Carrie the book in 1974. Carrie the movie in 1976. Lich gets psionics in 1976. Coincidence?
Psionics were applied to the lich in 1976, says: https://dumpstatadventures.com/blog/deep-dive-the-lich
QUOTE: The Lich is expanded upon in the next supplement Eldritch Wizardy (1976), where it clarifies that a Lich could have psionic abilities by rolling normally,
Let's talk about Lich lore some more.
How crazy powerful were they? Well they were level 12-18 in the first versions in 1975 and 1976 (got psionics in 1976, ouch). But when they put them in the Basic D&D... wow:
The Lich took a long time to get introduced in Basic D&D and had to wait until the Master’s DM Book (1985) as the original Basic D&D from 1977 only took your heroes up to third level… and the Lich isn’t exactly a low-level bad guy seeing as how all characters below 5th level immediately run away from it. The Lich is fleshed out in much more detail in this edition, and what it looks like should scare even the heartiest of adventures.
Before a creature became a Lich, they were always evil and chaotic, having been corrupted by their desire to live forever. The minimum a creature could be before becoming a Lich was a magic-user or cleric that was at least 21st level, and though most Liches are between the levels of 27-36. If you aren’t sure how powerful a 36th level magic-user is, let’s talk about it real quick. A 36th level magic-user needS 4,350,000 experience points and for their troubles gain nine spell slots for 1st-level through 9th-level. That’s nine meteor swarms a day, not to mention you could cast wish nine times instead… and then you still have nine 8th-level spell slots to burn through, and then nine 7th-level slots and so on.
Because of how powerful a creature of 36th level, though even a 27th level is plenty powerful, part of the information concerning the Lich is recommending that the DM picks the Lich’s spells prior to an encounter. Luckily for our DM, this is made slightly easier by the fact that some Liches will have 1 or 2 spells cast on them permanently, like detect invisible or fly.
You might think that the Lich having access to so many spells and being undead already makes them very powerful, but that’s not enough to make an adventurer’s life very complicated. Liches are immune to a variety of effects like charm, sleep, feeblemind, cold, lightning, polymorph, and death spells, so cue up as many fireballs as you can. Speaking of spells, all spells that are 4th level or lower have no effect on the Lich. Which is even more reason to run away from a Lich if you are under 20th level and not just 5th level.
Back in the 1970s, in AD&D:
The Lich appears in the Monster Manual (1977) with a new variation of the Lich coming out in 1978 with the release of Tomb of Horrors. Unfortunately, not much new information is provided about the Lich but several things are reinforced and will later carry on to the Basic D&D’s version of the Lich.
Tomb of Horrors:
We mentioned earlier about a new variation for the Lich and one of them is introduced in the famous adventure, Tomb of Horrors. The adventure is about breaking into the ancient tomb of a powerful lich, Acererak, and stealing all his treasure. This is one of the top-rated adventures because it isn’t about fighting hordes of monsters but outsmarting traps, dungeon design, and the Demilich at the end of the adventure that we assume just TPKs any party that gets that far. The Demilich is then reprinted in the Monster Manual II (1983) where additional lore is added in.
Demilich: https://non-aliencreatures.fandom.com/wiki/Demilich and there is some death metal band from Finland by the name also.
Demilich is the remains of a lich who has lived for so long that most of his body has decayed into a pile of dust. This has left it unable to truly terrorize the world around it, yet it can still control the dust that formerly made up its body.
The creature is notable for being a device the Dungeon Master can use to severely punish his players, such as erasing an overpowered character or even wiping out an entire party.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/12dupl4/walk_me_through_an_encounter_with_a_demilich/
2nd Edition
Demilich is a misleading term in that one might assume the "demi" refers to status. However, it refers to the state of the lich. Only a small part of the body of a lick remains—dust, the skull, and possibly a few bones.
A lich is a human magic-user and/or cleric of surpassing evil who has taken the steps necessary to preserve its life force after death. Ultimate, even the undead life force of a lich begins to wane. Over centuries the lich form decays, and the evil soul roams strange planes unknown to even the wisest of sages. This remaining soul is a demilich.
