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it's pretty unlikely that the local necromancer is going to have either the skills or the raw materials to produce undead war beatles in anything like the quantity a whole army would need
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| # ? Sep 6, 2010 20:10 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 12:36 |
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Liesmith posted:it's pretty unlikely that the local necromancer is going to have either the skills or the raw materials to produce undead war beatles in anything like the quantity a whole army would need unless you're in Forgotten Realms where the local necromancer is pretty much fifty-fifty on being scrub newbie necromancer or an ascending lich who just happens to live under a nearby hill
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| # ? Sep 6, 2010 20:50 |
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well yeah but in the forgotten realms there is no way you can get an army rolling without Drizzt and Elminster owning the gently caress out of you and assassinating your generals
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| # ? Sep 6, 2010 22:29 |
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Liesmith posted:it's pretty unlikely that the local necromancer is going to have either the skills or the raw materials to produce undead war beatles in anything like the quantity a whole army would need don't knock the necromancers, those guys unionized after the Time of Troubles. they do quality work. and if you've to something smart to say about it they've got an animated severed hand with your name on it buddy e: fear the beetle 
zeal fucked around with this message at Sep 7, 2010 around 01:37 |
| # ? Sep 7, 2010 01:33 |
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Liesmith posted:it's pretty unlikely that the local necromancer is going to have either the skills or the raw materials to produce undead war beatles in anything like the quantity a whole army would need Ringo...
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| # ? Sep 7, 2010 02:10 |
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fritz posted:Ringo... PAUL IS A DEAD MAN MISS HIM MISS HIM
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| # ? Sep 7, 2010 05:40 |
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I always guessed that Yoko Ono was some kind of banshee.
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| # ? Sep 7, 2010 10:30 |
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| # ? Sep 7, 2010 19:03 |
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Why can't liches just unlive and let live? Why they gotta conquer poo poo?
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| # ? Sep 7, 2010 23:22 |
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Most liches lead perfectly peaceful, normal unlives in their crypts, crumbling towers and underground warrens. It's loot-hungry mortals that blunder into law abiding liches' employees and perfectly reasonable home defense systems. Liches that go a-conquering are merely fighting for post-mortal justice in the face of an oppresive living majority.
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| # ? Sep 7, 2010 23:41 |
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I wonder what old Mrs. Deathrattle is conjuring up in the next barrow over. Could it be... Cookies?!?
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 00:26 |
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ugh. typical fantasy art needing to depict every woman with a bare midriff 
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 01:01 |
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zeal posted:I wonder what old Mrs. Deathrattle is conjuring up in the next barrow over. Could it be... My favorite liches are the ones you never fight/shouldn't ever fight. In a game I run, there's a lich that lives in a tower in the middle of a city. All he does is run a magic emporium; rare spell components, magic items, so on. All he wants to do is run his shop and live forever so he can do his research. Doesn't sound like much until you realize the tower he lives in used to be part of the old city wall; city is pretty much too scared to ask him to move so they can tear it down.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 01:01 |
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Sole.Sushi posted:My favorite liches are the ones you never fight/shouldn't ever fight. In a game I run, there's a lich that lives in a tower in the middle of a city. All he does is run a magic emporium; rare spell components, magic items, so on. All he wants to do is run his shop and live forever so he can do his research. Doesn't sound like much until you realize the tower he lives in used to be part of the old city wall; city is pretty much too scared to ask him to move so they can tear it down.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 01:52 |
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Zereth posted:Is the only reason it hasn't fallen down from age because of the lich's magic keeping it up? Would you let your house fall down by not keeping it up? EDIT: Alternately, if you were a carpenter or a mason and the city's resident lich said "hey, come over and check everything out for me," would you really turn him down? Sole.Sushi fucked around with this message at Sep 8, 2010 around 02:35 |
| # ? Sep 8, 2010 02:27 |
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I like the idea of the nice old lich down the street selling potions and penny candy 
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 02:52 |
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listen. everybody go click this link : http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/20...-blockbook.html ok just.... just trust me on this. no goatman.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 02:55 |
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fritz posted:listen. everybody go click this link : http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/20...-blockbook.html  "jesus christ skeleton would you put that loving vuvuzela down how are you even using that thing without lungs" "bzz bzz bzzzzz"
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 03:03 |
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I've always hated the idea that Liches must be evil. The underlying idea is that death is a natural and appropriate progression, and defying that is bad. The only reason it's given as a natural and appropriate progression, though, is that nobody can really do anything about it, and thus accept it in a resigned "We can't change this and are powerless to avoid it, so we might as well tell ourselves its a good thing." Which means that, essentially, liches are called evil and selfish purely because they do something that most people cannot do, cheat death. Even the examples of good liches are always patterned in a way that "Oh, they're cheating death, but they're hanging around for a good and momentus cause", as though it's an objective evil that can somehow be offset only by truly excellent deeds. gently caress that. If a dude can accept a rotting body - and with magic items of corpse preservation, even if he can't - and wants to hang around without dying, there's no reason he has to be evil.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 03:10 |
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Angry Diplomat posted:
I'm more a fan of this one:  Click here for the full 656x873 image. "Hey check out this guy here! What a mensch!"
