Van Richten's Guide to Liches

Immortality is not a gift,
Immortality is an achievement,
And only those who strive mightily
Shall possess it.

- Edgar Lee Masters
"The Village Atheist"
Spoon River Anthology

Necrology

As many types and races of people are scattered over the lands as there are species of wildflowers wistfully dotting the countryside. Strong elements of language, custom, and belief define these races, setting them apart from one another.

Yet one characteristic is common to every sentient being: the quest for power. Every thinking being has, at one time or other, wished for more control over destiny, more power to realize his or her greatest potential. Such a dream might be as mundane as wishing for a good sword and the courage to assault an evil master, or as grandiose as the conquest of a wicked nation. Dreams such as this motivate many people to undertake adventuring and fortune-seeking.

It is, in theory, possible for a serf to become an emperor if his determination and body are strong. This would require an incredible struggle, for the typical serf starts with nothing, but by the grace of the gods and the strength in his heart, the slave may become a king. Power and glory are there for the taking, and such earthly happiness is attainable by anyone, as long as one can be satisfied with the mere conquest of the world. (If the adjective "mere" seems out of place in this context, the reader must have patience until the subject of this book is addressed.)

The rogue has an entirely different dream and a decidedly different method of seeing it become reality, but the rogue's highest goals are as firmly set in this world as are the warrior's.

For priests, the most important quests of life are different, having not so much to do with power as with proving devotion to a god or building a great temple where others can enjoy the hospitality of the priesthood and its religion. The greatest achievement of priestly glory lie not in this world, but the next.

Such is not the case with the mage, which brings us to the subject at hand. To become a mage, one must be exceptional in ability from the start. Natural prerequisites - factors of intelligence, strength of personality, and persistence in the face of difficult matters of mind and body - must be present to learn the secrets of magic.

Once certain basic secrets are known, the mage can begin a pursuit that is endemic to all mages: acquiring the knowledge of more spells, the ability to command ever greater magic. This struggle continues throughout the career of the mage, one that never truly sees an end to it. The wizard's life begins in excellence, but life is seldom long enough to realize the full potential of that preeminence. There are always more spells to learn, spells of every sort. There are secrets that remain buried in arcane texts that have gone unread for thousands of years. There are puzzles that unlock the mysteries of the universe and lead to whole new planes of existence. For a mage who is foremost a scholar, these are secrets that must be found. The passion to learn more is a driving flame within a mage's heart and spirit. The passion is a part of what makes him what he is.

For the mage, knowledge equals power, and the acquisition of unlimited knowledge often seems to be within reach. Whereas the serf begins in an environment where the ability to shape destiny is as rare as an eclipse, the mage begins his or her career already wielding power that only a few dream of manipulating. Developing this power can become an insatiable drive that goes beyond a career pursuit. It can become an addiction of the mind and spirit, and build beyond a driving flame into an insidious inferno that burns a mage hollow of other qualities from the inside out, until only the desire for more magical power remains.

In this quest for knowledge, a mage might pass a point where certain deeds are no longer unthinkable. The mage then pursues for long years the secrets Of a certain arcane ritual that will grant a twofold prize: knowledge of forbidden secrets, and the acquisition of power that is unmatched - power gained over the span of an eternal life - or, rather, unlife. If a mage becomes a lich, that mage becomes the most powerful form of undead known!

The transformation of the mage's body into a lich grants incredible powers. The mortal individual that started the ritual of transformation and the undead being that ultimately results are no longer the same person. The lich is immensely powerful, and at the same time it is in a position to gain even more power and knowledge. A lich can exist for centuries, far outlasting any nonmagical race!

The lich's mind seems to withstand time very well, too. While the psychology of a vampire often deteriorates with time, something about the transformation allows the lich to remain sane during this virtual immortality - or at least motivated by its own goals, even though those goals may be unfathomable to humankind.

In this span of time, the lich can undertake projects so far reaching as to be beyond the scope of most mortals' apprehension. With enough time, the knowledge of almost any secret can be gained.

