Good Lich?

[Tyger]

Okay, according to the MM and the SRD, a lich has an evil alignment. The process of becoming a lich is "unspeakably evil" but the only thing that must be done is the creation of, and tying one's soul to, the phylatery.

Is there any reason that a good aligned character, for unselfish reasons who wanted to extend his lifespan beyond what the god's alloted to him, could not seek the path of lichdom and remain a good "person", albeit an undead one?

In the alternative, are there other methods by which one could extend one's life, perhaps even indefinetly? The alternative that I was looking at was if one could create a demi-plane (via Epic magics) where the flow of time was in reverse, and one spent 12 hours per day there, and 12 hours in the Material Plane, you'd never age beyond your current age. You could even reduce your age by a few years by spending more time in the crafted demi-plane.

If this sort of thing is possible, is there any indication in RAW where one could find such?

[Olethros]

Actually, in Monsters of Farun (sp?) you will find an entry for "Lich, Good." A group of elven wizards that needed to stick around to protect some stuff decided lichdom wasn't so bad.

[Inyssius Tor]

And I think there are about a million ways to do this in Libris Mortis; just ask Necropaladin.

[hewhosaysfish]

I think the common consensus is that since "the process of becoming a lich is unspeakably evil" and the only thing you really have to do (as you said) is create a phylactery, then creating a phylactery must require doing something unspeakably evil (which the MM has left unspecified. It's obviously as unwritable as it is unspeakable).
Of liches are immortal, giving one plenty of time to have a change of heart and repent the deeds of it's life.

On the subject of the planes, there is a 9th level spell called Genesis which allows you to create demi-planes. It doesn't specify that you can't set gravity, alignment, energy and time traits so many people assume that you can (creating planes were a day passes in 6 seconds, allowing wizards to plane shift there, rest for a night and plane shift back one round later with all their spells back. As an aside, it doesn't make the ground out of gold in this plane either, while the psionic equivalent expressly state that you can't).

As a fan of Red Dwarf, I've often ponered the possibilities of access to a backwards timeflow. Eating and excreting are among the most obvious things to worry about. Doing them backwards would be rather disturbing. You would also get less tired as the day progressedregressed but would still have to sleep at some point to justify this. More insiduous, is the way you think: will the wizard/cleric be able to research new spells while he is there or will he research everything backwards, forgetting all his magical might and emerging completely ignorant.
You could attempt to exploit this by, say, enterring the reversed timestream carrying a small bottle marked "magic potion of forgetting-extremely-powerful-spells" with the intention of undrinking such a potion, remembering extremely powerful spells you haven't learned yet and then spending the next 12 years unresearching that potion.

[Lapak]

A million ways that work just fine until an Inevitable comes calling to ask why you haven't died yet... but that's all part of the fun of lichdom!

[Ramza00]

You can have good liches according to LM page 156, the motivations of why you become a lich is often different. Usually a noble cause or trying to protect something is involved.

[Holocron Coder]

Well, the way I can think of off the top of my head is being a level 20 dread necromancer. The class requirement is non-good (thus, you can be neutral) and at 20 you become a lich, without mention of alignment changes.

Of course, that doesn't answer the "good lich" question, but it answers the "non-evil lich" one.

[Tyger]

Excellent. Looks like I need to get myself a Libor Mortis soon. In the meantime, I'll just run with the non-evil lich. Thanks to all who posted.

[Assassinfox]

A million ways that work just fine until an Inevitable comes calling to ask why you haven't died yet... but that's all part of the fun of lichdom!

But you ARE dead. If every villain who tried to become a lich got harassed by inevitables, we wouldn't have billions of them lying around plotting evil stuff.

[SpiderBrigade]

Yeah, that's a valid point: do inevitables care about the undead? Because, really, there's a LOT of intelligent (and immortal) undead out there. Vampires, ghosts, certain of the caster-skeleton types...

I sort of got the idea that inevitables were more interested in serial-reincarnating or otherwise death-defying types.

[Ikkitosen]

This very site has rules for a non-evil Lich, the Scirelich, by Amber E. Scott.

