Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Velocity 03-09-06, 03:11 AM	Say for instance, a mother whose daughter is dying of a wasting disease and cannot bear to be parted from her, there is no temple anywhere near them capable of ressurrecting the girl, but there is a local wizard who offers to help. For a small fee, or service he will endow the child with the characteristics of magically induced, unnaturally prolonged life and uses the lich-making process on her so that even though she is a rotting, festering corpse crawling with worms, she can still listen to a story and help her mom with the dishes. Question is, would it work?
Piuro 03-09-06, 03:31 AM	Im not sure, but I see no reason why you couldnt house rule it in. It'd be more fun to go through vampirism though, have an adventure about an evil lurking in the town that randomly kills each night, and then have the PCs discover its an unfortunate little girl and her mother who paid a hefty price. Most fun at low levels with a paladin in the party. Than way they couldnt just res her, and the paladin would be torn between re-killing a little girl who has done nothing (intentionally) wrong. Damn, I need to try this some time.
runestar 03-09-06, 04:30 AM	Because of the fluff detailed in the lich desc, I would rule that even if the person undertaking the ritual was good, he/she would ultimately be corrupted by the ritual and eventually turn evil in alignment. :D
Piuro 03-09-06, 06:49 AM	Screw fluff, if something sounds fun do it.
Millennium 03-09-06, 07:08 AM	Not by the description in the Monster Manual, which specifically requires a willing participant and an Evil process. However, this seems to be one of the most commonly ignored descriptions in all of D&D. Forgotten Realms throws it right out the window: aside from the elven baelnorns, there are some who undergo the lich transformation yet remain Good, and there are others who are forcibly transformed into liches. Unless I'm mistaken Eberron has some similar concepts, though alignment isn't as deeply ingrained into that setting anyway. Bottom line: it's a house rule, but a very common one, and it has no real effect on the gameplay mechanics. It's almost entirely a flavor thing. However, you do face one possible problem with the particular story you've related: the child-lich would never age. Centuries of undeath as a child will wreak havoc on just about anyone.
beezly 03-09-06, 07:57 AM	Well, if the child Really Wanted to look like an adult, she could alter-self herself.
dok 03-09-06, 10:43 AM	Problem #1: your scenario says that the mother can't afford a ressurection. Heck, if the child died of a disease, it means the mother couldn't even afford a remove disease! But a lich's phylactry, the thing that holds the soul and lets the mind of the deceased keep going, costs 120,000 gp, plus an XP cost. So if you can't afford ressurection or raise dead or cure disease, you certainly can't afford a phylactry to become a lich. (this also sheds some light on who becomes a lich and why. Raise Dead and similar spells can't restore someone who died of old age.) Problem #2: you don't want a lich. Liches have a fear aura that causes things to flee. They have a paralizing touch that also inflicts pain. These are not good things when all you want is your daughter doing dishes. Suggestion: Lich? No. But the Book of Vile Darkness has a Corpse Creature template that is exactly what you're looking for. It's a dead creature, but it has the intelligence and mental capacity of the deceased.
Starmage21 03-09-06, 11:02 AM	Problem #1: your scenario says that the mother can't afford a ressurection. Heck, if the child died of a disease, it means the mother couldn't even afford a remove disease! But a lich's phylactry, the thing that holds the soul and lets the mind of the deceased keep going, costs 120,000 gp, plus an XP cost. So if you can't afford ressurection or raise dead or cure disease, you certainly can't afford a phylactry to become a lich. (this also sheds some light on who becomes a lich and why. Raise Dead and similar spells can't restore someone who died of old age.) Problem #2: you don't want a lich. Liches have a fear aura that causes things to flee. They have a paralizing touch that also inflicts pain. These are not good things when all you want is your daughter doing dishes. Suggestion: Lich? No. But the Book of Vile Darkness has a Corpse Creature template that is exactly what you're looking for. It's a dead creature, but it has the intelligence and mental capacity of the deceased. It doesnt say it in the MM, but liches do not require phylacteries. Been that way since 2nd edition at least(when i started playing), and it hasnt been retconned. In fact, Forgotten Realms material lists several liches who dont have phylacteries. The first is Baelnorn(elven liches), who become liches to be the power of their family. Baelnorn do not create phylacteries at all(though they could if they wanted). Also, there are several liches who had undeath forced upon them. Wulgreth was one: He was transformed by a rogue ball of Heavy Magic imbued with a Life Drain spell that Karsus was experimenting with. Wulgreth didnt have a phylactery, though he certainly couldve built one later.