What troubles me the most is that mages walk this world who would sacrifice not just their lives, but their very humanity - the qualities of emotion and love, the aspirations of mortals made in the image of the divine - just for the sake of the acquisition of power. Such ambition makes any person dangerous, but if that person is made essentially immortal and given the power to realize any goal, what hope is there for the world?

I propose an axiom: One cannot acquire great power without already having it. This suggests the level of expertise necessary to become a lich and thus the great power of that creature even at its inception. Given the relative rarity of the lich in comparison with the number of evil creatures who aspire to such wickedness, my axiom also suggests the inherent dangers involved in becoming an undead wizard. The quest for lichdom is a journey not taken lightly, for it is the most perilous one a mage can perform.

First among the mage's risks is the peril of simply acquiring the scholarly texts concerning the ritual. Not surprisingly, no known common source of these texts exists anywhere. No mage can simply walk into a library or scrivener and request the recipe for lichdom. Such texts are deadly in content, but they are just as deadly in their procurement, for the power they offer is potent and those who own them are most certainly neither weak nor willing to give them up!

Then, too, what if a source is false? The stakes of life are what a mage plays with when judging one source accurate, another partially so, and a third flawed in total. The test of this hypotheses might cost the mage his life. Whether the cost is permanent the wizard will not know - until it is too late.

One must wonder what texts the very first lich worked from, how that ill-fated mage first came by the formula that dispossessed his body of his spirit. The lich is a solitary creature that does not tell others how to join its ranks. The thought of it speaking to others at all on a civil basis without a devious ulterior motive is almost laughable. For the lich, the fewer that play its manipulative games, the better.

During my research, I came across a peculiar item (translated here for the reader's convenience) from the Haedritic Manuscripts, purported to have been written by someone known only as the Dweller in the Jacinth Chamber. This text is very old indeed, and I believe that many more liches are in existence today than when the text was written.

I was also told during this nether-spanning discussion that [this tanar'ri - name untranslatable] had decided to take control of a world wherein humans and demihumans lived together.

[The tanar'ri] first plotted to seed the world with his minions and take the world by force. This proved unsuccessful. Yet intent upon acquiring the world, [the tanar'ri] set about creating minions that were significantly more powerful than the troops previously used. It tempted the mages of the world with great power and knowledge, and it gave them instructions on how to transform their bodies, minds, and euen spirits to a higher form of existence - one that would command great magic and allow [the tanar'ri] to assume control of the world with subtlety and plotting.

[This tanar'ri] still lives, as do its higher minions. The world it has tried to conquer is ours, and this is surely the origin of the lich, explaining how this pestilence came to exist. What our fates will be if we allow the liches to influence us is a truly terrible thought to contemplate.

This fragment suggests the origin of the lich, and I am inclined to believe. There had to be a first lich, someone to formalize a ritual for its creation. That a mortal should gamble without guidance with a ritual that would destroy him if it does not grant him unlife seems unlikely.

Considering the many complex factors involved in what is known about the ritual of lichdom, the odds that someone should get it right by pure coincidence are ludicrous. Perhaps their instructions came from a fiend from another plane of existence, perhaps not. But this fragment, couched as it is in mythic terms, is still as fair an explanation as I've encountered in my researches of the origin of the first lich.

I tell you, there is a malevolence that lurks outside the vision of mortal. It, waits patiently, living for millennia, scheming toward a complex series of dark goals that serve only to produce more power for yet more evil goals.

Nothing stops it - nothing except the final destruction of its body and spirit. If allowed to continue, it will set in motion such plots that mortals could never hope to prevent. Mortals simply cannot live long enough to grasp the designs of| this nefarious creature. It seeks to wield ultimate power and claim the throne of the gods for itself, wreaking havoc upon the mortals with whom it once walked.

Read the journal I have sent with this letter, Van Richten, and study it well! I fear I have been compromised and that Mirinalithiar knows I have her journal. If this is so, you are the only person in all the realms who can give my death meaning!

- From a letter by Irithaniar Millinius
to Dr. Van Richten

Thus did I come into the possession of the journal of a mage who supposedly died nearly a century ago.

