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GreatWyrmGold
2018-08-31, 12:27 AM
I was reading about the Millennial King (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Millennial_King). Being a story about a lich, it got me thinking about liches. This made me wonder why you should need necromancy to become immortal, and to decide to come up with a way to become immortal for all schools of magic. I decided to give each a drawback (the lich's being that having the body detached from the soul causes both to wither) as well as an Achilles Heel, because that just seems like good writing. As for names...since the word "lich" comes from an Old English word for "corpse," I figured I'd come up with names for these beings with Old English words as well, specifically Old English words from the first reliable translator I could find; if I was ever going to do something vaguely professional with these, I'd probably look up synonyms. (For that same reason, these are "first draft" quality; I should probably tweak the details to make these less overwhelming in ability and more unique, but I haven't.)


Abjuration: Hilderand A necromancer seeks to gain immortality by preserving their soul outside their body; an abjurer wonders why they did not just try to preserve the body better. The Invulnerable cloak their bodies with innumerable spells, protecting them from any force without or within which could harm them. Sadly, this also protects them from anything which could improve them; the Hilderand are frozen in time, unable to strengthen their minds or bodies, and stubborn to a tragic flaw. And, of course, if one finds a chink in their armor (generally involving a way to worm some form of dispelling through their anti-magic defenses), the Hilderand cannot repair the damage without unweaving and reforging part of its armor (which is, obviously, far from simple).
Conjuration: Beag Nobody can live forever; conjurers accept this. Thus, when their bodies start to give way, they discard them and conjure new bodies around their naked essence. A beag's essence is enchanted to remain in our realm longer, at least long enough to leave their previous form and create a new one. Of course, these bodies are neither wholly natural nor the beag's own; this causes them to sicken or deteriorate faster than natural bodies would. They can easily be weakened to the point that the conjurer's vulnerable essence is exposed. Beags often report that going through so many bodies, with each becoming old and worn in turn, causes them great existential weariness. (I'm ignoring the fact that some editions make healing magic Conjuration, because that's lazy. Though it also makes this harder to do...)
Divination: Woedbura A diviner whose powers let them understand themselves greater than any others, from how they interact with the greatest wars to the appearance the tiniest molecular defect in one strand of DNA. On one hand, despite how much of the diviner's spellcasting was sacrificed, the woedbura can be argued to possess far greater power than even lesser gods; they can always see their path to victory, against even the most tenacious foes—even Pestilence, Famine, and Conquest. One could trick a woedbura with something shielded against even their peerless sight, but a more practical way to defeat them is to scour the prophecies they give, almost unconsciously, and see if any reflect its downfall. After all, even the immortal gods have only so long to live; given strange aeons, even Death itself will one day die.
Enchantment: Icpro Enchanters are masters of the mind, as necromancers are masters of the soul; as liches bind their souls to false bodies, so do icpros bind their minds to false brains. This is not so gruesome as it sounds; it's just a vat of energy and strange substances, secreted away in some dark corner of the worlds. (Destroying this makes it impossible for icpros to survive long without a body, all but forcing them to die with whatever they live in when it is destroyed.) Icpros exist as mental spirits, capable of possessing bodies; however, if these are not bodies (often constructs) which were previously prepared, or bodies which live despite both mind and soul having faded away, the icpro is limited to whatever spells it can cast without hands or breath. Icpros which spend too long either as spirits or in false vessels grow inward on themselves, driving arrogance and narcissism beyond the limits of mere mortals.
Evocation: Lieg A lieg is a being of purest energy, fire or lightning or whatever the evoker desires. With this transcendence of physical form comes a transcendence of physical wants, needs, and (to an extent) abilities; what a lieg can or wishes to do will be far different from what the transmuter it once was. Its energy comes from whatever pure source they wished to tap; one who knows this source can destroy it, which dooms the lieg to sputtering out.
Illusion: Nip Remember Harry Potter, and the in-universe story where a man hide from Death with an invisibility cloak? Something like that. Illusionists simply shroud themselves in so many layers of glamour that the universe itself isn't sure what identity that soul holds. Only the illusionist's determination and sheer force of will allows them to keep their sanity; if they lose their goal, lose their reason to live, they may slip and start to lose their identity. Nip can appear as almost anything; if their concentration is sufficiently disrupted, however, they instinctively revert to a more humanoid form. If they are killed in this form, they essentially forget that they are alive and pass beyond the veil.
Transmutation: Wandrian Transmuters see immortality following much the same route as abjurers: Protect the body, protect the soul. Obviously, the way they do so is far different. Rather than protect the body from harm, transmuters simply infuse their body with enough transmutative energy that they can instinctively respond to any damage by reforging their own bodies. Of course, they may not reforge the damaged part of body into exactly the same form as it originally was; there will be mistakes, and solving tiny problems long ignored, and tweaking things the transmuter never liked...and the random entropy of fate, of course. This leads to unpredictable drift in body, sometimes mirrored by unpredictable drift in mind. The Wandrian has a reservoir of transmutative energy in their body; if one knows where it is and strikes true, the energy may be released at once, causing their body to transform into a mess they cannot restore.


I've tried to also make each of these not only require mastery of their craft, but also an ultimate expression thereof (much like how a lich is an "ultimate undead"):
A hilderand is cloaked in the world's finest and most thorough wards.
A beag is not a singular creation, but is a series of excellent ones.
A woedbura understands their own life and body on a level unmatched by any mortal, and (as noted) frequently gives prophecies.
An icpro is essentially an enchanter who did not merely change a mind, but transformed it into something new.
A lieg is a continual burst of energy.
A nip is shrouded in an immensely powerful illusion.
A wandrian is pure, (mostly) controlled change incarnate.
You may have gathered that I succeeded more for some than others.

I'm interested to hear what you guys think of these paths to immortality, and if you have suggestions for improvement or alternative paths.

Altair_the_Vexed
2018-08-31, 05:38 AM
I'm liking these as concepts - but they're a bit hard to imagine in practice.

I'd like to see more details on how each one might practically work, appear, etc - not necessarily as full stats for a monster (cause those would vary by game system and edition), but a bit more insight into what each one means in terms of their powers, immunities, resistances, vulnerabilities, etc.

Anymage
2018-08-31, 06:23 AM
I'm reminded of 4e's epic destinies and their immortality capstones.

The diviner stands out as an oddity. Sure, she's super smart. How does that, by itself, stave off age and decrepitude?

Otherwise, you describe a lot of ascents to forms beyond mortality. Abjurers and necromancers being the archetypal types to stick around, and both of those tropes tend to carry their own problems. The others have the problem that they tend to happen at the end of a character's growth arc. You've slipped the bounds of mortal flesh and become a being of pure, unconstrained energy. That's usually synonymous with character retirement.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-08-31, 08:34 AM
I'm liking these as concepts - but they're a bit hard to imagine in practice.

I'd like to see more details on how each one might practically work, appear, etc - not necessarily as full stats for a monster (cause those would vary by game system and edition), but a bit more insight into what each one means in terms of their powers, immunities, resistances, vulnerabilities, etc.
I would, too, but I'd like to give the concepts a second pass first. As it stands, some of them are too similar to each other and/or the conventional lich, and/or just kind of shoddy. Not to mention story-disrupting, if I can't find a way to hone their strengths and weaknesses. In other words: First-draft quality.



The diviner stands out as an oddity. Sure, she's super smart. How does that, by itself, stave off age and decrepitude?
At the end of the day, age is nothing but another thing going wrong in your body—something the diviner can recognize well ahead of time. If you can fix each little thing before it becomes a big problem, you have nothing to worry about.
...The "how" is one of those areas that definitely requires some refinement, since divination is kinda limited in that regard.


