Fan-Led Children of the Night Poll
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2025 11:20 am
Since Doc Necrotic and KingCorn have re-rocked the boat...
Welcome, friends, to our establishment.
https://fraternityofshadows.com/forum/
"Children of the Night: The Wild Things" was the post where Speedwagon proposed a CotN volume featuring deadly animals and plants: https://fraternityofshadows.com/forum/v ... hp?t=11563
They don't have to be new ones, for instance there are many liches described in VRGttLich, such as the Crimson Arcanus. There are vassaliches and Andres Duvall as well as Tomes of lich creation and Lich's Phylactery or the potion for the creation of a lich, for lower level parties.alhoon wrote: Sun Sep 21, 2025 4:44 pm Just to be clear:
1. I love liches.
2. I don't think the core can sustain more liches, it's not like 18th level wizards are a dime a dozen.
Yeah, what Meph said. I would encourage contributors to consider expanding upon liches mentioned only briefly in the Van RIchten''s Guide and to consider variant liches such as the ones mentioned above. A collection of nothing but 18th level wizards would be implausible and, worse yet, boring.Mephisto of the FoS wrote: Sun Sep 21, 2025 5:58 pmThey don't have to be new ones, for instance there are many liches described in VRGtLiches, such as the Crimson Arcanus. There are vassaliches and Andres Duvall as well as Tomes of lich creation and Lich's Phylactery or the potion for the creation of a lich, for lower level parties.alhoon wrote: Sun Sep 21, 2025 4:44 pm Just to be clear:
1. I love liches.
2. I don't think the core can sustain more liches, it's not like 18th level wizards are a dime a dozen.
Mother Dismass (female halfling lich wizard 11), Listed under "Authority Figures" for Aluk Septentrion
I disagree.IanFordam wrote: Sun Sep 21, 2025 6:52 pmYeah, what Meph said. I would encourage contributors to consider expanding upon liches mentioned only briefly in the Van RIchten''s Guide and to consider variant liches such as the ones mentioned above. A collection of nothing but 18th level wizards would be implausible and, worse yet, boring.Mephisto of the FoS wrote: Sun Sep 21, 2025 5:58 pmThey don't have to be new ones, for instance there are many liches described in VRGtLiches, such as the Crimson Arcanus. There are vassaliches and Andres Duvall as well as Tomes of lich creation and Lich's Phylactery or the potion for the creation of a lich, for lower level parties.alhoon wrote: Sun Sep 21, 2025 4:44 pm Just to be clear:
1. I love liches.
2. I don't think the core can sustain more liches, it's not like 18th level wizards are a dime a dozen.
Mother Dismass (female halfling lich wizard 11), Listed under "Authority Figures" for Aluk Septentrion
I agree for the most part. No one wants to see half a dozen carbon copy level 20 liches which is easily what something like a COTN: Liches could devolve into.IanFordam wrote: Mon Sep 22, 2025 6:45 pm Okay, clearly I did not express myself well. Let's see if I can do better, second time around.
My intention was not to constrain anyone to using a lich from canon but to point toward possible sources for inspiration. Personally, I don't have an idea for a lich-related NPC or adventure yet. My starting point may well be a canonical lich, but there's nothing to say I have to end there. If someone has an idea for a custom lich, one who steps outside of the twin shadows of Azalin Rex and the Certain Dead Gentleman Whose Name Begins With the Letter V, then they don't need my suggestions.
As an example of creating something new from canon, let's look at Nightblood from The Book of Crypts. In his original appearance he is a 20th level necromancer. Despite that I feel he's one of the least interesting characters in all of 2e/3e lore. On the other hand, according to The Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer, Nightblood's phylactery has been broken apart, and his power has been sharply reduced. As such, Nightblood wants desperately to reunite the pieces of his phylactery. Now that's an adventure hook, and the PCs don't have to be Tier 4 to survive it!
Your point about a netbook being a toolkit is well taken.
Exactly my concern.Jeremy16 wrote: Thu Sep 25, 2025 11:39 am I agree for the most part. No one wants to see half a dozen carbon copy level 20 liches which is easily what something like a COTN: Liches could devolve into.
... and each of those possibilities deftly sidesteps my concern.Jeremy16 wrote: Thu Sep 25, 2025 11:39 am But there's lot of options out there to differentiate these guys. How many prestige classes do wizards have that they can specialize in? Off the top of my head there's the Cancer Mage from the BoVD plus the Blood Magus from Complete Arcane. I think those types of classes could introduce some neat gimmics to play around with. What about a Vermin Lord that controls rats (an interesting NPC to introduce to Richemulot perhaps?) or a druidic lich obsessed with mushrooms or toxic fungi?
For the record, I myself have ideas for a psionic lich that is trying to gain enough power to defeat the mindflayers in Bluetspar (and doesn't care who he has to hurt in order to get it) and an elemental lich that resides in the Sea of Sorrows. And then there's that bone lich (an undead Osteomancer, natch) that I referrenced in my Persons of Ill-Repute article that I eventually want to stat out...
These are all viable variants as well.The Dark wrote: Thu Sep 25, 2025 5:59 pm For a lich book, some additional variety could also be added by looking at 2e's variant liches, most of which are from Ravenloft MC 3 (drow lich, defiler lich, elemental lich, psionic lich), but also appeared in things like Red Steel (inheritor lich) or MC Annual 2 (Suel lich).
Some of those can be spellcasters of much lower level (the defiler, drow, and elemental are all 11 HD for the base creature and the Suel lich can be as low as 15th level), drow liches in particular can be either wizards or priests, some aren't necessarily spellcasters (psionic and inheritor), and the Suel lich is a Negative Energy spirit possessing a living body.