Lead me from darkness to light!
Lead me from death to immortality!
- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
Psychology
I was alone in. my study, conducting
some meditation, when I happened
upon a secluded mind. I say
"secluded" because I do not think it
meant to be heard by someone such
as me. Nevertheless, I saw what its
mind generated. I looked into the
eternal despair that utterly gripped it,
until all it could think of was a final
death where there would be no pain,
where everything would finally,
mercifully end.
I was moved to weep for this poor soul, but I then caught Just a glimpse of what this creature truly was and I was instantly repulsed. I had that night accidentally looked into the mind of a lich. I doubt I will ever again see such pain or despair - or evil.
Kilrinia Trynar, mentalist
This was the first description of lich psychology to cross to my desk, the first hint of its inner thoughts. I wondered if other interests of the lich - evil ceremonies, quests for power and knowledge, and so forth - were a gift or a curse. For an instant I felt pity. Fortunately, I also have found other texts that gave me a far different perspective on the matter. Be forewarned: Pity for a lich will cost you your life!
The first thing I should say about this foul creature of the undead is that no good-hearted lich exists in my land. This may seem obvious, but every lich I have encountered was completely evil, though tales tell of liches in far-off lands that are supposedly less malign. Perhaps the lich can know suffering, experience joy, and feel pain, loneliness, passion, and all emotions in between. However, at its core it is evil and wholly undeserving of any sympathy. Nevertheless, I would like to try to impart some understanding of this monster so that the lich hunter may comprehend what motivates it.
While liches may be of any alignment in other AD&D campaigns, those creatures that reside in the Ravenloft campaign are uniformly evil. They are, however, free to pursue lawful, neutral, or chaotic lifestyles.
The lich certainly possesses enough poise to manage dealings with other creatures. I am sure no being can live its entire existence without contact with any other creature, if only an enemy. (I once experienced the odd feeling that my hostile intrusion upon one lich's privacy was met with a sort of relief. This is not to say that it was glad to see me!) The lich is hardly a conversationalist, and by its general nature is an isolationist. It approaches every situation with a self-centered perspective. All of its activity is aimed at gaining information or whatever else it desires.
Such objectives might be hampered by the lich's use of social graces and turns of phrase that are generally a century or more out of date - an eerie yet marginally amusing trait. One good way to spot a lich in disguise is to carefully watch any individual using speech older than that used by the eldest villager - particularly if a stalwart young lad is the speaker! A lich can polymorph itself into any shape, but its behavior can thwart the disguise. On the other hand, recall Shat this creature is extremely intelligent and cunning and tries to be convincing in any guise. Doubtless, a lich will take steps to learn most of the behavior patterns of any creature it impersonates. A tiny slip may be your only clue at breaking the ruse.
I believe that the outright destruction of a lich's adversaries is a plan of last resort for this evil being. It seems to believe that there is merit in preserving other creatures - even enemies. After all, important secrets might be gained through interrogation of a captive, and servants of goodly deities might be subverted. Either outcome represents a terrible victory for the lich against the forces of good, as well as the acquisition of powerful weapons to use against all mortals.
We tracked the Hazlanic lich that called itself the Moonbane almost to the Nightmare Lands. We passed through a system of catacombs in which we would have been hopelessly lost without the keen eyes of Torenor the dwarf. At last we found the lich's lab and broke through the false ceiling, right where I guessed it would be.
Therein we found the enraged lich, guarding a large ruby with all its gruesome defenses. A bloody battle ensued. Through some apparent stroke of both bad and good luck, I was the sole survivor. With my last ounce of strength, I drove my short sword through the breast of the monster, and it collapsed to the floor in a pile of dust and bone.
Though my wracked muscles forbade me to move another inch, I drew forth a hummer from my trusty satchel and smashed the ruby. The stone exploded with a firestorm of blazing mists, and I fell, exhausted and near death.
I was torn by the deaths of my comrades, and unable to understand bow I had survived the onslaught. It seemed that the lich had not used its magic to greatest effect. As soon as I was able, I hired a new termination crew and returned to the lair. As I suspected, the lab and every other trace of the lich were gone.
The whole thing had been but a ruse, but I was on to it now. I publicly declared the hunt a success and left, secretly planning to return a day later.
Sure enough, the next day, the lich bad slipped back.
Despite its best-laid plans and careful measures, the machinations of the lich (and even its main lair) are sometimes discovered. In these situations, I have found that the lich often makes an attempt to trick its enemies into believing that it has left the area.
Rather than make a display of outright defiance, it seems that it is of paramount importance to the lich to convince the hunters that they have succeeded in their task. The lich usually destroys everyone in the hunting party but one. (In three separate cases of this sort, I was the sole survivor.) It then depends on the surviving member to carry away the news that the lich has been killed. Once that is done, the undead wizard returns to its dark designs in peace, comfortable in the knowledge that no more living creatures will come after it. A crafty lich may even scale down its operations in the area for a period of years, perhaps for one or two generations of the creatures living in the area, to convince the hunters of their success. After all, what are fifty or a hundred years to such a creature, except as time to research an ultrapowerful spell?
