Dungeon Master Inspiration
DMI is a podcast made to share the tricks of the trade of DMs with a wide range of experience levels, from fresh, new DMs to wisened masters of the position.
We focus on exploring topics within the world of DnD that consistently pose problems to DMs, such as developing characters, the use of monsters & NPCs, and combat. You'll hear from a variety of DMs speaking on a plethora of intriguing controversial issues in-depth.
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Dungeon Master Inspiration
Unveiling the Undead: A Deep Dive into the Lore and Legacy of Liches in Fantasy Gaming
Ever wondered if the mystical liches of yore are facing an existential crisis of overexposure in modern fantasy? Tune in and we'll be your guides through the shadowy corridors of lich lore, from their haunting origins in Dungeons & Dragons to their complex roles in today's gaming narratives. We promise you'll emerge with a newfound appreciation for these arcane undead, as we unravel their evolving portrayal across the decades and celebrate their spine-chilling contributions to the genre. We pay homage to the likes of Szass Tam and Acererak, whose stories not only define what it means to be a lich but also challenge adventurers at every turn.
Have you ever considered the macabre intricacies of a lich's phylactery or the diverse paths to achieving this fearsome form of immortality? Our conversation dives into the dark arts, dissecting how these soul jars are more than mere containers but the linchpin to a lich's everlasting reign. We also speculate on the tantalizing possibility of lichdom extending beyond necromancers, imagining a bard whose eternal essence is bound to their last haunting melody. The episode wouldn't be complete without examining the divine disdain and dragon dealings in lich creation, ensuring that the whispers of their power reach every corner of the multiverse.
Comparing liches to other formidable foes, we touch on the emergence of Mind Flayers as formidable nemeses and discuss how their alien intellect adds a fresh layer of dread to the fantasy realm. For those behind the DM screen, we share our best tips for crafting encounters with these immortal villains that preserve their enigmatic aura. Plus, we consider how the allure of lichdom could play out for player-characters, exploring the narrative potential of such a transformation. Join us for this bone-chilling episode and be sure to check out our additional content for dungeon masters and players alike, available through our Patreon community.
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This may be a very hot take, but I think liches are something that's becoming way too popular in most forms of media. Not that they're not good, but I definitely think they're starting to be a little overused, and I know that that's kind of a weird take from me, someone that likes dragons, because dragons are your stereotypical monster. But overall I think they're starting to reach this point where they're no longer D&D's like exclusive and premiere, like end game boss, like they used to be. What are your kind of thoughts?
Speaker 2:well, I think, uh, I think part of the problem with liches is that it's a very easy go-to in terms of creating a dangerous villain that can be a jack of all trades yeah, and I, I think it.
Speaker 1:I think it definitely has a lot of merit to being and I mean, they've been around since first edition being your end boss. There are some that are just named characters that are very, very prevalent in the story. Um, I know the ruler of thay is a is a lich, and I wrote his name down because I'm getting better. It's uh, snaz tam, I think. What, however you pronounce that, sazaz?
Speaker 2:tam. Is it sazaz tam?
Speaker 1:I think it's sazaz tam, but I'm not confident in that time to roll it back and watch the dnd movie and figure it out from there, because he was the villain in that movie too and he's probably my favorite villain merely because you can see how dangerous a lower tier lich can be.
Speaker 2:If you even want to spoil it this is heavy spoilers for the dnd movie but if you want to uh see how dangerous a lower tier lich is, then you have the D&D movie. That really exemplifies how cunning and how intelligent they can be. And that isn't even the main guy. Zaz Tam is somewhere out there and he has so much influence that you see him, but only merely in the shadows. I think the thing that makes zaz tam so interesting is they build him out really well in that movie while not showing you almost anything about him. But you see his influence. It's that influential danger that you can only see him in the shadows, and it's only his cold, the dead, undead eyes yeah, and I definitely see where he has had a lot of impact.
