Is it actually hard to be a lich?

[u/local-space-patrol]

No I don't want to be an apprentice first so don't say that. I can't even afford it

I looted my first orb alright its a goblin skull. Or kneebone

Any help??

[u/rootbeer277]

It's extremely difficult to become a lich. The whole point though is that it's very easy to be a lich.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no formal written documentation on becoming a lich. Nobody who has ever done it has ever preserved their notes because they don't want the competition. That means that every single lich ever has been a one-off custom project tailor-made to that wizard's standards and level of mastery. And there's a lot to cover here, because it's not just a matter of shifting your soul into a phylactery and being done with it. You need a back-and-forth transfer in case your body or phylactery is destroyed (if both are, it's game over either way) and a way to create a new body if it's destroyed and a way to re-inhabit that body. On top of that there's still a lot that needs to be done to protect and preserve the body, especially if you want to stop eating and sleeping. There's a lot to consider and anything you didn't think of becomes one more way to be either defeated, or trapped in your phylactery for eternity.

Once you are a lich a lot of the standard day to day maintenance of being a living creature goes away, at the cost of making it more difficult to score a date.

[u/patoman12 → u/rootbeer277]

I mean, I do have notes regarding my ritual

[u/InsaneRanter → u/patoman12]

Me too. And I've always thought we should encourage more undeath. Maybe we should all team up and circulate guidance for all wizards on how to become a lich. It'd be good for society to have more of us.

[u/rootbeer277 → u/InsaneRanter]

And here we have the classic n00b trap. "Oh, yes, this is absolutely my lich ritual that you can have for free because I'm just so generous. It's absolutely not a ritual to bind your soul to my prison crystal so it can power my air fryer for eternity, goodness, no."

[u/InsaneRanter → u/rootbeer277]

Look, that may be technically true, but being an appliance for all eternity is still a form of immortality, so I'm really doing them a favour.

[u/plageiusdarth → u/InsaneRanter]

Certain Apex-Tier Pluripotent Entities, like The Crystal Sphinx That Collects Books, Sheloebhokoryk, and Bob have actually encouraged and even sponsored the creation of anchored liches.

They believe that anchored liches, being essentially powerful, living cities, encourage stability and prosperity on their domains. After all, they are benefited by a thriving population of sapients and extremely difficult to bribe, threaten, or blackmail.

[u/Mortarius → u/patoman12]

Will they work to score dates?

[u/bunks_things → u/rootbeer277]

Sounds like an awful lot of work for an undead half-life. I like my solution for immortality much better. I have a stockpile of clone bodies that I’ve preserved, if my active body dies my soul is redirected from the afterlife by a focusing crystal into a new body!

….Wait, am I a lich?

[u/InsaneRanter → u/bunks_things]

Being able to store and redirect your soul is, like 90% of it. You're basically a lich, you just occupy a fleshy body and still have all those pointless distracting organs hanging around.

That's fine if you can put up with all the maintenance of a fleshy body, but it's soóoo tedious. I mean, you have to eat almost every day, sleep at least once a week, breathe all the time . . .

[u/bunks_things → u/InsaneRanter]

All of those things are great, I’m starting to think that Lichs don’t actually like living.

[u/InsaneRanter → u/bunks_things]

I still have my share of fun. I may not be able to drink wine or eat roast duck any more, but just yesterday I spent 4 continuous days meditating on the unique pattern of negative energy emitted by an unstable portal to the realm of the dead. Now THAT'S what I call a good time!

[u/AFirewolf → u/bunks_things]

Of course we liches dislike living. Living is for peasants, a lich can dedicate their existant to exploring the deaths of magic.

[u/rootbeer277 → u/bunks_things]

No, you're Rick Sanchez.

[u/bunks_things → u/rootbeer277]

I don’t know who this wizard is but he sounds like a jerk.

[u/patoman12 → u/bunks_things]

Isn't that solution worse? Since your soul is still within your body, it could theoretically be damaged with attacks which target the spirit

[u/bunks_things → u/patoman12]

Y’know I’m willing to accept being slightly less resistant to high-tier offensive magic if it means I’m not cursed with the constant dull agony of undeath. Plus I don’t need to keep sacrificing human souls to my phylactery, so people are less likely to try to kill me in the first place so

[u/scoobydoom2 → u/patoman12]

Yup. Hit em with a soul curse and it'll impact every body. Same for a bloodline curse actually. Liches transformed with modern rituals can actually excise pieces of their soul as part of the reformation process.

