Why does a Lich Rot?

[Nornalhorst]

I always wondered why undead like the lich rot. Shouldn't negative energy kill any organisms inside them causing them to rot?

Also even if it doesn't work that way wouldn't healing (with negative energy of course:smallwink:) restore the damage done to their bodies? If I stab a lich through the chest with my spear and the lich uses inflict critical wounds on him or herself (can't leave out our fiesty lady liches:smallbiggrin:) wouldn't that heal the gaping wound in its chest? And if so, wouldn't that mean in order to repair any rot damage inflicting wounds should heal it up as well?

[Kornaki]

It depends on what the lich actually is. If it's a skeleton that has a bunch of random flesh and organs surrounding it, then you'd think the lich would get rid of that as soon as possible.

[Shining Wrath]

I always wondered why undead like the lich rot. Shouldn't negative energy kill any organisms inside them causing them to rot?

Also even if it doesn't work that way wouldn't healing (with negative energy of course:smallwink:) restore the damage done to their bodies? If I stab a lich through the chest with my spear and the lich uses inflict critical wounds on him or herself (can't leave out our fiesty lady liches:smallbiggrin:) wouldn't that heal the gaping wound in its chest? And if so, wouldn't that mean in order to repair any rot damage inflicting wounds should heal it up as well?

I think it's that their exteriors reflect their inner decay.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Liches probably dessicate more than rot do to the damage aura killing the little buggers that cause true rot. The fact that lich don't have a noted stench supports this and their description even says withered rather than rotted.

There are molds adapted to just about any condition you can come up with though and one could assume bacteria as well , so rotting could still happen.

Inflict wounds does remove rot, because the rot isn't doing hp damage to the Lich.

Presumably, gentle repose could keep a Lich "fresh" until the stop caring and neglect it. Also liches should be as smart or smarter than other casters in your world (well maybe not, they weren't smart enough to be Necropolitans instead of eating LA +4). If running around polymorhed/shapechanged is standard in your world then Liches should be doing it too. Then who cares how their true form looks?

[Joe the Rat]

I don't think they so much rot as dry out. Keeping those nasty decomposing micro-organisms away doesn't mean the flesh will still be moist and juicy. It would actually help keep what's left of you from rotting.

Also, less oil in the skin reduces the amount of wear on your favorite old dusty tomes of arcane knowledge - and really, isn't half the point of lichdom being to continue your research or amass power?

[Zubrowka74]

Some extremophile bacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea) do thrive in extreme cold environment.

[Water_Bear]

Some extremophile bacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea) do thrive in extreme cold environment.

Yeah, but they're not exactly common enough that you're going to wind up with a big colony right away. The fact that humans rot as quickly as we do is mostly because of the ludicrous number of eubacteria in every part of our bodies, especially the gut flora. Take them and the other decomposers who aren't so fond of Cold damage (protists, fungi, insects, etc) out of the picture and you're going to end up with a corpse better preserved than Lenin's.

But obviously none of that has anything to do with it. Undead look like rotting corpses because humans are afraid of rotting corpses (for good reason!) and so our monsters reflect that fear. I don't see a need for a deep in-universe explanation than that any more than how dragons fly with their itty bitty wings.

[Jergmo]

The way I'd sorted it out in my own campaign setting is that all undead who can do so still eat, particularly the living. Negative energy (in my setting, at least) causes the undead to rapidly deteriorate if they don't consume the flesh and blood of living creatures, which the energy infused in them consumes instead. Much like how a starving creature will start consuming itself, but much faster, also magic.

[JusticeZero]

Because rot isn't caused by living things, it's caused by negative energy plane corruption. =) Get with the program of modern magical theory here!

[Eslin]

But negative energy doesn't corrupt, does it? It's just the opposite of positive energy.

[JusticeZero]

Positive energy makes everything healthy, negative makes things sick and rotty and deathy. The idea that there are creatures that make things rot seems like the sort've thing that savage uneducated lizardmen might believe, and they don't have the spells to test their ideas or to commune with the things that created the world. :smallwink:

[Eslin]

Negative energy makes living things sick and rotty and deathy though to my understanding.

Positive energy heals the living, damages the undead.

Negative energy heals the undead, damages the living.