The diary of Mirinalithiar chronicles her descent from humanity to lichdom. There are entries beginning almost from the moment she decided to become a lich to the moment she passed over. This has proved to be my most important source of information about the ritual and processes of becoming a lich. Of course, the existence of such a source is suspect in itself, as it might be a part of a subtle plan of the forces of evil.

Much of the journal is cryptic, extraneous, or highly empirical, but I will summarize some of the more pertinent data. Mirinalithiar began her quest for lichdom by investigating incidents of mysterious, high-powered magic. She was searching the telltale marks of what she surmised to be lich behavior. Mirinalithiar achieved a breakthrough when she happened upon an account of how, at a century-old battlefield, the dead rose from their graves - weapons, armor, and all - and marched into a nearby range of mountains. She began to study the history of the area wherein the peculiar events took place, paying particular attention to tales of the mages that lived there and their behavior. She found that the mages were quite powerful, but preferred absolute solitude in comparison to most other mages, who gained power through heroic adventuring. The reclusive wizards defended their abodes from every sort of threat, but only if their keeps or lands were directly in the path of danger.

The startling level of their powers was documented, however. Mirinalithiar found that the mages made occasional trips to magical colleges and guilds. There, they impressed and intimidated the high wizards with their abilities. Most importantly, those mages' studies were invariably concerned with necromancy. All of them were especially interested in spells that allowed communication with the dead and those places where the dead reside.

It was Mirinalithiar's belief that they were seeking information about the processes of becoming a lich, and about methods of contacting some long-dead spirit. Perhaps they sought that most ancient of fiends referred to in the Haedritic Manuscripts. Mirinalithiar attempted to follow that same path to knowledge, and apparently she succeeded.

Her journal became decreasingly coherent as she went about the business of summoning and speaking with the dead, and it is difficult to reconstruct the facts from her text. Even so, with a great deal of study and the assistance of several scholars, I believe I have discovered the basic formulae for achieving lichdom.

Be warned, you who would use this information for evil intent, that Mirinalithiar was not sane when she recorded these procedures. I offer them only to shed light on the unspeakable desperation of a wizard who would be immortal. Used in the cause of justice, this knowledge is indeed power; used for evil purpose, this knowledge is certain death!

According to Mirinalithiar's journal, once the details of the transformation process are known, the scholar has to practice with rigor the newfound information.

Primary among the requirements is the ability to cast key spells. The spells themselves are rare, and only an wizard of great power and knowledge who fears not to dabble in the horrid art of necromancy can cast them. Still, this is not a particular hindrance to a mage whose hunger for knowledge is ravenous. As I have postulated, one cannot acquire great power without already having it. Hence, power is the key, power that begets power, ever corrupting the mage while preparing the mage to accumulate even more might.

Once the spellcasting considerations are satisfied, the wizard proceeds to the next, equally important step: the making of a phylactery, a vessel to house his spirit.

The phylactery usually is a small boxlike amulet made of common materials, highly crafted. Lead or another black or dark gray material is frequently used. Inspection of an amulet may reveal various arcane symbols carved into the interior walls of the box, and those grooves are filled with silver as pure as the mage can find. These amulets are never made of wood, and rarely of steel. Brightly colored metals, such as gold, are infrequently used. (Mirinalithiar's account is extremely unclear, but it may not be the color that is the problem. The relative softness of the material and its subsequent likelihood of being injured may create this restriction.)

The mage understandably has no desire for anyone to learn what ritual is being undertaken, or the appearance of the arcane symbols and etchings he must use. Thus, the mage alone will melt and forge those precious metals, as well as learn whatever other crafting skills are necessary to design and construct the phylactery.

With the phylactery constructed, the next step requires the mage to cast his spirit into his newly enchanted box. To do so, however, requires the inclusion of the most secret aspect of becoming the lich - the potion of transformation. The ingredients of this potion are unknown to me, and it was only by chance that I even came to know of its existence. Mirinalithiar's journal mentions it but once as "that foul brew from the heart of evil".

