Van Richten's Guide to Liches - The Mentalist Lich

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such present joys therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
The earth affords or grows by kind...

- Sir Edward Dyer
Rawlinson Poetry MS 85

I will not be able to speak of my experience in detail until I have put to rest the terrible visions I have suffered at the hands of Master Ulathar the lich. It has no remorse or regard for the living - it barely took notice of us during a pitched combat that was for us most dire. Only a fateful twist of luck turned the encounter from disaster to narrow victory. It used its twisted powers of the mind as freely as me breathe, and with an effect that I bad never conceived. Its mind was the blackest pit of evil, and it reached out for us, twisting our spirits and tainting us in mere seconds. My will now has been purged of the evils implanted in my mind. My spirit has been blessed and redeemed by the highest priests. Yet I cannot sleep at night, for even in the darkest rooms or the brightest days, I still see the lich's eyes boring into my mind Ike daggers of fire.

- From the private journal of Matthew Swiftsinger of Skald, in Kartakass

Woe to the person who encounters a lich possessed of the secrets of the mind - who can, by hypnotic will alone, look into the depths of a human soul. These beasts are towers of iron fortitude, creating and driving their unlife not by magical means, but by the pure desire of their evil will to continue, to enlarge their mental prowess, to stand upon the pinnacle of all that is human and to look beyond at any cost to the rest of the world. The information about liches with these strange mesmeric abilities is very sparse. However, I have been able to knit together some few threads of knowledge into tenuous conclusions.

Although some liches command powers that are assuredly will-driven in nature or effect, a lich whose very undead state is derived from its mesmeric abilities is quite rare indeed. In fact, only three other such liches have been rumored to exist aside from the entity of evil spoken of in the journal of Matthew Swiftsinger. (Swiftsinger seems to have served such a being before later confronting it while part of an adventuring group led by the infamous Harkon Lukas of Kartakass.)

As a scholar of the profane and evil, I have learned to accept much that defies the very precepts of logic-there is very little that I will ever call "impossible". Even so, I was predisposed to dismiss the existence of the mental arts as chicanery or magic. I found it difficult to distinguish between a master of mental powers and an archmage of the arcane, until the journal of Matthew Swiftsinger came into my hands some time ago. Swiftsinger was a bard, himself, but he was also a practitioner of the mental arts.

I was given Swiftsinger's personal journal while on a werewolf-hunting expedition in Kartakass (yet another subject about which I will write someday). It was in that shadowy realm that I first heard stories of the mesmeric lich. As I am well aware of the preponderance of bards in that land, I was inclined to dismiss the notion as dramatic narrative. However, my exhaustive research techniques inevitably led to the bard's journal.

Now, having digested its contents, I conclude that his account rings true on so many points that I am forced to consider Swiftsinger's mental talents as a force apart from that of magic. Even more disturbing, it would seem that he honed his talents under a mentalist lich. I have included a pertinent passage from his journal below. I think the fact that he never spun a tale or lyric from this experience lends credence to the truth of it.

Although I was ever possessed of the gift to look into men's minds and see the secrets they withheld from the world, I believed it to be but the intuition of the artist, a mere conceit of sensitivity that opened my mind to truth and the human heart.

Then did I make acquaintance with Master Ulathar (as he named himself, though it was just another of his prevarications), and he inducted me into his elite circle of mentalists. He taught me not only how to probe the secrets of others' minds, but how to subvert their convictions with my own notions.

Quite nearly did I lose sight of the truth, and my power to tell it, before I glimpsed the mind of my master and turned against him-it-afterward to return to the true calling of the bard.

In my research on ghosts, I recorded many stories of unfortunates set upon evildoers in the guise of friends, and of innocents fatally betrayed by loved ones. These tragic Figures, by sheer force of will, reanimated their mortal shells to wreak vengeance on their murderers. While this type of reanimation is fueled by outraged spirits determined to forestall or avenge their own deaths, the state itself is not one specifically sought by the revenants. In such tales, once revenants' goals are fulfilled, they happily seek the afterlife for which were destined.

