Liches
They have darkvision.
Undead have immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms,
compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
They have immunity to bleed, death effects, disease,
paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.
Undead are not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain,
or energy drain. They are immune to damage to their physical ability scores, as
well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.
They cannot heal damage on their own if they are
unintelligent, although they can be healed. Negative energy (such as an inflict spell) can heal undead
creatures. They may heal fast regardless of the creature’s intelligence.
They have immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude
save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
Undead are not at risk of death from massive damage, but are
immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points.
They are not affected by raise
dead or reincarnate spells or
abilities. Resurrection and true resurrection can affect undead
creatures. These spells turn undead creatures back into the living creatures
they were before becoming undead.
Undead do not breathe, eat, or sleep.
Few creatures are more feared than the lich. The pinnacle of
necromantic art, the lich is a spellcaster who has chosen to shed his life as a
method to cheat death by becoming undead. While many who reach such heights of
power stop at nothing to achieve immortality, the idea of becoming a lich is
abhorrent to most creatures. The process involves the extraction of the
spellcaster’s life-force and its imprisonment in a specially-prepared
phylactery – the spellcaster gives up life, but in trapping life he also traps
his death, and as long as his phylactery remains intact he can continue on in
his research and work without fear of the passage of time.
Any living creature a lich touches may be permanently
paralyzed. Remove paralysis or any spell that can remove a curse can
free the victim. The effect cannot be dispelled. Anyone paralyzed by a lich
seems dead, though close examination reveals that the victim is still alive.
The quest to become a
lich is a lengthy one. While construction of the magical phylactery which
contains the spellcaster’s soul is a critical component, a prospective lich
must also learn the secrets of transferring his soul into the receptacle and of
preparing his body for the transformation into undeath, neither of which are
simple tasks. Further complicating the ritual is the fact that no two bodies or
souls are exactly alike – a ritual that works for one spellcaster might simply
kill another or drive him insane. The exact methods for each spellcaster’s
transformation involve expenditures of hundreds of thousands of gold pieces,
numerous deadly undertakings, and a large number of difficult accomplishments
over the course of months, years, or decades.
Creatures that look at the lich may become frightened or
shaken. A creature that successfully resists cannot be affected again by the
same lich’s aura for a day. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.
A lich’s touch uses negative energy to deal damage to living
creatures. As negative energy, this damage can be used to heal undead
creatures. A lich can infuse itself with this energy, healing damage as if it
had touched itself.
An integral part of
becoming a lich is the creation of the phylactery in which the character stores
his soul. The only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its
phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich can
rejuvenate after it is killed.
When a lich is destroyed, its phylactery (which is generally hidden by the lich in a safe place far from where it chooses to dwell) immediately begins to rebuild the undead spellcaster’s body nearby. This process takes days – if the body is destroyed before that time passes, the phylactery merely starts the process anew. After this time passes, the lich wakens fully healed (albeit without any gear it left behind on its old body), usually with a burning need for revenge against those who previously destroyed it.
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