Otherwise, you describe a lot of ascents to forms beyond mortality. Abjurers and necromancers being the archetypal types to stick around, and both of those tropes tend to carry their own problems. The others have the problem that they tend to happen at the end of a character's growth arc. You've slipped the bounds of mortal flesh and become a being of pure, unconstrained energy. That's usually synonymous with character retirement.
Isn't that true of liches, too? I mean, not the being-of-pure-energy bit, but I don't see a lot of times where becoming a lich is just step 3 in someone's grand plan. The closest thing I can think of is when Xykon became a lich to escape an unexpected confinement.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-31, 08:46 AM
Expect at least one attempt to be made to argue that each one will require some sort of ultimate evil act, because immortality is "against laws both natural and divine" or something along those lines. :smallconfused:

DeTess
2018-08-31, 09:15 AM
I like all of them, except for the Enchantment one. I'd use the idea of them becoming a disembodied spirit that possesses people, but the idea that they're actually some kind of vat of stuff secured somewhere seems odd and not in-line with what enchantment does. I'd just have them as a bodyless body-surfer. They just successively takes over people's minds, and the trick to beating them is to destroy their body when they're in place where there are no other bodies available for them to take over, resulting in them dissipating over a couple of minutes as they can't keep their mind together for longer than a couple of seconds outside of a body.

Segev
2018-08-31, 09:18 AM
Expect at least one attempt to be made to argue that each one will require some sort of ultimate evil act, because immortality is "against laws both natural and divine" or something along those lines. :smallconfused:

My own argument is actually one of niche protection and theme. Unless they ban Necromancy in 3e's (but not PF's) Specialist Wizard rules, all wizards have access to Necromancy. Necromancy is the school of life, death, and undeath. It is the school wherein preserving oneself beyond one's natural time falls. There is little reason to make a lich-equivalent for each school; little prevents an Abjurer or an Illusionist from undergoing the Lich ritual. And, if a caster has given up Necromancy for their Specialization, that is a statement of their intentions as a wizard. They do not care to dabble in matters of eternal (un)life.

Tanarii
2018-08-31, 09:25 AM
I like all of them, except for the Enchantment one. I'd use the idea of them becoming a disembodied spirit that possesses people, but the idea that they're actually some kind of vat of stuff secured somewhere seems odd and not in-line with what enchantment does.
It read to me like their phylactery is a brain-in-a-jar.

Satinavian
2018-08-31, 09:54 AM
Personally i feel like Segev about it. It is one of necromancies central pillars to avoid mortality by applying magic to yourself until you are neither alive nor dead and immune to most causes of death, especcially age.

If all other schools can do the same, it weakens necromancy way too much.

Glorthindel
2018-08-31, 10:46 AM
My problem is this basically removes the whole point and purpose of Lichdom.

Lichdom is a selfish and utterly abhorrent means of extending your life beyond its natural bounds, through the sacrifice of nearly everything that makes you human, as well as a large number of other peoples lives. If you offer a potential route to the same destination without the same or similar sacrifices (especially if these methods are harmless to other people, so socially completely acceptable), why would anyone opt for the sub-optimal route that leaves you a frightening abomination to everyone around you, and the worst kind of criminal worthy of a swift death at the hands of every right-thinking individual around?

You might say, "well, because that's the only way for a necromancer", but that is no reason - why would you want to be a necromancer in the first place? It is the study of life and death, and nearly every practictioner goes into it from a desire to prolong the life of themselves or a loved one. If evocation or abjuration can do it whilst retaining your sense of touch and taste, without scaring your children every time you look at them, and without getting you set on fire by the local Paladin order, necromancy can go in the bin.


Expect at least one attempt to be made to argue that each one will require some sort of ultimate evil act, because immortality is "against laws both natural and divine" or something along those lines. :smallconfused:

Nice condescension.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-31, 11:00 AM
My own argument is actually one of niche protection and theme. Unless they ban Necromancy in 3e's (but not PF's) Specialist Wizard rules, all wizards have access to Necromancy. Necromancy is the school of life, death, and undeath. It is the school wherein preserving oneself beyond one's natural time falls. There is little reason to make a lich-equivalent for each school; little prevents an Abjurer or an Illusionist from undergoing the Lich ritual. And, if a caster has given up Necromancy for their Specialization, that is a statement of their intentions as a wizard. They do not care to dabble in matters of eternal (un)life.

And to me that's a far better argument than "but immortality is evil because it's evil, so becoming immortal should be evil", which is the one I was griping about.

Braininthejar2
2018-08-31, 11:34 AM
Alternative paths:

Conjuration: move your body into the astral plane, outside the touch of time. You can interact with reality through astral projections, technically forever, but beware - if you ever step back into the mortal world, time will catch up with you.

Enchantment: the schools of enchantment and illusion are ultimately about influencing other people's minds, creating thoughts and feelings that would not exist otherwise. In the ultimate expression of his art, the mage can imprint his existence into the minds of those around him, sustaining himself with their perceptions.

Both types of mages surround themselves constantly with people. For an enchanter, they are a source of his existence, their will slowly drained and weakened, as they keep him young and unchanging by being constantly forced to fervently believe it so. For an illusionist, they are his viewers - the mage can move from place to place in a blink of an eye, change appearance, and never needs to rest, but he has to be perceived, because what he really is is an illusion of his existence consistent for the whole world around him. The longer he prolongs his life, the more 'unbelievable' his continued existence becomes, the deeper his obsession with keeping others around him, because if he were ever to find himself truly alone, his fall would not make a sound with noone to hear it.

Hand_of_Vecna
2018-08-31, 11:45 AM
I know a few people didn't care for the Divination one, bit I thought it was one of the strongest. The flavor reminds me of the Bene Gesserit and the God Emperor from Dune, was that intended?

Braininthejar2
2018-08-31, 01:34 PM
Since there are events possible in D&D that could prolong one's life possibly indefinitely, a divination immortality would probably focus on finding a "perfect path", setting the wizard in a chain of events that will keep him alive no matter what - at the cost of renouncing his free will, because the only way he'll keep on living is by "following the script".

Celestia
2018-08-31, 02:31 PM
I find many problems with most of these ranging from poor/contradictory fluff to mechanical pointlessness. I'll take each one individually.

Abjuration: This school is designed around the concept of protecting oneself from exterior maladies. Aging is a purely internal effect. No amount of magical shielding will keep you from growing older, and time manipulation falls under the purview of transmutation. This school just doesn't work.

Conjuration: This is almost exactly like a spell that already exists: Clone. So why reinvent the wheel? And even if you are going to do that, you're in the wrong school, anyways. Clone is necromancy.

Divination: Prophecising the future can certainly allow you to avoid causes of unnatural death and, thus, live longer. However, no amount of augery will stop the march of time. Seeing the future won't stop the future from coming, and age will still take even the greatest diviner.

Enchantment: Again, you're basically just copying a pre-existing necromancy spell, this time Magic Jar. Now, maybe you could get closer to enchantment by copying the psionic power Mind Seed, but then you're just copying a power instead of a spell.

Illusion: Now, this one I actually really like. Using illusion magic to hide yourself from the very forces of the universe, itself, not only actually makes sense with the school, but it also is very flavorful and interesting. I like this one, especially if it's not quite as effective as lichdom and is more vulnerable to anti-magic and dispelling.

Transmutation: Seeing as how an argument can be made that regeneration should, logically, already make you immune to the aging process (as it typically does in comic books), this, of course, makes sense. However, it's not high level magic comparable to becoming a lich. Immunity to aging should just be a standard feature of all regenerative abilities.

ATHATH
2018-08-31, 03:10 PM
Enchantment: the schools of enchantment and illusion are ultimately about influencing other people's minds, creating thoughts and feelings that would not exist otherwise. In the ultimate expression of his art, the mage can imprint his existence into the minds of those around him, sustaining himself with their perceptions.