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 03:16 |
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Etherwind posted:I've always hated the idea that Liches must be evil. The underlying idea is that death is a natural and appropriate progression, and defying that is bad. The only reason it's given as a natural and appropriate progression, though, is that nobody can really do anything about it, and thus accept it in a resigned "We can't change this and are powerless to avoid it, so we might as well tell ourselves its a good thing." Which means that, essentially, liches are called evil and selfish purely because they do something that most people cannot do, cheat death. Exactly. The lich that I was talking about isn't evil; he just wants to do his research, run his shop, and generally be left alone. That being said, most liches in my game are still evil, as a greedy desire to live past one's lifetime is more often a mindset of an evil person. EDIT: also, the rules are pretty clear about the whole "becoming a lich involves doing some rather not-good things." To contribute:  "Hey Larry, you sure know how to handle that rod, buddy!" "Sigh..." Sole.Sushi fucked around with this message at Sep 8, 2010 around 04:04 |
| # ? Sep 8, 2010 04:01 |
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Sole.Sushi posted:That being said, most liches in my game are still evil, as a greedy desire to live past one's lifetime is more often a mindset of an evil person. That's the thing, it's not loving greedy to not want to die, it's sane. Why is wanting to avoid death for as long as you can a bad thing, especially when it's not hurting anyone else?
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 04:06 |
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because don't enlichment rituals involve stealing peoples' souls and poo poo? I dunno I just always assumed becoming a lich required you to do some pretty evil poo poo.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 04:09 |
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Etherwind posted:Why is wanting to avoid death for as long as you can a bad thing because of high fives
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 04:10 |
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Aren't there usually less blatantly evil methods of extending your lifespan if you're a powerful wizard, too? They're just less effective at making sure you won't die except under extreme circumstances than being a lich.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 04:12 |
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well if I was trying to become a lich and I finally unraveled the mystery of how to do so and the ritual turned out to need like a dozen souls to function, I'd probably be like "oh well" and use my enormous wizardly powers to find the twelve evilest dudes and just use theirs. sure it's morally perilous but gently caress if I'm going to let my mad experiments go to waste, and those guys were dicks anyway also these pictures all totally rule, there's just something about the gleeful rear end in a top hat skeletons and the weary expressions the humans give them
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 04:31 |
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Etherwind posted:That's the thing, it's not loving greedy to not want to die, it's sane. Why is wanting to avoid death for as long as you can a bad thing, especially when it's not hurting anyone else? I edited my post after I remembered the other reason.  I mean you can chose to ignore that part of the rules, and D&D has a huge history of ignoring that part too (Baelnorns). The way I figure it, if you want a non-evil lich, you get a lich that does the evil stuff to become a lich and then decides after the fact to just do what he was going to do in life anyways, or you get a lich powered by positive energy (like a Baelnorn). Aside from that, in the world of D&D when evil people know, for a fact, that their souls will go straight to hell after they die, and good people know, for a fact, that their souls will go to heaven, it makes more sense for evil people to become liches so they can prevent their souls from, you know, getting ate by some devil, demon or what have you.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 04:33 |
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Angry Diplomat posted:well if I was trying to become a lich and I finally unraveled the mystery of how to do so and the ritual turned out to need like a dozen souls to function, I'd probably be like "oh well" and use my enormous wizardly powers to find the twelve evilest dudes and just use theirs. sure it's morally perilous but gently caress if I'm going to let my mad experiments go to waste, and those guys were dicks anyway That's the problem, right there. That's Evil, in the context of what alignment means in D&D. It's greed, justified perhaps but you aren't killing those evil dudes just to do a good deed. You're doing it to bind the power of their souls, denying them their final resting place (and thus screwing already with the Way Things Are according to clerics and most religions) just for your own gain. So, even if you're just a neutral guy who wants to live forever, becoming a lich is one of those "slippery slope" moments that often launches you into evil. Alignment sucks anyway, but in the context of the cosmology it makes sense to me that liches (and most undead) are evil.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 05:26 |
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No need to be cackly evil though, you're just a callous guy working against the natural order. You can give kiddies candy and bunny rabbits. Be the weird nerd guy who lives in the basement with a funny smell and rare skills.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 05:40 |
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In my current D&D game, we actually located the eternal prison of a super-powerful lich (basically the now-defunct wizard's guild couldn't figure out a way to kill him, so they made an entire building into his phylactery and then sank it into the ocean) and showed up before his alleged disciple was about to get there. We asked the trapped lich about the situation, and his response was basically "WHAT? He's coming to let me out? You guys HAVE TO STOP HIM. This prison is the best thing that's ever happened to me, if I'm let out eventually someone is going to find a way to kill me. I've done some terrible things, but all I've ever wanted is to stay alive, and this place makes sure I will." It's a little spin on the idea that I really liked, and my character kind of understands where the guy is coming from since he's a tiefling, all of whom are supposedly doomed to hell regardless of morality in this setting.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 05:46 |
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Pharmaskittle posted:"WHAT? He's coming to let me out? You guys HAVE TO STOP HIM. This prison is the best thing that's ever happened to me, if I'm let out eventually someone is going to find a way to kill me. I've done some terrible things, but all I've ever wanted is to stay alive, and this place makes sure I will." Haha, that's awesome. It's almost an M. Night twist. Except I'm not demanding my money be refunded. EDIT: Oh man, what was this thread about again?  (sorry for the derail!)
