Creating Non-Necromancy Lich-likes

[PhantasyPen]

Greetings good people of the forums, I am looking for inspirations/ideas (and possibly some mechanical assistance) for creating immortal un-aging spellcasters without using the Lich template or other forms of turning undead. Currently I've got a vague idea for some kind of outsider-ascension via binding your heart/soul to one of the outer/elemental planes, gaining properties from that plane and an increase in power related to it, however, I would like to hear what other ideas people have and I'll see what looks the most interesting.

[Segev]

Greetings good people of the forums, I am looking for inspirations/ideas (and possibly some mechanical assistance) for creating immortal un-aging spellcasters without using the Lich template or other forms of turning undead. Currently I've got a vague idea for some kind of outsider-ascension via binding your heart/soul to one of the outer/elemental planes, gaining properties from that plane and an increase in power related to it, however, I would like to hear what other ideas people have and I'll see what looks the most interesting.

Your idea is literally achieved by the Elemental Savant from Complete Arcane - but I see you're not talking D&D specifically. To complete the thought, though, the level 10 capstone of the class makes you an elemental. (Also, Pathfinder level 20 wizards can choose to just become immortal.)

In that case, there are a number of approaches. Khadi from L5R are not obviously undead (they eat, breathe, etc., even if only cosmetically), but gain ageless immortality by ritualistically sealing their hearts in boxes.

The Portrait of Dorian Grey tells the tale of a young man who became impervious to all physical ills by sloughing them off onto a painting of himself.

Juraian royalty in the Tenchi Muyo series achieves immortality by bonding with magical trees. A similar notion of extended longevity by mimicking Dryads and bonding with a long-lived tree to slow one's own aging might work.

An evil method of achieving freedom from old age and death thereby would be serial body-swapping into bodies that have more time ahead of them than your current one.

Repeatedly brewing youth potions to retain your youth would also work.

[LibraryOgre]

There's always the Alteration route... instantly change your species to something immune to age, or resistant to it. Some versions of elves don't age. There's always dragons, too.

[BWR]

Transferring one's soul into a construct of some sort is another classic. May be considered necromantic, depending on setting and edition.

Some sort of bargain with higher powers: functional immorality unless certain conditions are met.




In that case, there are a number of approaches. Khadi from L5R are not obviously undead (they eat, breathe, etc., even if only cosmetically), but gain ageless immortality by ritualistically sealing their hearts in boxes.

An evil method of achieving freedom from old age and death thereby would be serial body-swapping into bodies that have more time ahead of them than your current one.


Nice ideas, but rather explicitly necromantic, which the title did not want, even if the actual OP merely said non-undead.

[Akolyte01]

Greetings good people of the forums, I am looking for inspirations/ideas (and possibly some mechanical assistance) for creating immortal un-aging spellcasters without using the Lich template or other forms of turning undead. Currently I've got a vague idea for some kind of outsider-ascension via binding your heart/soul to one of the outer/elemental planes, gaining properties from that plane and an increase in power related to it, however, I would like to hear what other ideas people have and I'll see what looks the most interesting.

The Clone spell works for this in 5e as is. Although technically it is a necromancy spell it doesn't involve any form of undeath. In previous additions you would continue to age but in 5e you can indefinitely reset to younger clones of yourself when your current one gets too wrinkly.

[NecroDancer]

What about a creating a device that repels time to prevent it from affecting you, or maybe a way to remove the effects of time from your body?

[Pelle]

A classic method is to take your heart/soul, hide it inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside an iron chest, and bury it under a tree on a magic island.

[Beneath]

Alchemists traditionally sought the elixir of youth, perhaps as a power of the philosopher's stone (which perfects things, turning the corruptable and the mortal incorruptible. Thus base metals, which corrode, become gold, which does not. Arguably someone immortalized in this manner could look like a living golden statue)

You could lie in hibernation but dreaming; this wouldn't work practically but the magical symbolism is all there (and it's invoked in SF with ideas of cryogenic sleep), in stasis but your machinations are in motion, with you able to nudge them a little to get them on track.

Though wanting something "non-necromantic" you really have to define what necromancy is. Traditionally in stories pretty much anything you might do to gain immortality means giving something up. Even if you have it thrust upon you or as an accident of birth (a la Highlander), you're still set apart from everyone around you.