Mentalist liches differ from such beings on several points. First, and most obviously, the liches purposefully sought their undead state. Second, they do not end their unnatural lives with the accomplishment of any goal; rather, unlife t's their goal, and it now serves them in the pursuit of further mental endeavors. Finally, these liches are masters of the mental disciplines, rather than unfortunates whose emotional state combined tragically with their force of will to enable them gain a temporary semblance or extension of life.

While it is a tortuous and near impossible thing to grasp the mind of the mentalist lich, it is not beyond mortal ken to understand the drives that led it to its undead state: a lust for knowledge, a drive for excellence, and an unquenchable thirst for power - the very same ambitions that possess all of its kind. More specifically, it would see that the mentalist lich has a burning desire to outstrip all others in mental capabilities. It craves a discipline that will raise it above all other beings, even those of its own ilk. It passionately craves the self-knowledge that it is the best, the supreme master of the mind, and that no other of its mental stature exists. Indeed, to survive it needs the same power that allows it to pursue studies beyond the laws of mortals, beyond the reach of human comprehension, and across the very planes of existence, life, and unlife.

Mentalist liches are by their nature the most studious of their breed, and so they are the most reclusive. They commit their life spans of millennia to honing their disciplines beyond the aspirations any mortal creature.

Spending years in the refinement of one hair's-breadth of improvement, one tortuous point of logical control, one meditative discipline of mind over matter, is nothing more than a schoolbook exercise in penmanship to these masters of arcane will. In the end, they transcend the realm of human thought and enter a mental world beyond mortal understanding.

A striking difference between the mentalist and the mystical lich lies in the nature of their auras. The aura of cold darkness that commonly accompanies a common lich is absent in the creature of mesmeric power. Where other sources speak of the intense cold of a lich's presence, the tales told by Swiftsinger speak only of a prickling of the skin, an undercurrent of power that was evident as he neared the foul beast, evident before the nearby creature was even seen.

As Swiftsinger drew nearer to the lich in their final encounter, the lich completely revealed for what it was, a mental oppression came upon the youth such that he was unable to think dearly. Every action became an effort of extreme will, and he was convinced that some sort of power had seized his sword arm and made it strike poorly. A mage of some power who was in the group was reported to speak with extreme effort, as if spitting words into the wind of a hurricane.

This effect would seem to be some clouding of the mind which is caused by the aura of the mentalist lich. I surmise that it is an innate quality, ever present and requiring no effort or concentration to put into effect, just as is the aura of cold that enfolds a mystical lich. Whether or not this clouding has some special effect on those of exceptional mental or mesmeric ability, I am unable to say.

Even worse, this cloud of confusion can be directed by the dark thoughts of the mesmeric lich. A mental blow from this creature causes not only physical damage, but also a psychic repercussion that feels as if it tears away at the very mind and spirit of a being. Swiftsinger described it, saying, "It was as if the icy fingers of death had picked at the raveled edges of my mind, then yanked loose a handful of the threads of my life".

Other powers that the mentalist lich manifests are difficult to discern. Swiftsinger's tale speaks of people set upon by their own shadows; forced to fight hordes of imaginary spiders, snakes, or wolves (in each case, the creature feared most by the victim); or battered by mental waves of hatred and terror until they crouched as gibbering fools, drooling upon the ground. He also speaks of mighty warriors forced to commit the most horrific acts in their own minds, forced to feel themselves enjoying their foul deeds, then released to suffer pangs of remorse and confusion. Truly, the ability of the mentalist lich to climb inside an individual's own mind, elicit that which most horrifies him, then torment him with it, is the mentalist lich's most insidious and vile capability of all.

As a devotee of cognitive pursuits, the mentalist lich rarely needs to leave its lair - it can conduct experiments within its own mind. Even when it does venture forth, I speculate that it does so through its mental devotions, transporting itself through a refined exertion of mind over matter. These peculiar abilities and exceptional reclusive tendencies make the discovery of its lair an arduous task.