After consultation and speculation with my many scholarly sources, I have concluded that the poisonous venom of a number of rare creatures must be involved, as the potion kills the mortal wizard almost instantly. Of course, after my near fatal experience with my old friend Shauten, I am sure that another one of the ingredients is the heart of a sentient creature.

In any case, I do know (from Mirinalithiar's journal) that the mage must drink the potion when the moon is full. If successful, the mage is transformed into a lich. Otherwise, the mage immediately dies. The success of the potion and the ability of the mage's constitution to handle the consequences are the ultimate tests of the mage's skill, knowledge, and fitness.

The mage's physical form reflects the transformation of his spirit. Where the mage in life might have been beautiful to the eyes, the potion turns the body into something profoundly hideous to behold.

I have recorded a tale of an old man, shrunken and weary of heart, who states he was not born in these lands, but came from a far off place with a strange name. He served as a scout in the army of the king of that region. In his youth, he recounted, he served the king in a great and noble battle against forces of evil, which had swelled unknown like a hidden cancer and were now erupting upon the surface of the land. As an advance scout, he and two others rode out on fleet-footed ponies toward the enemy forces, to determine their number and position.

He said that his patrol surprised and, in turn, was set upon by a dozen undead skeletons, each armed with archaic armor and weapons from an era and army he didn't recognize. Commanding the troops was an undead wizard. During the encounter, the scout had the misfortune of looking directly at the lich for more than a few seconds.

The skin over its entire body was shrunken and wrinkled over each bony limb. It was as dried as parchment, and rough to the point of being able to grind marble into dust.

The sockets of the eyes were the most terrifying to behold. Instead of eyes, it had sunken pits as black as the most evil heart that ever pulsed. As the skirmish wore on, from within the sockets came a harsh reddish glow, two fiery blobs of light that sparkled and illuminated the sockets and the area around the lich.

The scout was wounded and fell to the ground. He looked back at his comrades, but they too had fallen. Their bodies were being stripped of their gear by the spiritless minions of the lich. Just as he was about to say his final prayer, the lich strode over to him.

The old man swears that, although his elder years have been ones of commonplace fears - of whether the crops would wither of disease or whether his grandchildren would remember to not talk to strangers - that this moment was fear itself. Next to it all the other fears of his life had been mere worries about the weather. That was the most terrible moment that he had ever undergone. Here are his exact words, as I wrote them down.

"I looked back at the lich Just in time to see it walk toward me. Its wretched gaze never wavered as it stepped onto and over the bodies of my comrades. Its vulgar sockets fixed themselves upon me, and I felt the evil pour upon. me like it was water, as if the lich exuded a palpable evil.

"Then it came to stand next to me. Gods and goddesses, I have never felt anything so foul! A terrible cold came over me, the likes of which were worse than the icy blasts of the northern wastes. It numbed me completely, and I started to shiver violently. I was choking - I could not breath for fright.

"My lantern had fallen with me, and my left hand still had a grasp of it. It was still lit. When the lich stopped next to me, and the cold came over me, I looked to the lantern for comfort and warmth, thinking it might be my last sight.

"I saw then that the light from. the lantern had grown dimmer somehow, The flame was of normal size - this I saw plainly through the glass. Yet, the light from the flame had somehow shrunk. From the weakened light of the lantern, I could barely make out my own forearm.

"Suddenly there was a red glow upon me, and my arm grew plainly visible. I realized to my horror that the lich'ch had come even closer to me, and I was seeing my arm by the glow of its diabolical eye sockets.

"Despite my fear, I turned to look at the lich, which had squatted down. next to me. I would at least look upon my death. Rotted, stinking robes clung to its skeletal form. It was also wearing some kind of chain of office. I did not recognize the chain, nor the kingdom nor office it represented. I could tell, though, that the lich was some kind of nobility.

"It looked at me for a few seconds, then smiled. Its ancient muscles pulled its lips apart with a crackling sound. It opened its mouth as if to speak, but no words came forth.

"Bathed as I was in the darkness, the light of its sockets and the numbing cold, I passed out. My last vision was of those terrible piercing eyes, looking directly through me to my very spirit.

