Lich

Liches are an evil form of undead spellcaster of great power, usually a wizard, or more rarely a sorcerer or cleric. They are feared by mortal beings for their malign magic, their intelligence and their willingness to embrace undeath for a chance to live forever. Because liches have eternal longevity they often use this time to form schemes that take decades to develop, sometimes preferring to outlive a foe instead of confront it, and as such most liches live in secluded areas of Toril where they are content with furthering whatever research or plots they have in motion.

A lich is a gaunt and skeletal humanoid with withered flesh stretched tight across horribly visible bones. Its eyes have long ago been lost to decay, but bright pinpoints of crimson light burn on in the empty sockets.

Perhaps the most powerful lich, and arguably one of the most potent beings of all of Faerûn is Larloch, a lich with a legion of lesser liches at his command. Another famous lich was the lord-mage of House Arach Dyrr in the drow city of Menzoberranzan. Lord Dyrr was recently destroyed when his plots to seize power in the City of Spiders failed, and he was destroyed by the city's archmage Gromph Baenre.

The Lich's Phylactery
The process of achieving lichdom requires that the spellcaster constructs a powerful magical artifact, a phylactery, in which the lich will store its life essence, as long as this phylactery is unharmed the lich is immortal and will attempt to reassemble if it is ever vanquished (this happens up to days after its apparent death). It does not, however, grant her any of the normal benefits of a phylactery until it is fully completed. For these reasons, liches take great care in protecting their phylactery from harm, employing decoys, traps and other means.

The most common physical form for a phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. Other forms of phylacteries exist, often a small or tiny sized trinkets such as rings, amulets, or similar items. It can also take other shapes if the lich expends more gold and experience to make such alterations

The phylactery is crafted in three stages, and the lich transfers a bit more of her life force to it at each stage. Crafting the phylactery requires the craft wonderous item feat. In addition to this the material and experience costs of the phylactery are 120,000 gp and 4,800 XP.

Types of Liches

 * Alhoon : An alhoon is an illithid lich.
 * Archlich : While the overwhelming majority of liches are evil, an archlich is not. One such good lich is Lady Alathene Moonstar of Waterdeep. Lady Alathene is devoted to hunting down her brother Lord Vanrak who has become a murderous undead champion of evil. Archliches are able to memorize spells through intuitive nature and do not need spellbooks; they also remain in their form for eternity. An elven archlich is called a Baelnorn. They do not use phylacteries as their undeath is gifted to them by the Seldarine.
 * Banelich : Clerics of Bane transformed into undead servants by the God of Tyranny. As baneliches grow older, their powers increase as well until they are as powerful as any other lich.
 * Demilich : This advanced form is achieved when a lich feels it cannot learn any more in its present state and seeks other avenues to attain knowledge. It might do so by using astral projection to travel to other planes of existence.
 * Dracolich : A dracolich is a dragon whom has achieved lichdom. The process required to do this was discovered by Sammaster, former chosen of Mystra.