Why don't more liches in fantasy just create a fleshy body for themselves? There's literally no downside to this...

Why don't more liches in fantasy just create a fleshy body for themselves? There's literally no downside to this, and if they can use magic means to overcome death itself then creating a new body (or a copy of their old body) should be peanuts for them.

>Inb4 "b-but they'd just be skeletons wearing a fleshsuit"
Just like you

Because they don't care. It takes a special sort of a person to make a deal with Orcus and trade away his humanity, put his soul in a fucking box and then feed souls of other people to this box, all for the single purpose of delaying his death.

>B-b-b-but in MY setting...
Fine, in your setting liches get immortality with no strings attached and create fleshsuits for themselves, and they are totally socially acceptable and beloved by everybody. But liches that are not your self-inserts usually work the way I described them

I didn't spend entire life studying magic, culminating in an evil ritual forever damning my soul just so I could be lollygagging with filthy peasants. Humans are beneath me, otherwise I wouldn't become a lich in the first place.

Actually, creating a flesh golem suit would be pretty good, and then just a little bit of illusion magic and no one will ever know.

That sounds like a fucking plot hook for my players once they have cleared out Ravenloft.

Wouldn't the new body basically be bit of undead flesh tied to their bones? Creating a living, healthy body isn't a skill I'd imagine liches know.

Normie wizards often have totally alien perspectives on things.

So now tell me why a wizard who proceeded to literally put his humanity in a magical jar and fill it with other peoples' souls would care at all about personal beauty?

>So now tell me why a wizard who proceeded to literally put his humanity in a magical jar and fill it with other peoples' souls would care at all about personal beauty?
Because they wanted to be beautiful forever.

I think the kind of person who'd become a lich (and isn't happy with being a bag of bones) would go for something more impressive than living flesh to make their bodies out of. I like the option of a body made solidly of precious metals and studded with mystical gems that store spells, but solid black stone reinforced with iron bands and engraved with the true names of the dead in glowing green runes may fit the more deliberately edgy.

There are better ways of achieving that.

My setting doesn't have an Orcus to make a deal with. So that makes my Lich's self inserts?

If you wanted to become a powerful immortal undead, but still have an attractive flesh body, why didn't you become a vampire instead?

The fact that you instantly got offended tells me that yes, they are.

you know how a lot of time, if your job dose not have a dress code you will dress nice for it for the first 2 months and than just go "fuck it" and wear what is comftreble? That's the litch. He is a wizzard of extream power who is more or less immortal, whats the point of making a flesh body if all you really have to do is cast a illusion and be done with it, who gives a fuck if you are a walking skelly if you can level citys with a few words

Why are you assuming I'm offended? If I was offended I'd simply not respond to the thread. But seriously, there's no Orcus in my setting so the justification above doesn't work.

Why should they?
>There's literally no downside to this
There's literally no upside to it either.

>g-guys please post more black mages with big tits i need to masturbate RIGHT NOW
>>>>>/e

>post more black mages with big tits
All I see is white mages with big tits, homie.

>It takes a special sort of a person to make a deal with Orcus

That lichhood equivalent of getting a cool toy from your cereal box.

>1
Lich form = power.
>2
Lich form = undead. Makes it easier to control other undeads. If they get you confused with a regular human they'll attack you if you lose focus on them.
>3
There is not downside to staying a lich. You said there is no downside to creating a flesh body, but there is. Flesh bodies have blood which can be targeted by many curses. It has flesh which needs to be taken care of or it will rot anyways or host parasites.

Because not everything in a fantasy universe exists for you to wank off to? Although Wiz is a total qt3.14.

What did he mean by this

Sending Orcus a bunch of souls in exchange for a damned immortality is kind of like sending in a bunch of box tops for a crappy toy, I guess?

Do liches ever realize that the wants and desires that caused them to seek immortality were the shallow and fleeting wishes of a living thing?

Do they ever sit down in a chair and just exist for the rest of eternity?