It does seem to mesh - you have the planes of water and fire, air and earth, positive and negative.

[Wookie-ranger]

Negative energy makes living things sick and rotty and deathy though to my understanding.

Positive energy heals the living, damages the undead.

Negative energy heals the undead, damages the living.

It does seem to mesh - you have the planes of water and fire, air and earth, positive and negative.

Unless you are an undead and happen to be on the positive energy plane.... :smallbiggrin:

[TuggyNE]

Unless you are an undead and happen to be on the positive energy plane.... :smallbiggrin:

Temp ALL the hitpoints!

[Tokuhara]

I actually used a Lich as an "undercover BBEG" in an All Wizard game I ran. To give a taste of why this lich was a surprise, allow me to give you the final party make-up prior to the final battle:

Nimroy - Nimroy was the odd kid at the school. Think that kid who was the religious type, but almost to a creepy level. He was a Changeling Cleric of Ehlonna/Transmuter-Conjurer/Mystic Theurge/Recaster who was very much a buff machine. Optimized for a MT, but Neutral Good. He was the party member I worried would fall behind, but it turned out he had staying power that his fellows couldn't match.

Edwin - Edwin (who later reappeared in another of my campaigns) was a goth kid, a Grey Elf Focused Necromancer/Master Necromancer/Pale Master who themed himself around debuff blasting and gothic poetry. I later made him the headmaster of an order of Neutral necromancers called the C'vest Shave'Ra ("Elvish" for True Black Hand), an order of pseudo-grim reaper types who saw death as the logical conclusion of life, abhorring undead in all forms. He turned out to be the "weak link" until 8th level, when he asked for a Slaymate as an Improved Familiar. I felt it was only fair, and it turned him into a viable member of the party.

Mishka - Our only female student, Mishka was a Forest Gnome Illusionist/Nightmare Spinner who found herself the butt of every joke. She was the stereotypical cheerleader, but she had a serious mean streak, often making very devious illusionary pranks that left the victim in a worse mental state than before. She struggled later in the campaign, but she found herself using a tome containing forgotten illusion spells (basically, I wrote down all of the Illusion Spells from Spell Compendium and handed it to the player) and she soon took off, meeting equal terms with her fellows.

Richter - Very much the truest outcast, he was a Half-Orc Abjurer/Barbarian/Abjurant Champion/Spellsword/Knight Phantom who wore no armor and used a Halberd. He was nearly expelled for his style early on, but he soon became a formidable jock-type, blending magic and melee into a whirlwind of death

Shin - The final member of the merry band of misfits, Shin was a Silverbrow Human Focused Diviner/Rogue/Divine Oracle/Unseen Seer/Archmage who somehow became the Party Face (called Class President) who was 2 Parts Fonzie and 1 Part Machiavelli. For the party as a whole, he had the single highest INT score, and used his feats the best, grabbing some Social Skills, utilizing his mastery of divination to help the party, and often times keeping the party egos in check. I looked to him as the "let's keep the story on track" guy, and luckily he was also a rules lawyer, often covering my ATT ineptitude with some of the obscure rules.

Now, the campaign started with their school being placed on lockdown when a McGuffain was stolen from the vault. They soon were tasked with searching the world for the culprit. When the clues lead back home, their headmaster, whom they all grew up with, turned out to be behind it all. I had him as a Human Lich Generalist/Mage of the Arcane Order/Archmage who was roughly 4 levels higher than the party (who were fresh into 20), but he used a spell to conceal his undead nature. When the party confronted him, he simply smiled and said that he had one final lesson for them. He then lifted the spell that concealed his nature, revealing himself a follower of Vecna, having both the Eye and Hand surgically grafted to his true body, along with several other grafts I cannot remember at this time, plus being loaded with epic magic items. The fight lasted about an hour real life, because he had effectively brainwashed the entire staff into believing the party had stolen the item. So they had to use their magic strategically so they wouldn't kill their professors (6 20th level Wizards of various builds, one for each school and a 20th level Artificer acting as the Crafting Professor), while still dealing with the headmaster and his cronies (12 16th level Clerics of Vecna, 2 Blackguards, and a Beholder who was driven mad with power). The party played it smart, sequestering the professors in a forcecage so they didn't have to deal with them on top of the 16 opponents before them. Nimroy did what he did best (keeping the Headmaster under control) while the rest of the party handled the rest. With a final cinematic blow from Richter (a hilarious Power Attack with so many buffs on him that he could've one-shotted most things in the Monster Manual with one hit), he dropped the Headmaster, who soon fell to dust. His ring (his Phylactery) was then thrown into the Nine Hells, sealed with a ritual that would strip the Headmaster of his magic while giving it to the party (treated as 5 levels) and was never heard from again.