[Dudukain]

Can't necropolitans be good? That could work out, although you wouldn't get all the cool lich benefits, but hey, less level adjustment, you can do this at second level, and you gain one of the most primary benefits of lichdom- living basically forever. (It'll be a loooong time before everything rots away.)

[Olethros]

I allways thought it would depend on the game world. If liches, vampires, etc are a dime a dozen, the inevitables must not care about undead. If there are 6 liches on the whole planet, who like to keep a low profile, maby they ARE worried about amoral constructs of pure law come in the night.

My oppinion has allways been, just because there are 30(I actually have no idea of a real number) intelegent undead listed in the MM, doesnt mean all of them exist, or more than one of them exist, or, eh, ya get my point. This is why I like homebrew world, or ones with very little meta-plot published. It saves atleast a little time spent on "not in this version of forgoten realms" conversations.

[Assassinfox]

I allways thought it would depend on the game world. If liches, vampires, etc are a dime a dozen, the inevitables must not care about undead. If there are 6 liches on the whole planet, who like to keep a low profile, maby they ARE worried about celestial construct come in the night.

Inevitables aren't celestial. They're amoral constructs of pure law.

[Innis Cabal]

there are several good lich templates but the very idea is laughable. Undeath is not a goal people are rewarded with, it preverts the natural order of life and most undead seek only to kill the living at best, at worst they wish to pull life into their slow decay by domination and control. Those that choose to become undead are worse. They willing take themselves out of the cyclical nature of life and death for selfish reasons, no man or woman chooses to become undead for the "greater good" of their people unless those people are evil or neutral at best. True champions of good would go the better route to become an outsider, at least that is better then undeath, even becoming a construct is beter

[JellyPooga]

you can do this at second level

3rd actually. You lose 1 level + 1000xp. If this takes you to 0 or less, the process fails and you just die. You need to bee 3rd and goe down to 2nd(3000xp - 1000 for losing a level - 1000 for ritual = 2nd level [1000xp])

[martyboy74]

In the alternative, are there other methods by which one could extend one's life, perhaps even indefinetly? The alternative that I was looking at was if one could create a demi-plane (via Epic magics) where the flow of time was in reverse, and one spent 12 hours per day there, and 12 hours in the Material Plane, you'd never age beyond your current age. You could even reduce your age by a few years by spending more time in the crafted demi-plane.

That wouldn't work; you'd just live the same 12 hours over and over again.

[Just Alex]

there are several good lich templates but the very idea is laughable. Undeath is not a goal people are rewarded with, it preverts the natural order of life and most undead seek only to kill the living at best, at worst they wish to pull life into their slow decay by domination and control. Those that choose to become undead are worse. They willing take themselves out of the cyclical nature of life and death for selfish reasons, no man or woman chooses to become undead for the "greater good" of their people unless those people are evil or neutral at best. True champions of good would go the better route to become an outsider, at least that is better then undeath, even becoming a construct is beter

Eberron's Elves would disagree heartily. You're also presuming that nature is cyclical, which may or may not be the case, depending on the cosmology in question. Heck, we can actually take it to the other side of the argument. Assume nature is cyclical and life and death follow a set pattern. Super Good Mage Guy knows he's going to die and recieve his just reward in afterlife or reincarnation. Wouldn't it be a remarkably selfless act to extend his life, helping future generations against the evils of the world?
On the Outsider bit, no one is guaranteed to become a Solar after death, no matter how good or powerful you were in life. In fact, settings that include resurection generally have the "no memory of afterlife" clause attatched to resurection. The few ways to become an outsider generally involve rather specific PrC's.

[Indon]

Inevitables aren't celestial. They're amoral constructs of pure law.

Would a creature from Mechanus be considered... "Mechanical"?

[Assassinfox]

Would a creature from Mechanus be considered... "Mechanical"?

Sounds fine to me.

[afternoon]

There's plenty of philosophical mish-mash about "oh how come good people can't be liches." And in the Monster Manual, nothing's really defined, so that's okay.

However, if liches were really defined, I think any form of immortality through undeath would involve something worse than just doing some evil act once.

It would be realistic in a setting to say that becoming a lich involves killing a few (or more) babies/innocent children, linking their souls to yours, and putting them through terrible torture as long as you are "alive/not destroyed." Effectively for eternity, if you had your way.