Both types of mages surround themselves constantly with people. For an enchanter, they are a source of his existence, their will slowly drained and weakened, as they keep him young and unchanging by being constantly forced to fervently believe it so. For an illusionist, they are his viewers - the mage can move from place to place in a blink of an eye, change appearance, and never needs to rest, but he has to be perceived, because what he really is is an illusion of his existence consistent for the whole world around him. The longer he prolongs his life, the more 'unbelievable' his continued existence becomes, the deeper his obsession with keeping others around him, because if he were ever to find himself truly alone, his fall would not make a sound with noone to hear it.
This is actually a really cool concept.

SpoonR
2018-08-31, 04:51 PM
Hm. Side effects, evilness of eternal life, mechanics, and relative power levels are a can of worms that I'll just avoid. I'll just comment on cosmetics, themes, and examples.

Abjuration. the unchanging bit is a lot like Ars Magica immortality - all changes are temporary, unless you expend gobs of magic forcing something new into your mind or body. But I'd see Abjuration as looking more like a death knight. Or Iron Man. You put the body inside a massively enchanted "vessel" aka suit of armor, and seal it up. non-final death would look like "you open the powered armor and see nothing inside but dust. If anything penetrates or opens the armor, they find you turned to dust long ago. One week later, the eyes on backup suit #21 start to glow"

Conjuration sounds like the Star Wars expanded universe Emperor. Jumps from clone body to clone body, and every time his Dark Side Force energy starts breaking down the new body, so he goes through clones pretty fast.
How about John Constantine or the witch character from Magic? Make bargains with multiple conjured entities that adds up to immortaility, some level of deviousness or backstabbing required.

Divination. Go read Neal Stephenson's "Anathem". He cloaks it in science terms, but basically you are such a powerful diviner that you can pick a future where your body doesn't break down and if one future leads to death you can move yourself to a different future. 75% of the time this cell will die after it's fourth cell division, you pick a future from the other 25%. Divination as control of probability.

Enchantment. Brain in a vat? That only goes in my game if it is the true secret origin of mindflayers. :smallcool: Otherwise, bodyhopping, viral mindstate, Schlock Merc mindwrite. Important question would be whether any of the original mind stays - can you hop into a fighter's brain to become a swordsman? If you then change bodies, does the previous owner get their body back?

Evocation seems to be "polymorph self into an elemental"

Illusion no comment

Transmutation. This is the one I don't like because it is too limited. Transm seems like the school with the widest choice of end state. Your version is the "polymorph into slaad", for a CN caster. For a LN you'd have something like a Modron. Not precisely turning into an Outsider, but they do make good models for what to turn yourself into what with being immortal and all.

Necromancy. If you add options for all the other schools, then you should probably tweak Liches to be less "obscene acts against natural order that get Inevitables to start hunting you".
So... Necromancy is ultimately about controlling the flow of positive and negative energies. To become a Lich is to link your body to the source of those energies and balance them. Instead of becoming a skeletal undead, you go more into the uncanny valley as an idealized version of yourself that is just.... wrong somehow. (breathing optional, skin has a slightly firmer unfleshy texture, etc) Probably give it an ability that "doing damage to others heals me" - grab their body's energy and take it into your own.
Alternately, energy balance as similar to 20th level monk immortality.



Would Koschei the deathless (remove your literal heart, put it into an egg) fall under enchantment, conjuration, necromancy, or other? IIRC to kill a regular Lich you must destroy both body and phylactery, where a Koschei the body can't die in combat - but destroying the 'egg' also kills the body.
What about tethering your soul/spirit/mind/whatever to a location, becoming a genius loci

BeerMug Paladin
2018-09-01, 01:36 AM
I'm not sure how I feel about the diviner and the illusionist one. I like the conjurer idea, though. Although I might suggest they are required to perform a 4-8 hour ritual to rejuvenate/replace their bodies every day so their stats won't degrade. So they'd effectively need down-time. It could be their primary drawback/weakness. Their benefit being that they are able to select between a few different conjured forms (with different stats) each day.

I've considered this idea, but I didn't really end up with ideas for all of the schools. Just a couple.

An immortal evocationist, is a form of elemental. They just have learned to somehow replace their body with a constant stream of some form of energy for whatever system the game is being run in. Naturally, this requires the evocationist choose a particular elemental's body type that they are then stuck with forever. The drawbacks are being trapped in that body, with whatever hinderances it would naturally give them.

An immortal enchanter is a genius loci. Whatever their lair/domain is, the immortal enchanter has absolute mastery over, which hopefully contains enough objects, followers and the like to provide them something to do. So, they can animate objects charm/dominate people within the room to do stuff. They'd probably want to take on apprentices or otherwise figure out some way to be involved in the world just so they'll have willing vessels to use for their purposes from time to time. Most adventurers would probably just think that the wizard is a few animated objects and a some cultist enemies or something.

Lunali
2018-09-01, 05:29 AM
Expect at least one attempt to be made to argue that each one will require some sort of ultimate evil act, because immortality is "against laws both natural and divine" or something along those lines. :smallconfused:

Being against laws both natural and divine makes it clearly chaotic, not seeing an argument for evil.

Faily
2018-09-01, 08:35 AM
Very nice ideas!

.... I might actually steal these ideas myself for the future.

Max_Killjoy
2018-09-01, 09:17 AM
Being against laws both natural and divine makes it clearly chaotic, not seeing an argument for evil.

Entirely beside the point.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-09-01, 09:30 AM
I know a few people didn't care for the Divination one, bit I thought it was one of the strongest. The flavor reminds me of the Bene Gesserit and the God Emperor from Dune, was that intended?
I was actually thinking more of Contessa, but those examples are probably something I should look into before refining the Divination one more.


Expect at least one attempt to be made to argue that each one will require some sort of ultimate evil act, because immortality is "against laws both natural and divine" or something along those lines. :smallconfused:
I can't decide if I ought refuse to take such claims seriously and respond by humorously pointing out that the gods are breaking their own laws, or reply with an in-depth philosophical argument questioning why mortality is inherently good (with at least one quote from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality).



My own argument is actually one of niche protection and theme.
That's a good point. Unrelated to Max's, but a good one. Implementing this into a world would probably require some kind of hotfix to keep necromancy relevant...probably worth thinking about if I get to the stage where I care about fixing the names.


These are separated not to hide them, nor to pretend they matter less, but to try and keep my post tidy. Because I worry about things like that.



I like all of them, except for the Enchantment one. I'd use the idea of them becoming a disembodied spirit that possesses people, but the idea that they're actually some kind of vat of stuff secured somewhere seems odd and not in-line with what enchantment does. I'd just have them as a bodyless body-surfer. They just successively takes over people's minds, and the trick to beating them is to destroy their body when they're in place where there are no other bodies available for them to take over, resulting in them dissipating over a couple of minutes as they can't keep their mind together for longer than a couple of seconds outside of a body.
That sounds like a much better Achilles Heel than the "definitely not-phylactery" that I patched in last-minute.



Conjuration: move your body into the astral plane, outside the touch of time. You can interact with reality through astral projections, technically forever, but beware - if you ever step back into the mortal world, time will catch up with you.
Ooh, I like it! It's a lot more thematically and uniquely conjuration-ey than "you make new bodies whenever your old one dies".


Enchantment: the schools of enchantment and illusion are ultimately about influencing other people's minds, creating thoughts and feelings that would not exist otherwise. In the ultimate expression of his art, the mage can imprint his existence into the minds of those around him, sustaining himself with their perceptions.

