How would you build up an empire as Lich who slept for centuries?

[Wasum]

Hello everybody!


In my game an old Lich woke up after thousand years of sleep. He's powerful and he has a huge structure where he lives in. He killed and animated around 200 inhabitants of a nearby town and has some other undead buddies in his castle. But what's next?

I want to figure out what such a Lich would do to restore the power he once had. How does he build up a new empire? I would love any detail concerning plans he might make up.
Within ~100 miles around his base there are not many towns. Mainly there are mountains making his place good to defend but where does he get minions from? Who inhabits his new empire? Where does he seek for allies or vassals? How does he approach the larger countries nearby? Will he try to stay hidden, operating subtly or will he confront them? If not at the beginning, when will he threaten other nations? Where will he aquire wealth?

You see, everything that comes to your mind would be appreciated, I want to flesh out the rise of his new empire as detailed as possible.


I'm really curious about your ideas!



Wasum

[Nifft]

Where will he aquire wealth?

"Luckily, I had put some gold in a bank account before going to sleep. Let's see if compound interest really is the most powerful force in the universe."

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Simulacrums (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/simulacrum.htm) of himself should be a go-to solution. They can act as lieutenants commanding his undead minions, they can use item creation feats like Craft Contsruct, and they could have been active for the entire time he was sleeping.

He can have skeletons mining in the mountains near his lair, they could be pulling gold or silver or gems or even salt (just as valuable as silver (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins)) out of the ground. They could have been doing this the whole time he slept, with a few Simulacrums running things. He may even have a few Simulacrums of himself from before he became a lich that can act as merchants trading with local communities, especially if they're mining salt or similar. This should give him all the wealth and resources he needs when he awakens.

He could use Simulacrums, (Greater) Planar Binding, Create (Greater) Undead, Animate Objects + Permanency, and Craft Construct for golems to get as many minions as he needs.

[Blackhawk748]

Have you watched Overlord? That, do that

[johnbragg]

Let's say that it didn't plan to sleep for centuries, which sets aside the compound interest/skeleton mining type operations. Some Bold Heroes came in, wrecked its shizznat and almost destroyed it. But almost. So some minions were left standing, enough to discourage resettlement of the area; and since the main complex had been looted by the Bold Heroes, nobody high level was that motivated to exterminate the shadows and ghouls and miscellaneous CR 4-7 undead that were still around, supplemented by human and goblinoid low-level hunter-gatherer-bandit-scavenger types who get pushed into unattractive areas like the Valley of the Lost Lich.

So it can pretty easily make himself king of the mountain again when it regenerates. But it didn't become an eternal undead abomination to be a penny-ante king of a rathole kingdom of mid-level undead bullying low-level humanoids.

It's aiming at being lord of his own plane of the Abyss. For a start.

So it's going to operate with some subtlety. Teleport means that distance is not a thing. Alter self into some other form of undead, somewhat less suspicious. (Not a vampire, because that's a template, but that sort of thing). Run 5-6 different vampire-lord archvillains in 5-6 different cities or kingdoms, tempting minions deeper into evil and collecting political power and collecting tainted-soul acolytes. Forget that, just shapechange into a dozen different villainous identities for a dozen different schemes.

It's the mastermind behind the Dark Council that secretly controls both the Foul Fraternity and the Brotherhood of Blood, which are the shadowy organizations behind the Black Keep, the Invisible Empire, the Shadow Kings, the Darklings, the Knights of Justice, the Secret Brotherhood and the Fangs of Freedom.(1)

It's also going to give a helping skeleton-hand to cults of Orcus, necromancer guilds, dragon cults, demon cults, devil cults. Shapechange means that the Lost Lich is everywhere it wants to be, in a dozen or a hundred different forms of evil.

(1) Justice without mercy, which is at least the Diet Coke of Evil. And eeeevil freedom.

[Malroth]

Polymorph self to a human to gather information about the state of the surronding kingdoms, make use of invisible still silent necrotic cyst spells to infect the population with dozens of impossible to detect sleeper agents, which you then use to gain access to higher and higher ranked people you also infect. Amplify existing conflicts and spread discontent.

[Wasum]

Oh yeah, those are some great ideas! I will definitly use those zombies I have as workers in mines. That will generate some wealth and allow him to hire mercenaries and buy weapons. He will also start recruiting other intelligent Undead. He even finds, kills and animates a purple worm as his loveliest pet. He will also craft a greater hat of disguise in order to permanently appear as human.
Mercenaries he hired will be able to transport the weapons he bought into his realm. But how will this very realm evolve? Maybe a settlement of mercenaries who will disguise what lies beneath? And he will appear as their mayor or something? Will he start building defensive structures? Walls? Will he gather living vassels around him or will he turn them to undead as soon as he doesnt need the concealment anymore? But then again - how will he get an army? Even though he might ally with some other evil dukes - he probably wont find an army of undead. How does he get one? I guess I would reach his HD-cap for the common spells really fast so he will need minions to create more minions. Therefore he needs corpses which are not too common in his mountains. So how will he expand?

He will also use information gathered to exploit political structures he finds in boardering nations. Causing some trouble here and there, enforcing war between them - stuff like that, just to distract from his own plans. Sadly he wont be able to use Necrotic Cyst as this is a Pathfinder game.