Nah man. I'm afraid of dying because there's always new stuff being made and I know there's going to be something I want to do or some movie I want to see or some campaign idea I want to run JUST as I kick the bucket. I think as long as you're willing to let go of your past and keep yourself occupied with what's going on in the present, being immortal would be pretty swell.

I think the big problem with all these fictional immortals going mad is that they always get bored, and that boredom drives you to stop acting like a human being. But it always glosses over the fact that new shit is happening all the time, everywhere. It would take several lifetimes to experience all the new cool shit that's happening around the world at this very moment, and that's not even counting what's going to happen in a few minutes, or hours, or years.

There just isn't enough *you* in one person to keep up with the sheer amount of cool shit that keeps happening all over the planet. It is impossible to be truly bored until humanity itself stops existing. And with an immortal watcher's entertainment on the line, who says it ever will? I'd guide that shit to the next generation just so I could keep enjoying the cool stuff it makes.

Because you're a -wizard-, not some animal bound by barbaric rituals like eating and shitting.

I'm seeing more problems than benefits to becoming a vampire for the sake of beauty.

I read a short story that included this kind of immortal. He was always travelling to exotic countries, spending decades with unknown cultures, spend a century or two becoming an acclaimed playwright, then giving it all up to go chill in Tibet.

I liked the character, story wasn't very good.

Millions of vampire fiction fangirls will disagree with you.

I'd be boring as hell to read about, but I'd damn well enjoy myself.

Because liches are the neurotic remnants of an obsessed evil fucker willing to deal with demons and evil gods to cheat the system because they are losers and shitty wizards. There is a reason it's available to lower level spellcasters.

True wizards who have actual power (aka level 20 wizards) simply use their knowledge and ability to research the immortality potion that leaves them whole and unaging, or even youthful. No shortcuts of undeath, no attempts to cheat the system by becoming abominations fueled by the energy of dissolution, destruction, and anti life. Just pure skill and the know how to take your name off the set of things that die from old age.

And fuck off with your fetish posting, go have a wank over at any of the wank boards then come back when you're a bit more rational and not thinking with your penis. And if you can't do that, remember that underage equals ban.

Sandro from HoMM3 did it.

I was able to do this with the clone spell and maintain a image of my former mortal self for a time however the body was dead being a flesh suit and being in contact with my negative energy desecrating body caused it to wither and rot over time. Let's just say you don't look so good after a week or so.

TL;DR: Too much maintenance for little gain when spells Magic Jar exist and you can just pretend to be someone else for giggles if being a normie is truly what you want.

I'm sure most young Liches do just that their first 100 or so years. Talk to me after year 50,000 and we'll see how much enjoyment you get out of mingling with mortals.

Except that's only as of 5e, for the past while they've been skeletons that have immortality, but an achilles heel that will instakill them. They didn't need to feed on people. You are correct about that other bit though, generally the kind of person who successfully becomes a lich is the kind of person who doesn't care.

>There just isn't enough *you* in one person to keep up with the sheer amount of cool shit that keeps happening all over the planet.

Give it a few hundred thousand years when you start noticing the same patterns resurfacing in every aspect of human culture everywhere. Watch history cycle helplessly over and over again with rise, fall, recovery of civilizations only to fall again and start over. Slightly different, but the same patterns. The hardware defines the software and the hardware takes a loooooong time to change meaningfully. Forever means forever my friend.

Definitely. There are also reformed liches who became immortal, realized they were assholes, and then vowed to be chill for the rest of eternity.

Because lichhood and therefor necromancy is death magic, dealing only in the symbolisms of death. Flesh, living fleshy bodies, is pretty much not-death and symbolizes life if anything a magic that contradicts death magic. Its why you always see liches turn into skeletons and why skeletons are stronger than zombies. Cause while a body that's rotting might remind you a bit of death its more gonna cause you to remember them in life. A skeleton however there is no life, pale bones are entirely death magic. Its really not peanuts as they have to contradict everything that's keeping them "alive" and even then, the fact that death is death, the very belief that after it there's usually gonna be emptiness or cold eternal sleep makes its way to those undead, they are cold, uncaring and frankly not part of the living world. So they really wouldn't care to find out.