Sole.Sushi fucked around with this message at Sep 8, 2010 around 06:15 |
| # ? Sep 8, 2010 06:12 |
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veekie posted:No need to be cackly evil though, you're just a callous guy working against the natural order. You can give kiddies candy and bunny rabbits. Well, in a setting with ontological Evil there almost certainly is reason to be cackly evil. Corruption, depravity, ever-growing detachment from the mortal world ... in a universe where Evil is a real, detectable, living thing, morality is a real slippery slope. Especially if you live forever.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 07:07 |
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Etherwind posted:I've always hated the idea that Liches must be evil. The underlying idea is that death is a natural and appropriate progression, and defying that is bad. The only reason it's given as a natural and appropriate progression, though, is that nobody can really do anything about it, and thus accept it in a resigned "We can't change this and are powerless to avoid it, so we might as well tell ourselves its a good thing." Well, no, the fact that it happens to everyone is what makes it natural, much like requiring food for sustenance. This is why the stuff that doesn't eat/drink/breathe/die is usually a) undead or b) an aberration - stuff the existence of which violently rapes the natural order. Really, in D&D's traditional core settings, defying the natural order is what's Evil. Lichdom is Evil because not dying is unnatural, but liches are Evil because defying the natural order makes you insane (also becoming a lich usually requires human sacrifices and a long quest to find forgotten black magicks, so usually only Evil people have much interest in doing it). It's not that becoming a lich makes you instantly evil, it's that becoming a lich makes you slowly lose your sanity and start deciding that why, yes, murdering all thirty inhabitants of Random Village to make candles to read the latest romance novels before you go to meditate is a perfectly normal thing to do. The thing is, this is something that comes from the morality system in Greyhawk/FR and has no real reason to be present in other settings. e; though what the gently caress is up with those pictures of skeletons wearing human skins and swishing their flabby skin-penises while gaily holding hands? That's not the Danse Macabre, it's the Catholic Church's first primer against homosexuality and AIDS. e2; too much text, not enough pics, let's have images of people who don't look like they should be adventurers:   and people who look like they should:     also, monster race PCs:  
Lemon Curdistan fucked around with this message at Sep 8, 2010 around 10:16 |
| # ? Sep 8, 2010 09:47 |
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Dinoooooo topiaaaaaaa Dinotopiaaaaaaa  Dinoooooo  topiaaaaaaaaaaa 
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 10:18 |
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Ethnic Hairstyles posted:Dinoooooo topiaaaaaaa gently caress yes someone needs to make this into a savage world or sotc setting 
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 10:27 |
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Sole.Sushi posted:Haha, that's awesome. It's almost an M. Night twist. Except I'm not demanding my money be refunded.
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 13:18 |
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Ansob. posted:Really, in D&D's traditional core settings, defying the natural order is what's Evil. *doesn't die by age 30* *is literally satan* Jeb Bush 2012 fucked around with this message at Sep 8, 2010 around 13:52 |
| # ? Sep 8, 2010 13:32 |
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Namacuix posted:That's the problem, right there. That's Evil, in the context of what alignment means in D&D. It's greed, justified perhaps but you aren't killing those evil dudes just to do a good deed. You're doing it to bind the power of their souls, denying them their final resting place (and thus screwing already with the Way Things Are according to clerics and most religions) just for your own gain. this is a pretty good example of why d&d's alignment system has always been pretty silly - it can't seem to decide whether evil constitutes "moustache-twirling vaudeville bad guy" or "slow descent into amoral insanity" and kind of tries to hamfistedly encapsulate both, with strange results (such as a wacky jehovah's witness blood transfusion view of certain forms of immortality) but then I hate alignment systems in general, so
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 13:51 |
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The fact that becoming a lich means transforming into a grotesque skeleton that most normal, healthy people would run shrieking in terror from actually matters as well; the implication that you have no concern about being a monster in everyone else's sight and the fact that you don't mind turning into something that is literally fueled by negative energy (a universal force of entropy and antilife inherent to the creation and survival of all undead) both say bad things about you on their own It's just not nearly as values-neutral as casting a spell to just live a thousand more years
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 14:04 |
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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| # ? May 23, 2013 12:36 |
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Negative energy is just like fire, a tool, nothing more. On liches, and one of the best things to come out of /tg/  Also I'm a lich irl
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| # ? Sep 8, 2010 14:16 |
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