Speaker 1:I mean, any named lich has had massive impact in the dnd world. So, like another one is of khan, I think is pronounced is how it's pronounced. But like he started out in first edition as two magic items the hand and the eye and what was really interesting about it when it was a magic item was, in order to use the eye, you literally had to carve out your own eye and put his eye in its place, or cut off your arm and use his arm, and it would give you a lot of powers, but you would lose a piece of your humanity, which is where it had really nice trade-off from a story perspective is you started to lose your humanity, but he's been around since first edition and now he's a bad guy in one of the pre-made campaigns, which is really interesting to think about. That. They've kind of gone full circle with that, that lich and another important thing about like what.
Speaker 2:What defines a lich is two things. A lich is two things. One is that, for all intents and purposes, they are wizards. They are wizards who have reached such an insane level that death is almost meaningless to them. However, it's that almost that makes them interesting, because other villains might be flawed or they might have good goals in mind, but by being a lich, you are an undead creature and you slowly, just like if you use the eye or the hand, you slowly lose your humanity. You go crazy. You slowly lose your humanity, you go crazy. And through that insanity, you are still a powerful wizard, but you are willing to do more and more worse things, and that is why they are typically seen as a late game, final boss, big, bad end game villain and I see them.
Speaker 1:I see them in that way very much. They're. They're very nice, uh, end game monster, especially if paired with a horde. Now they do struggle with the thing of like you do have to you do have to play them with a like a, an army, because while they are very cunning and very strong, they fall into the spellcaster issue if they have nearly no hit points, and I talked about this in in the video that dropped on friday.
Speaker 1:But liches are one of those humanoid monsters that I think are a great example of something that's often overlooked in the community, that is, monsters very much are meant to reflect player characters.
Speaker 1:They're supposed to be a level 18 caster and thus they have the same spell slots as a level 18 character. So if you want a bigger, stronger lich and you don't feel like digging for a stat block, you can build out a level 20 wizard. They just have less spells available to them so that it's easier to run combat, and I think that's something that's often the community overlooked, because there's this very either you swear by it or you hate it mentality around building monsters as player characters, because definitely, if you go look it up on reddit, there's some polar opinions in there and dnd beyonds the same way. Um. So, with that being said, I think they are. They're great, they're a great thing to use, but you have to be aware that they are, at the end of the day, based on a player character and uh, you have. They have to have at least one minion with them, otherwise it's just like if you tossed your wizard into the middle of a pit of goblins. It's not gonna.
Speaker 2:It's not gonna go great you gotta think about that turn economy you gotta think they. They can't just do it on their own. They're very dangerous on their own. But you got to also keep in mind the strength of your own party. If you're going to throw one in, if you don't think that, if you know that the enemies are they're able to handle, higher to your enemies. You got to keep that in mind. You can't liches aren't just a one one and done they're oh well.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a lich, they're going to be able to. It's going to give them a challenge, no matter what. It depends on your circumstances. It also depends on your own. You know train. It depends on the setting. It depends on your circumstances that you want to throw in and you can make some.
Speaker 1:You can make that circumstance a lot better and more in favor of the lich, or do other things like minions yeah, and I would say like a rule of thumb that I've kind of like started to coin in some of my blog posts and my my videos is kind of like for building monsters, it's the rule of two um. And the reason I think that's really important is if I'm having a level 15 party fight a one lich with no army, I'm going to want them to be a level 15 or 16 party, because a two level disparity in D&D is just absolutely massive. It's way bigger than you think it's going to be, whereas if you're going to have a level 18 party fighting it, it has to be a level 20 lich or you're going to have to have multiple level 15 liches or level 14 liches so that you don't overwhelm them. Turn economy. I I found that two level gaps, if you're building them out as a player character, is a good, a good rule of thumb.
Speaker 2:In my personal experience I found that's usually making it challenging and then I can affect the number a little bit and tweak it so that it's either more enemies or less which makes sense for you, considering that you like to turn enemies, monster, stat blocks and turn them into player characters to better flesh them out and give them some abilities that the player characters might have. This makes sense that you would want them two levels ahead of the party.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and definitely part of the reason I'll even write. I have been looking for D&D to make me a new character sheet. I do want a new character sheet, but at the end of the day I think I will. Often when I make a video with a custom monster in it or a blog post, I'll put them into the monster stat block because that's what people are used to. But a big advice I have for a lot of newer DMs and something I do for myself it's a lot easier to remember your villains, like personality traits, if you build it out on the character sheet, and sometimes it can be easier for me to remember certain checks. So that's why I usually take my big bad and at least move them over to a character sheet. I won't do it for every monster, but definitely for the ones that are important dragons, liches, any of the, any of the like really thought out ones that I'm planning on doing a story piece with. That is something that I make sure that is in there at all times.