Thats what I have so far, what do you think?

I'm curious what else you come up with!

[Tvtyrant]

Is he fine being hated, or would he prefer to be beloved?

Because I could see him working from the shadows to create a cult that worships him as a god, with the priests granting their best followers eternal life (vampires and wights).

He whips up a religious war between other fake religions he has seeded in the area, getting those cults exterminated while his focuses on healing and helping people. Eventually he turns the heads of the more orthodox religions in the area by mindcontrol and has them admit him to their religious services. Once a few centuries of religious acceptance have been attained he starts to look at temporal rule as a god-king.

[Andor13]

What's his motivation? Was he a Cleric or a Wizard before becoming a Lich? Does he want magical power or temporal power and why? Does he want a Kingdom because he is a power junkie or because he fears his undeath doesn't make him immortal enough?

At any rate the first order of business is intelligence. His knowledge of the world is centuries out of date. He needs to know what has changed, what the local politics are, and who the big movers and shakers in the world are. If he has a decent set of divination spells in his books he can probably handle some of that himself, but he needs to make contact with the world that doesn't result in one side dying. If he can fake humanity (or hire/summon/enslave something that can) he can hire agents to go out and gather intel for him. If not, in his shoes I would send some disposable undead squads to a nearby town to see what the response is, if the defenders are low enough level, he can then charm/dominate/kill and raise, etc. them to gain some agents.

His actions depend both on his goals and on his available tools.

Potential plot hooks:
Make your players play that team of adventurers that responds to a low level skeleton invasion of turnipburg only to get teleport ganked by an impossibly high level foe. Meta hatred will make them powerful.
1000 years in D&D/PF is a long time, but not that long a time. He may try calling up some old buddies who are still around, who may have ties to the players.
Conversely some campaign worlds can undergo massive changes over a millenia. If he was a follower of a god/pantheon that was destroyed, or the last survivor of a sunken civilization, then that can change both his outlook and the heroes response, assuming you have players who actually care about backstory.

[unseenmage]

If this world has an Underdark then he could get minions from below.

If not then Plane Shift and similar could net him minions from below.

The Create Crawling Claw spell makes lasting severed left hand Constructs.
Awaken Sand and Minor Servitor make lasting Construct friends.
Use Black Sand for undead shenaniganery.

To brute force the problem he could just make Simulacrums of whosoever he misses/needs from the old empire.

If his caster level is high enough those mountains could become massive minions with creative application of the Fabricate and Animate Objects/Minor Servitor spells.

[Wasum]

Is he fine being hated, or would he prefer to be beloved?

He doesnt want to be loved. But at this point I probably need to talk about his motivations. Those are pretty hard for most evil evil villains. So let's see what his goals might be:

He wants to reclaim a structure that once was part of his realm but now lies in another nation and is inhabited by a pretty strong sorcerer, ruler of said nation. Also before he was (almost) slayn several thousand years ago he rules huge parts of the continent and migh feel a little confined now. Other than that he's of course a disciple of abbadon who wants to establish an empire hailing the four horsemen. But I'd appreciate more ideas on how to make his actions more plausible.

Oh and he's a wizard. Which makes a lot of things easier :D

When it comes to planar companions I think daemons would be the obvious choice. His army (or parts of his army) therefore could be made of Urdefhans - those make gread mooks!


Please feed me more!

[Bronk]

So, the lich went to sleep in it's own demesne, then woke up centuries later... unmolested?

I'd say that there's a high probability that this lich still has a small army of undead or unaging minions ready to go, possibly with extra loot available from the deaths of any adventurers who died attempting to breach his defenses in the intervening time.

If the lich was just well hidden, then he might have extraplanar or otherwise (spelljamming?) far flung secret boltholes where he can regain minions and power.

If the lich is alone, it can just relocate... use it's powerful magic to dominate a nearby king or queen, then rule from the shadows without anyone else the wiser.

[BearonVonMu]

Do you have lots of gold? Can you get lots of gold by having skeletal minions mine? Is your sorcerer who occupies your old building evil? Put a price on his head. A handsome price. Let the mercenary and adventurer guilds deal with him while you don't have to do anything unless they succeed.

[Andor13]

Okay, so he's over-the-top grandiose, puppy eating evil. And I'll assume there was a safe cache of his spell books somewhere in his tomb/palace.

His first order of business is intelligence, as I said.

Assuming we're past that stage he wants to engage in a cycle of accumulating power that looks something like this:
1: Decide on next conquest.
2: Accumulate minions adequate to control that conquest.
3: Conquer it.
4: Solidify powerbase.
5: Stabilize relations with neighbors.
6: Leverage/exploit your new territory to increase power for next phase.

Now these steps can look very different depending on strategies chosen. If he was the subtlety type then step 2 could consist of subverting a few powerful local barons to support your cause, instigate a rebellion against the King, and slip a "Necromancy is totally cool guys" clause into the Magna Carta your allies/puppets make the king sign. Most people don't even know anything has happened.

Since he seems to be more of a "Bad Ash" type of guy, it's probably more likely to consist of finding all the high-int, dump stated wis types he can find, training them to be apprentice necromancers, and accumulating mounds of onyx. Then you can either just go full Evil Dead and march on the living, or teleport gank the local lords, raise them as intelligent undead, assign them some black robes and have them start 'harvesting' the local peasantry.

