Lich

A lich is what a necromancer becomes when he refuses to stop working. The undead bodies his own spells produce are stronger than the one he was born with, but they hold no mana, and a mage without mana is nothing. So he does not put his life into the body. He cuts out his vital organs first, keeps them alive somewhere no one will find them, and lets them go on making red mana while he draws it across the distance into a corpse that will never age.

He loses his body and keeps everything that mattered: his mind, his caster level, and every formula he ever learned. What he gains is a frame that feels no pain, needs no food, and cannot be poisoned, worn down, or frightened.

What he cannot do is sleep. A lich recovers spell slots through meditation, the one form of true rest a dead body can perform (see 4).

A Medium creature, created by Create Undead King on a body whose organs were preserved beforehand. Without that preparation, the same spell produces a vampire instead.

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Lich (Create Undead King)

This is not a Raise Undead template and it is not indexed by spell level. A lich is a person, so its table is indexed by the level of the person who became one. Create Undead King is a Level 10 spell and requires CL 30 of whoever casts it, but the subject can be of any level.

Lich, Medium undead (mind intact) Speed: 30 ft per tick HP: see table, per point of Strength DR: see table Saves: Reflex DC, Fortitude—none, Will—its own

Attacks:

• Withering Touch: Base damage 2d8 per level of the lich (necrotic). A living creature struck also loses that much maximum HP until a true rest; the lich recovers the same amount.

What the Subject Keeps

• Every mental statistic—Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma—and all of them frozen forever, as with Undead Resurrection. New memories and new knowledge accumulate; the mind holding them never changes again.
• Its own Will Save. A lich has a mind, so nothing about it is immune to mental magic.
• caster level, spell slots, and every spell learned in life. A necromancer becomes a lich precisely so this line survives.

What the Body Replaces

Hit Points, DR, Speed, attacks, and physical statistics come from this entry, not from the class the subject used to have. A Wizard who becomes a lich trades a base of 6 HP per point of Strength for 10.

Undead Nature An undead with its mind intact; see 3. It makes no Fortitude Save, does not bleed, needs no air, food, or sleep, and is destroyed at 0 HP. Negative energy heals it; positive energy burns it—a high-level Heal is the one thing on a battlefield that reliably threatens a lich, and no DR of its own will be enough.

The Vital Organs The lich's mana comes from organs kept alive elsewhere. While they are safe, it casts as it always did. Destroy them and the mana stops forever. The lich is not killed by this; it goes on existing, mind intact, with every formula it ever learned and nothing left to cast them with. Finding the organs is the only way to beat a lich that does not involve out-damaging it, and the lich knows this better than anyone hunting it.

Command of the Dead Undead raised by this lich obey it without the emerald ever being contested: it is the necromancer they answer to. A lich that has held a place for decades is never found alone.

Variable Stats by Level of the Lich

Variable	Level 1	Level 3	Level 5	Level 7	Level 9	Level 10
HP per Strength Point	10	20	40	80	160	320
Withering Touch	2d8	6d8	10d8	14d8	18d8	20d8
Number of attacks per turn	2	2	3	3	4	4
DR	4	8	16	32	64	128
Speed	30ft	30ft	30ft	30ft	30ft	30ft