Both types of mages surround themselves constantly with people. For an enchanter, they are a source of his existence, their will slowly drained and weakened, as they keep him young and unchanging by being constantly forced to fervently believe it so. For an illusionist, they are his viewers - the mage can move from place to place in a blink of an eye, change appearance, and never needs to rest, but he has to be perceived, because what he really is is an illusion of his existence consistent for the whole world around him. The longer he prolongs his life, the more 'unbelievable' his continued existence becomes, the deeper his obsession with keeping others around him, because if he were ever to find himself truly alone, his fall would not make a sound with noone to hear it.
Ooh, nice.



I find many problems with most of these ranging from poor/contradictory fluff to mechanical pointlessness. I'll take each one individually.
Thank you for your criticism.


Abjuration: This school is designed around the concept of protecting oneself from exterior maladies. Aging is a purely internal effect. No amount of magical shielding will keep you from growing older, and time manipulation falls under the purview of transmutation. This school just doesn't work.
When you get down to it, aging is nothing but a name for a wide array of things that can go wrong with your body. I see no reason that abjuration would be unable to protect you from internal problems as well as external. After all, your body is not one entity; it is a collection of smaller machines made of yet smaller ones. If you can have a spell which protects a castle and its king from one of its guards going rogue, why not one which protects a body and its mind from some of its cells going rogue?


Conjuration: This is almost exactly like a spell that already exists: Clone. So why reinvent the wheel? And even if you are going to do that, you're in the wrong school, anyways. Clone is necromancy.
Because I didn't think of the Astral Projection thing. (It was one of the ones I was least satisfied with in the first place.)


Divination: Prophecising the future can certainly allow you to avoid causes of unnatural death and, thus, live longer. However, no amount of augery will stop the march of time. Seeing the future won't stop the future from coming, and age will still take even the greatest diviner.
See Abjuration. Our concepts of "age" seem to be very different...
There's certainly an argument that no precautions exist that could possibly prevent, say, cell division errors or telomeres shortening. I'd probably mumble something about looking for healing magic before admitting that yeah, this is definitely an obvious beta.


Enchantment: Again, you're basically just copying a pre-existing necromancy spell, this time Magic Jar. Now, maybe you could get closer to enchantment by copying the psionic power Mind Seed, but then you're just copying a power instead of a spell.
Fair enough.


Transmutation: Seeing as how an argument can be made that regeneration should, logically, already make you immune to the aging process (as it typically does in comic books), this, of course, makes sense. However, it's not high level magic comparable to becoming a lich. Immunity to aging should just be a standard feature of all regenerative abilities.
Well, yeah. I guess the big special thing of this one is that its duration is long enough (and its power source uninterruptible enough) that it does that? I'm not going to pretend to know why mid-level transmutation magic doesn't do things it should be able to do.



Hm. Side effects, evilness of eternal life, mechanics, and relative power levels are a can of worms that I'll just avoid. I'll just comment on cosmetics, themes, and examples.
Any and all criticism is appreciated!


Abjuration. the unchanging bit is a lot like Ars Magica immortality - all changes are temporary, unless you expend gobs of magic forcing something new into your mind or body. But I'd see Abjuration as looking more like a death knight. Or Iron Man. You put the body inside a massively enchanted "vessel" aka suit of armor, and seal it up. non-final death would look like "you open the powered armor and see nothing inside but dust. If anything penetrates or opens the armor, they find you turned to dust long ago. One week later, the eyes on backup suit #21 start to glow"
That's also an interesting idea, but my intuition calls it more of an artificer path to immortality than an abjurer path. (Maybe it's just that you compared it to Iron Man.)


Conjuration sounds like the Star Wars expanded universe Emperor. Jumps from clone body to clone body, and every time his Dark Side Force energy starts breaking down the new body, so he goes through clones pretty fast.
How about John Constantine or the witch character from Magic? Make bargains with multiple conjured entities that adds up to immortaility, some level of deviousness or backstabbing required.
There's nothing wrong with that idea, but if the other seven schools can make themselves immortal through their own magic, I don't like the idea of conjurers needing to ask for help to do so.


Divination. Go read Neal Stephenson's "Anathem". He cloaks it in science terms, but basically you are such a powerful diviner that you can pick a future where your body doesn't break down and if one future leads to death you can move yourself to a different future. 75% of the time this cell will die after it's fourth cell division, you pick a future from the other 25%. Divination as control of probability.
I'll add it to my reading list.


Transmutation. This is the one I don't like because it is too limited. Transm seems like the school with the widest choice of end state. Your version is the "polymorph into slaad", for a CN caster. For a LN you'd have something like a Modron. Not precisely turning into an Outsider, but they do make good models for what to turn yourself into what with being immortal and all.
Fair point. I wasn't aiming for "polymorph into slaad," but I see where you're coming from. Hm...


Necromancy. If you add options for all the other schools, then you should probably tweak Liches to be less "obscene acts against natural order that get Inevitables to start hunting you".
Yeah...I'm not a fan of any process or tool being labeled inherently evil. I feel that, hypothetically, even human sacrifice could be good; as an extreme example, if sacrificing one person could have stopped the Holocaust, it seems immoral not to sacrifice that one person, you know?


So... Necromancy is ultimately about controlling the flow of positive and negative energies. To become a Lich is to link your body to the source of those energies and balance them. Instead of becoming a skeletal undead, you go more into the uncanny valley as an idealized version of yourself that is just.... wrong somehow. (breathing optional, skin has a slightly firmer unfleshy texture, etc) Probably give it an ability that "doing damage to others heals me" - grab their body's energy and take it into your own.
Alternately, energy balance as similar to 20th level monk immortality.
I like it.


Would Koschei the deathless (remove your literal heart, put it into an egg) fall under enchantment, conjuration, necromancy, or other? IIRC to kill a regular Lich you must destroy both body and phylactery, where a Koschei the body can't die in combat - but destroying the 'egg' also kills the body.
The fact that his life is in the object makes him function like a lich. I don't know if any of the legends go into more detail about how he made the egg, but if they do they're probably contradictory.


What about tethering your soul/spirit/mind/whatever to a location, becoming a genius loci
Sounds like a good way for druids, geomancers, etc to gain immortality.



I'm not sure how I feel about the diviner and the illusionist one.
Would you mind explaining why? Or is it just a vague feeling?


I like the conjurer idea, though. Although I might suggest they are required to perform a 4-8 hour ritual to rejuvenate/replace their bodies every day so their stats won't degrade. So they'd effectively need down-time. It could be their primary drawback/weakness. Their benefit being that they are able to select between a few different conjured forms (with different stats) each day.
That sounds interesting.


An immortal enchanter is a genius loci. Whatever their lair/domain is, the immortal enchanter has absolute mastery over, which hopefully contains enough objects, followers and the like to provide them something to do. So, they can animate objects charm/dominate people within the room to do stuff. They'd probably want to take on apprentices or otherwise figure out some way to be involved in the world just so they'll have willing vessels to use for their purposes from time to time. Most adventurers would probably just think that the wizard is a few animated objects and a some cultist enemies or something.
I was under the impression that the D&D school of enchantment was about mind magic, with enchanting magic items being something different. (Yes, this is another one of those "Gygax needed a thesaurus" moments.) But if I'm wrong, that would work well.

BeerMug Paladin
2018-09-01, 08:42 PM
In regards to illusion/divination ideas.

Would you mind explaining why? Or is it just a vague feeling?
Those uses of the schools just strike me as something that the school shouldn't be capable of in a default setting. Nothing against the idea, per-se, but those usages strike me as something requiring a non-standard cosmology/mechanics for the world at large to work. I'll explain.

In most settings, people just sort of assert a baseline modern understanding of generalized scientific understanding as how the world 'really' operates, underneath all the top-layered fantasy and magical stuff. So you sometimes get weird statements/arguments about thermodynamics, DNA and space-time when people are just talking about how a fantasy world operates. And for the most part, settings tend to be presented in a manner which doesn't directly bring these topics up, but doesn't outright contradict the common-knowledge stuff either. At least not directly, you nitpickers out there...