Goals are important here. If he's just really into slaying the living, then releasing swarms of self-replicating undead like ghouls and shadows is a great way to clear huge swaths of land, but since all but a tiny minority of them will be uncontrolled, it doesn't actually do much to increase his power. If he wants to rule a functional empire, then he wants to do as little damage as possible, because ash covered deathscapes are hard to tax, and don't follow orders well.

Step 5 is important. He doesn't want to go full "I am the unstoppable Lich Lord, fear me puny mortals!" before he has the strength to give serious pause to whoever usually deals with that sort of thing in your world. If there are any forces for Good with serious muscle, he's going to want to plan that one out before a flight of Solars and Elder Wyrm metallic dragons lands on his doorstep.

If he didn't dump stat wisdom, in the scenario you describe, I would not have him build from his mountain fortress. He should absolutely get it up and running, but he should use it as a hidden fall back in case of trouble, it's not where he rules from, it's where his contingencies teleport him. He should find some moderately distant (within a few hundred miles) kingdom that suits his resource strategy, and has neighbors that are unlikely to bum rush him when he tips his hand. Think if him as a new player joining a running 4X game, but he gets to pick his starting position with map fog turned off. (Assuming he did the intelligence gathering thing, is he decided to go hard mode and left fog-of-war on, then he deserves what he gets.)

[Coidzor]

Gathering information about what other powerful entities are around. A few centuries is enough for dragons that were beneath notice to become legitimate threats.

Also for more Liches to have set up shop, and for there to be some non-Lich archmages and such around.

He needs to know who and what are potential threats to him personally and what would be able to seriously hinder his plans or create unacceptable delays if not dealt with directly.

That will allow him to actually make proper plans.

[Wasum]

He probably will have difficulties to get the sorcerer out of the structure as well as controlling the king as those are the very same person and probably one of his most dangerous threats (even though he doesnt know that).
But another question comes up to my mind: How does he permanently control some influencial noble without someone noticing?

I also like the idea that he is looking for a better place to make his base and just use his crypt as backup save zone. What does such a new base need?

And now let me introduce something that mixes up some of those plans. The game I'm playing is actually an instance of the Paizo Kingmaker AP (even though Vordakai the cyclops lich is the only villain I actually used from those books) and even though I changed the lichs stats completly I kept the artifact he has by the book:


Oculus of Abaddon
Minor Artifact

Category:
eyewear
Description:
An oculus of Abaddon appears as a sphere of clear crystal that contains a black void at its center. When held, the oculus feels warm to the touch and fills the holder with a sudden desire to pluck out an eye and place the oculus within the socket—this causes 1d8 points of damage, 1 point of bleed damage, and 2 points of Constitution damage. Once placed in an eye socket, the oculus can only be removed by ripping it free (causing the same amount of damage as the initial plucking). An oculus placed in an empty eye socket immediately heals all damage caused by plucking the previous eye out. Once placed, an oculus allows its new owner to utilize its powers, as listed below.

Darkvision to a range of 120 feet (constant)
True seeing once per day as a free action
Greater Scrying three times per day
Planar Binding once per week (only to summmon natives of Abaddon)
Familiar farsight at will
The oculus of Abaddon’s greatest power, though, is its haunting beckon. This ability is usable once per year, and allows the user to manipulate the minds of a huge number of targets, provided that the end goal of the manipulation is a tragic or otherwise horrific fate for those being manipulated. This functions as mass charm monster, but with a range of 1 mile, and establishes a telepathic link between the caster and all minds in that area. The effects are still language- dependant despite this telepathy—creatures without the ability to understand language (typically, creatures with an Intelligence score of 2 or lower) are unaffected. All other creatures are automatically affected unless they have 6 or more HD, in which case they gain a DC 22 Will save to resist the effects. Spell resistance applies regardless of HD.

The oculus of Abaddon is powerfully neutral evil and possesses a limited and hateful intellect of its own. while not capable of communicating directly with its owner, it refuses to activate its powers for any user who is not neutral evil.

This thing is crazy. Great for gathering information (really great), exactly what he needs to do what you advise. He used it to harvest a smaller town (around 200 inhabitants) when he started but then a year has passed and he could activate that crazy charm ability again. There is a rather huge boarder city (Restov) not too far away from him. I did some calculations on the distribution of CR among the citizens and the formula I thought looks plausible was an exponential function, proportional to EXP(-[HD of citizen]/1,25) which resulted in ~19.900 of the 20.000 inhabitants being charmed without getting a save. That sounds like a lot but I wanted to have a rather steep distribution. Most of the remaining citizens won't make their save so that I guess 20-30 of them being able to resist the artifact.

Now what? He has almost 20.000 humanoids under his control for 20 days. What does he do? Does he move them to his "base"? Will he kill them to raise them as undead? That seems hard to handle. He wont be able to feed so many people at all so he probably needs to kill them. That's a truely scary scenario. What does he do with those that resisted the charm? What will those who resisted the charm do anyway? Some might be able to use spells to stop several of the charmed... but I'm not sure how to think that through. What's going to happen afterwards? Would it be smart to even use the artifact? He could take every single coin from that city - not too bad. Could he use the structures? Should he leave the city abandoned? Can he still conceal whats going on? How does he move those people? Just have them walk two hundred miles?