Now stop shitposting you fucking cunt.

>X Million Y's can't be wrong

People fetishise vore, that does not mean they would be comfortable around a cannibal.

What I was referring to in terms of downsides was not people's kinks. But the practicality of being a vampire.

You are vulnerable to sunlight, holy symbols, silver, holy/running water, blessed objects, an assortment of plants, and you need to constantly feed on humans to survive, you are eternally marked for death as an abomination, there are organisations dedicated to killing you, and nowhere is safe unless you resort to living in basements or old tombs, far from being able to enjoy that beauty you so wanted. And you corrupt the earth around your resting area, so finding you is pretty easy. Oh,and you are bound to your place of death (coffin or the dirt), which limits your movements. You can't enter a house without invitation. You are effectively allergic to living amongst humans, because they will have taken great measures to ensure they are safe from vampires, yet they are also your primary source of food.

Sure, I am digging from different sources on the vampire weaknesses here, but unless you are reading Twilight, quite a few of them will apply to yours.

So what did all these sacrifices net the new vampire? A small chance to live longer than it may otherwise have. If it is very, very lucky.

>The hardware takes a long time to change...

Unless you're some kind of high level wizard with too much time on your hands.

>silver, holy water, blessed objects, an assortment of plants, and you need to constantly feed on human (souls) to survive, you are eternally marked for death as an abomination, there are organizations dedicated to killing you, and nowhere is safe unless you resort to living in basements or old tombs, you corrupt the earth around you

Of the things you mentioned those things apply to Liches save for the fact that Liches are more dangerous and any place outfitted to deal with Vampiric undead would also be doubly fortified against the more threatening Lich abominations. Also you are bound by your phylactery which while not the same as a vampire's grave and coffin it is similar and its intactness and closeness is required for the Lich's survival.

As far as blending in goes a vampire naturally has charms and abilities that help it mingle with humans beguial and dominate them. While a lich has whatever spells it knows and the oh so wondrous people skills that a wizard who has a unhealthy obsession with necromancy has. You're worst then the turbo nerd with barely a grip on basic living creature interactions as your undead state has made you out of sync with even that. Its why most of them go for that scary black robe glowing eyes sthick. Its the only thing they can do to get respect ever sense they carved out their "how to human" parts of their soul for power.

Most don't give a shit because they aren't fucking weeaboos.

Now you're back in the "sitting in a chair meticulously planning for millennia to do inhuman experiments" situation that would drive you crazy and certainly make other people think you're crazy. Best case scenario you bought yourself time. Forever is still forever.

I love my liches to be essentially outsider demigods. A single floating bone or a skull fragment as a body, distorting and warping spacetime around it like a miniature black hole from the immense magical power and knowledge contained within its event horizon. They control pocket dimensions, hop between realms and distort time at will. Their magic so strong they dont even have spells anymore but entire spheres of magic they have complete domination of. Their top shelf magic is literaly cosmic shit with quantum effects, probability manipulation and control of timelines(fucks with IRL dice rolls). If they wish to meddle with wordly affairs they dominate the minds of entire armies or possess entire courts at once. Even the slightest echo of a liches magic or being in the same realm as its phylactery(its quark matter anchor in this universe) will start charming and indoctrinating mortals. Their long and subtle plans run for millennia without anyone ever being aware of even the existance of such a plan, there are hundreds of layers and contingencies. After a while a lich will be above and beyond everything, even power and only further and further accumulation of knowledge matters, hidden and terrible truths about the nature of existence and the reasons behind it.

But yeah sure, upstart young liches, only a couple centuries old may bother being a little girl, even just to evade suspicion or to fuck with a paladin.

fuck off with your excuse to post this fucking picture you gaping faggot

>There's literally no downside to this

There's no real upside, either. Someone who undertakes the dark and foul rituals necessary to become a lich is unlikely to care much about how they look afterwards.

I have not been able to find information that the Lich shares the same weaknesses as a vampire. In fact, the only "weakness" I find mentioned is their pride. I don't suppose you'd care to provide me with a source?

