Lich and Clones

[Xar Zarath]

Just wondering after reading a good fic "Look what I found under a rock" (by Imperial Overlord of SD net) there is a demilich villain who possesses the bodies of beautiful women (clones) in order to live and do stuff in.

Say a lich has clones, not his own but clones of other creatures. His bony body gets dusted then flees into his phylactery. Can he then possess the clone rather than regenerate a new bony corpse? Would that also work for a lich?

[Segev]

There are a few reasons by the RAW that this would not work:

1) A clone is not a valid target for possession, because it is not a living body until the soul of the person cloned is available (i.e. dead). Therefore, until the clone is the original person, it's not a valid target.

2) A lich's phylactery, by default, does not enable them to possess other people, only to store their "life force" (often interpreted as "soul") in it and still operate their own undead body.

3) While a lich could use magic jar to possess other living creatures (or even undead ones and constructs, since it's not a [mind-affecting] effect), he must be able to cast the spell in the first place. While stick in his phylactery awaiting his body's reformation, he cannot do so.


That said, this is a cool story idea, and giving a lich the ability to do it would be neat.


Within the RAW, one could create a magic item of continuous magic jar which always stored your soul, and let you hop into your own body, but also let you possess others nearby. Hop around as much as you like. If a lich crafted his phylactery such that it was such a magic item, as well, then he could possess other people even while waiting for his body to reform.

Sadly, there's no way to do what you suggest with clone bodies of still-living people, but you could fiat it if you wanted.


Personally, I tend to house rule that liches don't regenerate their destroyed bodies, but instead their souls reach out and claim a new dead body of the same type to possess.

[Xar Zarath]

Hmm, I guess a variant of the clone spell could be created. The spell would create a clone without the soul link to the original form or maybe the Trap the Soul/Soul Bind spell could be used to trap the original while the lich walks around in their bodies.

All in all, some things to think about.

[Segev]

Little point in using a clone at that point. Just possess their original body.

[Chronos]

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a spell somewhere to possess a dead body, and even if there's not, it seems a reasonable thing to homebrew. That would work.