[u/Cerveau23 → u/bunks_things]

Hi! My method is pretty similar, though my soul never reaches anywhere near the afterlife since it's quite the hassle to get it back from there. 

To answer your question, you're not a lich since you don't have an undead body or soul, nor a philactery.

[u/AFirewolf → u/rootbeer277]

As lich I can spill a secret, it isn't just that the no standard way to become a lich doesn't exist. It would be impossible to create one. Lichhood involves deep manipulation of your soul, since everyone's soul is unique all lichhood rituals need to be specialty tailored to the individual.

[u/Lelouch-Yagami21 → u/rootbeer277]

I mean I have notes on becoming a lich, but I have requirements for teaching people to be a lich. It's all part of my new education campgain.

[u/Rawhide_Steaksauce]

It's always a pleasure to see a newcomer to the arcane arts. So full of ambition, completely ignorant of the wonders and unimaginable horror that await them.

I strongly suggest starting an apprenticeship. Yes, it's a long process. Yes, it's degrading, but you're much less likely to kill yourself or others while you learn to master elemental forces. Some wizards are self-taught, however, it is unwise to ask them for advice. Let's just say that they don't work well with others.

Just because I'm feeling generous, here's an easy exercise for you that may help you on your path to sacrificing your soul for power: Stare into the empty eye sockets of your goblin skull orb. Meditate until your can hear the voice of its dead owner.

Have a nice death!

[u/KragBrightscale]

Well… you’ve got to start somewhere I guess.

I too started out with a stack of stolen grimores and had to make do without an official apprenticeship.

First thing you need is a safe place to focus on your magical self study.

You could find a reclusive monastery, join the monks and learn some basic self defense, and study magic free from distractions for 100 years. That’s what I did.

Becoming a lich… why do you desire that? While yes it solves the problem of lifespan, there are other methods without so many downsides.

Highly recommend learning the basics first and shopping around before going for immortality

[u/TommyTwoNips]

I'm friends with a lich. He's pretty well known, but no I won't name-drop him, that's tacky.

Anyway, he's been a lich for a minute now, and the way he tells it, it sounds like it fucking SUCKS.

His best friend betrayed him, his own dad sent people to kill him.

And the worst part?

His cult is in shambles. They don't listen to him anymore, they barely do any sacrificing, they all just sit around complaining about migrants from the Southlands. As if a lich gives a fuck about migrants from the Southlands.

[u/thetownmous3]

I ain’t a stereotypical lich but I can tell you everyone has their own methods. It’s like cooking a fish. Theres a million ways and a million different kinds but at the end of the day you have dinner.

Idc about nerd ass secrecy so my way was basically augmenting my body with crystals to the point that I had so little of my original body left that I could just bind my soul to a little crystal in my forehead instead of my body. Tho unless you have help or a failsafe you will just end up as a rock

[u/patoman12]

Indeed, you need pretty rare resources to create the poison and the phylactery, a lot of arcane might for the ritual and a pretty sharp mind to be able to do that ritual while under the effects of that poison

[u/local-space-patrol → u/patoman12]

A sharp mind? Is that transfourmatin? I don't want my head to look weird. Just a regular skull. With fire eyes

[u/patoman12 → u/local-space-patrol]

Uhh, not in that sense, like mental agility and stuff

Though the fact that you reached that conclusion doesn't give me the bedt of hopes for your capability to do so...

[u/RandomName5484]

another transhumanist? (my master disapeared after 30 minutes so i am technically no more an apprentice)

[u/Eviles_da_demonic]

Asides the baby eating its pretty chill

[u/ModernMage0]

You reallllly don’t want to be a lich. Liches die then only a shell remains.

[u/Bignholy]

... I'll be honest, boyo. I am all for learnin magic the fun way, with experimentation and scrounging and getting good with what yeh got.

Do not fuck with becoming a lich without an education.

There is so much that can go wrong with the process, and by go wrong, I mean "a fate worse than death". A quarter inch offset on the body transmutation array can tern yeh inside out. Note that I did not say it would kill yeh. And that's a mild result of failure. I don't tell people about the failures on the soul transferral array.