I like how this thread brings up so many great ideas, I can't wait to read more of them - thank you so much!

[Andor13]

Wow. That is a hell of an artifact, no pun intended. Whoever designated that a minor artifact is an idiot, that is a major artifact of the first water.


He probably will have difficulties to get the sorcerer out of the structure as well as controlling the king as those are the very same person and probably one of his most dangerous threats (even though he doesnt know that).
But another question comes up to my mind: How does he permanently control some influencial noble without someone noticing?

I also like the idea that he is looking for a better place to make his base and just use his crypt as backup save zone. What does such a new base need?

Methods of control: This is important. His strategy of control is going to be probably the most important factor shaping his actions.
There is a wide array of choices arranged on a spectrum from soft to hard.
At the soft end of the spectrum the lich has options like bargains, manipulation, mutual goals, or even friendship. The upsides to soft control are low initial cost, and that it is the most flexible method of control. Plus, since at this end his allies are actually motivated to help him achieve his goals they will exercise initiative on his behalf. However it is the weakest method, leaves him open to betrayal, and ironically has the most expensive upkeep in that he has to maintain both the relationships, and have significant resources sunk into internal intelligence gathering to keep tabs on his allies.

In the middle ground he has established significant leverage over his "allies". This can be in the form of threats, hostages, promised aid, magical bargains, etc. The upside is that his hold over his patsies will make them reluctant to betray him, and upkeep costs are lower. However the minions probably fear or hate him and will not exercise much initiative on his behalf, and if they do betray him they will commit to it.

At the hard end of the spectrum the minions have little or no free will. The hardest of hard control is those undead directly bound to his will under his HD limit. Close to that are those magically bound by things like geasa, devilish contracts, or magical domination. The upsides are total control with no fear of betrayal. The downsides are expense, sharp limits on how many can be controlled, and usually a total lack of initiative.

There is no reason he is limited to a single strategy of course.

As for what his new base needs, that depends on his strategy, both for control and conquest, as well as his end goals. If he is subtle enough to play the long game of manipulating humans into his service and thereby gaining the full might of a functioning society/economy then he needs whatever resources he uses to gain that control, and an area suitable to his take over, ideally a place of many small feuding principalities. If he's buying loyalty with gold, he needs gold. If he's trading in magic items he needs enchanting resources, etc.

If he's going full army of the dead, then he needs spell components, and an area with poor speed of communications.

Now an additional option that this artifact gives him is to go full army of the damned. As I read that artifact he can compel entire cities to sacrifice themselves to complete dark bargains. Stuff on that scale falls solidly into pure GM call territory, but can, at your whim, range from "The entire city signs their souls over to the lich, granting him full control in life and death" to "The entire city marches voluntarily into an open hell-maw thus fulfilling the bargain he made and getting him a legion of fiends." These are on the hard end of the control spectrum. Or it could be subtler, with the entire city switching to worship of the dark god of his choice (or him personally) in an orgy of dark rituals which will only reduce the population somewhat, but leave the survivors bound by guilt and fear to his will, for more mid-range control.


Now what? He has almost 20.000 humanoids under his control for 20 days. What does he do? Does he move them to his "base"? Will he kill them to raise them as undead? That seems hard to handle. He wont be able to feed so many people at all so he probably needs to kill them. That's a truely scary scenario. What does he do with those that resisted the charm? What will those who resisted the charm do anyway? Some might be able to use spells to stop several of the charmed... but I'm not sure how to think that through. What's going to happen afterwards? Would it be smart to even use the artifact? He could take every single coin from that city - not too bad. Could he use the structures? Should he leave the city abandoned? Can he still conceal whats going on? How does he move those people? Just have them walk two hundred miles?

I don't see why he can't feed them, they were feeding themselves before, and can keep doing so under his dominion. Those who resisted the charm would need to be found, and controlled or killed. Magic circles would be an issue. The artifact is powerful enough that I would treat the "tragic or otherwise horrific fate" limitation as a significant one, and therefore simply robbing the city would be insufficient for the orb to grant it's power. The lightest (softest) and most subtle use would be to have the entire population swear themselves to his service in some showy ceremony with plenty of magical special effects, and then to carry on as normal. The tragedy is that they wouldn't realize they weren't actually magically bound, and would become his minions willingly if unwittingly. Or move it along down a sliding scale from soft to hard that starts with decimating the population and ends with eliminating it and trading them in for the undead or the damned.

I mean, if you want him to be really, really scary, and actually succeed at his plot, he might spend 10 or 20 years eating a city a year, in wildly disparate locations, not building up an earthly kingdom but building up infernal contracts and piles of loot (as well as a legend of terror as whole cities die under mysterious circumstances.) Then he calls in all his markers and buries the sorcerer under a dozen demon armies at once. Then, once he has his tower/artifact, he can start to work on his real plans.

[Mordaedil]

As a Lich, you're going to need underlings and you're going to want to know the strength of your foes. Failure to recognize either will lead to a short reign after centuries of remaining dormant and you have no idea who else will be waking after you.

