Is Sauron in LotR technically a lich? What about Voldemort? I think they fit the criteria

None of the Elves "die" either. They have a special Elf purgatory that they get to watch history from until the end of time. Humans and Hobbits can die just fine, though, and get to a pretty neat afterlife.

Being an Elf suddenly doesn't sound so fun, huh? Enjoy biological immortality fuckers, you'll probably make an oath or piss off some evil diety and be stuck in the 'waiting room' afterlife till the sun itself dies and the universe fades to nothing. Only then do they actually pass on.

Tolkien is brutal and depressing; in his world the mortality of Men actually is a gift of a loving overgod to his second children. It's just that he tends to hide it behind flowery descriptions of landscape, and all the horrible stuff is in Silmarilion and barely referenced in LotR or Hobbit.

Blasted lands, desolation dotted with ancient ruins, overgrown roads and forgotten tombs had become such an overused fantasy trope today that we rarely ever think about what it implies.

>Blasted lands, desolation dotted with ancient ruins, overgrown roads and forgotten tombs had become such an overused fantasy trope today
I'm fairly sure that this has more to do with Roman empire than with Tolkien.

Sounds pretty chill.

It had when Tolkien used it, which is why he used it. But now it's been copied so much it lost all the impact it had back then, even if you yourself do your own research and take you material from the source.

People just kind of take ancient ruined advanced civilizations for granted in fantasy these days. Unless they're crazy unique, or it's really soon after the fall, they just kind of fade into the background of most settings, although to be fair the plot rarely involves them.

Sauron wasn't human and never returned to his Ring when he died, and Voldemort never actually died and had multiple Horcruxes, so neither can be Liches. They're pretty fucking close, though.

I think Voldemort's physical form was destroyed temporarily, then he took over turban man's head, and eventually reformed the weird snake-baby-man before the whole "graveyard ritual" thing

Exactly. His form was destroyed, his spirit survived. He fled to Albania, where Quirrell found him years later. Then Harry killed Quirrell with his magic burny hands, and Voldemort fled again to Albania. Then Wormtail found him, brought him back to England and started feeding him a potion that gave him form (his weird baby monster form). Then they used Harry's blood, Wormtail's flesh, and Voldermort's dad's bones to regenerate his body back to his previous form.

As always, nothing good ever comes out of Albania

Catholicism is pretty hardcore.

*tips mitre*

They only share the whole "rip my own soul out so I don't die when killed" part, which in itself finds roots with Koschei the Immortal. True Liches reform at full power at their phylactery shortly after being slain, they go from unlife to nonexistent to unlife, no "powerless wraith who has to bide his time and strength" interludes.

I think that's probably the biggest difference.

Liches are separated from their soul, so they get anchored to life.

Both Sauron and Voldemort retain a piece of their soul but also have another piece in their phylactery.

They make pretty good icecream.

Why would that make him a lich? Besides, he doesn't die when his ring is destroyed, he's an immortal spirit that can't die, just after his ring is lost he's unable to take a form or project any influence into the world ever again.

Yes, canonically, Sauron is still around to this day, floating about as a powerless invisible spirit.

always wondered why Sauron is named the 'necromancer' when he inhabits Dol Guldur. The ringwraiths never really died so he didn't resurrect them and the same goes for himself. Tolkien never suggests he can animate the dead either. Then there's the whole is he a giant vampire bat, werewolf, eye or twink debate.

Actually it was usual for Elves to reincarnate when they die (as another Elf), only the ones deemed "marked" by their lives are kept in Elf Purgatory.

When the world finally ends, however, the Elves will end with it. Humans and Hobbits are the /truly/ immortal beings, because our spirits will live on after the end of the world alongside God.

He was in disguise. Also he certainly knew necromancy, which exists in the Tolkien setting but of course is "black magic" we never actually see anyone attempt (except Aragorn, when he raises the shades of the Dunharrow Ghosts to fulfil their ancient oath, a feat he is ordained to do by the Gods but that Legolas still finds almost unbearably creepy).

Sauron is specifically a fallen angel. Literally that's what he is.

>Tolkien never suggests he can animate the dead either.

The Barrow Wights were raised by either Sauron himself or his pupil, the Witchking of Angmar. But necromancy in Tolkien isn't voodoo, it's about communicating with and controlling the shades of the dead, either to imprison them in their own corpses like the Barrow Wights, or to interrogate for information. The idea that necromancy is about raising mindless hordes of zombies is a modern one, it wasn't how necromancy was understood during Tolkien's time.