Speaker 2:Personally, and one. One problem with liches that when you do kind of put them into a stat block it helps with, is the fact that it's D&D will say a monster. Is this difficulty? But that's if you are playing him somewhat optimally.
Speaker 2:It's very easy when you have just spells to forget all of the spells. Like if you look at the unicorn, there are so many different spells that can be very helpful, but you have to remember them. You have to remember them off the top of your head If you're not like staring at it, or if you're trying like staring at it, or if you're trying to make combat run faster or it's very just easy in general, just to be like, oh, I could have, I could have had the, the unicorn do this and this would have made the fight more fun, more memorable, and it's tougher that way. But when you build it as like a player character sheet, it's because you're interacting with it more than just staring at an image it's harder to forget everything it can do yeah, and I would say a big important thing to remember when you're building them out is just like in the player's handbook.
Speaker 1:You have to remember to actually sit down and look at that stat block and make the conscious decision to go okay, I can have every single spell prepared Wizards are able to do that. I should not have more than five level three spells prepared, and that is where you have to limit yourself and pick and choose, because if you take every spell you can and every spell that could be helpful, you're going to run into paralysis. Your dnd players only have to consider what they're gonna do on their turn. They don't have to think about like anybody else. They don't have to pay attention during other people's turns as much. They can kind of brain brain off and think about what they're going to do in the next turn order. You don't have have that luxury. So a big thing that I recommend DMs do is cut the spell list to the same number that liches in the book have and do one, maybe two, but do not exceed five in a specific slot because you'll just forget them.
Speaker 1:You're going to spend your entire combat like trying to decide what the lich is doing while your players are beating on it and you're going to be really, really confused, and that's something I did. So that that's speaking from personal opinion. I sat there for like 20 minutes during the lich's turn trying to figure out what I was going to cast, and that's. That's not fun for your players. So keep it, keep it minimal. Um, I mean, they have a.
Speaker 1:If you, if you're running a level 21, I oftentimes won't give them level 20 spells because I think they're too strong, and so when I'm running a lich, especially a strong lich, I'll actually cast a fireball with a level 20 spell slot, which is, that's a personal thing of like I'll use a low level spell and I'll cast it with a very high level spell slot, because there's no point to giving a lich a level, a level nine spell. You're just going to use power word kill and one of your players is going to be gone, that's. That's like really the only one that's super effective, unless you're going to make a gate and have him run away from the players in which then why?
Speaker 2:and that's. That's neat. Also, a lot of liches. Some might tend to just run away but other ones are gonna say I die, oh no, because liches are tough to kill. But I really like your idea of using some of the lower tier spells, especially something like fireball or the thunderbolt spell, because those are spells that the party will both have and they'll notice. They will see the gravity of how magically powerful this guy is based on how many die you are rolling at such a high level there's a, uh, there's a tiktok.
Speaker 1:I came across the other day where they were like, uh, dragon's breath weapon does it was like a psychotic one. Uh, it does like 120 damage and they're like I succeeded the save and they go.
Speaker 1:That was halved and I'm just like you can doing it with like a save throw. One can be really funny for that reason of just like if somebody saves, you just tell them the saved amount. They're gonna be like, oh good, it's half that. Then you just turn the coin on them and I feel like that's a really funny moment for me as a dm and that's more of me looking for my enjoyment out of the game.
Speaker 2:It's the prequel meme of oh I, I get to have that right. Yeah, I get to have that right and that's so funny, but also especially with those two spells in particular that you said that those are two spells that really scale well late game because they as older spells, wizards wants those to be in the power creep regardless of the direction they go. So those are really good spells to do that with, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think liches are a lot of fun for that. They have so much customizability. And I mean, personally, my favorite lich is probably Saztam from the Sword Coast, but that's just because I like the setting of the Sword Coast. Do you have a particular favorite, one of all time?