If the place of a demilich is entered, the demilich dust swirls into the air and forms a man-like shape. If this shape is ignored, it might dissipate in 3 rounds, for it can sometimes (25%) only advance and threaten, not harm. The dust form usually (75%) has the powers of a wraith even without additional energy factors. Any physical attack upon the shape will give it 1 factor of energy, however, and spell attacks give it 1 energy factor for every level of the spell used, i.e., a 3rd-level spell bestows 3 energy factors.
Each factor is equal to a hit point, and if 50 energy factors are gained, the dust will form into a ghost manifestation controlled by the will of the demilich. This thing will attack immediately. The dust will waver and fallback if struck by blow or spell, as if suffering actual damage. Thus, formation of a ghost manifestation is not too improbable, even if no wraith manifestation existed.
A demilich, its wraith manifestation, and its ghost manifestation cannot be turned by a cleric. Neither the wraith manifestation nor the ghost manifestation can actually be harmed. They have energy factors but no hit points. If the demilich is destroyed, the manifestation will be destroyed along with it. Otherwise, the wraith manifestation or ghost manifestation will remain. Left undisturbed, its energy factors dissipate at the rate of 1 per day until entirely gone.
If any creature is so foolish as to touch the skull of a demilich, a terrible thing occurs. In addition to the possible wraith or ghost manifestation, a new attack begins. At the touch, the skull rises into the air. A demilich can sense which member of a party is the most powerful, and wit will usually select a member of the magic-user class over a member of the fighter class, a fighter over a cleric, a cleric over a thief. The skull will then give off a howling sound equal to a death ray for a 20-foot radius. All creatures within the radius of effect of this howl must save vs. spell or be permanently slain and forever dead.
On the next round a new attack will take place. Each demilich has 5-8 gems set in its skull's eye sockets and in place of teeth. Each of these gems is a jewel which can draw the soul from any character and trap it within the jewel's confines. The demilich will use 1 of these soul-draining jewels to draw the life force from 1 of the offending intruders. The soul of the strongest will be drawn instantly from his or her body and trapped. The character's body will collapse and moulder in a single round and be totally gone. No saving throw is possible; the attack is irresistible. An amulet of life protection will prevail over the lifestealing powers of a gem, but the character's body will perish nonetheless. The skull will then sink down again, sated. If it is struck or touched a 2nd time, it will again rise and howl and then drain the soul of the next strongest character into another gem. This process recurs as long as the skull is still intact and continues to be molested. If all jewels are filled, then only the killing howl will be possible thereafter, but the monster can also pronounce a curse upon the remaining antagonists. Such curses are very powerful and may include: always to be hit by any opponent attacking; never to make a saving throw; or always to lose all treasure without gaining any experience from it. The curse can be removed by a remove curse spell, but the charisma of the character so treated will drop permanently by 1 point. (Magical increase of charisma remains possible of course.)
The skull of a demilich must be destroyed if the monster is to be exterminated. It can be harmed only as follows:
- A forget spell will force the skull to sink down without howling or taking away a soul.
- A shatter spell cast upon it inflicts 3-18 points of damage.
- A power word kill pronounced from an astral or ethereal magic-user destroys it.
- A fighter or ranger with a vorpal blade, sword of sharpness, sword +5, or vorpal weapon; a paladin with a vorpal weapon; or a paladin with a +4 or better weapon inflict full normal damage upon the skull.
- Exorcise or forget spells cause it to sink.
- A dispel evil spell cast upon it inflicts 5-8 points of damage.
- A holy word pronounced against it inflicts 5-30 points of damage.
- Any character with a +4 or better magic weapon or a mace of disruption can inflict 1 point of damage upon the skull each time it is struck.
A demilich's skull takes 50 hit points before it is destroyed, and it is armor class -6. If the skull is destroyed, a saving throw vs. spell must be made for any gem trapping a soul as if the character trapped within it was doing so. Those gems for which saving throws failed contain no life-force; the demilich has drained the souls and devoured them before being destroyed. If a throw succeeds, that gem still contains the character's soul, and this is evidenced by a faint inner light or, if viewed with true seeing, true sight, or a gem of seeing, a tiny figure is visible within the gem. The soul can be freed by crushing the gem, but some material body must be within a 10-foot distance and ready to receive it, such as a clone, a simulacrum, or a soulless body. The demilich dust and any other remaining bits must be destroyed by holy water or the craeture will re-form over 1-10 days.
