; striking it with 100 damage or dispel magic (DC 23) suppresses mythic regeneration for 1 round.
The Arcanarch’s Inner Sanctum — The Final Hourglass
The deepest chamber of the Arcanarch’s domain defies mortal comprehension. Gone are the gears, the libraries, the echoing halls of decayed grandeur. What remains is a vast, hollow expanse — an emptiness carved out of existence itself. The floor is smooth gray stone, cold and unyielding, stretching endlessly in every direction until it fades into a void without horizon or sky.
There are no walls here, no ceiling — only an infinite dark that hums faintly, as if the universe itself were holding its breath. The silence is total, oppressive, yet alive; it presses against the ears like deep ocean pressure. Every footstep echoes too long, repeating itself seconds after the sound should have died, reverberating through the folds of time.
At the heart of this abyss stands the Throne of Stillness — a single high-backed chair carved from the same colorless stone, its surface etched with shifting runes that drift like sand in an unseen hourglass. The Arcanarch waits there, motionless, his robes suspended as though in water. Around him, thin cracks of pale light shimmer in the air, marking the boundaries of time itself beginning to fracture.
Magic behaves strangely in this place. Flames burn without heat. Spells echo as if cast twice. Shadows fall in directions that don’t exist. Here, past and future are indistinguishable, and death feels like a memory waiting to happen.
This chamber is not merely his lair — it is his phylactery made manifest, a pocket of stalled eternity sustained by his will alone. To step into it is to step outside of time, into a place where even gods might lose track of their own heartbeat.
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