Speaker 2:Well, vagna definitely comes to mind, but Vagna comes to mind in sort of the same vein as Saztam, but also differently. Saztam is very much a building up villain and very dangerous and very neat because of how little you see of him, but yet you feel his influence. So much Vakna, you feel his influence, but this, this goes back into the old D&D lore where there was a magic council that were all of the wizards from Gary Gygax's original game when he was first helping to build First Edition, and this is where, like Tensor was on that, I think Mordenkainen was on that as well yeah and it's a few other of his like characters, like I think there might have been like a warlock one or sort in a sorcerer.
Speaker 2:You know every different class he he had to make. He had to make a character for each class and to play test it and they all became a part of the council. Vacna shows up for the first time and obliterates all of these old council members. These are very, very powerful wizards. So vacna became very infamous because you could see how powerful those guys were and compare it to him. So, that being said, I think in dnd lore, vekna is a pretty cool guy, especially since he's one of those characters that only until fifth edition did we get a stat block for. Yeah, whereas characters that like if you listen to our dragons episode, we have vaguely a stat block for tm, and like bahamut the gods, but we haven't had an official official release since. Was it second, third edition?
Speaker 1:uh, the last time we got bahamut was second edition, a second edition before. He was a god same with tmat, because tiamat's really interesting of. She is the protector of the first layer of hell and she doesn't have five heads anymore, she has an, it would seem, described as seemingly an infinite number, and they're all different colors and they can change what colors they are and her scales shine with different colors. She is every single dragon now and that's not something that they really want you fighting, because if you're in the Nine Lairs of Hell and you're fighting the actual Tiamat, not just one of the avatars like we see in the Rise of Tiamat, there's no way you're going to survive.
Speaker 1:She's surrounded by other ancient dragons. I think she keeps 22 of them on staff at every point, so you're fighting 22 ancient dragons and a god themself. I don't think that's something where the average party, I don't even think a level 20 party can really survive that. So it's very heavily implied that you're gonna have to sneak past tm at. But you could always go back to that second edition stat blocks. I just feel like it's a little outdated with her current lore and that's very intentional.
Speaker 2:It's very intentional to make some very powerful beings, whether they are humans or whether they are gods or dragons or liches, to make it vague and obscure so that you, we don't truly know, you can't quantify. Oh well, my character can. My character has killed Vecna before in a campaign. So that's really why stuff like that happens. But in fiction in general, one that I think people kind of sometimes forget about or don't apply the same kind of thought as to what a lich is to other characters outside of D&D, and that is Voldemort. So if you look at Voldemort, lax humanity slowly has molded into this dark, undead creature. It is also an undead being. If you look at Vecna and then you look at Voldemort, I mean even visually they both don't have noses and I think that's a very intentional thing that they, if you are a lich, you don't get a nose. You just there's no noses, it's a no nose club, you just breathe through holes. That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that loss of empathy, that loss of care, that intense, extreme power, that rise to power to the point that you yourself, when you started becoming a wizard, and yourself now, there are very two different people if it's even the same body, two different people, if it's even the same body, because one thing that was mentioned before is that liches have this, this object. Typically it's a jar. Do you remember the name of it? The phylactery, the phylactery, um, the phylactery. This is basically the lich's way of getting out of bad situations. In a dire circumstance, they can die, but then their soul, or whatever parts of their soul, or even maybe half of their soul, will then go to a phylactery, and then that phylactery opens up, and now they are effectively in a new body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, An important note about the phylactery, too, is that's part of the ritual to become a lich is you have to make a phylactery and it actually has to constantly be fed in order for the lich to stay alive. And this comes back to how to run a lich. The reason for them to leave their giant castle on the hill is they have to collect souls to keep the phylactery alive. And this comes back to how to run a lich. The reason for them to leave their giant castle on the hill is they have to collect souls to keep the phylactery alive. So their goal and why they're leaving is just to collect more souls, because what happens when they die is they may die. Their soul goes into the phylactery and it repairs them from the energy of the souls that they've collected in the phylactery. So if a lich has just been killed, they're gonna have to go out and harvest as many souls as possible immediately after so would you consider strad the vampire from curse of strad a lich, or is he purely just a vampire?