[Cirrylius]

I don't think they so much rot as dry out. Keeping those nasty decomposing micro-organisms away doesn't mean the flesh will still be moist and juicy. It would actually help keep what's left of you from rotting.

...and then the flesh cracks and crumbles off; from the joints first, which see the most flexing, then whichever muscle groups see the most use. The brain and any tissue behind the ribcage would probably linger the longest.

As to why negative energy doesn't heal "rotting" damage, my spitballed explanation is it's because the transformation creates the lich as a skeletal creature only. Just the bones are actually part of the lich; all the flesh on top is just along for the ride, like if the Animate Dead spell was used to create a skeleton out of a corpse, but for some reason the flesh didn't slough off.

I never thought the whole "half-rotten" thing sat right with liches in any case. If I were ever made a lich, I'd either magically preserve my tissues right off the bat to avoid social difficulties, or I'd take a week-long scalding hot bath to get all the icky stuff off so it wouldn't get all over my lair :smallbiggrin:

[Tanuki Tales]

I always assumed it was part of the ritual that makes one a Lich.

If memory serves, didn't that Githyanki Lich Queen look almost identical to a normal Gith except for the fact she was a little more on the gray side?

[Tokuhara]

I always assumed it was part of the ritual that makes one a Lich.

If memory serves, didn't that Githyanki Lich Queen look almost identical to a normal Gith except for the fact she was a little more on the gray side?

Grey and Gaunt (See Image Below)

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100613200229/forgottenrealms/images/8/8f/Vlaakith_CLVII.jpg

[Tanuki Tales]

Grey and Gaunt (See Image Below)

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100613200229/forgottenrealms/images/8/8f/Vlaakith_CLVII.jpg

I was talking about the Dungeon Magazine cover. She's less dessicated on that one and looks almost identical to how Githyanki look.

[Skysaber]

I always wondered why undead like the lich rot. Shouldn't negative energy kill any organisms inside them causing them to rot?

I'd always associated it with how old that particular lich is. The tissues they were made of only last so long, mortal or no, and healing magic or immunity to disease does nothing to hold off the advance of years.

So, if he's old enough that if he'd be living, he'd be dead, he looks it. And a centuries old one looks like it.

Gentle Repose could stave this off, but it is apparent most liches don't bother.

[Spuddles]

Because rot isn't caused by living things, it's caused by negative energy plane corruption. =) Get with the program of modern magical theory here!

This organismal theory is so quaint. I can't believe that anyone who would call themselves scholar would entertain the notion much longer than the time it takes to dismiss it.

[Urpriest]

Undead have varying stages of rot. Except for a few cases like Mummies, this has little to do with how they were preserved, and a lot to do with how they are thematically. Think of undead not as living creatures that happen to be powered by negative energy, but as their own, entirely separate kind of being. A Ghoul is not just a dead Human, a Ghoul is a Ghoul, and they look like a Ghoul. Same with Vampire, Lich, etc. Liches rot/desiccate (unless protected by Gentle Repose) because that's how the magic that powers Liches happens to work.

[Gnorman]

Because he doesn't brush his teeth.

[Nornalhorst]

If running around polymorhed/shapechanged is standard in your world then Liches should be doing it too. Then who cares how their true form looks?