"I thank every god of good and purity that the lich never laid its foul hand upon me, and that for some inexplicable reason, I was spared death. "

In order to affect the world, the lich must have a method of interacting with it. This means the spirit of the lich must attach itself to a body. After entering the phylactery, the spirit must remain for at least three days (perhaps less for extremely powerful mages). After those days have passed, the lich may reenter the body from whence it came. This act of transference is quite demanding upon the host body. Because of this, the lich must rest for a week after reentering its former body. During this week, the lich is unable to cast spells or undertake strenuous physical labor. It is only able to exert enough energy to care for itself, and perhaps read and meditate.

The astute reader will realize that this is an opportune moment to strike down the lich. That is why the receding information is so valuable.

To know the process is to know the lich's vulnerabilities. An alert person may spot the prospective lich as it pursues its deadly goal, then be ready to strike when the creature is helpless. Once the week has expired, the lich is never so helpless again.

When the lich rises, the precise location of the mage's spirit is debatable, but I am inclined to believe that its body is just a shell, a rotting puppet through which it works its will upon its surroundings. The phylactery is now what truly contains the essence of the lich. In any case, if the lich's body should "die", then its spirit is already safe within the phylactery. If the spirit is not already within the phylactery, the transference is instantaneous, and I believe not subject to distance, magical, or even dimensional restrictions.

As many sources speak of the disappearance of certain liches after their documented destruction, it is presumed that once back in its phylactery, a lich has some method of inhabiting a new body or creating a new one. This "transcorporeal inhabitation" is not, however, part of the journals of Mirinalithiar, and so I am left speculating upon this point, and am at a loss as to the truth of it.

I propose that the lich does not have the
ability to sustain itself over the centuries
without some sort of ritualistic practice.

- Harmon Ruscheider, scholar

A classmate and colleague of mine, Dr. Harmon Ruscheider was more gifted in the rigors of empirical research than I. Our friendship was based upon a mutual fascination with biological processes, but his was a desire to advance the capabilities of the medical profession whereas I was more interested in the application of proven practices. Understandably, we drifted apart when our tenures at the university ended.

Then, a few months after I began my investigation of the lich, he came to me by the dark of night, foolishly traveling during the hours when the dead walk freely. I very nearly refused to allow him entry into my home, but he frantically convinced me of his identity and good intentions. Dr. Ruscheider was one of the most stoic and controlled men I have ever known, but the blithering person whom I reluctantly admitted to my abode was scarcely the same fellow. The poor man was teetering on the brink of sanity, clutching at the remaining strands of his once formidable mind with a steadily weakening grasp, dissolving into a lunatic before my eyes.

We talked through the night and well into the following morning, but it was not a nostalgic chat of past loves and classroom exploits. Ruscheider had been a prisoner of an Invidian lich for the prior seven months, and he was desperate to impart his knowledge to me before his faculties left him for good. What I wrote down as my old friend babbled through the night proved to be my most important resource regarding liches, next to the journal of Mirinalithiar.

Ruscheider was studying the necrology of liches as part of his research on the postmortem decomposition of the body. Such analysis inevitably necessitated the observation of a subject, but Ruscheider tragically became a subject himself.

Fortunately, the lich understood an obsession with knowledge that would lead a man down dangerous paths, and it allowed Ruscheider to live long enough to learn some of its necrology. Even more fortunate, the lich destroyed itself in an unsuccessful power ritual (see Chapter Five), and Ruscheider was eventually able to escape the clutches of the lich's suddenly ungoverned minions.

Harmon Ruscheider's knowledge was dearly bought, and I present it to the reader in his memory. When he had exhausted himself of both strength and information, he died in my arms.

A lich need not partake of food, water, or any of the things we mortals must, but it still must conduct rituals that are designed to renew its powers and sustain its physical existence. When the lich has learned enough to satiate its gluttonous appetite for power, it abandons its solid form for the exploration of realms beyond mortal comprehension (see Chapter Ten), but until then it must sustain its body against the ravages of time. This ritual of sustenance is also necessary if the lich is to maintain control over undead servants, cast spells, and conduct other rituals (discussed later in this text). The lich undergoes a ritual of sustenance approximately once each century.