But in fantasy worlds such theories need not be accurate or even vaguely representative of the forces really at play.

For example, let's say that animals are composed of a special clay with a spirit living inside, and aging is a process some entity engages in which slowly reshapes the clay body. Death is an entity which descends upon a body and separates the spirit from it, leaving the original material inactive. It does so based on a probability related to the apparent age of its victim.

In this world it makes total sense that you could hide/protect yourself from those agents of death/aging. Presumably, they have some form of sense, so the illusionist could trick their senses to hide from them. Aging/Death forces could have whims, or moods, so the diviner could conceivably take actions which ensures they avoid those agents when they're in a bad mood (and thus remain young and away from death's whims). The abjurer could protect themselves from their touch as well.

In a more typically presented world, those forces don't actually exist, so there's nothing for an attempt at uses of those magics in that way to do. The setting would probably have to be presented this way in order for people to accept that the magic works this way. Now, as for how I feel about these ideas? I don't have any objection to the idea and it could be a pretty nice flavor for a setting. But at the same time, I'm not sure I would necessarily want to use the idea in a setting.


I was under the impression that the D&D school of enchantment was about mind magic, with enchanting magic items being something different. (Yes, this is another one of those "Gygax needed a thesaurus" moments.) But if I'm wrong, that would work well.

I think enchanting objects is generally regarded as a universalist thing. But I was thinking more along the lines of the wizard has forced their willpower so much upon a place/area that their mind has become embedded into the location like a layer of paint or wallpaper. So that the normal ambient magical energies of the place and the wants/needs of the wizard has become so tangled up together that there really is no difference.

As for the other topic, I've always had the idea that when one abandons a normal physical experience and life to become something else, they set themselves on the path towards a blue/orange morality structure at best. Which effectively translates to evil, since that's the only real name for it in D&D terms. I've never thought of it as an instantaneous thing, but more of a slow slide into a certain oblivion.

Game worlds just aren't structured with the sort of time required to portray that aspect, so being an always evil thing is just a simplified shortcut that enforces the theme.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-09-02, 07:46 AM
In regards to illusion/divination ideas.

Those uses of the schools just strike me as something that the school shouldn't be capable of in a default setting. Nothing against the idea, per-se, but those usages strike me as something requiring a non-standard cosmology/mechanics for the world at large to work. I'll explain.

-snip-
Fair enough. Though since this is a world where illusionists can create illusory fireballs that actually burn (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shadowEvocation.htm), there's probably some way to use that shadowy logic to justify it. (And I'd still argue that aging is just the result of a series of discrete events that could, theoretically, be avoided or mitigated.)


I think enchanting objects is generally regarded as a universalist thing. But I was thinking more along the lines of the wizard has forced their willpower so much upon a place/area that their mind has become embedded into the location like a layer of paint or wallpaper. So that the normal ambient magical energies of the place and the wants/needs of the wizard has become so tangled up together that there really is no difference.
I'm still not sure what makes that more of an enchanter thing than anything else in particular. I mean, isn't all magic forcing one's willpower on the world?


As for the other topic, I've always had the idea that when one abandons a normal physical experience and life to become something else, they set themselves on the path towards a blue/orange morality structure at best. Which effectively translates to evil, since that's the only real name for it in D&D terms. I've never thought of it as an instantaneous thing, but more of a slow slide into a certain oblivion.
But why? Why would changing the hardware your mind is running on fundamentally change how the software functions? I could buy that it can happen, but not that it's guaranteed to happen.

M Placeholder
2018-09-02, 12:04 PM
Isn't part of the appeal of becoming a Lich being the sheer depravity of it? Like you are a walking, talking middle digit raised towards nature?

redwizard007
2018-09-02, 02:47 PM
It's a neat idea that might work in some settings or campaigns. Personally, I prefer to keep liches purely necromantic, but to each his own.

Anymage
2018-09-02, 04:20 PM
(And I'd still argue that aging is just the result of a series of discrete events that could, theoretically, be avoided or mitigated.)

In a world where cells are miniature clockwork machinery, sure. An infinitely precise mechanic could reach in and repair any damage that happens to them.

In D&D worlds, I question both the assumption that biology works identically to our own, and the assumption that a character can have such fine control at normal D&D levels. Remember that lichdom starts to become available at level 11.

(If you want to stop aging at the earliest level possible while retaining most of your potential, vampirism comes on line at level five. I know that the comic will have many of us thinking that vampirism isn't quite as easy as a straight read of the MM entry, but that highlights two things; that undeath was always treated as a cheaty way to dodge mortality by offloading the costs to other people, and that few things are as simple as a generous reading of the rules would make them.)


But why? Why would changing the hardware your mind is running on fundamentally change how the software functions? I could buy that it can happen, but not that it's guaranteed to happen.

Because in the real world different kinds of hardware work differently, and only extensive testing helps to ensure that people running AMD vs. Invidia get similar experiences instead of one of them being super buggy. Whether humans were formed by evolution or by the gods, I'm pretty sure that compatibility with being a living energy being was not tested for.

Also because a lot of our low level behaviors and feelings come from the experiences of having a living body instead of all stemming from pure, vulcan-like reason. If your stomach doesn't churn at the sight of a massacre because your new form doesn't have a functioning stomach, that's just one small way that you leave the human experience behind.

rooster707
2018-09-02, 06:08 PM
Divination. Go read Neal Stephenson's "Anathem". He cloaks it in science terms, but basically you are such a powerful diviner that you can pick a future where your body doesn't break down and if one future leads to death you can move yourself to a different future. 75% of the time this cell will die after it's fourth cell division, you pick a future from the other 25%. Divination as control of probability.

Daaaaaaang. I’ve had Anathem on my shelf for a while; I think I might actually go read it now. That sounds awesome.

GreatWyrmGold
2018-09-02, 06:33 PM
Isn't part of the appeal of becoming a Lich being the sheer depravity of it? Like you are a walking, talking middle digit raised towards nature?
...Um...I was pretty sure the appeal came from not dying.



In a world where cells are miniature clockwork machinery, sure.
Quantum mechanics aside, physics is just very complicated, clunky, and loosely-maintained "clockwork machinery". Chemistry is better-maintained physics, and biology is better-coordinated chemistry.


In D&D worlds, I question both the assumption that biology works identically to our own, and the assumption that a character can have such fine control at normal D&D levels.
To the first, I reply that there's nothing to suggest it doesn't, and that the fact that everything behaves according to the laws of our own world with magic splashed on top (not even painted over the interior, like in some fantasy settings) suggests that follows the laws of our own world with magic splashed on top.


Because in the real world different kinds of hardware work differently, and only extensive testing helps to ensure that people running AMD vs. Invidia get similar experiences instead of one of them being super buggy. Whether humans were formed by evolution or by the gods, I'm pretty sure that compatibility with being a living energy being was not tested for.
You don't need to design the core software to work on hardware that didn't exist when the software was created. That's the idea behind emulation, after all, (http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/174633129461/from-a-dev-perspective-would-it-be-possible-in) as well as more general ports made well after the original software's release. Note that I never said this wasn't difficult. I said it was possible.
...Though come to think of it, given that ghosts and a few other types of incorporeal undead which retain memories from life exist, despite not having brains, hormones, etc, it's probably not that difficult if you keep the original soul in mint condition.


Also because a lot of our low level behaviors and feelings come from the experiences of having a living body instead of all stemming from pure, vulcan-like reason. If your stomach doesn't churn at the sight of a massacre because your new form doesn't have a functioning stomach, that's just one small way that you leave the human experience behind.
That's...that's not how stomach-churning reactions work. The feeling of disgust has absolutely nothing to do with the digestive system, aside from allowing disgust to actually induce vomiting. (This is, of course, closely-tied to where disgust came from.) In a competently-built human emulator, there's a pretty good chance you would want to vomit (since the signals would still be sent), and just be unable to.