Necromancer = "death-speaker"
It's a modern development of fiction that X-mancy means "one who controls X" (e.g. pyromancer, geomancer), the suffix just means "one who speaks to X"

Lich is a very specific fantasy trope and Sauron doesn't really fit the bill in my opinion. A lich is a mortal who tries to stave off death by sealing his soul in an item while Sauron is a fallen angel/ demigod who is immortal by default. I don't think any of the Ainur actually died ever, they're a permanent part of the world.

One of the major themes in LOTR and Silmarillion is that magic is slowly dying out and the world is becoming more mundane. Sauron put most of his power in the One Ring but his immortality isn't related to it - the ring is more like an external battery.

>I don't think any of the Ainur actually died ever, they're a permanent part of the world.

The Valar certainly are, but idk what if anything happened to the spirits of the numerous Balrogs, Werewolves and Vampires who died serving Morgoth / Sauron, and Saruman was given oblivion rather than the endless torture of immateriality that was imposed on Sauron, so Maiar /can/ die.

What about dwarves, orcs, goblins, etc.? Do they get their own afterlife?

Elves are supposed to be a part of the celestial choir or whatever, they're created by the big daddy Illuvatar.

Dwarves were created by one of the Valars against Illuvatar's wishes, but he repented. It's a bit unclear about the dwarves, but if I had to guess they're outta luck/ in the same boat with humans.

Orcs/Goblins aren't really discussed in Silmarillion but I'm guessing that they're boned and don't get an afterlife.

Humans get to experience death and supposedly go somewhere, but Illuvatar isn't telling anyone where so it's a crapshoot.

In sense of traditional afterlife, elves are the only ones who get it. Once they die, they get to party with the Valars and a chance to come back if they want to.

This shit drives me crazy when reading modern settings, but that's what i get for being an "oldfag"

Dwarves go to Aule, where they will wait to rebuild after Tolkien's ragnarok.

Orcs are broken elves, so may find redemption or something (though there are suggestions that those evil spirits in Morgoth and Sauron control are dead Orcs).Goblins are the same thing as Orcs.

English is a living language and conventions of fiction are as mutable as authors desire.
It helps that "pyromancer" rolls off the tongue very, very nicely, evoking both "romance" and "pyromania".

>They only share the whole "rip my own soul out so I don't die when killed" part, which in itself finds roots with Koschei the Immortal. True Liches reform at full power at their phylactery shortly after being slain, they go from unlife to nonexistent to unlife, no "powerless wraith who has to bide his time and strength" interludes.

That was something added in 3.0. 2e and earlier Liches required an appropriate corpse before they could reform.

He is dark Jesus

They are both literally meant to be liches, yes.
>the necromancer's tower

Also this stop getting all tvtropes about this.

According to some people citing the Sillmarillion, the Dwarven belief is that when they die they go to a separate part of the Hall of Waiting, to practice their crafts so that after Dagor Dagorath (the apocalypse) they will help Aule rebuild the world.
The Elves (or at least the Noldor) think that they will return to the stone they were made of.

>I can say whatever I want and can never be wrong!
>I can also apply my twisted and misinformed interpretations of the definition of a word to literature written when the word had a solid definition
retarded and childish

>Sauron
No.

>Voldermort
No.

you sound mad

>I was merely pretending to be retarded

Yeah I was thinking about the "back to stone" thing.

When it comes down to the absolute knowledge about afterlife in Middle Earth, we only know that elves go to Valimor and can potentially come back, and humans go elsewhere and pretty much nobody knows what happens. The only exception is Beren, Luthien convinced Mandos to bring him back to life and they lived out their lives together as humans.

I stand by my word, but you're still getting pretty chuffed

Yeah

Welcome to basic linguistics

Now do you wanna tell me what cynic means?

>>I can say whatever I want and can never be wrong!
When you're an author detailing your own universe? Yeah. Rabbits are smeerps. Silly, but not wrong.
>>I can also apply my twisted and misinformed interpretations of the definition of a word to literature written when the word had a solid definition
Fiction works like that. Unless you want everyone to argue about what every single noun means. Surely, energy must only mean the capacity to perform work, right?

I think his argument is (though he's not particularly eloquent about it) that authors can misuse words all they like within their setting, but when it comes to a meta discussion on those words, they'll be wrong.

Tolkien never made it clear whether they were separate from Orcs, a special kind of Orcs or the same as all the other Orcs. I prefer thinking that they're Orcs, but of a special kind.

I don't think D&D should be the ultimate authority on liches. If I'm not mistaken, modern liches were originally created by Lovecraft, and his lich possessed bodies instead of reforming from nothing.