Find a magical academy where they are training new wizards and find the most bullied, ostracized individual there. Take pity on him and offer to train him yourself. Steer him towards evil and teach him necromantic magics and eventually turn him into a lich or other undead too. Finally have him act as your "front", acting as your general as you watch from afar to make certain of the strength of the people in the realm. Create more undead generals to act as your fronts in other regions.

Establish your domain only once you've driven humanity into a corner.

If your generals are destroyed, either destroy the interlopers or go into hiding and create new ones.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I will make a lot of intelligent undead so I will have someone to rule.

After my empire will be big enough I will make contact with another kingdoms for trade and political influence.

I will make sure undead have rights and free to join my empire.

I will give everyone the ability to sign a contract that will make them undead after they will die(with an option to become intelligent for a price)

I will make a nice place for all the undead and make everyone change there opinion on the undead.

In the end the undead will be recognized as a race like all the other races, and because the undead will die less I will end up as the biggest empire and will have the biggest power in the ‏council of the world.

[Wasum]

Methods of control: This is important. His strategy of control is going to be probably the most important factor shaping his actions.
There is a wide array of choices arranged on a spectrum from soft to hard.
At the soft end of the spectrum the lich has options like bargains, manipulation, mutual goals, or even friendship. The upsides to soft control are low initial cost, and that it is the most flexible method of control. Plus, since at this end his allies are actually motivated to help him achieve his goals they will exercise initiative on his behalf. However it is the weakest method, leaves him open to betrayal, and ironically has the most expensive upkeep in that he has to maintain both the relationships, and have significant resources sunk into internal intelligence gathering to keep tabs on his allies.

In the middle ground he has established significant leverage over his "allies". This can be in the form of threats, hostages, promised aid, magical bargains, etc. The upside is that his hold over his patsies will make them reluctant to betray him, and upkeep costs are lower. However the minions probably fear or hate him and will not exercise much initiative on his behalf, and if they do betray him they will commit to it.

At the hard end of the spectrum the minions have little or no free will. The hardest of hard control is those undead directly bound to his will under his HD limit. Close to that are those magically bound by things like geasa, devilish contracts, or magical domination. The upsides are total control with no fear of betrayal. The downsides are expense, sharp limits on how many can be controlled, and usually a total lack of initiative.

There is no reason he is limited to a single strategy of course.

As for what his new base needs, that depends on his strategy, both for control and conquest, as well as his end goals. If he is subtle enough to play the long game of manipulating humans into his service and thereby gaining the full might of a functioning society/economy then he needs whatever resources he uses to gain that control, and an area suitable to his take over, ideally a place of many small feuding principalities. If he's buying loyalty with gold, he needs gold. If he's trading in magic items he needs enchanting resources, etc.

If he's going full army of the dead, then he needs spell components, and an area with poor speed of communications.

I do like the idea to place some geas on nobles - but he will need to refresh the spells when the duration is over - so probably he shouldnt have too many of those up simultaneously.

Other than that I'm not sure about the soft method will work out easily. Well, one of his plans is to initiate war in the neighbouring nation which will buy him time and offers great distraction - but I'm not sure it will be easy to become friends with high lords and ladies of the respective houses.




Now an additional option that this artifact gives him is to go full army of the damned. As I read that artifact he can compel entire cities to sacrifice themselves to complete dark bargains. Stuff on that scale falls solidly into pure GM call territory, but can, at your whim, range from "The entire city signs their souls over to the lich, granting him full control in life and death" to "The entire city marches voluntarily into an open hell-maw thus fulfilling the bargain he made and getting him a legion of fiends." These are on the hard end of the control spectrum. Or it could be subtler, with the entire city switching to worship of the dark god of his choice (or him personally) in an orgy of dark rituals which will only reduce the population somewhat, but leave the survivors bound by guilt and fear to his will, for more mid-range control.

I'm not sure whether it's that easy to make 20.000 charmed (not dominated) people into fiends. This would need a lot of handwaving - more than I would feel comfortable with (especially as it is charm and not doinate). On the other hand I don't now how he could guarantee that after 20 days of being charmed the population will worship him or Abaddon and develope loyality towards him. I mean there's not a button on a citizens body that seperates him from his soul... That why I prefer the undead army solution - but I'm open to be convinced otherwise! :)



I don't see why he can't feed them, they were feeding themselves before, and can keep doing so under his dominion. Those who resisted the charm would need to be found, and controlled or killed. Magic circles would be an issue. The artifact is powerful enough that I would treat the "tragic or otherwise horrific fate" limitation as a significant one, and therefore simply robbing the city would be insufficient for the orb to grant it's power. The lightest (softest) and most subtle use would be to have the entire population swear themselves to his service in some showy ceremony with plenty of magical special effects, and then to carry on as normal. The tragedy is that they wouldn't realize they weren't actually magically bound, and would become his minions willingly if unwittingly. Or move it along down a sliding scale from soft to hard that starts with decimating the population and ends with eliminating it and trading them in for the undead or the damned.

I mean, if you want him to be really, really scary, and actually succeed at his plot, he might spend 10 or 20 years eating a city a year, in wildly disparate locations, not building up an earthly kingdom but building up infernal contracts and piles of loot (as well as a legend of terror as whole cities die under mysterious circumstances.) Then he calls in all his markers and buries the sorcerer under a dozen demon armies at once. Then, once he has his tower/artifact, he can start to work on his real plans.