BeerMug Paladin
2018-09-02, 07:57 PM
Fair enough. Though since this is a world where illusionists can create illusory fireballs that actually burn (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shadowEvocation.htm), there's probably some way to use that shadowy logic to justify it. (And I'd still argue that aging is just the result of a series of discrete events that could, theoretically, be avoided or mitigated.)
I'm not necessarily arguing for logical consistency, just pointing out that there don't seem to be already-in-place mechanics for that particular result. If there's a way to use that sort of logic to get there, I'm not aware of it. But it wouldn't surprise me to have something like that work. I'd be fine with someone introducing that into a setting I was playing in, but I probably wouldn't introduce it into a setting I ran.

I kind of liked the illusionist idea someone upthread mentioned. Immortality through becoming a mind-virus! Just not really sure how that would work.


I'm still not sure what makes that more of an enchanter thing than anything else in particular. I mean, isn't all magic forcing one's willpower on the world?
I think so. But enchantment is generally mind manipulation magic, so it's like their mind has been manipulated to reside in a region rather than a body or individual object. I was thinking more generally that this being is mostly able to interact with the world by using enchantment magic and that most wizards would try to avoid this outcome if they could.


But why? Why would changing the hardware your mind is running on fundamentally change how the software functions? I could buy that it can happen, but not that it's guaranteed to happen.
It changes the primary means of sensing/interacting with the world. As a consequence they lose connection to any sort of common experience.

If your body and senses are different, you interact with and remember the world differently. This isn't something that is necessarily going to change someone immediately, but memories fade and relationships with people still on the 'other side' can change. As the years wear on and the bulk of new memories fall more and more on the immortal/inhuman side of things, the perspective will shift, such as not intuitively being able to understand the people around you.

Maybe intellectually, knowledge of what it means to be mortal might remain or even continue to be added to, but there is a pretty sharp difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it personally. It's like the difference between seeing a panorama taken from the top of a mountain and actually being in that location. To the mortals, they're experiencing one of those, and to the immortal they're in the other and have a harder time remembering the other depending on their age.

I imagine higher-wisdom or more introspective characters would be able to more easily resist the pressure of an inhuman existence changing their overall outlook, but it would be a resistance to this effect, not immunity.

There's also the issue of being isolated from peers and/or having no true peers. Boredom and loss of purpose in life. All sorts of issues that immortals may constantly face that mortals have little or no time to experience.

Tanarii
2018-09-03, 02:07 AM
Daaaaaaang. I’ve had Anathem on my shelf for a while; I think I might actually go read it now. That sounds awesome.
Like most Stephenson books, it takes a while for the Giant Stone Boulder to get rolling, but once it does, it's amazing to behold. And possibly slightly worrying.

AceOfFools
2018-09-04, 09:47 PM
I've actually run urban fantasy games where "reduce your own age by a week" was a spell that was fairly tame in terms of complexity. You'd just have to either cast it every week. Thus you got ancient witches who were as youthful as they wanted to be, but otherwise baseline human. Seems like the natural fit for transmutation.

The obvious way to achieve immortality by illusion would be to create a perfect illusion of yourself, ala the paintings in Harry Potter. Maybe you lose something in terms of spellcasting ability, but as an illusion, nothing can actually hurt you, particularly if the spell has some "cannot be dispelled by normal means" riders. Actually, Force Ghost might be the better analogy.

NichG
2018-09-05, 02:19 AM
I don't particularly think lichdom is a thing which needs thematic preservation. The issue isn't one of making an optimal choice among a set of options presented to you, but rather that characters who are embodied within a setting will not know or be able to conceive of all possible paths to attain their goals.

The tragedy of a lich is not that this person was so evil as to commit atrocities to selfishly preserve themselves. It's that the person was so warped and deluded and conditioned by their environment, or so egotistically convinced of the supremacy of their favorite specialization, or wanting the other benefits of lichdom (power, lack of need for food/sleep/pain/emotion/...), or otherwise foolish in such a way that they could not see the multitude of other ways in which preservation of the self was possible. Even without adding a path of immortality for each school, it's much better in base D&D to e.g.:

- Become a Necropolitan - ethically neutral low cost undeath-based immortality even at low levels.
- Live on the Astral plane (optionally, project yourself out to interface with the world normally). Can in principle be done cheaper and more readily than becoming a Lich, though the projection part requires Lv18 to be sustainable. This is the endpoint of lichdom anyhow (demilich status), so you might as well skip the intervening steps.
- Polymorph Any Object shenanigans (I polymorph myself into a younger version of myself, etc). Since you only need to do this periodically every 20-30 years or so, you can just buy the scrolls or spells-as-service. Probably sustainable around ~Lv10 for any character with access to a planar metropolis.
- Use periodic Reincarnation effects to control your age. Needs one to maintain a cooperative Lv7 druid friend and 1000gp every few decades (more if you want to veto some a bad roll on the chart, less whenever you roll elf)
- Use Wish to become an Outsider via the species change ritual from Savage Species (or become an Elan, or ...). If you're in a hurry and can't wait until level 18, sell your soul to a devil/demon/angel/genie/etc for the Wish.
- Transfer your mind or soul into un-aging vessels (though this requires True Mind Switch)

Liches aren't stories about 'don't be selfish, let yourself die when your time is up', they're stories about 'don't stupidly assume that the first story of immortal ascension you run across is how you have to go about it'. Much like many stories of villainy aren't just 'this person was a horrible person', but rather 'this person could have achieved their goals without causing harm or making an enemy of the world, but tragically they chose a path or method early on which committed them to conflict' - more often about being stuck in one's ways or having a myopic focus than an actual real critique of the goals themselves.

That said, given that narrative, the idea that each wizard should pick a school to specialize in and then pursue the immortality suggested by the philosophy by their particular choice of school communicates that same sort of tragic myopia to me. It's the idea that 'because I do Transmutation, I must find a Transmutative Immortality' when that limit is entirely self-imposed and ideological. So I think characters would not need lichdom to be optimal to end up pursuing it - they'll pursue it anyhow out of ideology. Once they've decided to themselves that 'Necromancy is the school that transgresses the boundaries of life and death, and that makes it objectively the best school and the most cosmically important' then they'll reject forms of immortality that aren't lichdom as fundamentally inferior. They've already decided that there's some kind of cosmic rule about life and death and they can become an ultimate existence by not allowing it to apply to them, so being immortal by breaking that rule becomes more important to them than the immortality itself.

Segev
2018-09-05, 09:57 AM
The idea that only stupid wizards become locked, because it has no real advantages compared to other options, and is horribly evil to boot, is a bad one.

NichG
2018-09-05, 11:35 AM
It's more the idea that they may perfectly calculate within the sphere of that which they know, but there are always unknown unknowns, cognitive biases, tunnel vision, etc.

The necromancer who sought out lichdom was a person with a history, emotions, beliefs, preconceptions, circumstances, etc. Those factors shape their choice more than abstract considerations of optimality. It's not even that they know about the alternatives and disregard them, it's that they can't even conceive of the alternatives without first having the right kind of insight. They're too close to the ground, and don't have the bird's eye view that e.g. players armed with rulebooks possess.

Segev
2018-09-05, 01:04 PM
It's more the idea that they may perfectly calculate within the sphere of that which they know, but there are always unknown unknowns, cognitive biases, tunnel vision, etc.

The necromancer who sought out lichdom was a person with a history, emotions, beliefs, preconceptions, circumstances, etc. Those factors shape their choice more than abstract considerations of optimality. It's not even that they know about the alternatives and disregard them, it's that they can't even conceive of the alternatives without first having the right kind of insight. They're too close to the ground, and don't have the bird's eye view that e.g. players armed with rulebooks possess.