Nonetheless, there are logical places to search. As usual, the lair would most likely be secluded and unvisited by mortals. Also, the lair would be relatively close to a repository of knowledge, such as an ancient and well-established library or a college of mesmeric discipline, as the lure of accumulated knowledge and wisdom would be a siren call to a being devoted to perfecting its mind. A third area to which the lich would be drawn is any site of mass carnage. Like the lich of magical derivation, the mentalist lich seems to feel an affinity for places imbued with the psychic resonance of death. Places with a history of great tragedy - huge battlefields, castles buried by landslides and volcanic eruptions, colleges swamped by tidal waves so that they are drowned beneath the seas - these are the places that call out to the mentalist lich. Perhaps the lich feels kinship to the many wispy echoes of mental agony left from the tragedy. Or, in a revelation of its momentous ego and hubris, perhaps it equates the massive human tragedies embodied by such places with its own tragic transformation.

The juxtaposition of these three requisites can sometimes create a nexus wherein the lich's lair may be pinpointed. Such is the place for the hunter to begin his tracking. Of course, many of the devices and strategies used by the more common lich to protect its lair are also undoubtedly employed by mentalist liches. As always, an abundance of lethal tricks and traps remains the surest sign that you are getting close to the lair of a lich.

While a lich of the arcane derivation uses primarily undead as its minions, the mentalist lich is more likely to draw upon living persons for help. I base this hypothesis upon the assumption that sentient creatures are of much more use to a mentalist than mindless undead. I doubt that most servants of a mentalist lich truly know what they serve, for surely their sharp minds are muddled by their master's still sharper will.

From Swiftsinger's accounts and what little I have gleaned from other texts and stories of travelers from afar, mortals who are possessed of the rare talents of the mind and who wish to develop them are often at a loss to find teachers under whom to study. True masters of the mental arts are so few and far between that even those of good heart may be tempted to study at the feet of one of such evil as the mesmeric lich. Such a creature would be the ultimate sage, as it has manifestly looked far beyond what a mortal mind could experience or grasp.

Such liches may use their powers to cloud human minds and make themselves appear as normal mortals wisdom. They would then attract students to perform quests in distant lands, labor as experimental subjects, and serve as guards and soldiers. It would not be beyond a mentalist lich to set itself up as the head of a mystic cult to a nonexistent deity, or to masquerade as a minor god itself, to gain followers of use to it.

Unfortunately for students ambitious and gifted enough to study with a mentalist lich, the master is as likely to fatally entangle them in its web of subtle and devious plots as it is to impart to them the knowledge they so passionately seek. Furthermore, once a servant has served his master's purposes, he might well find himself serving one last, less profitable service - I shudder to guess at what awaits even the most faithful servant of the faithless lich when his usefulness is exhausted. For the lich, dismissing a loyal student who successfully completed many arduous quests would carry all the pangs of saying "farewell" to Lord Azalin's tax collector, yet that student would be extraordinarily fortunate if a dismissal were all he got for his troubles. And woe to any student who displeases or annoys the lich! Killing a student who failed the least task or who dared to remain beyond his welcome would equate in the monster's mind to squashing a roach under a boot.

The point of this discussion is that the the path of a mentalist human is probably the clearest path to a lich of the same bent. Those who devote their lives to pursuing the powers of the mind are few and far between. Even if the student fails to learn the true nature of his master and repudiate it (unlike the bard Swiftsinger), a resourceful lich hunter may follow the cerebral river to its source, then choke off the flow once and for all. On the other hand, followers of a powerful mesmeric master would certainly be extremely intelligent. Whether they might be useful as instruments of betrayal is questionable.

The appearance and abilities of the mentalist lich are difficult to detail, as I have only the journal of Matthew Swiftsinger and some bits of rumor upon which to base my conclusions. I must speak in generalities, and the wise reader must be wary of my speculations.

According to the account of Swiftsinger, the mentalist lich shares a superficial physical similarity with the lich of arcane origin. The flesh is shriveled upon the bones, giving the creature the appearance of a corpse dried by a desert wind. The eyes have disappeared from their sockets, or been transformed, and twin points of crimson illuminate the spaces.

This creature seems to prefer loose robes of colorful design, but it does not maintain its garments, except perhaps by illusory means. Thus, the finery is tattered and torn when the mentalist lich's true form is at last viewed.

As may be expected, the mentalist lich is inclined to collect magical items with which to defend itself and enhance its powers, rather than make them. Even under the guise of an illusion, the presence of curious baubles and intricate jewelry may give away the lich.