Speaker 1:I would. So this is this is kind of interesting. I like to run strad as though he is a vampire that is approaching the end of his life and is looking to become a lich. That's how I personally like to run him, but if we're just looking objectively speaking, I would say he is a vampire in and of itself, because vampires and dnd use people's souls to keep them alive more than blood, like you see in other other medias. So I would say, personally, I like to run him as though he's trying to be a lich, but he is not a lich, and I think that's important to like set aside as something that is distinct, because he is a very powerful character and he's one that you're gonna see a lot I think an interesting idea as dungeon inspiration, um, is the idea that since it's a wizard, well that doesn't mean that that as a wizard you necessarily have to fully research necromancy, especially if you consider how much time has passed in the 5e setting.
Speaker 2:We already know how you become a lich. So at this point, if, let's say, you do use the forgotten coast or the forgotten realms and as a setting or just do this as in general for your game is, you could have a wizard who, let's say, he specializes in, we'll just throw a random one in there, like like a psionic wizard or something, yeah, um, and that that's really their forte. But they do enough research as they have become a level 18, level 20 wizard. Oh well, let's just become a lich and we can just keep going. And so maybe you would design your lich to specifically have spells that are, while he is an undead creature, a humanoid, most of the spells that he has are actually geared towards his main focus of research yeah, and an important thing to remember is fizbin, for example, who is bahamut, the platinum dragon's avatar.
Speaker 1:Um avatar states in the Fizbin's Treasury of Dragons book that he finds any incarnation of a reincarnated dragon to be an abomination. Same is true for Tiamat. They both think they're abominations that shouldn't exist. But that's not to say that a black dragon would not study it and potentially turn themselves into a lich or help a human become a lich. So let's say that you don't have any experience in necromancy, but you're a wizard. They could always have paid for a dragon to help them or for one of the red wizards of Thay to help them. There are other routes for them becoming a lich than them themselves doing it.
Speaker 1:I think that's important to remember if you want to break from that and have a very specific character, be a lich in the late game as a fight. There are ways to do it. It just requires a lot more thought on the lore side of things, which I mean. That's not a bad thing. I like creating lore, lore, so that's where I'm going to spend more time on that, whereas other people may not. And that's really important because if you think of it that way, then because becoming a lich requires a ritual that requires more than one person too. If you're looking at it from that perspective, then the mayor, the king who's been just caught or unveiled by your party as interacting with a red wizard of Thay then there's a lot more suspicion on that king and it's a lot bigger concern Because while in 5e all liches have to be wizards, there are other people on the internet I know, I know pointy hat, the youtube channel pointy hat.
Speaker 1:He has been going through making liches for every single class so that every single class can turn themselves into a lich, and I think that's really cool, especially as a base idea, because if they had the help of a wizard, it would be a lot easier for them to become. That's a nice lore reason where you can tie it in, because I know, I think one of the first ones he ever did was a bard that could be a lich, and that one was really cool because in order to be a lich, there has to be something that's held on to that a large amount of people hold onto from you, or a memory or a thought of you, in order to stay alive on top of the phylactery. His idea for a bard was really unique because it was a song. As long as people remembered your song, you stayed alive, and that's really kind of a unique idea and I think there's lots of avenues for having liches of other classes hear me out star spangled banner is a lich song.
Speaker 2:You just, you just turn a country's uh, you, you, if you're a bard you're gonna write national anthem. You just turn that into somehow incorporating your ability to turn into a lich and you are unkillable.
