Homebrew Accidental Lich Species Details

You did not intend to spend eternity in a skeletal corpse with your soul locked away in some phylactery.  Perhaps you were a sacrifice or maybe an assistant, but something went wrong with the ritual.  Maybe it was the joker who substituted sturgeon for virgin on the ingredient list, maybe the necromancer could not control the power she summoned, or maybe those blasted adventurers came in at the wrong moment, causing everything to erupt in a swirling wind of wild magic.  Whatever the case, you are now an immortal creature that people fear, even though you may be a really lovely guy underneath the bones.  Knights and Paladins would hunt you down in a heartbeat, but unlike a true Lich, you do not have the power to fight back, so you have taken to living more in the shadows.  Maybe you can live long enough to gain the power to protect yourself or maybe even find a way out of this mess.  Maybe a god will take mercy on you, but you have never heard a story about something like this.  So you will have to write your own.

Secrets of Undeath. 

No one ever becomes a lich on a whim.  It is a path that can consume decades of a Wizard's life and maybe bargains with some of the darkest creatures in the multiverse.  The result is an arcane ritual that is kept secret.  Some say that every ritual is different and that there is not a single path to Lichdom.  But the result is always the same.  The ritual creates a lich by trapping the wizard’s soul within a phylactery. Doing so binds the soul to the mortal world, preventing it from traveling to the Outer Planes after death. A phylactery is traditionally an amulet in the shape of a small box, but it can take the form of any item possessing an interior space into which arcane sigils of naming, binding, immortality, and dark magic are scribed in silver.

You are the result of one of these rituals going horribly wrong.  Use the table below to determine how you became the beneficiary of this dark curse (roll, choose, or use the table as inspiration).

d4	Lich Origins
1	You were one of the sacrifices planned for the Ritual of Transformation.  You died, and your soul was already imprisoned in the Phylactery when the band of adventurers broke in to stop the necromancer.  In the ensuing fight, the potion of transformation spilled on your body, completing the ritual, but not in an intended manner.
2	A necromancer who has suffered from a stutter since childhood should have thought twice before starting this ritual.
3	A rival necromancer purposefully fouled the ritual.  As the necromancer was in the throws of death, the regurgitated Potion of Transformation covered you, giving you the coveted power.
4	You were serving a band of adventurers who went to take on a necromancer.  Little did they know he had been working on the Ritual of Transformation, which was concluding.  All that was needed was the correct alignment of stars.  While the adventurers fought the necromancer, you happened to find an exciting trinket and potion.  No one would mind if you helped yourself to some of the spoils.  Right?

Getting a Gift You Never Wanted

The problem with rogue magic is that the results are unexpected, and you are not on the traditional path of a lich.  You have a phylactery that holds your soul, but the maintenance of the phylactery is based more upon your soul than the magics that went wild.  Your phylactery is tuned to your soul, and what your soul craves, the phylactery craves.  Use the table below to determine how your phylactery is powered (you can either roll, choose, or use this as inspiration).  Your DM will have the final say on how the phylactery will need to be fueled.

d8	Powering Your Phylactery
1	As with a traditional Lich, you must feed your phylactery the soul of a sentient being each year.  This will slowly drag you down the road to evil.
2	Your wicked tongue has stabbed many people in the heart and brought the haughty low.  Yearly, you must destroy the reputation of someone you know or bring them extreme emotional pain.
3	You are constantly picking things up, usually not yours.  Yearly, you need to steal an item precious to someone and destroy it.  The item fragments are then turned into an oil to anoint your phylactery.
4	Being devout, you offer your life to your god, hoping they will have mercy upon you and show forgiveness.  You must annually take your phylactery, spend a day praying and ask the highest-ranking priest to bless your phylactery.
5	Song and laughter have continuously stirred your soul, and your phylactery responds to the same things.  Annually, you must throw a party or festival with music, fun, and laughter.
6	A good meal, good wine, and good friends fill your heart.  You must host a gathering with the most refined foods and wines, inviting your friends and allies for an evening of comradery.
7	Sharpening your sword, hearing the horns for battle, and the fallen blood of your enemies.  It is on the battlefield that you feel most at home.  Annually, you must participate in a significant battle.  After the battle, you coat your phylactery in the blood of the fallen.
8	You see yourself as a monster hunter, a defender of ordinary people.  Annually, you must agree to defeat a beast terrorizing a group of ordinary citizens.  Once you return with a trophy of the kill and receive the accolades of the people, your phylactery is satisfied.