It just has this reek of being bad morality play fiction. "If only you had been smart like this other person, culture, or whatever that is so morally superior, you could have been immortal and powerful for less cost and without being evil."

It might work for a particular story, but as a building block for a setting or a game system, it's bad. Heck, Necropolitans are pretty close to directly undermining the lichdom process: cheaper, doable on anybody, don't require evil acts greater than "blasphemous chants" and an excruciating day or so for the would-be undead. Mechanically, no LA is big, too. Lichdom does at least come with more thorough immortality thanks to its phylactery and regeneration ability.

Making the mechanics and the setting contain just plain superior options means that, for somebody to take this inferior but more evil option, he has to be limited to being a less-than-brilliant mage, or somebody who'd rather be evil for evil's sake than have his goal achieved more easily.

Having multiple methods of immortality that it takes vastly different paths to get to - that you have genuine opportunity cost just leading up to it, in the form of things equivalent to class features (e.g. you can't become a lich if you're a straight druid) - is fine. Having it just be a matter of choosing your favorite ritual, but some rituals are better than others in all respects...

Lichdom should be an understandable choice, even if it's reprehensible. "Oh, well, he did it because he wants immortality," should not be met with, "Well, why didn't he do this other, easier, less evil thing, then?"

Lichdom shouldn't be the equivalent of wanting a hamburger for dinner, so he slaughtered an entire herd of cattle and murdered their minders. That's a punchline to a black humor joke. Not a serious explanation, when buying some ground beef from the grocery store is easier, cheaper, and less problematic on all fronts.

Lichdom should be understandable because it's quite possibly the only way to achieve what it offers, and what it offers is an understandable desire. It should be an answer to, "What is the value of eternal life?" that is not cheapened by pointing out that just because you spent $1 million on a used car doesn't make it worth more than the identical used car this other guy paid $3000 for. You just overpaid.

Max_Killjoy
2018-09-05, 01:31 PM
A lot of evil in the real world results from stupid, ignorant choices.

But maybe this is one of those examples of what happens in reality not always making for great fiction (RPG, story, whatever).

Segev
2018-09-05, 01:56 PM
A lot of evil in the real world results from stupid, ignorant choices.

But maybe this is one of those examples of what happens in reality not always making for great fiction (RPG, story, whatever).

Exactly. And if your only reason for being a lich is "stupid ignorance," one has to wonder how you got to the massive magical prowess and deep knowledge and study to know how to undergo the ritual.

The narrative niche of the lich is meant to be somewhere around the ballpark of, "what price immortality?" It is not meant to be, "Man, if only this guy weren't stupidly evil, he could've had a better form of immortality without hurting anybody."

Note that "stupidly evil" is meant in every possible way, here. Excessively evil, evil for stupid reasons, and just plain stupid and evil because he's not smart enough to be otherwise.

NichG
2018-09-05, 04:04 PM
It just has this reek of being bad morality play fiction. "If only you had been smart like this other person, culture, or whatever that is so morally superior, you could have been immortal and powerful for less cost and without being evil."

I see designing the setting to preserve lichdom as being more of a morality play sort of thing to do. It's the sort of 'I want to tell a story about a value I have, but since the world doesn't really support that value I'll just contrive the world of my story to make it so'. It starts from the premise that 'we want seeking immortality to be fundamentally unethical' and then judges options as bad infrastructure for the setting when they invalidate that premise.



Making the mechanics and the setting contain just plain superior options means that, for somebody to take this inferior but more evil option, he has to be limited to being a less-than-brilliant mage, or somebody who'd rather be evil for evil's sake than have his goal achieved more easily.

Or someone who hates Life. Or a brilliant mage who simply has never heard of necropolitans, or who became a lich a millennium before the necropolitan ritual was invented. Or someone who glorifies self-sufficiency and does not want to put their life in the hands of a druid/ritual leader/etc. Or...

The mistake is in assuming that all options are ever visible to anyone. There should be a nigh infinity of options that even the most inhumanly brilliant deities simply never see, because of just how vast 'possibility' can be. As soon as that is not true, there are no more stories left in such a setting - everything is bounded and complete. The mystery and wonder of things is in the idea that you could go over a hill and see something you could not have imagined on your own - that actually looking at the world can expand one's horizons.

It's easy to forget that from the point of view of a player with an exhaustive list of rules in front of you. Characters in the setting should not generally have that knowledge, as it makes things very flat.



Lichdom shouldn't be the equivalent of wanting a hamburger for dinner, so he slaughtered an entire herd of cattle and murdered their minders. That's a punchline to a black humor joke. Not a serious explanation, when buying some ground beef from the grocery store is easier, cheaper, and less problematic on all fronts.

It's more like, wanting to eat meat while living in a place where the only meat available destroys the land by overgrazing, whereas if you just moved a few thousand miles to the coast you could have fish instead, which is sort of like meat and basically does the same thing for your body.

In such a situation, you can have a character who says 'screw overgrazing, that's not going to be a serious problem for years yet, and besides I really like steak' without them being a joke. Or a character who has simply never realized that overgrazing poses issues. Or a character who concludes that whether or not they partake won't really change anything

Rerem115
2018-09-05, 04:48 PM
At least from my reading of it, Necromancers get special treatment in fiction because they're the token evil school (The Department of Post-Mortem Communications says hi!). Anybody can recognize the Necromancer; he's the guy with the zombies and the skull ring. But, you drop a master level wizard of any other school in front of a bunch of peasants, and they'll just say "wizard".

Basically, Necromancy is the obvious school, so everyone who's heard of Necromancers has heard of Liches. So, it's the go-to method for those seeking the Big Time Immortality. Also, because it takes the (relatively) easy route, magically speaking, by ripping the life out of others, the barrier for achieving it isn't nearly as high.

While the other schools could theoretically offer immortality, people wouldn't necessarily be able to recognize it for what it is, since without specialized training, it's hard to tell the difference between the other schools if the caster is skilled enough. Also, since the path to immortality for those not using Necromancy doesn't take the easy route, they're significantly more difficult to achieve, and as a result, few people know that they exist as methods, and fewer still have achieved immortality using them.

At least that's my head-canon for the whole mess.

icefractal
2018-09-05, 07:26 PM
Lich doesn't just get immortality, it gets self-regeneration. Other methods like serial reincarnation or body-swapping won't keep you from dying if someone cuts off your (current) head. Reincarnation, in particular, requires relying on the assistance of others or else having very powerful minions, better than an 11th level caster could likely get. Not to mention that Lich gets a bunch of undead immunities - and again, there are other ways to get those, but they're more work and less reliable.

Lichdom could be seen as a rejection of the external world - "I don't want to maintain alliances or participate in trade or even eat and sleep - I just want to study this spell for a century with no damn interruptions!"

GreatWyrmGold
2018-09-07, 08:32 AM
I'm not necessarily arguing for logical consistency, just pointing out that there don't seem to be already-in-place mechanics for that particular result. If there's a way to use that sort of logic to get there, I'm not aware of it. But it wouldn't surprise me to have something like that work. I'd be fine with someone introducing that into a setting I was playing in, but I probably wouldn't introduce it into a setting I ran.
Suit yourself. Not every fantasy idea is suited to every fantasy world.


I think so. But enchantment is generally mind manipulation magic, so it's like their mind has been manipulated to reside in a region rather than a body or individual object. I was thinking more generally that this being is mostly able to interact with the world by using enchantment magic and that most wizards would try to avoid this outcome if they could.
I was under the impression that enchantment magic was by minds, for minds.