The thing is others would notice if inhabitants of a city started to praise a dark cyclops lich (if that would be possible to archieve at all as I mentioned earlier...). This would cause a lot of attention. I dont think he could just leave them in their city - and he wouldnt be able to feed so many people elsewhere - at least not for long. So he needs to transport them. I don't think they could walk to his hideout unnoticed for 20 days (if 20 days were even enough).
20.000 people are a resource that is pretty hard to handle. How would he kill so many poeple? How would he animate them? Where would he do all that? Could he hide them?








As a Lich, you're going to need underlings and you're going to want to know the strength of your foes. Failure to recognize either will lead to a short reign after centuries of remaining dormant and you have no idea who else will be waking after you.

Find a magical academy where they are training new wizards and find the most bullied, ostracized individual there. Take pity on him and offer to train him yourself. Steer him towards evil and teach him necromantic magics and eventually turn him into a lich or other undead too. Finally have him act as your "front", acting as your general as you watch from afar to make certain of the strength of the people in the realm. Create more undead generals to act as your fronts in other regions.

Establish your domain only once you've driven humanity into a corner.

If your generals are destroyed, either destroy the interlopers or go into hiding and create new ones.

While I like the idea (that reminds me of star wars) this would take him a lot lot of time. Like train a wizard to become a necromancer would take several years at least - I'm not sure whether this lich is that patient :smallbiggrin:
But sure - some humanoids in his crew would be super useful - I will consider that - especially because they could do negotiations and stuff, representing his interests in the humanoid nations around.






I will make a lot of intelligent undead so I will have someone to rule.

After my empire will be big enough I will make contact with another kingdoms for trade and political influence.

I will make sure undead have rights and free to join my empire.

I will give everyone the ability to sign a contract that will make them undead after they will die(with an option to become intelligent for a price)

I will make a nice place for all the undead and make everyone change there opinion on the undead.

In the end the undead will be recognized as a race like all the other races, and because the undead will die less I will end up as the biggest empire and will have the biggest power in the ‏council of the world.


Do you have an idea what kind of intelliget undead would be a good idea?

[Tvtyrant]

I do like the idea to place some geas on nobles - but he will need to refresh the spells when the duration is over - so probably he shouldnt have too many of those up simultaneously.

Other than that I'm not sure about the soft method will work out easily. Well, one of his plans is to initiate war in the neighbouring nation which will buy him time and offers great distraction - but I'm not sure it will be easy to become friends with high lords and ladies of the respective houses.




I'm not sure whether it's that easy to make 20.000 charmed (not dominated) people into fiends. This would need a lot of handwaving - more than I would feel comfortable with (especially as it is charm and not doinate). On the other hand I don't now how he could guarantee that after 20 days of being charmed the population will worship him or Abaddon and develope loyality towards him. I mean there's not a button on a citizens body that seperates him from his soul... That why I prefer the undead army solution - but I'm open to be convinced otherwise! :)

Do you have an idea what kind of intelliget undead would be a good idea?

Undead armies are always in. Vampires make the best generals, mummies, dread warriors and death knights for bodyguards.

Vampires can make more vampires, vampire spawn and wights. They are an exponential infection, capable of holding pyramids of minions together or simply unleashing wightocalypses by punching people in the back field. Their dominate abilities, sneaking and intelligence makes them good as spies and diplomata as well.

Mummies and Dread Warriors are easy to make and control, look like people and are good in combat.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Do you have an idea what kind of intelliget undead would be a good idea?

Any intelligent undead will be good for this.
Awaken Undead will be great.

You want them so you will not need to do all the job.
You want to make merchants, diplomats, and stuff like this.
I think vampires will be good for making tuch with another kingdoms because they look like humanoids.

I think there are better options but I am not an undead expert. Soory.

[Nifft]

Vecna: "Let's make some intelligent undead to rule. They'll be totally loyal I'm sure. I'll make the first one a totally badass vampire and call him, let's see, how about Kas. Yeah. That sounds awesome. Intelligent beings will never do irrational things like betray me or sever my limbs or whatever. Yeah, let's do this. Nothing could possibly go wrong."


Note that Vecna is talking to himself because he's very lonely. This loneliness is driving him to make bad decisions.

Fact: Intelligent vampire minions are more dangerous than a Red Ryder BB gun, and three times more likely to put your eye out.

Intelligence is a slippery slope that ends in disobedience. Just Say No.


This message has been endorsed by the creator gods, all of them.

[Hugh Mann]

It would be a good idea for the lich to try to learn what kind of spells the sorcerer has. Since sorcerers have limited spell lists, it would make the most sense for the lich to try to go on an information gathering campaign to find out how to counter the sorcerer. This can be done by having minions spy on the sorcerer, mind controlling members of the court to get them to tell rumors of what spells he can cast, or even sending some minions to attack the sorcerer.

This will help when the lich inevitably has to deal with the sorcerer.