A lich was once a mortal. Somewhere at the core of the lich is a mortal mind, suddenly made immortal though its living flesh is now insensible and rotting. Being an undead master of magic complicates matters, making a stable mind rather difficult to come by in a lich - at least during the early years of its existence.
I noted in my guide to vampires that newly created vampires go through several psychological stages, from elation to apathy. I believe that liches experience a similar rush of power at the realization of a successful transformation, but I do not think that liches ever feel the vampires' weariness with the passing of eons. While the intensely magical nature of liches remove them from accepted standards of sanity and insanity, no evidence suggests that the strain of immortality has any deleterious effects on them in the long run. Having entered into extensive discourse with divers wizards, priests, sages, and mystic philosophers, I have drawn the following conclusions from my observations of a number of liches.
Each lich must undergo a transformation of its mind - the higher mind - in addition to the physical and mystical changes. It must grasp the ramifications of eternal life so that it can function effectively in its new form. Immortality can make one drunk with carelessness, but the lich must remain in control of its emotions and intellect, lest it put itself in unnecessary danger.
Aspects of life upon which mortals depend are daily rituals of maintenance. We sleep, eat, and perform many duties that divide our days into sections in which we can more closely devote our energies. I discipline myself with a reward system - if there I must perform a duty of which I am not particularly fond, give myself a reward once the duty is performed.
Now, imagine having nothing to add variety to your day other than the countless conjurations of spell research. Imagine not having to sleep or eat. When night comes, it has no effect upon you. You need no light to see, nor a moon to sleep under. You do not eat, so your senses of taste and smell would be worthless if they were not already gone with your mortality. Lacking skin, you cannot feel things as do mortals. And, as I have previously speculated, vision (and probably hearing as well) grants no more beauty to a lich's senses than a wall would to a bat. All your senses are gone, so you have nothing stimulating to look forward to at the end of the day - no ale after a long journey, no fresh meat after a good hunt, no scent of your home as you enter it, no sweet caress of a child or lover to comfort you. Can power or evil wash away the appreciation of these things?
Time loses meaning. Each day becomes the same, with the concept of time a vague memory. All that is for you is only your own self. You may monitor the outside world, sometimes very closely, but it is easy to lose track of what progresses outside your lair when you neglect to peer outside a window for a decade, favoring instead to research a newfound text or create a particular amalgamation. What if you sat down to read a book, then looked up from it a generation later, when no one was left alive to recognize, no peers with which to debate a fine point?
Perhaps the lich undergoes a psychological ordeal similar to that of the vampire, when boredom (for lack of a better word) erodes its will to exist. Mages in all likelihood undergo the transformation to lichdom in haste after discovering the secret, but they may pay the price in personal anguish for many years.
Nevertheless, they all seem to recover. Some aspect of the lich's mind is able to undergo those torments and weather them out. It may take a few months or a century - but all liches eventually become accustomed to their existence and function comfortably.
It may also be that some - perhaps even most - liches despair and die, fade away, or otherwise terminate their existence as some vampires do. If so, this is a blessing to the living as well as a mercy to the lich. How many more liches would plague the world otherwise?
What Goal, Then?
What, then, does the lich do with the time it has? What time-consuming diversions stir its black heart? What goals that the lich undertakes during the early part of its existence are likely determined by its interests previous to its transformation from a living creature?
Generally, a mage who undergoes the transformation is already well established with riches, a well-secured lair, a library, and a laboratory in which to carry out its arcane rituals. For this lich, there remains the quest for rare spell materials. Indeed, the pursuit of magical components may be a lich's first order of business because it presents a familiar activity in which to engage while the freshly altered monster adjusts to its new form. (Take note: Sometimes the best way to find a lich is to find that which it seeks!) Once its lair is built and stocked, the lich will surely turn to the next logical pursuit: power. Being an undead master of magic is of little meaning if the power is not exercised. To this end, the lich can undertake any number of efforts designed to test and expand its power base.
One common method of bolstering one's authority is to attempt to gain control of a kingdom by planting a lich-controlled king upon a throne. But this sort of power may be fleeting to the lich, as the king and his subjects die too quickly to provide lasting entertainment or any use beyond the experimental. Such a lich must eventually find a new arena to exercise its prerogative, and that means finding whole new concepts of power and control-and this means exploration into other realms of reality, beyond human ken.
I have heard a quaint phrase that goes "There's a whole world out there". A lich with the knowledge and ability to leave our world and travel to undreamed-of realms of existence has a vast arena of experiences from which to choose. Perhaps a lich may undertake the conquest of a small realm that is generally ignored by other world-traveling mages. This would certainly present much stimulation and opportunity for evil. The planning and organization alone could take decades, the execution centuries.
Among all of these plans is, of course, the quest for higher magic. This quest, as I have stated, is a never-ending, all-pervading characteristic of the lich's existence. There is always more magic to command, secrets to learn, and artifacts to find or create. The lich is driven to find the answers - sometimes for its own sake, other times as a means to more power. Always, however, it is for the cause of evil.