It changes the primary means of sensing/interacting with the world. As a consequence they lose connection to any sort of common experience.
-snip-
The rest of the post was just expanding on this one idea. Which isn't terrible, per se, but it's definitely bad logic. I mean, people lose or change their primary means of sensing/interacting with the world all the time, but they're still people.
What happens if someone goes blind? (Or, for that matter, if a seriously nearsighted person gets glasses for the first time?) Their sight—their primary means of sensing the outside world—has changed significantly. Color is an alien concept, shape is something which you need touch to discern. And yet, blind people are still people, and people using vision correction are the same person as they were before. Or what about people who lose their hands, or who lose the use of their legs? Their primary means of interacting with/moving about the world have been lost. The things they can do and the places they go are going to be vastly changed.
You might argue that transferring your mind to a different substrate would have to change one's methods of sensing and experiencing the world more than that. I ask: Why? Why couldn't the inputs provided be nearly the same as what a healthy person would receive, or at least closer than a blind/deaf/etc person would have? Why couldn't the body's capabilities be the same as a human being, or at least closer than the extremes within humanity? Why would it have to be different?



Liches aren't stories about 'don't be selfish, let yourself die when your time is up', they're stories about 'don't stupidly assume that the first story of immortal ascension you run across is how you have to go about it'. Much like many stories of villainy aren't just 'this person was a horrible person', but rather 'this person could have achieved their goals without causing harm or making an enemy of the world, but tragically they chose a path or method early on which committed them to conflict' - more often about being stuck in one's ways or having a myopic focus than an actual real critique of the goals themselves.
I like this thought.


That said, given that narrative, the idea that each wizard should pick a school to specialize in and then pursue the immortality suggested by the philosophy by their particular choice of school communicates that same sort of tragic myopia to me. It's the idea that 'because I do Transmutation, I must find a Transmutative Immortality' when that limit is entirely self-imposed and ideological.
The funny thing is, I was planning to include a note at the end of draft 2 about how wizards who weaved together many schools in their immortality could avoid the pitfalls of each individual school...but how doing so required mastering each school before they got paranoid about their mortality and went with a simpler (but more flawed) option.


Speaking of Draft 2...I've tried to write it a couple of times, but I keep getting interrupted by poorly-timed restarts and the like. So screw all the flavor and fancy stuff, let's get to the brass tacks.

Abjuration. Basically the same, except adding something about how they eventually need to just make a ward that stops their soul from leaving and some more detailed descriptions of how they look and what's going on inside.
Conjuration. Yeah, this needed to be changed completely. New process: First, go to the Astral Plane. Second, teleport your body into thousands of pieces, with the blood/nerve impulses/etc being transported from one to another by a portal network or the like. Third, conjure material around them to make them look like just normal astral debris. Finally, use a reverse astral projection to send bits of you to the Material Plane and conjure bodies around them.
Divination. More or less the same, except for highlighting some of how they avoid the depredations of age and a rejiggered explanation for the prophecy thing. It's not an unconscious impulse thing, it's how they manipulate the world around them to make sure they don't die to world-ending calamities and the like. Also a more detailed description of how time works and why they need to be hermits and whatnot.
Enchantment. Closer to Braininthejar2's idea, maybe with a side of body-hopping. There were a couple of distinct ideas competing there.
Evocation. More or less the same, but trying to make them sound less like an elemental. Not many people had much to say about this one.
Illusion. Pretty close to the original.
Necromancy. Classical liches aren't the best one can do. If you're bad (well, less-masterful), you get a skeleton which needs a constant influx of souls to survive. Better necromancers can avoid that. Better necromancers still can become archliches, avoiding a few more weaknesses. The masters among masters can drop the phylactery entirely, keeping their soul healthy by just tweaking it directly. They often concentrate it in one part of their body (e.g, the heart), which can (with care) be removed as a de facto phylactery. The souls of these "liches" can survive the death of their bodies, though if they don't have a silent, still regenerate spell of the like, they'll need
Transmutation. Basically the same, though trying to make it sound less inherently chaotic.
Universal. Like I said above, combining a bunch of schools can compensate for the flaws of each. Necromancy prevents the soul stagnation of Abjurer!Liches, Transmutation helps with the physical degradation of the body neither can fully prevent, Divination keeps the transmutation from interfering with the wards... Also a note explaining that and why you can't really transition from (say) an Abjurer!Lich to a Universal!Lich without basically deconstructing most of what's keeping you alive and building new, more complex spells in their place before you die.

BeerMug Paladin
2018-09-08, 06:42 AM
The rest of the post was just expanding on this one idea. Which isn't terrible, per se, but it's definitely bad logic. I mean, people lose or change their primary means of sensing/interacting with the world all the time, but they're still people.
This is true, but not needing to eat/sleep, becoming a bodiless entity and/or using people as personal appendages are pretty fundamental changes that don't really have anything like a real-world analog.

M Placeholder
2018-09-08, 08:18 AM
...Um...I was pretty sure the appeal came from not dying.


Yeah, that is the main appeal of becoming a Lich, I was just thinking that being a blasphemous undead horror is the icing on the cake.

Vogie
2018-09-14, 01:00 PM
Abjuration. Basically the same, except adding something about how they eventually need to just make a ward that stops their soul from leaving and some more detailed descriptions of how they look and what's going on inside.

I'd want to have more of a Wide Ward-based self-prison. Think of the bubble from the movie The Fountain- The protagonist is safe, ageless and incredibly powerful... but is stuck in this bubble about 30 feet in diameter, locked in with that tree.



Conjuration. Yeah, this needed to be changed completely. New process: First, go to the Astral Plane. Second, teleport your body into thousands of pieces, with the blood/nerve impulses/etc being transported from one to another by a portal network or the like. Third, conjure material around them to make them look like just normal astral debris. Finally, use a reverse astral projection to send bits of you to the Material Plane and conjure bodies around them.

I like the idea of reverse-astral-projection... maybe make it something more like a superpowered Magnificent Mansion that is outside of time? Almost like a permanent Demiplane that the wizard projects off of.


Divination. More or less the same, except for highlighting some of how they avoid the depredations of age and a rejiggered explanation for the prophecy thing. It's not an unconscious impulse thing, it's how they manipulate the world around them to make sure they don't die to world-ending calamities and the like. Also a more detailed description of how time works and why they need to be hermits and whatnot.

I think it'd be interesting if this was the type of immortality that required the most work. Someone who is immortal by divination must actively pursue it at all times, as they'll keep forseeing different, niche, or obscure ways to die.


Enchantment. Closer to Braininthejar2's idea, maybe with a side of body-hopping. There were a couple of distinct ideas competing there.

I think the concept of Characters such as Corpsetaker from the Dresden Files series or the "Stranger with the Burning Eyes (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Stranger_with_the_Burning_Eyes_(3.5e_Prestige_Clas s))" concept. Your soul is immortal, but bodies keeps aging, so you have to swap them out.


Evocation. More or less the same, but trying to make them sound less like an elemental. Not many people had much to say about this one.

Why not just have them turn into an elemental? Evocation wizards are pursuing more raw power, and that would certainly fit the bill. Transformation into a force of nature... or maybe something more akin to a Golem of power.


Illusion. Pretty close to the original.

I think of the 5e combo/nonbo of Keen Mind & Silent Illusion, where the mage can summon and study an illusion of his/her spellbook. I could also see the Illusionist immortal also pour themselves into an illusion a la hologram doctor from that Star Trek series, or live on as a collection of Simulacrums.


Transmutation. Basically the same, though trying to make it sound less inherently chaotic.


I like the original concept, as it kind of made me think of a gray goo scenario, or beings based on the Protomolecule from the Expanse. The ability to transform oneself into a swarm of machines/molecules that can rebuild and reform, but in an altered state.

Another option is pull from the "Human Transmutation" from the Fullmetal Alchemist series, and give the player the ability (and need) to use body parts from other things to replace their own, in a magic-Frankenstein type of thing.



I don't think there's much need for a Universal or combination way if you have it available for each school.