 

The phylactery is critical because it holds your soul, and it can create a new body for your soul to use.  Usually, when a lich’s body is broken by accident or assault, the will and mind of the lich drain from it, leaving only a corpse behind. Within days, a new body forms next to the lich’s phylactery, coalescing out of glowing smoke that issues from the device.  But this is not always the case with an accidental Lich.  Use the table below to determine what happens when a new body forms.

D8	Regaining a Body
1	As with a traditional Lich, the glowing smoke from the phylactery coalesces into a new body exactly like the old one.
2	Each time you die, you return as you were before the ritual.  Over the following weeks, your flesh will begin to rot until you have returned to the Lich body.  This process takes about a month, but you have time to enjoy yourself before you become a withered boney corpse again.
3	The phylactery secretes an ooze which slowly congeals into a vaguely humanoid form.  Over the next day, it begins to solidify into a new body.  Each time though, the body is of a different sex and race.
4	After your death, there is a blinding flash from the phylactery, and you are standing there as you were before the ritual.  After the subsequent death, you come back in the Lich body.  This cycle of a living body to lich body and back continues through eternity.
5	The smoke from the phylactery coalesces into a new body that is always the same sex as your original body, but now it could be the skeletal remains of humanoids, animals, or even monstrosities.
6	Your new body takes on the form of one of your companions or close allies.

 

Because the destruction of its phylactery means the possibility of eternal death, a lich usually keeps its phylactery in a hidden, well-guarded location.  Destroying a lich’s phylactery is no easy task and often requires a special ritual, item, or weapon. Every phylactery is unique, and discovering the key to its destruction can be a quest in and of itself.  The problem for you is that you have no idea what protections were placed upon your phylactery, so even you do not know how to destroy it.

Accidental Lich Traits

Ability Score Increases

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and a different score by 1, or increase three scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of your method to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.

Languages

Your character can speak, read, and write Common, and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.

Creature Type

 

Your type is Undead.  Note that Cure Wounds and Lay on Hands do not work on Undead.

Life Span

You are immortal as long as your phylactery is safe and unharmed.  The destruction of your phylactery results in your final death.  It is assumed that this undead existence is new for the character.

Height and Weight

Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.

Size

You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.

Speed

Your walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.

Damage Resistance

Cold, Necrotic, Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks.

Damage Immunities 

Poison

Damage Vulnerabilities

Radiant

Condition Immunities

Disease, Exhaustion, Paralyzed, Poisoned

Undead Nature

A lich doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.

Natural Armor

The Accidental Lich's base armor class is 13 + Dexterity Modifier (this applies if they are not wearing armor).

Rejuvenation. 

If it has a phylactery, a destroyed lich gains a new body in 1d10 days, regaining all its hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears within 5 feet of the phylactery.

Accidental Lich Traits

You are a Lich.

Ability Score Increase

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and a different score by 1 or three by 1. Follow this rule regardless of your method to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The “Quick Build” section for your character’s class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You can follow those suggestions or ignore them, but you can’t raise any of your scores above 20.

Language

Your character can speak, read, and write Common, and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.

Size

You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.

Damage Resistance

Damage Resistance to Cold, Necrotic, and Piercing and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks.

Immunity

Immunity to Poison

Vulnerabilities

Vulnerable to Radiant.

Condition Immunities

Condition Immunities to Disease, Exhaustion, Paralyzed, Poisoned.

Undead Nature

A lich doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.

Natural Armor

The Accidental Lich's base armor class is 13 + Dexterity Modifier (this applies if they are not wearing armor).

Rejuvination

If it has a phylactery, a destroyed lich gains a new body in 1d10 days, regaining all its hit points and becoming active again. The new body appears within 5 feet of the phylactery.