Lich

A lich is not bitten, nor born. It is a thing that a mage does to himself, on a chosen night, with black arts and his eyes open. The soul is drawn out and shut in a small vessel, which is called a phylactery; and the body, having nothing left in it to die, does not.

The price is all that came before. The lich does not remember its mother's face, nor the spells it knew, nor why it wished so much to live. It has only the wish, granted, and a great aptitude for beginning again. Death is a small matter to it now, a door it goes out by and comes in by. The dead rise at its word. But the bones are old and dry, and a mace does to a lich what it does to a jar.

Details

• No experience penalty for departing.
• +14% mind, physical, summoning, enchantment, sensory, blood and basic complexity; +9% body, divine, nature and defensive complexity.
• Innate spell from level 35: 'animate dead'.
• Race category: undead. -25 blunt resistance points.