Except he did make it clear. He said that "goblin" was just a Hobbit word for Orc.

You're very much mistaken. In the terminology now accepted, referring to a sorcerer who has achieved pseudo-immortality and can return from the dead, has essentially nothing to do with how Lovecraft used the word. It referred to the body, not the sorcerer--Ephraim was not a "lich" as in a creature, but a "lich" as in a dead body.
Which is to say the etymology of "lich" just means corpse. The one to apply it in relation to undead magicians, creating the modern convention, is Gary Gygax.

Where did he say that?

There's an author's note in an edition of the Hobbit that says:

>Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds). Orc is the hobbits' form of the name given at that time to these creatures, and it is not connected at all to our orc, ork, applied to sea-animals of dolphin-kind.

DnD cosmology has some very specific and finicky ideas about divinity. And Vecna was a lich before he was a god, which feels like cart-before-horse.
(Plus, he didn't ascend because of a plot or anything; they just randomly declared he was a god at some point (either 3e or 4e, could be either one, they both had terrible setting decisions.)

It's ridiculous just how much about how certain undead (and monsters in general, really) work was codified over the last fifty years.

>Plus, he didn't ascend because of a plot or anything; they just randomly declared he was a god at some point
Vecna ascends to godhood at the closure of 2E in the adventure "Die Vecna Die!" (2000). His ascension, taking place within the boundaries of Sigil, causes a ripple of effect throughout the multiverse (ostensibly this is why divine beings are not allowed in Sigil), and is the justification for the changes from 2E to 3E.

See, I thought that the PCs are supposed to prevent that over the course of it, and that they later retconned it so that he became a god anyway.
Not that it surprises me that an adventure that...
1)Was written to connect two editions
2)Involved Godhood
3)Involved Planescape
...was actually terrible.

>I thought that the PCs are supposed to prevent that over the course of it
Nah, God!Vecna's the final boss. The party's doomed to fail and only arrive the moment after he completes his godhood. They then beat up his avatar (since his real self is being spread throughout the multiverse or some nonsense) and he's banished.

>The party's doomed to fail
I'm not going to claim that kind of railroading is inherently bad, because it can be great if handled well...but is it?

It sets up for a climactic showdown and it's justified since you are never really directed with an opportunity to "catch up" to Vecna, he's supposed to be a mile ahead at every point.
It's a very run-of-the-mill campaign module, really.

What?

>it can be great if handled well
Show me a single example where failure felt great.

Dark Souls

If you mean tabletop then I don't know any actual adventure module examples because neither I nor anyone I know uses them.

How is the dark lord ending a failure? It's a victory for your character even if it doesn't change much for the world. Even more so if you ignore the sequels of declining quality.

Fuck off descriptivist hippie
>words don't have have any real meaning man! If enough retards decide up means down, then it does!

Word meaning changes over time, but not nearly as fast as you idiots want to pretend it does.

The entire series is a collection of "you just missed them/were to late to save them" on the front of both bosses and npcs

Hence the term "lichyard" being synonymous with 'graveyard'

>He stood alone at gjallerbru
>fly you fools
>hold the line
It's not that it felt great, but a doomed effort *can* he great storytelling.

>If enough retards decide up means down, then it does!
But it's literally true. "orient" used to mean pointing to the East (you know, the Orient), which was at the top of premodern maps. Now map "orientation" is to the North and you can orient in any direction you like.

>Word meaning changes over time, but not nearly as fast as you idiots want to pretend it does.
That's a lot like saying "technology and culture changes over time but not as fast as [it does today]." The modern context is like another world entirely owing to widespread literacy, instant global communications and an overabundance of information. Changes that took place over centuries can happen over decades or less.

not to mention irl it did happen really quickly

it took like a decade for us to stop pronouncing the now-silent letters

Oh and straight and gay are apparently orientations now.

Oh and straight and gay are apparently directions now.

People also have a easier time deciding what the relative directions (left right, up down etc) mean precisely because they're relative, that's why the meaning of being politically left/right changes so easily for example.

The dark lord ending felt very final and satisfying before the sequels ruined what was a perfectly fine self-contained story.

That's not what I meant at all. I meant that your purpose in DS is your purpose (that is, fun and friends), not success. You have no hope of doing anything in that one sense -- but you're doing things all the time.
>The dark lord ending felt very final and satisfying
It was the exact opposite for me. And that's why I liked it.

I agree the other DS games fucked up the lore simply by existing. They could and should have been set before Dark Souls I.