Speaker 1:I mean that would actually be really cool because I know some people like to do campaigns in like colonial America or in like Civil War America. That would be a really unique thing to do. There was a TV show and I know it's, it was fairly popular on fox. It was called uh, what was it? Sleepy hollow I think it was which was a supernatural show about a time trial, about like a guy from the revolutionary war who woke up in modern day and they explored all of these ooky spooky things around, like the founding fathers and whatnot and like. It was very much a very like ooky spooky, heavily like Christian mythology show and it was kind of it was okay. It wasn't my favorite show of all time, but it was okay and if you look at it from kind of that perspective, you could do something cool like that of just like placing yourself in medieval france france's original national anthem, the guy who created still alive and do like a fantasy france or a fantasy america. That could be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:I think that that holds a lot of merit and could be interesting yeah, and and another like idea that you could do is which different mediums have played around with this before. But maybe the Lich's body is unable to move, but he still affects the world via just merely casting magic alone. And his range, since he's become so powerful, not just his castle, but perhaps an entire nation sauron the dark lord.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, what did I say? Uh, anyways, no, that's. That's something you definitely see in lord of the rings, because I would say sauron's in that category. He is a necromancer, his phylactery would be the one ring, um, and he has split his soul up into multiple pieces, um, and used, like both psionic and necromantic powers, to make people wither, lose their mind if they're touching it, and have this impulse to bring it back. And then he also created the nazgul, using the same rings and enslaved them to help him.
Speaker 2:I think that sauron is one of the original liches from fantasy, uh, and I think that that's like a really good way to look at it is those wraiths it's interesting how, with all of like the what we consider fantasy liches, how, whether they're in dnd or not, with zaz tam vankna, voldemort or saauron, they all have such both minor and major influence around the world that almost to me sounds like a way of quantifying what makes a lich a lich is that their danger is not just from their magic themselves but their ability to control others. You know, people are scared of voldemort. The, the nazgul are seen throughout the entire lord of the rings they have. They're prepared for the age of orcs. There's different groups who are terrified of the ring. Yeah, and they always.
Speaker 1:You always know, throughout the entire series that he is watching yeah, he's watching at all times and he can see everything and invade people's minds the same way that I think I think that's actually the one that, uh, quantifies a little bit more is whether you're going with pointy hats idea of a bard, or like an artificer, or even like he did one for a druid, where their, their phylactery literally becomes the forest they're protecting and so they're trapped in the force. I thought that one was really cool. No matter what media you look at, yeah, they have influence over the world, but no matter what, every incarnation of a lich that I've seen be made in. One of the quantifying things is the ability to control others' minds, the ability to peer into dreams or, in some way, shape or form, get into others' heads, and I think that that is the more quantifying thing for a lich is.
Speaker 1:A lich is an undead monster that has access to another being's mind and memories. That has access to another being's mind and memories, and that's a lot scarier. I think that's a lot scarier quantifying thing because I can't even like even Voldemort. Voldemort invaded people's memories. He invaded Harry's mind and his dreams. If you think about Sauron, frodo was constantly being horrified.
Speaker 2:You put that ring on and you see that imagery of the eye and he knows roughly where you're at yeah and then, as will, they will follow, they will come and even golem.
Speaker 1:Think about it. Golem still had dreams from sauron long after the ring was separated from him by uh, frodo's grandfather. Uh, uncle, uncle, can't.
Speaker 2:Bilbo was his uncle, I think I'm pretty sure it was his uncle I can never remember that family tree.
Speaker 1:But, like again, even if you're looking at the hobbit, it's like it is always something that I think. I don't think I've seen a lich in pop culture and please, people leave comments and chat. There's a different mentality, but like I don't think I've seen one, I would be interested in seeing a version now here's an interesting thought, because we talked about the hand and eye of vakna.
Speaker 2:I think you used vakna's like old name at the start of the episode. Um, in the deep lore I thought you said like thay or something like that.
Speaker 1:Uh, well, the red, well, the Red Wizards of Thay are separate. Those are under Sastan.
Speaker 2:So, with Vakna and the eye and the hand, how they affect you as a person, would you consider and this is probably the inspiration for those two items is it's the ring of Sauron and it corrupted Gollum to such an extent.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now I think let's hate liches.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So we were talking about how cool they could be and how they could be a big bad endgame and how they talk about death a lot but big bad end game and how they talk about death a lot. But I think liches are similar to something like the. Nagas is something where they are tied to the, the lore, and if you want to run a lich that's impactful, you have to at least incorporate some of that lore and some of that mechanics and really flesh out that lich. I think that what a problem that a lot of campaigns run into is. They will say here's a character and they are a lich, good luck. And I don't think that's as impactful and I think that's part of the reason why liches in general are starting to kind of get, would you say, like a bad name or, I think, just an overused, over generic.