Greenintern 03-09-06, 11:27 AM	I heartily enjoy the idea of the townspeople stating "Her daughter died 3 years ago...She was only 6 years old. When asked why the Farmer's widow (yup, he's dead too) is so sad. Of course, she is sad because he daughter has been turned into a vampire, or some other intelligent undead (corporeal is preferable, although a ghost wouldnt be bad, I suppose), and every so often gets bored with being hidden all the time. That fear aura that too often comes along with eternal unlife makes it hard to get close to fluffy bunnies, and the cows. And Mr. Piddles (the cat) won't even go near her. So out she goes to search for new animal friends, except the animals won't have any of it, and sometimes the owners get involved too. "Oops! Why isn't Mr Weatherbee moving? I only tried to slap his arm away from me. Wow! I feel great!" Basically, the child doesn't really understand what it is doing (or it does, for added creep factor). It is going about it's business as it normally would. Perhaps the Mother has made some excuse as to why her daughter must be hidden away during the day. I think it would be very heartwrenching, creepy, and trying for the Players and PCs.
DeathsAudit 03-09-06, 12:59 PM	the slaymate from Libris Mortis dosn't fit the background but necromancer would love to have one so might do it on the cheep, a cleric of Wee Jas would be lawfall and let the child stay with mum as longe as they could still study it, or mum could be the cleric :eek:
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 03-09-06, 02:33 PM	It doesnt say it in the MM, but liches do not require phylacteries. Been that way since 2nd edition at least(when i started playing), and it hasnt been retconned. Liches always had phylacteries in 2e, and they still do. The only people doing the retcon were the ones responsible for the horrible mangling of FR in 3e.
dok 03-09-06, 03:01 PM	It doesnt say it in the MM, but liches do not require phylacteries. Literacy is not one of your strong points, is it? An integral part of becoming a lich is creating a magic phylactery in which the character stores its life force. in·te·gral - Essential or necessary for completeness; In fact, Forgotten Realms material lists several liches who dont have phylacteries. The first is Baelnorn(elven liches), who become liches to be the power of their family. Baelnorn do not create phylacteries at all(though they could if they wanted). Also, there are several liches who had undeath forced upon them. Wulgreth was one: He was transformed by a rogue ball of Heavy Magic imbued with a Life Drain spell that Karsus was experimenting with. Wulgreth didnt have a phylactery, though he certainly couldve built one later. And both of those cases are specific exceptions to the requirement of a phylactry. If a phylactry wasn't necessary to becoming a lich, they wouldn't need to say "these liches do not have a phylactry", because it would be obvious. And I'll repeat my earlier suggestion: if you want to have an undead version of a person with all the sentience intact, but none of the wierd paralyzing-touch-fear-aura business, use the Corpse Creature template from the BoVD.
Shemeska the Marauder 03-09-06, 05:29 PM	Not by the description in the Monster Manual, which specifically requires a willing participant and an Evil process. However, this seems to be one of the most commonly ignored descriptions in all of D&D. Forgotten Realms throws it right out the window: aside from the elven baelnorns, there are some who undergo the lich transformation yet remain Good, and there are others who are forcibly transformed into liches. Unless I'm mistaken Eberron has some similar concepts, though alignment isn't as deeply ingrained into that setting anyway. Not so much ignoring the RAW, but that the 'it is evil' part is something that got inserted as of 3.5 without apparent regard to the neutral and even good liches in DnD lore. It was part of the whole whitewash of some stuff in 3.5 such as mindless undead becoming evil whereas they had been neutral for every edition of the game prior, etc. Bad design.
Shemeska the Marauder 03-09-06, 05:33 PM	Question is, would it work? Undeath yes. Being a true lich with all that that process entails, unlikely. I can easily see some varient form of undeath being used to prolong existance in the absence of clerics able to heal someone or raise them from the dead. It might even be used to keep someone tethered to the world till a cleric could return to bring them back to their normal mode of existance, rather than risk the chance of the person's petitioner being unwilling to return to the world after existing on the outer planes for X period of time.
Velocity 03-10-06, 01:52 AM	I flippin' LOVE D&D! These kind of weird discussions with you amazing people just gives me the warm fuzzies. I hope some of you actually try a similar scenario in the games you DM, that would be priceless. You folks are too cool for words to express. Role-play on! :D
strumbleduck 03-10-06, 01:56 AM	There's something called the Necropolitan in Libris Mortis with a very similar flavor that can be applied to anyone.