[icefractal]

Serial reincarnation is a classic way (and in D&D, probably the easiest way). This does usually require allies or loyal minions though.

Writing your mind into a spellbook or other device is a possibility - this would probably be transmutation or enchantment magic rather than necromancy. Depending on how much the magic involves handles, you may or may not be able to function in a normal way afterwards.

An advanced idea would be to become memetic - embedded within a spell, story, or song, able to return to consciousness when enough people are thinking about it and possess one of them.

[PhantasyPen]

A classic method is to take your heart/soul, hide it inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside an iron chest, and bury it under a tree on a magic island.

Oi, that is totally a lich mate, I know that story!


Alchemists traditionally sought the elixir of youth, perhaps as a power of the philosopher's stone (which perfects things, turning the corruptable and the mortal incorruptible. Thus base metals, which corrode, become gold, which does not. Arguably someone immortalized in this manner could look like a living golden statue)

You could lie in hibernation but dreaming; this wouldn't work practically but the magical symbolism is all there (and it's invoked in SF with ideas of cryogenic sleep), in stasis but your machinations are in motion, with you able to nudge them a little to get them on track.

Though wanting something "non-necromantic" you really have to define what necromancy is. Traditionally in stories pretty much anything you might do to gain immortality means giving something up. Even if you have it thrust upon you or as an accident of birth (a la Highlander), you're still set apart from everyone around you.

I like the "golden man" idea, and I was referring to necromancy in the sense of D&D, where it is magic bound up in the trappings of death and unnatural manipulation of life energy.


Your idea is literally achieved by the Elemental Savant from Complete Arcane - but I see you're not talking D&D specifically. To complete the thought, though, the level 10 capstone of the class makes you an elemental. (Also, Pathfinder level 20 wizards can choose to just become immortal.)

In that case, there are a number of approaches. Khadi from L5R are not obviously undead (they eat, breathe, etc., even if only cosmetically), but gain ageless immortality by ritualistically sealing their hearts in boxes.

The Portrait of Dorian Grey tells the tale of a young man who became impervious to all physical ills by sloughing them off onto a painting of himself.

Juraian royalty in the Tenchi Muyo series achieves immortality by bonding with magical trees. A similar notion of extended longevity by mimicking Dryads and bonding with a long-lived tree to slow one's own aging might work.

An evil method of achieving freedom from old age and death thereby would be serial body-swapping into bodies that have more time ahead of them than your current one.

Repeatedly brewing youth potions to retain your youth would also work.

I was referring to D&D-centric methods, so you get a pass for mentioning Elemental Savant, however all of the above methods except maybe the tree one (which actually sounds like an awesome nature wizard concept) and maybe the body-swapper (which can be done be a telepath psion) are effectively liches no?

[LibraryOgre]

Oi, that is totally a lich mate, I know that story!


Not necessarily. There are a lot of stories where placing your soul outside your body renders you immortal, but not undead.

[RazorChain]

Then there is the body jumper, that takes over bodies when the last one gets to old or dies.

Then there is the rebirther that gets born again with all his knowledge

[BWR]

methods except maybe the tree one (which actually sounds like an awesome nature wizard concept)


He forgot to mention that the Jurai trees are basically semi-sentient power plants (pun not intended) that can blow up planets if harnessed correctly. They aren't normal trees.

[Segev]

Oi, that is totally a lich mate, I know that story!Koschei the Endless is possibly the ur-inspiration for liches and their phylacteries in general, to my understanding.


I like the "golden man" idea, and I was referring to necromancy in the sense of D&D, where it is magic bound up in the trappings of death and unnatural manipulation of life energy.



I was referring to D&D-centric methods, so you get a pass for mentioning Elemental Savant, however all of the above methods except maybe the tree one (which actually sounds like an awesome nature wizard concept) and maybe the body-swapper (which can be done be a telepath psion) are effectively liches no?Given the definition of "necromancy" you're using, the question of whether these qualify as "liches" depends heavily on whether you consider "being undead" and "decaying to a skeleton" to be part of lichdom.