Speaker 1:I think they have become the boring. I don't want to fight this anymore, and unfortunately, that's the truth. What's kind of funny is now it's starting to swap roles with my mind flares again, especially because of uh, because of a certain netflix show a certain, uh, a certain game too, oh, well there's gate too.
Speaker 2:I didn't even think about that one mind.
Speaker 1:Flayers were really, really overused for a long time. They were the dnd monster up there with beholders and dragons, um, and then 5e came around and people started using them a lot less, even though there's a lot of really cool monsters around them, like the uh, the elder dragon, which is has an elder brain grafted into a dragon's back and it breathes psionic tadpoles.
Speaker 1:That thing is horrifying there's a beholder tied to them as well, or maybe I'm thinking of the um uh, that's a, so that's a little different and and we'll mention that one a little more in the beholder episode but roughly beholders reproduced by dreams and they have this instinct to kill each other on sight, which is why the world's not flooding with them. But if a Beholder has nightmares of a mind flare, it will create a mind flare Beholder. Same thing with the Draco Beholder or whatever. It is, again, really really common. And there's a lich beholder too, and the lich beholder I want I wrote this down to mention in the beholder episode that'll come out next week the the lich beholder is trap. It's a really big trap because they only have four eye stocks, um, but they have a lot lower number of rays, so there's a 1 in 4 chance to vaporize one of your players. So for a CR5 monster that shouldn't be a thing. So we'll get a little more in depth on that next week.
Speaker 1:But I definitely think that Mind Flayers have kind of taken the Lich's place a little bit and it's kind of funny that they've kind of swapped roles. And I think the important part is, if you're going to run a lich and you don't want it to be cliche, you need to sit down and build the lore out and maybe consider doing like a barbarian one and go I mean, I know I'm plugging on the youtube channel go to pointy hats video on that. Like he did a really good job of building those out and I think they're a lot of fun for villains. Now would I ever give them to a player as an option to play and turn themselves into a lich in a high level campaign? Probably not.
Speaker 1:Um, I think it's a really great epilogue. I don't think it's something I would let them play with, though for a long period of time, because I feel like once you've become a Lich, there's no danger left to fight. I think that that would be like if that's their end goal of the campaign, they can work towards becoming a Lich within the party and they can work with the party towards their goals. Just like usually at most high-level campaigns, you're ending it off by everybody helping each other get to their final goals.
Speaker 2:I think that's fine, but actually letting them turn into a lich and keep playing as a lich I would not do because I this is one of those, like I would say, a critical role style. Well, hey, we, we finished the game and and this one character wants to become a lich. Well, if we're going to do like a one-off, that's like set five years in the future, well then, yeah, you get some lich stuff. You know this. This, this isn't going to be a danger filled session necessarily. This is going to be a fun, you know, one-time reunion tour and we're not really set for anybody dying. But you're going to experience some challenges for sure yeah, and that's that.
Speaker 1:That just comes down to how I like to run my campaigns personally.
Speaker 2:I did have a player once who this was a DM, who they were running a wizard, and the DM would subtly, over the course of the game, hand them necromancy spells to kind of get them towards that track, and so you saw the hints of it and you saw them. You know, using stuff like Chill Touch and using stuff like Inflict Wounds, what are some other?
Speaker 1:Oh, False Life. False Life is a great one. Scorching Chromatic Ray has one that's uh necrotic damage. That is specifically for liches. Uh, there's I'm trying to think of some higher level ones. Turn undead is a cleric one, but that's more to like stop the undead. It's a class ability, but I have seen it used by necromancers as well.
Speaker 2:If you have emphasis over the undead, then it would make sense that you would be able to both give them undead life and taketh away that undead life.