The undead wizard begins by acquiring the main ingredient in lich preservation: a fresh heart.

Ruscheider's research indicates that the kind of heart - that is, its owner's specie - is not relevant. The only important characteristic is that it must belong to a sentient mortal. Also, it must have been beating less than three nights earlier. Since the ritual apparently requires tapping the life essence of a sentient being, it is reasonable to conclude that a living body or one freshly killed is best for the lich's purposes.

Once the lich has found such a victim (usually by having its undead minions prey on nearby villages or by capturing mortals who pass too close to the lair), it steals the heart. The lich itself needs to take the heart from the body, as this act is part of the ritual process.

Once the body, living or dead, is transported to the lich's lair, it undergoes embalming processes and several incantations. My notes from Ruscheider's testimony are rather incomplete regarding what the body is embalmed with, and what spells are cast, but the embalming fluid is highly lethal. Ruscheider claimed that two pints delivered into a small lake would kill all who drank from it. If the victim is not already dead at this point, he soon will be.

The heart is then removed in a ceremony requiring a few hours to complete. During this time, the lich is completely involved in the ritual and is able to control only a fraction of its minions, due to the great mental and magical efforts directed at the heart and corpse. The corpse, at a latter point in the ritual, is reduced to a husk and is unusable for any other purpose whatsoever.

Once the heart is removed, it is placed in a brazier along with a multitude of arcane and alchemical materials. The heart, made flammable during the ritual, is incinerated. Reacting with the materials in the brazier, a bizarre dust is created which is then sprinkled onto the lich's body and into its eyes.

This is the life-giving dust that the lich needs to survive. Without it, the lich gradually loses magical power and control over its minions, and it slowly deteriorates until its body crumbles into dust.

Even if this occurs, the lich's spirit still exists, having returned to its phylactery. Once there, it is apparently able to claim other bodies for its own use. For reasons of its own - perhaps vanity, perhaps the demands of its peculiar state of existence - the lich definitely prefers to retain its original body.

A not uncommon theory is that evil is an actual force, rather than a characteristic assigned to behavior. This philosophical topic must be avoided in this text. However, I have considered a theory of duality, of the so-called Negative and Positive Material Planes. Theoretically, there is a positive and negative polarity to the universe. Proceeding from that idea, we may suppose that these polar aspects of the multiverse are woven into the ethereal framework of the physical world.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that the lands of my birth have more of the negative than positive - thus, there is more of evil than of good in this realm. The undead that curse the land - dread vampires, walking skeletons, stupefied zombies, and hosts of ghosts, ghouls, and evil spirits that run like ivers through our realm - are spun of or powered by this negative material. If intelligent undead like the vampire and the lich can manipulate this material of which they are hypothetically composed, this may explain their control over things evil and undead.

The connection between the lich and the Negative Material Plane magically would be forged during the transformation ceremony, most probably at the moment of mortal death and rebirth into unlife. The period the lich spends in the phylactery most likely creates and reinforces this link between its spirit and the Negative Material Plane. Of course, this discussion remains completely within the realm of the hypothetical, yet it easily explains much of the lich's powers which I shall address in the next chapter: the chilling touch, the black aura, the eyeless sight, and so forth. Perhaps the phylactery is some sort of conduit to or pocket of that Negative Material Plane, wherein the lich may roam and familiarize itself with the rank eddies and flows of power of that foul plane and the methods of manipulating them.

In spite of its disputable existence, I fear that I shall often lean upon the crutch of the Negative Material Plane as I attempt to uncover facts about liches. In the absence of hard data, the learned must rely upon supposition. Whether valid or not, the approach leads to practical, usable results, which is the goal of my work.

Compilers' Note: Dr. Van Richten, though he greatly doubted the existence of other planes when he wrote this work, eventually came to accept them as real later in life. However, he always retained a certain skepticism about such matters, particularly in matters relating to the supernatural effects other planes have on the material world, including ourselves. He believed intelligent Powers directed matters more than did blind, unthinking forces.