If a kingdom is ruled legitimately and fairly (enough) by a lich?

[icefractal]

In 5e, liches trade being ugly and having a more severe hunger (they MUST kill their victims) for being able to go out in the sunlight, compared to vampires. I'm not sure that's worth it.

Especially not if Reincarnate is still on the table (Is it? I'm not familiar with 5E Reincarnate). That's the funny thing about all the extreme immortality methods in 3.5 / PF - you can just reincarnate your way back to adult age periodically and live forever. Sure, Druids might not be on board if they knew your plan, but that's what scrolls (or deception, mind control, etc) are for.

But even in that context, Lich made sense for a certain type of person, because it was the ultimate in self-sufficiency. You don't have to mess around with other people, or remembering to do anything, the rest of the world could be destroyed and you'd still last forever. And you come back from destruction without any allies helping you, which is handy.

If you're that highly reliant on victims, it pretty much negates that. Maybe if it was easy to do - something a Wizard who wasn't powerful enough to stockpile Reincarnations could still manage - then it would serve that purpose. Not sure I like Liches being the chump option though.