That leaves little room for good liches, and even those who might do it for good intent have to rest with that fact. A one-time evil act can be redeemed, but something like this isn't redeemed until you've allowed yourself to pass on. I feel that fits the spirit and intent of a lich better.

Additionally, I think if there was a good-aligned way to become immortal, even evil people wouldn't become liches!

[Just Alex]

Given the choice between becoming immortal and becoming immortal along with a plethora of deadly abilities and defenses, I think I'd go with the latter.

[Maerok]

I think becoming a good lich would require a sort of self-sacrifice or martyrdom; I'd place the ultimate good deed (in opposition to the 'unspeakable evil act' of an evil Lich) as something close to, if not, equal to, the requirements for becoming a Saint.

[Scalenex]

Anyone familiar with an old show called Thunder Cats? They had a villain who was for all intensive purposes, a lich, called Mumra.

Years ago, I was channel surfing with nothing better to do and there was a Thunder Cats show, apparently a later season because there were several new characters. Including a cameo guest star, Muranna, a female version of Mumra that was good. It was among the corniest things I've ever seen.

[Mewtarthio]

Anyone familiar with an old show called Thunder Cats? They had a villain who was for all intensive purposes, a lich, called Mumra.

...
*twitch*



"Intents and purposes"! If you had any "intensive" purpose to notice the difference, you'd notice the difference!

----

Okay, explosion aside, I'm a little curious: How, exactly, was he like a lich? Immortality isn't exactly unique among villains. Or do you mean he hid his soul outside his body? That's also a popular theme, albeit with varying degrees of "lichdom." Some Russian guy became invincible by hiding his soul inside some complex trap (something like a pin inside an egg inside a rabbit inside a turtle inside a chest inside an island in the middle of an ocean). I think there's even a Paper Mario villain who pulls that trick. The closest I've heard of a villain approaching lichdom without actually being a lich is the Harry Potter example:

Spoiler

Show

Voldemort has his soul split into seven pieces and hidden within items called Horcruxes. Not only that, he can also have his physical form destroyed, but can always regenerate--albeit over the course of a decade rather than within a few month. Lastly, it fits in with the idea of "unspeakable evil," since the only way to split your soul properly for the ritual is to commit murder, on top of which you're tearing your soul apart, which is probably detrimental to your quality of life.

Regardless, the process of becoming a lich is described as "unspeakably evil," so constructing a phylactery should take a bit more work than a feat, some gold, and some experience points. A popular theory involves imbibing a deadly poison (hope you've got good ranks in Craft: Alchemy). It should also involve innocent sacrifices, bound souls, or deals with Evil extraplanar beings.

[Olethros]

There ARE examples in cannon material for good liches, its from forgoten realms, go figure. They are a group elven wizards (archmages I believe) who had to find away not to "move on" as they were intrusted with the guardianship of some terrible important, well, ruins. If I remember there template entry in the Monsters of Faerun book (I think) they use a different version of the lich prossess that isn't inherently evil. They have some different abilities that are a little more "Im not evil" but otherwise, they got the whole phylactery thing going for them.

[johhny-turbo]

In Eberron they have a 'deathless' creature type which is essentialy good undead (their Elves who voluntarily undertake it, something about death being just a path on life or something) so just steal the concept and attach it to a lich.

[Matthew]

Anyone familiar with an old show called Thunder Cats? They had a villain who was for all intensive purposes, a lich, called Mumra.

Years ago, I was channel surfing with nothing better to do and there was a Thunder Cats show, apparently a later season because there were several new characters. Including a cameo guest star, Muranna, a female version of Mumra that was good. It was among the corniest things I've ever seen.

Man, I loved Thunder Cats; the episode where Liono meets a 'dead 'Deity was my first encounter with the idea. There was a lot to hate about that show, but a lot to love too.

[SpiderBrigade]

Anyone think that maybe Mumm-Ra might be...I donno...a mummy of some sort?

Naaaah.

Of course mostly this just reminds me of this club at my college which raised funds for the Coalition to Free Mumm-Ra, which was pretty hilarious in a dry sort of way.

[Matthew]

Thunder... Thunder... Thunder Cats! Hohhh!