Khadi are arguably undead, depending on who's writing them. (L5R says they are, but they basically ignore most of the rules that impact undead.) Dorian Gray is definitely not undead, though his portrait is like a phylactery. He literally was just fixed in his current status at the time of the painting, and the painting took EVERY negative effect that would otherwise befall him. Aging, starvation, ravages of disease or poison, wounds, etc. I believe he was quite alive, however.

Using D&D cosmology, just moving to the Astral Plane permanently would work. As long as you're there, you don't age, though your age catches up with you immediately if you leave. Exotic planar properties applied to custom-built demiplanes might cause anybody in the plane to age backwards, possibly at an accelerated rate.

You could also use astral projection and never return to your body. Petrify your body with flesh to stone, so it doesn't age and you're not technically dead. OR immerse your body in Quintessence (the stuff made by the psionic power, which suspends things in time). Admittedly, astral projection is in the Necromancy school, but it doesn't "feel" like the usual necromantic approaches.

If you're starting out as a human, and want to go psionic, you could undergo the process of becoming an Elan, and use some sort of delayed Mind Seed to restore your memories to your new self. (There's fuzziness about how much of the "old you" you remain. I tend to think it's enough for continuity of identity, just not enough for continuity of EXP/levels, so you remember having skills, but not quite how to pull them off.)

And yeah, the body-swapper is actually much easier to do as a Telepath, since True Mind Switch (all 10,000 EXP cost of it) does exactly that. Magic jar, which is as close as magic can come, requires...effort...and either inventive interpretations of rules or making custom magic items to achieve actual permanent body-thievery.

Could also do body-swapping with something already immortal, like most Outsiders or Elementals.


He forgot to mention that the Jurai trees are basically semi-sentient power plants (pun not intended) that can blow up planets if harnessed correctly. They aren't normal trees.Indeed. Though I didn't "forget" so much as decide that wasn't important to what he was looking into. I did term them "magic trees" (in perhaps the understatement of this thread).

The Juraian Trees are descendents of the Ship of the Beginning, Tsunami, who is one of three creator-goddesses responsible for all existence (save themselves). The weakest of them can maintain extra-dimensional spaces around which FTL-capable spaceships with combat capabilities that make each a galaxy-shaking superweapon can be maintained. And every Juraian noble above a certain rank has one. The Juraian empire is the dominant force in its region of space for a very good reason.

[Kaptin Keen]

Someone mentioned constructs - but in a more abstract way, doing something until the thing becomes you ... whether it be a painting, like Dorian Grey, or carving a sculpture (like Michelangelo - he's immoral, right?!), or building a house, in principle. Forging a sword over and over again until your soul somehow transfers to the sword. Make up more as you like.

Also, thought that's different, there's the opposite: Trapping the souls of your victims in all manner of gruesome ways. And maybe potentially becoming immortal yourself, so long as you have other souls to burn instead of your own.

[Segev]

Also, thought that's different, there's the opposite: Trapping the souls of your victims in all manner of gruesome ways. And maybe potentially becoming immortal yourself, so long as you have other souls to burn instead of your own.

Why, hello, Alucard of Hellsing!

[Karl Aegis]

Athasian Dragons and their manta ray counterparts, Avangions.

[Kaptin Keen]

Why, hello, Alucard of Hellsing!

Never played that one - but he's hardly the only example of that model. Constant Drachenfels (as I read him) works that way, and so does The Voices of Nerat. Kore does, too, if you ask me. And propably many more besides =)

[Segev]

Never played that one - but he's hardly the only example of that model. Constant Drachenfels (as I read him) works that way, and so does The Voices of Nerat. Kore does, too, if you ask me. And propably many more besides =)
Hellsing Ultimate is an anime series. Hellsing Abridged is a parody of it. Both use the same "truth" behind Alucard's seeming invincibility.

[Kaptin Keen]

Hellsing Ultimate is an anime series. Hellsing Abridged is a parody of it. Both use the same "truth" behind Alucard's seeming invincibility.

Yea - there's also a series of video games, tho. But I admit I didn't know there was an anime.

[Segev]

Yea - there's also a series of video games, tho. But I admit I didn't know there was an anime.