--- from the reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/12dupl4/walk_me_through_an_encounter_with_a_demilich/
So, let's get through a few things:
- check out the Challenge Rating of whatever enemy you want to throw towards your party. While it's not 100% indicative of how challenging it is going to be for your party, it does tell you generally how strong the party would need to be to fight it. A Demilich is CR18, which means it makes for a decent encounter for a party of four level 18 characters. So that might be out of reach for what your group is capable of right now.
- a Phylactery is usually a box that contains the mortal part of the soul of the creature that became a Lich. As long as the Phylactery is intact, a Lich cannot be truly killed, as its mortal body will just reform nearby the Phylactery if it is destroyed, making it basically immortal. Phylacteries can be destroyed - usually, this is by dropping them into a volcano, but there are other ways.
- because a phylactery is what keeps a Lich alive, it is very likely well guarded - by undead soldiers, with traps, with spells to hide it, make it harder to access, etc.
- A group would probably eventually find out that a Lich - a very "common" way of becoming immortal - has one of these Phylacteries. The process of finding a Phylactery is probably a big quest in itself. Then, it needs to be brought somewhere to be destroyed, and then you also need to take out the Lich.
As for Initiative 20 & Lair Actions: imagine that the "Lair" of a Demilich is basically another creature that has its own initiative, and that is always 20 (so usually, very far on top of the round, being one of the first things to happen). Lair Actions are usually 3-5 different things that can happen and don't repeat on subsequent turns. They can be stuff like flooding the fighting arena, causing flames to shoot out of the ground, open a gate to let out more minions, etc. A lot of strong creatures with their own lairs also have their own specific lair actions.
On Initiative count 20, something from the Lair Actions section of the Monster happens, and then it goes on with whoever has the next lower initiative. It's basically a way of giving a creature more actions every round.
A Demilich is CR18, which means it makes for a decent encounter for a party of four level 18 characters.
Keep in mind that CRs are pretty unreliable at higher values. A demilich all by itself is nothing but a speed bump for a level 18 party. It has like 80 hit points (though resistance to magic weapons is very good) and can easily go down in one round.
Anecdotally, my party of four 19s faced a demilich last session. And three CR 9s, and four CR 6s. As the third combat that day. It did the job of being a resource drain without putting them in true danger.
Usually if you fight a lich, demilich, vampire, wizard with a clone in a jar, or other respawning creature, it's a recurring villain that has carefully hidden its respawn location. This means it usually takes more than just one fight to defeat them. You have a few options:
- x
- x
- Destroying phylactery doesn't destroy the lich. Both must be destroyed, right?
as the lich's skull is shattered by the cleric's mace, dark energies swirl around the party. The skeletal minions lose their bindings and collapse to the floor, their energy joining the storm of magic. The maelstrom of negative energy turns the crypt pitch black and then an eerie silence fills the room. A chill runs through your bones.
"I've seen your faces," the dark presence announces, "I know your names. You will never be safe again.."
Then the magical darkness filling the room fades and you sense something has left the room. The cold feeling dissipates, but you are still left uncomfortable.
---
Phylactery word origin is Greek or even before Greece was Greece, says M-w.com. It meant "guarded place" or "amulet"... so pretty darn fitting. They show Amulet as a 2nd definitely, "unrelated" to the 1st religious one in English.
EtymologyMiddle English filaterie, philacterie, borrowed from Late Latin filactērium, phylactērium "amulet, tefellin," borrowed from Greek phylaktḗrion "guarded place, outpost, safeguard, amulet, tefellin," from phylaktḗr "guard, guardian" (from phylak-, stem of phylássein "to keep watch on, guard, preserve" —derivative of phylak-, phýlax "guard, guardian, protector," of obscure origin— + -tēr, agent suffix) + -ion, noun suffix
Note: Greek phýlax has no generally accepted Indo-European etymology, and is probably of pre-Greek substratal origin, as other words with the suffix -ak-, according to R. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2010.
First Known Use14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
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