What do you do for lich and necromancer villains?

What do you do for lich and necromancer villains?
How do you go about subverting the cliche of a power-hungry mad man that turns to lichdom?

Pic somewhat related, but not exactly a necromancer.

Other urls found in this thread:

38.media.tumblr.com/4d2f6b0cee1add6e72dc02098282dae3/tumblr_ne6i6huD4g1tsg9ioo4_500.gif
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Why would I subvert it for no reason? It's a good, effective archetype which makes sense.

It is, but I was wondering if there were other well done cases of them not being the archetype.
But, I guess it being lichdom not many other types of people would go for it.

The green knight from Warhammer, Skull Knight from Berserk

>How do you go about subverting the cliche of a power-hungry mad man that turns to lichdom?

How about a reclusive researcher who believes he hasn't lived long enough to complete his great works?

Making a pact with the devil is just a Warlock. There is nothing stopping a warlock from taking spells dealing with undead, thereby making him a necromancer who has simply acquired his power through methods other than intense book study.

>attempting to subvert cliches
That itself is a cliche.

I generally don't subvert the power hungry madness too much, I just give it focus. My LE cleric necromancer for instance is hell bent on revenge for the loss of her home and temple in a peasant uprising. Her goal is to retake her homeland, rebuild her temple from the bones of the slain, and force every soul in her homeland to swear fealty or she'll kill them and raise them as her eternal servants. It's power hungry, it's mad, but it's also a definite goal with clear motivation. And if you have that, even stale archetypes can be interesting.

>How do you go about subverting the cliche of a power-hungry mad man that turns to lichdom?
He wasn't hungry for power. He just wanted to see what would happen.

What reasons are there for someone willing to perform inherently Evil acts in exchange for eternal life?

I assume we're talking D&D. Evil is a cosmic force. It's not something you can argue, try to rationalize or justify, and is not something to mess around with either.

There's really not much underlying reason beyond lust for power that would drive someone to this. Deconstruct the motivation more if you'd like, but I've been unable to arrive at anything else.
To be clear, I'm considering knowledge and power to be the same thing, because of

Slight turn on that.

A fledgling wizards love is turned into a statue by another because of reasons. First wizard spends his life trying to turn her back, fails, turns to zombie magic to keep trying.

He has no idea it's been centuries, and it was actually a teleportation spell. She's been dead in the other wizards tower for ages.

>pic very much related, and movie criminally underrated

I've been having tons of issues with gifs since the latest iOS update, anyone else having that?
38.media.tumblr.com/4d2f6b0cee1add6e72dc02098282dae3/tumblr_ne6i6huD4g1tsg9ioo4_500.gif

My GM something like that. Old fuck wizard, legitimately believed there was no such thing as "evil" magic, that magic was just a tool

He wanted to make an Academy that taught all forms of magic. He also wanted to live to ensure his dream wasn't corrupted by future generations.
So he turned himself into a lich.

My PC, who was a Necromancer, went to said academy.

>subverting

Why the fuck would I want to do this?

I want to have fun with my friends, not deconstruct the genre.

If your friends are into that then sure

Anything you can possibly imagine has been done, probably better than you can do it.

Focus on fun characters that the players get involved in rather than trying to re-invent the wheel. They'll enjoy it just as much and you won't stress out about the storytelling prestige of your grown up version of pretending you're a knight.

He wants to have fun.
When PCs show up and see him quilting a cape out of skin of still living gnomes, he starts going on about fun police and stuff like that.

>static gif

>It's power hungry, it's mad, but it's also a definite goal with clear motivation. And if you have that, even stale archetypes can be interesting.
>that spoiler
I like you gentlemen. Please continue your excellent works.

>not using lossless filetypes that respect your need for reasonable file sizes

Large gifs are far more memory efficient than large pngs. Unless color quality is paramount, there is no reason not to save line-based images as gif.

If you read the post right below the static gif, you'd have known that I was having issues with iOS. Turns out to be something with chrome itself, since safari actually works for saving and playing gifs

>reasonable file sizes
>he can't afford HDDs or good internet
Top kek.

>I drive a car with 7 mpg
>fucking poorfags in their 24 mpg cars
There's nothing stopping you from doing this as some form of personal gloating, but it doesn't make you any less dumb.

I like pic related myself.

>generic "the necromancer was a good guy all along" cliche

It's so overdone it's shit. Please play more than a few sessions of TTRPGs before posting.

Reanimating the past -> Chronomancy
Awakening the dead through bardic necromancy -> I JUST WANT TO WATCH EVERYBODY DANCE AND BE HAPPY