[Andor13]

I'm not sure whether it's that easy to make 20.000 charmed (not dominated) people into fiends. This would need a lot of handwaving - more than I would feel comfortable with (especially as it is charm and not doinate). On the other hand I don't now how he could guarantee that after 20 days of being charmed the population will worship him or Abaddon and develope loyality towards him. I mean there's not a button on a citizens body that seperates him from his soul... That why I prefer the undead army solution - but I'm open to be convinced otherwise! :)

The thing is others would notice if inhabitants of a city started to praise a dark cyclops lich (if that would be possible to archieve at all as I mentioned earlier...). This would cause a lot of attention. I dont think he could just leave them in their city - and he wouldnt be able to feed so many people elsewhere - at least not for long. So he needs to transport them. I don't think they could walk to his hideout unnoticed for 20 days (if 20 days were even enough).
20.000 people are a resource that is pretty hard to handle. How would he kill so many poeple? How would he animate them? Where would he do all that? Could he hide them?

I'm not following you here. The whole premise is that he's trying to establish a kingdom, or at least build up major forces. Either he's going to hold the land, in which case his neighbors will know anyway, or he's going to expend the population, in which case what exactly are the neighbors going to do about it?

Think about the speed of communication and movement here. The absolute worst case scenario for the lich is some spellcasters who dodge the charm effect either by making their saves or by coincidentally being in a magic circle when the effect happens. They happen to have a sending handy and yell for help. Some mid-to-high level adventurers teleport in and begin to.... what exactly? There is an entire city of people loyal to the Lich surrounding them, all of whom are fully in on whatever ruse the lich uses to hide himself, bait the heros, and then help trap/defeat them. At most they'll save a few hundred people, and maybe put a thorn in any big public works project (might actually be a good way to get your party hooked into the campaign.) The far more likely scenario is that a merchant en route to the city realizes something is up, evades the lich's patrols (because the entire town guard work for him now, remember?), goes to a neighboring town/prince and raises the alarm. Figure at least 2 days travel time. That Prince now has to raise a force and march to relieve the city, which will take a considerable chunk of time, and probably either not get there in time, or be completely ineffective for the same reasons the adventurers will be. Logistics and time are on the side of the Lich, not his foes.

As for how he does it? Easy, any city is going to have some existing racial/class/religious tensions. Each faction is charmed into thinking they can get rid of their no good neighbors if they can just scare them away by pretending to worship devils/demons/Lich/whatever, ramp up the tensions, stage some fights, and pretty soon they'll be sacrificing each other for real with assistance from the charm. Remember that dark fate rider is there for a reason. Or the Lich offers himself as the solution to the "1/2 Orc problem" and says he'll clear out those slums if the good people of Suckersburg will just bring him a few hundred captives to turn into skeletons/ghouls/shadows, and of course he told the slum dwellers the same thing.

Honestly, the details don't matter at all unless the PCs have a ringside seat. This is all GM level stuff. If you want to make it make sense, then have the first city used in a series of terrible rituals to create an artifact along the lines of the Black Cauldron, which raises any corpse thown into it as an undead servitor loyal to the Lich, or maybe it's full of something like the black blood of Kali from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which geases anyone who drinks it to serve the Lich (but it dispellable.)

In my current game the baddy was using some kind of magically drugged wine to control her henchmen, we think it was spiked with aboleth blood.

[Wasum]

Undead armies are always in. Vampires make the best generals, mummies, dread warriors and death knights for bodyguards.

Vampires can make more vampires, vampire spawn and wights. They are an exponential infection, capable of holding pyramids of minions together or simply unleashing wightocalypses by punching people in the back field. Their dominate abilities, sneaking and intelligence makes them good as spies and diplomata as well.

Mummies and Dread Warriors are easy to make and control, look like people and are good in combat.

I don't want to use vampires for several reasons. First it just doesn't really fit the style of my lich (same for mummies). Second for the very reason Nifft mentioned:

Vecna: "Let's make some intelligent undead to rule. They'll be totally loyal I'm sure. I'll make the first one a totally badass vampire and call him, let's see, how about Kas. Yeah. That sounds awesome. Intelligent beings will never do irrational things like betray me or sever my limbs or whatever. Yeah, let's do this. Nothing could possibly go wrong."


Note that Vecna is talking to himself because he's very lonely. This loneliness is driving him to make bad decisions.

Fact: Intelligent vampire minions are more dangerous than a Red Ryder BB gun, and three times more likely to put your eye out.

Intelligence is a slippery slope that ends in disobedience. Just Say No.


This message has been endorsed by the creator gods, all of them.




Any intelligent undead will be good for this.
Awaken Undead will be great.

You want them so you will not need to do all the job.
You want to make merchants, diplomats, and stuff like this.
I think vampires will be good for making tuch with another kingdoms because they look like humanoids.

I think there are better options but I am not an undead expert. Soory.

I thought about making some of the generals graveknights. He will have some living allies as well hopefully. At least that's the plan, even though I'm not sure yet how he will gain their loyality.
Other intelliget undead might be Zombie Lords or Skeletal Champions. Then there are Ghouls and some other intelligent undead. I do really like the Devourer (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/devourer/)!





It would be a good idea for the lich to try to learn what kind of spells the sorcerer has. Since sorcerers have limited spell lists, it would make the most sense for the lich to try to go on an information gathering campaign to find out how to counter the sorcerer. This can be done by having minions spy on the sorcerer, mind controlling members of the court to get them to tell rumors of what spells he can cast, or even sending some minions to attack the sorcerer.

This will help when the lich inevitably has to deal with the sorcerer.

