Definition of the Lich

For the purposes of this blog, I will define 'a lich' as: a magic user that became sentient undead using magical means.

While the lich's phylactery is a very well established trope for these undead monsters, a lot of settings do not utilize the concept; in addition, a number of entities and creatures utilize a concept that is similar to a phylactery without them being undead in the first place. These will be discussed on the appropriate page on the blog.

Some additional definitions of the lich:

• D&D Monstrous Manual (5th Edition - based on 2nd Edition): Liches are the remains of great wizards who embrace undeath as a means of preserving themselves. They further their own power at any cost, having no interest in the affairs of the living except where those affairs interfere with their own. Scheming and insane, they hunger for long-forgotten knowledge and the most terrible secrets. Because the shadow of death doesn't hang over them, they can conceive plans that take years, decades, or centuries to come to fruition. A lich is a gaunt and skeletal humanoid with withered flesh stretched tight across its bones. Its eyes succumbed to decay long ago, but points of light burn in its empty sockets. It is often garbed in the moldering remains of fine clothing and jewelry worn and dulled by the passage of time.
• Wikipedia: In fantasy fiction, a lich (/ˈlɪtʃ/; from Old English 'līċ' meaning 'corpse') is a type of undead creature. Often such a creature is the result of a transformation, as a powerful magician skilled in necromancy or a king striving for eternal life using spells or rituals to bind his intellect and soul to his phylactery and thereby achieving a form of immortality. Liches are depicted as being clearly cadaverous, bodies desiccated or completely skeletal. Liches are often depicted as holding power over hordes of lesser undead creatures, using them as soldiers and servants. Unlike zombies, which are often depicted as mindless, a lich retains independent thought and is usually at least as intelligent as it was prior to its transformation.

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