I didn't know there was a series of video games! WE both learned something! :smallbiggrin::smallcool:

[Kaptin Keen]

I didn't know there was a series of video games! WE both learned something! :smallbiggrin::smallcool:

LUL - I thought everyone knew about Castlevania (that's what the games are called, right? Like I said, I never actually played them myself)

[Zurvan]

Are you familiar with the lazarus pit?

Maybe the use of fountain of youth?

Potion of youth?

Dorian grey portrait?

The shadow King from Marvel universe?

The use of phoenix blood?

Spare Bodies?

Brain in a jar?

Elixir of Life?

Philosopher's stone?

Spice melange?

I once had a villan who used a lazarus pit like device, his whole thing was control over life and death, a lot of black and green mana from MTG, the ouroboros symbology and the use of poison and toxins.

Poison can both cure and kill, the use of poison on a special ritual bath can make one immortal, but as all sustances you need to use it and apply it costantly until you become dependent. There was a lot of lime green and toxic elements going on that game. :smallbiggrin:

[Segev]

LUL - I thought everyone knew about Castlevania (that's what the games are called, right? Like I said, I never actually played them myself)

...oh. This is the first time you used the series name. I had named "Hellsing" as an anime. So I thought your comment that it was also a video game was referring to a video game by that title. I am aware there's an Alucard in Castlevania. But very different characters. And very different stories.

[Goaty14]

Create a bunch of living zombies and stuff them into your basement. There's some sort of ratio between zombies owned and slowness of aging, but I know you half your aging if you have 1.

[Harpier]

I've DMed a game (DnD 5e) with a villain that did something like what you're planning: A transmutation wizard that was driven nutty by several encounters with a pure shard of a god, and eventually worked out a process to fuse with it, supposedly gaining all the former god's omniscience and immortality. The process didn't involve so much taking out his soul as splicing it with the shard. However, he didn't have the perspective to realize that trying to directly stitch divine essence into a mortal body was a very bad idea. The result was pulled into a sort-of demiplane where it was immortal and omnipotent-but with a heavily fractured mind that built and re-built the plane's landscape around it.
Obviously not what you're going for, but this spellcaster could probably have a little more finesse than Leon Castillo and become a demigod for real.

[Avigor]

The 5e Ring of Mind Shielding can basically absorb your soul if you die while wearing it, allowing you to telepathically talk to whoever wears it, albeit that does leave you extremely limited in terms of what you can do with your immortality.

Might be worth giving this (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1179.0) a read if you're using 3.5.

[Kaptin Keen]

...oh. This is the first time you used the series name. I had named "Hellsing" as an anime. So I thought your comment that it was also a video game was referring to a video game by that title. I am aware there's an Alucard in Castlevania. But very different characters. And very different stories.

Ah - but see, as I knew only of the guy in Castlevania, I didn't know that =)

[Komatik]

Just turn them into a small walking tree.

[LibraryOgre]

Just turn them into a small walking tree.

That's kind of an ent-game solution, isn't it?

:smallbiggrin:

[Komatik]

That's kind of an ent-game solution, isn't it?

:smallbiggrin:

It's greenbound to get thorny, I admit.

[TeChameleon]

There's also the simple expedient of magic items- the only one I can remember offhand is the Crown of the Mold King in 4e D&D, but that particular one just bluntly says that the wearer stops aging and will not die of old age.

A quick search also brought this (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=1179.0) up- it seems to be D&D 4e-specific, although it doesn't actually say so anywhere :smallconfused:

Might be useful, might not, hopefully it helps a little.

[spets]

A chronomancer's ultimate goal might be to control time enough to simply stop ageing. Entropy can't touch you when you remove yourself from the stream. The Rite of Ending Time sounds suitably apocalyptic if you screw it up.

A wizard who captures and eats a star might contain within herself energy enough that mortality is burned away like paper near a bonfire. Unfortunately the intelligence of a star is so alien that anyone consuming it also becomes utterly, frighteningly insane.

[Beleriphon]

Not necessarily. There are a lot of stories where placing your soul outside your body renders you immortal, but not undead.

Koschei is pretty much a lich. The skeletal appearance, the fact that one and only destroy him destroying an object that contains his soul. He's a D&D lich right up having crazy magical powers.

[Beneath]

A chronomancer's ultimate goal might be to control time enough to simply stop ageing. Entropy can't touch you when you remove yourself from the stream. The Rite of Ending Time sounds suitably apocalyptic if you screw it up.

