Can a vampire become a lich? Is there anything that prevents this from happening? Now, I'm not talking about monster templates here like in DnD 3.x. I'm talking about from the standpoint of OSR or retroclones.
A lich is a powerful spellcaster who extends their existence beyond mortal limits by magically maintaining themselves in a kind of horrible half-life. Considering a vampire is already immortal and has a half-life that seems quite a bit less horrible than a lich's, the full lich package doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. And with the ability to turn to mist when destroyed and then regenerate in a coffin filled with native soil, the vampire already possesses a less thorough but more convenient variation on the lich's serial respawning ability. So even the lich's capstone ability would be a bit redundant.
While a vampire-specific variation on the phylactery might be interesting, I wouldn't try to replicate the lich. It might work better if it instead augments the vampire's existing abilities, like shoring up weaknesses (such as the whole sun bit). To keep with the flavor, it should probably come with a cost, like losing the ability to feed or a decaying body.
Can they? I don't know. Sounds like the kind of fandom question "Can the Flash run faster than Superman?"
Should a GM have lich vampires in their campaign? I think that kind of muddies the distinction between vampires and liches. And we have a distinction so that we can quantify what a vampire or a lich is, and what they're capable of.
I'm not 100% against the idea. The Dragon of Tyr is a 20th level dual class wizard/psionicist who went on to go through a 10th level psionic enchantment process to transform into a dragon. Fuckin' powergamer. :D
But I'd be really leery of setting the precedent of mishmashing monsters together.
My only thing with this is the lich starts out as a powerful human spellcaster, with a soul or life force or whatever you want to call it that they tie to the phylactrry.
Does a vampire have that same life force or soul, being undead already? Can they tie what life force they might have left to a phylactery as a human could? All questions you'd need to answer for yourself before including a vampire lich in your campaign.
Quote from: jeff37923 on September 05, 2021, 06:50:30 PM
Can a vampire become a lich?
That sounds awesome.
Vampire Lich!
It's your game. Do what ever you want. There's no organized play police that will kick in your door and tell you no.
A vampire lich would probably have to drain the magical energy from spellcasters to feed.
If you're the GM, then do whatever you want.
Now, here's an idea inspired by the AD&D monster manual:
"Like all undead, vampires exist in two planes at once - in this case, the material and the negative material."
Could your undead have different forms depending on what plane they are on? That might be a way to reconcile your vampire lich.
Quote from: jeff37923 on September 05, 2021, 06:50:30 PM
Can a vampire become a lich? Is there anything that prevents this from happening? Now, I'm not talking about monster templates here like in DnD 3.x. I'm talking about from the standpoint of OSR or retroclones.
Under those rulesets, the DM just does whatever the fuck and it goes, so obviously, just ask the DM. If you're the DM, just do whatever the fuck and it'll go.
Quote from: jeff37923 on September 05, 2021, 06:50:30 PM
Can a vampire become a lich? I'm talking about from the standpoint of OSR or retroclones.
Answering the question purely from a game mechanics sense, there's nothing that prevents you creating an undead monster that possesses powers from both the OSR vampire and lich writeups.
From a coherent setting design backdrop, though, my preferred answer is actually "No," because the entire point of vampirism in a thematic sense is that, like lichedom, it represents a form of living death from which no real further change or growth is possible -- you can perhaps become more powerful and dangerous but you cannot really become something else, not any more. It also represents a karmic curse that those who embrace it willingly should not be able to escape. (One reason I can imagine a vampire wizard wanting to transform into a different mode of undeath is to trade in the vampire weaknesses for the relatively minor dependence on a phylactery, but that's exactly the sort of thing the curse of undeath should not allow its sufferers to do.)
A Vampire is an Undead Aristocrat, they embody all the worst forms of the aristocracy / nobility coupled with undead power.
A Lich is an Immortalist. They have embraced undeath as a path to immortality. Often they are powerful wizards because they need a lot of arcane power to transform from mortal to immortal.
So the question becomes, can you have an Immortalist (w wizard powers) who hit on Vampirism as the means to immortality?
At this point can all the Tremere in the room stand up? Thank you. Oh, you too? Write that name down. Answer yes.