I just had a strange idea of a twisted version of Cinderella where a female Lich decides for whatever reason to take a break from her studies and try out some polymorphing at the ball in the city near her lair. Her stunning beauty fascinates everyone present and draws the attention of the prince who enchanted by her unearthly grace and blinding beauty, decides she is the one who he wants to marry in typical disney fashion, forgetting all about the glass slipper wearing woman who's name escapes him. Unfortunately for him the lich decides to take her leave but in her haste leaves behind a solid gold, diamond encrusted slipper before disappearing back to her lair. The prince feeling in his heart that this woman collects her slipper hires some men to assist him and goes on a quest to find the "love of his life".:smallbiggrin:

[Nornalhorst]

Grey and Gaunt (See Image Below)

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100613200229/forgottenrealms/images/8/8f/Vlaakith_CLVII.jpg

So I guess liches don't really rot so to speak but more of become dessicated, I guess that makes sense.

[Mr Beer]

It's a good question, I just considered it to be natural, albeit drastically slowed detoriation of a corpse. Not really rotting as such, just kind of dessicating as mentioned by others above, which I think would happen rapidly followed by tiny peices just kind of flaking off over the decades and centuries.

So a new Lich would look much like a new Zombie, albeit with the spark of fiendish intelligence in it's eyes and an old Lich would look more like a Mummy, with mystical robes instead of tattered wrappings. Very old Lichs of course become Demi Lichs and create even more elaborately lethal dungeons.

It doesn't really explain why gross damage from adventurers' swords, fireballs etc. can be healed though, while mere crumbling away can't. I'm happy to just put it down to the whole Pact With Evil thing. D&D doesn't really suit the kind of people who feel the need to expose it to merciless consistency and realism.

[Shadowknight12]

It's a genre convention. It's part of the collective lore and media that D&D draws from, and undead priests/mages always look like semi-mummified demiskeletons, for creepiness's sake.

Liches can look like whatever you want them to look like. I am fond of perfectly preserved liches that are indistinguishable from vampires or wights (which look, in turn, just like living creatures, if pale and cold).

If a player wants to know why, I just handwave it with an amulet of Gentle Repose.

[hamishspence]

I was talking about the Dungeon Magazine cover. She's less dessicated on that one and looks almost identical to how Githyanki look.

Greyhawk wiki has that pic:

http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vlaakith

[Tanuki Tales]

Greyhawk wiki has that pic:

http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vlaakith

That's the one, kind of.

Honestly, if they think that's an "age, blackened corpse" than I wonder what they call normal Githyanki. :smalleek:

[Than]

I always figured it was because they were dehydrated, didn't eat right, and always skipped out on their beauty sleep.

Also they paralyzing touch would disable micro-organisms just as easily as any human.

[JackRose]

I always figured it was because they were dehydrated, didn't eat right, and always skipped out on their beauty sleep.

Also they paralyzing touch would disable micro-organisms just as easily as any human.

Unless you treat the micro-organisms as swarms, in which case they're immune to effects that target specific numbers of creatures?

[Scow2]

It doesn't really explain why gross damage from adventurers' swords, fireballs etc. can be healed though, while mere crumbling away can't. I'm happy to just put it down to the whole Pact With Evil thing. D&D doesn't really suit the kind of people who feel the need to expose it to merciless consistency and realism.Because negative-energy healing doesn't restore the damage the body takes, merely re-strengthening the energy holding it together and animating it.

Also - Liches don't decay through microbial breakdown. It's just caused by dessication - Their cells die and contract as the body steadily loses all fluid, and slowly turns to dust (Which continues to stick to the body through negative-energy cling. Similar to static cling, but stronger, and only applies to the Liches' body bits.)

[Corundum Dragon]

Oxidation, solar radiation, dessication as mentioned, water the universal solvent, salt, chemicals in the air. Think of it as a car that breaks down over time through wear and elements. More along the lines of con damage that can't be repaired because they lose their con stat.

[Psyren]

There's a halfling lich in Libris Mortis that is capable of posing as a regular halfling, so she must not look very "dead." Excerpt:


Dallia Thistledown, Concealed Evil

Dallia Thistledown is the nicest little halfling you’d ever want to meet. She’s kind and friendly, always greeting friends and strangers alike with a beaming smile and freshly baked cinnamon rolls or tea cakes. She’s nice to animals and great with children.
...
The halfling who was Dallia Thistledown actually died three years ago when she completed the process that transformed her into a lich. Now she steals royal secrets for the kingdom’s enemies while posing as a humble cook. Of course, she’s only doing that to gain enough wealth and power to take over a kingdom for her own.

