LICH

In modern fantasy fiction, a 'lich' (sometimes spelled 'liche', cognate to German ''Leiche'' "corpse") is a type of undead creature, usually an evil magician or powerful undead king, who has used evil rituals to bind their intellect to their animated corpse, thereby achieving a perverse form of immortality. Liches are depicted as being clearly cadaverous, their bodies desiccated or even completely skeletal. Various works of fantasy fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith's "Empire of the Necromancers", had used it as a general term for any animated or inanimate corpse. The more recent use of the term ''lich'' as a specific type of undead creature most likely originates in the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game; Liches are often depicted as holding power over hordes of lesser undead, using them as their soldiers and servants.

Contents

Historical background

Liches in ''Dungeons & Dragons''

Liches in other fictional works

See also

External links

Historical background

Like many of the creatures found in modern fiction, the Lich has developed from monsters found in earlier classic sword and sorcery fiction, which is filled with powerful sorcerers who use their magic to triumph over death. Many of Clark Ashton Smith's short stories feature powerful wizards whose magic enables them to return from the dead. Several stories from Robert E. Howard (such as the Skull-Face novelette or the short piece dubbed Scarlet Tears) do feature undying sorcerers which retain a semblance of life through mystical means, their bodies reduced to shriveled husks which they manage to maintain mobile and active. The term "lich", used as an archaic word for corpse (or body), is commonly used in these stories. Other imagery surrounding demiliches, in particular that of a jeweled skull, is drawn from the early Fritz Leiber story "Thieves' House".
In Roman Catholicism and the Church of England, the word "lychgate" refers to a covered area at the entrance to the cemetery where the casket awaits the clergy before proceeding into the cemetery for proper burial, "lych" being a word meaning body or corpse derived from Old English. In fantasy, the Lich is an undead creature that was never buried in a grave. This is different from other types of undead creatures, such as vampires and zombies, who were buried and returned from the dead.
The underlying idea of eluding death by means of arcane study and black magic can be traced to Middle Eastern folklore, and the method of achieving immortality by placing one's soul in a jar (which is usually hidden in some vast fortress) is suggestive of the burial practices of Egypt. This would make the Lich a very-far-from-its-roots mythologization of Egyptian pharaohs. It should be noted that for the Ancient Egyptians, the purpose of the mummy was to provide a place for the soul to fly back to; it was free to exist in both the afterlife and physical world (to commune with its descendants).
Eastern Slavic legends tell of a powerful dark wizard or a demon, Koschei the Deathless, who evades death by having his fiery soul placed in the eye of a magical needle. The needle is inside an egg, which is inside a duck, which is inside a hare, which is locked in an iron chest, placed at the roots of a great oak tree, on a magical island of Buyan. Koschei can be killed only by breaking the magical needle, which is much like a phylactery of a lich. This image is extremely consistent with the modern interpretation of the lich, possibly marking it as the "truer" origin of the concept.

Liches in ''Dungeons & Dragons''

Main articles: Lich (Dungeons & Dragons)

In the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game (and many other unrelated works of fantasy fiction that draw upon ''D&D'' for inspiration), a lich is a spellcaster who seeks to defy death by magical means. They are necromancers that are unsatisfied with the level of power that they currently have, wish for a longer life, and who seek to unburden themselves with the necessities of bodily functions (such as eating and sleeping) so that they might dedicate every moment of their existence to the attainment of knowledge and power. Liches convert themselves into a skeletal undead creature by means of black magic and necromancy, storing their soul in a magical receptacle called a phylactery. They do so to extend their life in order to study the deepest levels of magic. With their soul bound to a material focus, they can never truly die. If their body is destroyed, a lich can simply regenerate or find a new one in a relatively quick manner. According to the Dungeons & Dragons mythos, the only way to truly destroy a lich is to first destroy its phylactery, thereby removing their anchor to the material world, and then destroy its physical form. Since removing their own soul in order to evade mortality is against the natural order of the universe, and the process involved in becoming a lich is unspeakably evil, they are always evil-aligned (Vecna is a canonical example). They are among the more powerful and dangerous undead, and are frequently served by other undead creatures. If a lich is powerful enough it may be able to make more phylacteries for itself as backups in which case all will need to be destroyed before killing it.

Liches in other fictional works

Main articles: list of fictional liches

The concept of a powerful undead being has been used in many works to lend an element of supernatural fear to their cast or atmosphere. These instances may not be directly referred to as Liches but they can be considered such by their similar features.

See also

★ Wraith

★ Koschei

★ Wight

External links

★ A detailed description of liches in fantasy

★ An article about the lich cards in ''Magic: The Gathering''