The Lich's phylactery doesn't bind the Lich to any one location. The vampire's place of death, however, does.

As much as you say vampires just blend in and charm people by merely being a vampire, I have to call bullshit. If you were ugly and/or lacked people skills before turning into a vampire, that isn't going to be just go away. Vampires have these abilities as a result of training themselves to harness their vampire powers. It wouldn't come natural like flipping a switch. The vampires you are referring to are far experienced and already ironed out the kinks of vampirism for themselves, but there's no School of Vampires to learn this stuff.

In addition, upon turning into a vampire, you don't retain much of any control, just basic attachments to that which you had in life. You will likely spend some times tracking down family and friends and, instinctively, attack them to turn them into vampires too. This is probably where you will give yourself away as a vampire and get hunted down.

And what are the odds you end up being one of those vampires who are in complete control of themselves? If you wanted to become a vampire, you would naturally seek it out to become one. Vampires are paranoid and cowardly things; a self-labelled vampire wannabe is going to set off too many alarm bells for them to not consider you a threat. They'll likely kill you, or trick you into becoming one of their thralls, and you will just be their house cleaner or errand runner for the rest of your unnatural life. But I guess that's good enough for some.

Do you wanna know why liches don't do this OP.
It's because they aren't massive quivering pussies like you.
You fucking faggot.

I thought you had to destroy both the body _and_ the phylactery, because killing just one would let them recover (phylacteroy magics up a new body, or body constructs a new phylactery)?

>wanting a fleshy body
If I didn't want to become a motherfucking skeleton wizard I wouldn't have gone through all that effort to be come a lich in the first place.

Not true. There is plenty of upside to a fleshy exterior!

The obvious one is social. You can go out and visit the library without causing a panic, and you are less likely to attract adventurers.

The second is utility. Clothes are generally fitted for meatbags, and having a soft layer of flesh protects your bones from damage.

The third is tactical. If people think you are alive, they will try to kill you via normal means. Aka: stabbing you in the heart. That gives you either an easy way to fake your death with minimal risk if you want to avoid attention, or the opportunity to take advantage of their assumption and blow away an adventurer who thought they landed a kill shot and let their guard down.

Really, the only reason NOT to have a flesh body is some kind of stubborn non-comformist pride.

I feel sorry for anyone who has to spend time with you I person, you're the worst kind of autist

Sandro is best lich.

I imagine it's usually an upkeep issue. Why bother when it's just extra work that you had managed to free yourself from to begin with? Imagine having to basically put on some elaborate prosthetic costume every time you have to go out, or make sure it doesn't fuck up or deteriorate.

Because maintenance sucks.

I became a lich to never age, live without food and water, and never sleep.

Why would I make a flesh suit that needs all of those?

Even illusions are better than that.

That's a part of why a lich that doesn't need to eat souls of dumb. There's basically no motivation to be had at that point unless this creature with no real needs goes out of their way to piss people off

At that point you make your own motivation.

You are still killable until you become an overdiety, so start working

What's the point in using a lich if you aren't using its imagery.

Undead are immune to illusions though?

Humans aren’t.

Just make an illusion around you.

Dry out and wash your body so you don’t stink either.

They're usually immune to mind effecting stuff, but I don't think it's (universally at least) true that they're immune to illusion itself. I don't think any creatures that don't just have built in true sight are immune to illusions that aren't inside their head

You can’t be mind controlled but illusions are from the plane of shadow.

They aren’t mind effecting.

I mean why do that when you could just get yourself an artificial shell and some perfume.

Why spend magic that could go to greater necromantic powers if you care so much about others caring about you.

What is this a cover for?

Thats a unique style of trolling.
I like it

A guy was trying to make a third party sequel to Curse of Strahd, with Patrina Velikovna, a secondary villain from the original, taking over as the antagonist.
He comissioned a really nice looking cover, but last I heard, it ended there.