Now can you have an Aristo who seeks immortality to continue their rule in perpetuity?
Dorian Grey stand up please. Looks like the answer is yes.
My intuition says no. the idea just doesn't make sense to me.
However if you or a player has an idea for your game that will require a vampire lich and it will be fun, there's absolutely no reason not to do it.
I would say 'Yes', but they would lose all the qualities of a vampire as being a lich would override it. That's just how I would personally handle it.
One of the best ideas to come out of the over top 2E Forgotten Realms, in my opinion, was the "illithid lich", or "mind flayer lich" which I like better as the name. It's completely nuts. For a vampire lich, I'd use similar approach, where it is not something that can be replicated but rather is a case of magic messed up. It's more superhero origin story than a standard creature, so you need your fantasy equivalent of the radioactive spider bite. You may have more than one, but it's a finite set from one unique incident.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 07, 2021, 11:12:47 AM
One of the best ideas to come out of the over top 2E Forgotten Realms, in my opinion, was the "illithid lich", or "mind flayer lich" which I like better as the name. It's completely nuts. For a vampire lich, I'd use similar approach, where it is not something that can be replicated but rather is a case of magic messed up. It's more superhero origin story than a standard creature, so you need your fantasy equivalent of the radioactive spider bite. You may have more than one, but it's a finite set from one unique incident.
The illithilich is a great concept, but the reasons why it works don't apply to a vampire lich. What makes mind flayer liches work is the tragic social consequences. Illithids are psionic, and don't like magic. As a result, any mind flayer who learns to cast spells is cast out of the illithid community. But it's worse than social ostracization. Because all illithids believe that, when they die, they will become one with the elder brain, and live on forever in a psychic paradise. So illithids who learn magic don't just lose all their social ties, they also lose all hope of an afterlife.
As a result, they become desperate not to die. So desperate, that they're willing to go against their nature. Because, by becoming undead liches, they dry out. And since the slime is the source of their psionic power, that means they lose all their mental powers. Studying magic doesn't just mean they lose their friends and the promise of the world to come, but on top of that they become partially lobotomized. That horrific chain of consequences if why the monster is so compelling.
Personally, I don't think it would work in a game I run.
I'd roll with it if someone made it a thing in a game they were running.
I could see an anime slant to it where like... in vampire hunter D, there's vampires, but then there's a higher order vampire that hunts/consumes regular vampires.
So this vampire lich could be a vampire version of a lich that hunts/feeds off of liches, rather than just a combination of the qualities of a vampire and a lich. Maybe they actively seed information into human civilizations to lead to the creation of more liches to increase their own food supply, that sort of thing.
I liked the idea of a Lich that has to drain other spellcasters. Sort of like a Failed Lich in a way.
Vampire->Lich is just too...Template stack-y.
Lich and Vampire have separate thematic underpinnings. You can create a combo, but in general I don't feel like stacking them works.
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 07, 2021, 12:25:49 PM
I liked the idea of a Lich that has to drain other spellcasters. Sort of like a Failed Lich in a way.
That would work well with the original conception of the incantatrix, the ones who were rare abberations, widely considered to be failed magic-users, who can't quite master the basics... but who can learn to steal the magic from another caster's mind. Make the lich an undead meta-magic parasite.
Quote from: Pat on September 07, 2021, 12:42:53 PMThat would work well with the original conception of the incantatrix, the ones who were rare abberations, widely considered to be failed magic-users, who can't quite master the basics... but who can learn to steal the magic from another caster's mind. Make the lich an undead meta-magic parasite.
As an alternative to a vampirey Lich, you can have a Lichy Vampire.
A immortal undead spellcaster thats charismatic and social in place of one who isolates in a tower. Maybe teaches in an academy and bangs the hot students on the side, and them maybe has accidents happen to the students he dislikes.
I was thinking of doing a standardization of the Koschei/Voldemort types. Ring-wraiths, lich-knights, lich-priests, lich-mages, vampires, etc... Each would have some kind of "secret heart" like a ring, suit of armor, sword, tefillin, coffin, zombie bottle, whatever. As long as the secret heart is intact, the Koschei won't stay dead.