I'm not sure how long the decay process should take, but being able to pose as a regular halfling for 3 years indicates that she hasn't been decomposing much in that time.

[hamishspence]

Gentle Repose prevents corpses from decaying- this may apply to undead too.

The City of the Spider Quuen adventure has a magic item- robe of gentle repose- that specifically prevents an undead wearer from decaying.

Alternatively, an undead that has decayed, could disguise it rather than preventing it, as Szass Tam, lich member of Thay's ruling council, does.

[Lord Haart]

Memorising and recasting Gentle Repose every week or so is as big a hussle as changing your socks. Even bigger, actually, since in theory you may change socks at any time you remember about them, but you have to remember about GR at the exact time you prepare your spells, and if you just barely missed it, you're in your right to leave it for tomorrow. Even for a relatively organized lich missed days would quickly pile on. Making or buying an eternal wand or use-activated item is just as easy to delay for later, and any high-level spellcaster has better uses for his neck slot (or any other slot, actually) than to wear a continious item.

Then there's a majority of liches who either don't care at all or prefer it that way due to practical (less weight to drag around and better intimidate rolls), estetical or human-despising reasons.

[hymer]

What's the point in becoming an undead evil-machine of magic doom if you couldn't disregard all good taste? "Morals out the window, but better cling to those aesthetics. Etiquette is what got me where I am today."

[Necroticplague]

Well, bacteria and similar are remarkably hardy:for almost any environmental condition, you can find a microorganism that lives there. This is especially true of dnd, where things like templates exist. Who's to say there isn't a species of bacteria that feeds off of lich tissues that developed on the plane of ash?

On a poor serious note, it's not that liches are actively broken down, it's just the slowly fall apart. Using your body in any way causes small amounts of damage to it. However, your body will repair all of this damage, unless it gets excessive (repetitive motion injuries, sprained joints and muscles). However, a lich doesn't have the bodily processes to facilitate this repair. So they'll just naturally degrade slowly, especially around joints. Now, if they put forth the effort, they could probably use spells and mundane preservation methods to keep them going longer. However, that can only do so much. And even then, the kind of person who becomes a lich generally didn't take too good care of their bodies in life, and have most likely completely let themselves go in undeath.

[Cirrylius]

Who's to say there isn't a species of bacteria that feeds off of lich tissues that developed on the plane of ash?


WOW.
I could totally see this as a schtick for a recurring planewalking lich NPC; he picked up an infection on Ash that gives him scratchy, powdery eczema. Every few weeks he has to douse himelf in alcohol or hit himself with a Cure Light Wounds to keep the bacteria from spreading.:smallbiggrin:

[Belial_the_Leveler]

You people got it all wrong; Liches rot because Orcus said so.



Basically, there was once, long ago, in a galaxy far far away, a powerful witch-queen whose mastery of magic was only surpassed by her good looks. Using her magic she became the ruler of her world - and she actually was a good ruler. But as the years advanced, old age started catching up to her and despite all her power there was nothing she could do. As the first real signs of age settled in, she became desperate and started communing with various extraplanar powers. One of them, a great demon called Orcus, offered her eternal life through a spell she could cast.

The witch-queen cast this spell in a cataclysmic display of magic to become immortal... and seemingly nothing happened. Except that less than a year later the females of the world finally realized they'd been struck barren - every single one of them across the entire planet. Hysteria ensued as the assured and inescapable end of civilization approached in the form of old age followed by extinction. Society crumbled, nations were torn apart, chaos and evil reigned until even the witch-queen was raped and slain by her own formerly loyal guards. Less than three decades later, the last living people and animals on the planet lay dead and silence reigned.

And then the witch-queen rose from the dead, walking upon the planet's surface as she would then do forevermore. She was, as she had asked, immortal. But she also was a rotting corpse, little more than a skeleton, for she had never asked for eternal youth. Till this day, countless eons later, she still walks her dead world, the greatest terror being her silence; for she had lost her voice when she realized her fate. And now she could not scream...