It's extra work that takes away from their research.
If you've ever heard of demiliches, their whole deal isn't that they've spent *so much time* on planar shenanigans that their corpse has eroded away.

Read Bram Stoker's Dracula some time. Dracula is a wizard. That's where his powers and taboos come from.

Oh. That's a neat bit of trivia. Cool.

Wait, pictures of giant chested women are for faggots now?
Well fuck, I guess I better go buy a rainbow flag then,

Liches are basically born from mad, selfish passion. In D&D, that's the seat of the soul rather than biology. They will never just stop, because they have physically become the monster they already were on the inside.

Pictures of giant chested women are for people without giant chested women.

>posts Director Bones

But he has a fleshy body. It's just that aside from his skeleton it's permanently invisible and poisonous.

Gotta store that mana somewhere

Because they're symbolic representations of the corrupting lust for power and immortality and not really real creatures.

I'd like to see a lich get trapped somewhere and just give up. If my players ever trap an immortal being permanently i'll probably drop the reference.

I want to have a very bouncy threesome with best girl Wiz and Darkness.

Surprised i haven't seen that doujin yet. I don't even like the show but damn it has good hentai.

I like Powders necromancers/liches being obsessed with gold and by extension vanity.

According to "Van Richten's Guide to the Lich" in 2e? Certainly; he postulates that suicide rates amongst "fledgeling" liches must be extremely high, perhaps even more so than vampires, because being a lich is even more alienating than being a vampire.

At least a vampire experiences some form of physical pleasure and it has a motivation to get out of the lair every night. A lich... well, one of the examples it gives is sitting down to properly read a book, contemplating every little detail and nuance of the story, and then finishing and realizing an entire generation of humans has been born and died in the time you spent reading that book.

Bruh, the work ain't over until you become a god, so get to researching.

...

It's getting there.

>Become a Lich
>Becoming a vampire

>Not just becoming a lvl 20 monk for immortality.

>A monk actually surviving to level 20 that isn't an NPC.

Good luck.

>I mean why do that when you could just get yourself an artificial shell and some perfume.
>Why spend magic that could go to greater necromantic powers if you care so much about others caring about you.
>Why spend magic that could go to greater necromantic powers when you could spend EVEN MORE MAGIC INSTEAD

>Not using your great enlightened and euphoric inteligence of being a poor, hunted by the normies, lich and just invent a perfect, necromantic but still alive body

Clearly you need to leave, you are not hardcore enough for Veeky Forums

One of my PF characters was raised by a lich like that. He’d spent some time thousands of years ago being an evil necromantic undead lord of doom, but ultimately retired. Lived in a tower off by himself, and wound up taking in my character as an apprentice one day when he accidentally let one of his sheep wander too close.

>But yeah sure, upstart young liches, only a couple centuries old may bother being a little girl, even just to evade suspicion or to fuck with a paladin.
>fuck with a paladin
>not fuck a paladin

They honestly don't care and have no need for such a thing.

It's really both

>Not turning the paladin into a little girl as well before fucking them

Who needs a body when you're a cool-ass skeleton?

...

>sheep wanders to spooky tower everyone avoids
>go chasing it
>baa to you too, fucker
>lich comes out of the tower
>scared as fuck, frozen in place
>"Finally! C'mere you, I need an apprentice to teach all this magical shit to because undeath is boring as fuck. Its gotten to the point where I just sit here contemplating everything and I've already solved everything a thousand years ago. Bring the sheep too, we'll need targets."

Are you telling me that character is supposed to be a lich?

She is a good lich who sacrificed herself to lichdom to save her friends so dont bully her

Yep. Given that the protagonist described her body as feeling "pleasantly cool", the most common assumptions are that it's either her real mortal flesh and she uses spells to keep it from decaying (D&D specifically has gentle repose for this purpose) or that she created a new body for herself. Whichever it is, keep in mind the etymology of lich: it comes from the Dutch "lijk" which means corpse, not skellington.

>skeletons wearing a fleshsuit
>"just like you"
A human is a small pile of meat with a bone exoskeleton (a skull).

Liches aren't actually even skeletons.