Speaker 1:That's actually something that I didn't even think to write down. In older editions of D&D there was a god whose clerics would commonly become liches. I can't remember the god, but it's the god of death. It was very common for him to bring his followers back to life and they would live on as immortal things. It's a little different than a lich, because of the fact that they don't have a phylactery, they don't have to go through the whole thing, they don't have control over people's minds that they don't have a phylactery, they don't have to go through the whole thing, they don't have control over people's minds and like they're very narrow, but it is an undead that retains its memory and retains its mind. It's the only time where you really see that, other than Naga's, that cycle of rebirth- I have a really really, really hot take here.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:This is the hottest take of the episode. Like we are about to fight a solar dragon level of hot take okay oh god say, say the hot take, I'm ready. So so naruto? Oh god, no. Anytime they use a chakra ninja ability to bring back someone from the dead, including a former hokage, we're gonna have to scrap this whole episode.
Speaker 1:It's all right, I apologize everybody in short, uh, no, in short, no, because in my mind, part of being a lich is intentional and also those are for very short times. I would view that very similar to like uh, the ring that allows you to the ring, or the talisman that lets you ask three questions and then they die again. I would. I would view it in the same way, because in naruto it's a very brief time that they come back to life, unless you're referring to madara, specifically madara during the war, or maybe madara I would consider, because he planned everything, got himself reincarnated, stole the eyes of the renegade and forcefully rebirthed himself. So would I consider madara a lich? You could make the argument to me that madara is a lich. If you're trying to say that minato, naruto's dad, is a lich, you're wrong.
Speaker 2:No, he's not no, yeah, no, that's the one I'd say no to. He's the zombie that the Lich brings back. It is the caster of the ninjutsu that would. I feel like it's adjacent Because is there a cost to the thing we?
Speaker 1:are going really off track. In short, naruto has a really nice explanation of all of it, where you have to be able to access the person's soul, it's for a limited time and it does have costs involved and because of that, I would say that that person doing that ninjutsu is a necromancer. I would not say that they are a lich. But, madara, you could make an argument that Madara is an example of a lich that kind of is separate from all of the other ones we've talked about in this episode, because he did it through a very different means, but I would consider him more along the lines of what like a naga is, rather than a lich. Um, because and I'll get more into this on the nagas they they go through a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth, like a phoenix does, and I would.
Speaker 1:I would say you could make an argument. The modder is either of those, but at the end of the day, modder is something different. So, whatever you wanna, whatever you want to say he is, you can say he is. He's one of those ones where I don't really know where I'd place him. But if we're talking about the Hokages no, I would not say any of the Hokages that were brought back in Naruto would be liches, and that's a good thing in my opinion. I think it's good that shows deviate from the idea of a generic lich. I think they are very overused at this point and I think Harry Potter did it really well. If you consider Voldemort, I think Lord of the Rings was the original, so I think Sauron was incredibly well done. What's a more recent one that has one in it? Uh, other than dnd adjacent?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:I can't think of one off the top of my head um, there was one in stranger things wasn't there, but that's dnd adjacent isn't it?
Speaker 1:I would say that's dnd adjacent um, doctor who has a couple of them that are liches that I would consider liches that are pretty good. New Doctor who, specifically, has some really good new ones, but other than that, I would say, overall different. Now let's get off on another side tangent, because I feel like it, before we wrap the episode With your hot take about the Hokageage's, would you consider the dinosaurs from jurassic park liches no, absolutely not would you? Would you consider?
Speaker 2:the scientists are not liches either oh okay, because they're not undead they're not undead, they're they. They are crazy merely by their own humanity, like they still have humanity they still recognize. At the end, oh, we should not have tempted the fate of the natural world and think we could control it.
Speaker 1:No, oh, I thought of another one that is not D&D adjacent but does have liches that are done very, very well Fallout. The Fallout game franchise has some really well done liches that are completely separate their own ideation, but they're really well done. Liches that are completely separate their own ideation, but they're really well done. Um, and with that I think that's kind of the, the, the overarching like view of liches and kind of I think we got into a lot of really good ways to run them.
Speaker 1:Uh, if you enjoyed this video, make sure that you check out our youtube channel. We try to put out uh videos as well as this podcast, uh, weekly to kind of help give people inspiration for things to run in their campaigns. And if you liked this, feel free to check out our other ones. And then we appreciate our people over on Patreon, where we do release articles on different topics in D&D and give pamphlets for people to kind of give out to their players and try to help out other DMs. So with that, I hope you have a great rest of your day and we will see you in the next one.