The Goat, The Eternal Hate, The Demon Prince of the Undead, Orcus sat on his throne. Bloated in power as he was in body by the sacrifice of all the souls of an entire world given to him willingly by their would-be protector, he did not laugh, he did not rejoice; he only glowered hatefully for every living thing. And as other spellcasters in other worlds learned of his terrible creation of this new form of undead, found out the horrible fate of an entire world, and still some of them willingly embraced it, the fire of Orcus' hatred for all life blazed brighter.

For with every lich created, the end of Life came closer.

See, that's why liches rot. And for a very similar reason vampires are so supernaturally alluring and cause sob stories and insane fangirls to swoon in the distant corners of Creation despite their being horrible, blood-sucking, murderous monsters; Orcus made them like that so they could entice the living to embrace an eternal torment in undeath willingly even more than his previous creation of liches did.



Morale of the story? Don't mess with anything even remotely touched by a primal incarnation of Chaos and Evil else you'll end up walking a grave the size of an entire world, eternally being crushed by your own torment. For you'll have no mouth and you'll want to scream.

[eviljav]

Because they forget to floss.

[Pickford]

Unless you are an undead and happen to be on the positive energy plane.... :smallbiggrin:

Negative hit points, PeP offers no exemption to the PE damages the undead rule. Therefore they lose those hp, not gain.

Edit: Maybe Liches have undead bacteria?

[Malrone]

You people got it all wrong; Liches rot because Orcus said so.

-snop-

Morale of the story? Don't mess with anything even remotely touched by a primal incarnation of Chaos and Evil else you'll end up walking a grave the size of an entire world, eternally being crushed by your own torment. For you'll have no mouth and you'll want to scream.

Thread's over, this one won it. We can all go home as soon as there is sauce, and permission to sigquote.

[Cirrylius]

Negative hit points, PeP offers no exemption to the PE damages the undead rule. Therefore they lose those hp, not gain.

No, by RAW, they gain temporary hp just like every other creature on the Positive Prime, because its healing effects manifest via Fast Healing, which doesn't differentiate between living or undead. It's one of those ridiculous flaws that slipped in, like drown-healing. Of course, any DM who upheld that ruling should be crushed under his own books.



For you'll have no mouth and you'll want to scream.
You spend a lot of time on TVTropes, don't you?:smallbiggrin:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Edit: Maybe Liches have undead bacteria?

I generally assume that harmful bacteria and viruses in general are undead in my settings, as the latter are not "alive" in the conventional sense and the former might as well be embodiments of decay and entropy as far as macro-scale creatures are concerned, just as I assume that chemistry still works as you'd expect but molecules are made up of particles of the elements rather than elementary particles to give physics a magic-y twist.

Since germs are just really really really really small undead, remove disease can be thought of as effectively being just a cure very very very very very minor wounds spell that targets bacteria individually (instead of the creature touched like in a normal cure spell) and kills them with 1/216 points of positive energy damage.

Which brings up an interesting idea for a campaign premise: The PCs are teleported to a far-off land in the throes of a zombie apocalypse-type scenario and have to survive and make their way home. As it turns out, they're not in a faraway land, they've just shrunk a bit (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060397/) and are battling germ-zombies in scalp-forests and stomach-caves and so forth. :smallbiggrin:

[Pickford]

No, by RAW, they gain temporary hp just like every other creature on the Positive Prime, because its healing effects manifest via Fast Healing, which doesn't differentiate between living or undead. It's one of those ridiculous flaws that slipped in, like drown-healing. Of course, any DM who upheld that ruling should be crushed under his own books.



You spend a lot of time on TVTropes, don't you?:smallbiggrin:

Interestingly, positive energy 'does' differentiate. Those temporary hit points are damage to undead. Temporary damage of course.

[JoshuaZ]

Interestingly, positive energy 'does' differentiate. Those temporary hit points are damage to undead. Temporary damage of course.

Curiously no official rule says This is a reasonable interpretation, but by a strict RAW perspective, doesn't occur in this context.

[TuggyNE]

Interestingly, positive energy 'does' differentiate. Those temporary hit points are damage to undead. Temporary damage of course.

What is this "temporary [HP] damage", and where is it defined or mentioned or alluded to, or even implied by any other context? What does it even mean — if an undead is brought to 0 HP by temporary HP damage and then taken off-plane, do they spontaneously revive 1d20 rounds later?