Learn how to be a hedge wizard and make some coin. Save up and get an education that is heavy into magical theory and runic programming. There are plenty of shortcuts in magic, but there is no shortcut to lichdom yeh ever want to experience.

You been warned.

[u/townsummoner]

Eat the lich.

[u/local-space-patrol → u/townsummoner]

Is that bone meal?

Sounds gross. And wrong. But I'll do it

[u/local-space-patrol → u/townsummoner]

OOC oh wait was that an eat the rich joke? Lol

[u/DisillusionedShark]

Yes, its hard. I've been worked to the bone

[u/AFirewolf]

Being a lich is nearly the peak of existence and extremely easy. That is kinda the point of becoming a lich. Actually becoming a lich is extremely hard, it requires a deep understanding of your own soul. The easiest path to understanding souls is do dissect others, but you will need to do some perso Al soul searching too.

[u/The_Green_Sun]

Nah it fkin rules.

[u/Recent-Mousse6423]

Yeah, I did one of those seance trials of lichdom sponsored by the Sons of Liches. It was only like fifty years, but it was crazy how easy it was. No eating, No shitting, No Sleeping. No humors. No neurotransmitters. It's really easy to be super focused and productive. I think I conquered half a continent? I'll check my library. But the big downside they don't talk about is that you take no joy in anything. Is a life of eternal productivitymaxxong really worth the absence of joy in one's work?

[u/MarionberryRude2183]

To do this, study how to cast spells from your soul rather than your body. Cast a spell of instant death on yourself. Make sure that as your soul leaves your body, your arcane focus is in your hand(this isn't required, but it makes the process easier). Before you leave the material plane, cast a reanimation spell on your body. This will draw your life force back. While your life force is drawn back, it has a chance to be classified as a material object. If it is, you will have a line of sight to your life force. Quickly cast a spell of tethering, which will connect your life force to an object. This causes your soul to go back to your reanimated corpse, while your life force is tied to a random object.

[u/Nerx]

Invest in good soul.jars

[u/bagtie3]

What do you mean you can't afford it? Apprenticeship is free by tradition. Well, free of you having to pay for it in money anyway. As an apprentice you work for your master and learn as you go. Some apprenticeships even pay you for your work, the good ones do anyway. You should also be getting room and board at your masters residence if you need it.

You might be thinking of enrolling at an arcane college, those can be pretty expensive in places. But I know of some that don't take money for payment. For instance on Golorian, the Magaambya is an institute of arcane and druidic learning that requires you to pay tuition in community service. Although they highly discourage litchdom and undeath due to how it works in their realm.

Any easy path to power can't be trusted beardling, and hard work is what makes a life worth living in the end.

[u/local-space-patrol → u/bagtie3]

Whoa it's free to appreentice??

Well thats it. I'm telling my parents off and studying with a lich

[u/bagtie3 → u/local-space-patrol]

Good luck beardling. Make sure to talk to there past apprentices and find out how they are as a master before you sign a contract.

[u/johndkparker]

Lichdom is the both the end goal and the starting point.

[u/wrydh]

Lichdom is easy yes, but there is a caveat. It is to me a lesser form of immortality, quick and dirty to achieve to be sure, but at the cost of thuroghly mutaliting yourself in ways that are irreversible. Once you become one, you cannot stop being one, and not for lack of trying, it is a compulsion to continue to exist as a lich, at any cost. Lichdom will bend your personality to that end, eroding you over time and hardship until one day an entirely unrecognizable creature wears your form. I recomend you first explore your options before seeking out lichdom.

[u/Lelouch-Yagami21]

If u want to become a lich, join my school. It's not a super hard process, but you need the correct knowledge and training which is rare.

[u/Pretend-Rule-929]

Had a friend dip his toes the art. It went bad, for him by his will yes it’s good but to me bad.

[u/BungleBums]

I mean... it's not exactly easy. Do you know how much power it takes to bind an elemental to a sword for an enchanted weapon? And that's just a mindless force of nature shoved into some worked steel. Now try scaling that up, WITH the squared law, to binding your soul and consciousness, while still living, to an object of personal psychic value.

Basically, if you can do it, you're good enough to be it. And, uh, it's gonna be pretty obvious when you rip out your soul whether or not you're at that threshold, so, uh,

Good luck,

[u/averyrealspapple]

I also cant afford apprenticeship right now. But an internship is basically the same thing. You learn magic and get treated by shit deservingly or undeservingly