Depending on the version of undead lore you use, that might make you undead (http://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2014/07/undead-are-pockets-of-stopped-time.html). Of course, your prospective chronomancer need not know that.

[LibraryOgre]

Koschei is pretty much a lich. The skeletal appearance, the fact that one and only destroy him destroying an object that contains his soul. He's a D&D lich right up having crazy magical powers.

Koschei is not the only such creature in mythology.

[JellyPooga]

You could learn the languages of all things and ask politely for them to take an oath not to kill you. Watch out for mistletoe, though; I hear it has connections to a trickster.

[smasher0404]

An illusionist finds that he has aged well beyond his normal life span. While his illusions can make him look young, he knows that eventually this physical form would eventually turn to dust. So to preserve his legacy, he decides to create his final masterpiece: an illusion so real, so life-like, that it would be indistinguishable from him. The magic could be faked by various traps designed to cast his spells, and from the illusions perspective, it is the illusionist. From the perspective of the outside world, the illusionist has never died, but somehow became an immortal caster. The illusion continues to carry out the illusionist's will from beyond the grave, continuing his research without knowing for even a second that it is just a spell cast by a dying caster.


A transmuter decides that death by age should never occur. She studies the various parts of the body and with her vast intellect comes up with a solution. A perpetual epic spell that targets the individual cells of her body, polymorphing them into younger versions of themselves, effectively preventing herself from ever aging. While the magic is too intense for her to perform on others, the spell keeps her young and nimble enough to continue her own research.


A diviner has found the fountain of youth. In order to protect it from the rest of the world, he drinks from it, and dedicates his life to being the fountain's immortal guardian. Always watching, and using his powers of divination to set traps and misdirections to keep any other would be invaders from reaching the fountain.

[Beleriphon]

Koschei is not the only such creature in mythology.

Very true, but the specific reference to a needle in an egg, in a duck, in rabbit, in whatever in a chest under a tree on a magic island is 100% Koschei.

[hamishspence]

A classic method is to take your heart/soul, hide it inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside an iron chest, and bury it under a tree on a magic island.

Sometimes it's pointed out that these kind of precautions are kind of a giveaway:


Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms: Fortune's Fool

“There was an oak tree in the forecourt—it’s gone now. There was a dragon curled around the foot of a tree. In the tree was a chest. In the chest was a fox in the fox was a rabbit, in the rabbit was another duck, in the duck was an egg and in the egg was his heart. You had to get past the dragon, climb the tree, open the chest, kill the fox before it got away, then kill the rabbit, then kill the duck and break the egg.”

Katya’s brows rose. “Good heavens. That just shrieks 'I am an important hiding place: look into me!'
Why didn’t he just put a big sign on a tree that said My Heart Is Up Here?”

[Quertus]

I've had several mages achieve immortality by becoming undead. But, other sources of immortality? Hmmm... I've had characters... Ascend to godhood. Get trapped in a mirror. Swap bodies. Youthen (many techniques). Inhabit constructs. Eat the fruit of the Tree of Life. Not do much body swap or youthen as just change form repeatedly. Or just polymorph into a form that doesn't age. Separate their mind/spirit from their body (often resulting in them piloting multiple bodies simultaneously in the process). And try to transform their bodies into pure magic - no luck yet on that last one.


an illusion so real, so life-like, that it would be indistinguishable from him.

I've used several variants on this idea. I'm rather fond of things that involve questioning the nature of reality.

[Knaight]

Alchemists traditionally sought the elixir of youth, perhaps as a power of the philosopher's stone (which perfects things, turning the corruptable and the mortal incorruptible. Thus base metals, which corrode, become gold, which does not. Arguably someone immortalized in this manner could look like a living golden statue).

There's also Chinese alchemy, which offers both similar elixers and the whole concept of internal alchemy that could bring immortality - which also brushes up against the concept of immortality through enlightenment.

For less traditional fiction, there's the whole idea of chronomancy and time mages. A powerful ritual that permanently prevents them from aging can fit that sort of concept just fine. There's also reincarnation options, where a mage might find some way to cheat the cycle of reincarnation and keep their power and memory through each incarnation.