Yeah, I will let him do that, that sounds like a plausible plan, even though difficult to perform.


I'm not following you here. The whole premise is that he's trying to establish a kingdom, or at least build up major forces. Either he's going to hold the land, in which case his neighbors will know anyway, or he's going to expend the population, in which case what exactly are the neighbors going to do about it?

Think about the speed of communication and movement here. The absolute worst case scenario for the lich is some spellcasters who dodge the charm effect either by making their saves or by coincidentally being in a magic circle when the effect happens. They happen to have a sending handy and yell for help. Some mid-to-high level adventurers teleport in and begin to.... what exactly? There is an entire city of people loyal to the Lich surrounding them, all of whom are fully in on whatever ruse the lich uses to hide himself, bait the heros, and then help trap/defeat them. At most they'll save a few hundred people, and maybe put a thorn in any big public works project (might actually be a good way to get your party hooked into the campaign.) The far more likely scenario is that a merchant en route to the city realizes something is up, evades the lich's patrols (because the entire town guard work for him now, remember?), goes to a neighboring town/prince and raises the alarm. Figure at least 2 days travel time. That Prince now has to raise a force and march to relieve the city, which will take a considerable chunk of time, and probably either not get there in time, or be completely ineffective for the same reasons the adventurers will be. Logistics and time are on the side of the Lich, not his foes.

As for how he does it? Easy, any city is going to have some existing racial/class/religious tensions. Each faction is charmed into thinking they can get rid of their no good neighbors if they can just scare them away by pretending to worship devils/demons/Lich/whatever, ramp up the tensions, stage some fights, and pretty soon they'll be sacrificing each other for real with assistance from the charm. Remember that dark fate rider is there for a reason. Or the Lich offers himself as the solution to the "1/2 Orc problem" and says he'll clear out those slums if the good people of Suckersburg will just bring him a few hundred captives to turn into skeletons/ghouls/shadows, and of course he told the slum dwellers the same thing.

Honestly, the details don't matter at all unless the PCs have a ringside seat. This is all GM level stuff. If you want to make it make sense, then have the first city used in a series of terrible rituals to create an artifact along the lines of the Black Cauldron, which raises any corpse thown into it as an undead servitor loyal to the Lich, or maybe it's full of something like the black blood of Kali from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which geases anyone who drinks it to serve the Lich (but it dispellable.)

In my current game the baddy was using some kind of magically drugged wine to control her henchmen, we think it was spiked with aboleth blood.

Okay, yeah, you are right on this, it wouldnt be hard to rationalize that he was able to drag the city on his side - especially with that artifact in his hands. Now I'm a little torn apart between this and the undead army thing.
I had the idea to use a scroll of greater demiplane and cast shrink item on the portal so he can carry it tp the respective city. There the population (and all of their valuable possessions) are charmed to enter the back to usual size gate and the lich teleports the shrunken gate to the place he wants them to be killed. Or he just uses "Teleportation Circle" but for some reason I consider that cheesy... :D

I'm not sure what would lead to greater power. A city as political instance but with way less economical profit or an undead army which is way easier supplied, has a lot more physical power and also provides him with all the wealth gathered there....

[Segev]

So his motivations are rule-for-the-sake-of-rule (primarily egotism at that point), and desire for his super-artifact back in his hands.

If the artifact is removable from the structure, his first step is probably to pose as a Mysterious Questgiver one kingdom over from the Sorcerer-King's lands and hire adventurers to retrieve his artifact for him. Then, go play cartoon mastermind and stir up border troubles with various traditional humanoid antagonists for the Sorcerer-King's forces to have to deal with. Hire more adventurers within the Sorcerer-King's kingdom to help fight those.

Monitor the group that's going after the artifact. If they die, pay attention to what caused their failure, and hire a new group, better equipped. Stir up more trouble. Keep things roiled. Perhaps pose as one of the Sorcerer-King's loyal courtiers, seeking the item to quell the troubles. Be ready to swoop in the moment the adventurers find it if needs be. But wait for them to bring it to you unless they prove to be treacherous and try to keep it or sell it. Pay them generously for their service if they deliver.

Using the mobilization of the Sorcerer-King's forces against the various barbarous, traditionally-evil humanoids he's been stirring up as a point of concern, plant the idea that the Sorcerer-King's neighbors should fear invasion in their minds. Then arrange for a band of adventurers or even a warband of the Sorcerer-King's to be clearing out orcs who'd settled into a border town to be caught and framed for the sacking of the town. Spark war.

Now, build your influence near your old lands. If possible, get the kingdoms near your own borders to raise taxes and levies for the war, and spread discontent in the towns near you with this, since they're not threatened. Spur resentment and rebellious thoughts. Promise your humanoid bandits a safer place, and withdraw them from the Sorcerer-King's borders into your own territory. Let them trouble - but not destroy - the nearby villages and towns, who now have more reason to be upset that they're being taxed for a distant war while their kings and princes are ignoring their own plights.

Offer them your protection. Have some of the more photogenic humanoids pull protection scams, too. Then, when some take the offer, actually play the noble protector...against the tax collectors and conscription officers who come to these towns now under your protection. Bask in their adulation as you show them that you've tamed or defeated their humanoid bandits, and build them up into your own vassals taken from the war-weakened kingdoms.